“Et Cetera” Editor Tayfun Akgul's Montage-Portrait Exhibition in Istanbul

Abstract

I call myself privileged to be a friend of Tayfun Akgul. He is Associate Editor of the “Et Cetera Corner” of the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Magazine [1]. He is also a Profes sor of Electrical Engineering in the Department of Electronics and Communications Engineering at Istanbul Technical Uni versity, where he teaches various undergraduate- and gradu ate-level courses, conducts research, plus publishes scientifi c papers on various signal-processing topics. The followers of his corner are familiar with his so-called “montage portraits,” which are caricatures of real people made by using found objects [2]. He produces these portraits with his self-made rule: Try not to reshape the found objects; instead, if possible, use them as they are found, or apply simple manipulations like bending or rounding the objects. A successful assembly of these irrelevant objects sometimes turns out to be an attractive caricature of a person. I have followed his creation of faces for years. One day, I was looking at his collection, and found my portrait (shown in Figure 1) in the “Et Cetera Corner” of the Magazine's October 2011 issue [3].