What is Galaktik Dasein?
Galaktik Dasein is an interdisciplinary performance project that explores existence through the body, combining live visual and sound art.
Our Philosophy at Galaktik Dasein
Galaktik Dasein is an invitation to return to existence, whilst surrendering to the ability to be present within life, within the moment.
This is a space where art breathes, sound resonates within the body, and the body speaks.
What we offer is not a performance, but a shared state of being.
A moment when we breathe, feel and create together.
Because existence cannot be resolved on its own.
This is experienced together, live and in the present moment.
Architects of the Galaktik Dasein
Ayşen Gürdal
Born in Munich, Germany, Ayşen Gürdal is an interdisciplinary artist whose artistic practice is shaped around the themes of language, psychology and existential thought. Employing an abstract expressionist language, Gürdal prioritises experience over representation; she focuses on the direct transmission of intuition, bodily memory and emotion. Since 2023, Ayşen’s works have been exhibited in various exhibitions, and she opened her first solo exhibition, ‘Bozuk Yüzey’, in 2025. She continues her work in her studio in Istanbul.
Serkan Tosun
Born in Kayseri, Serkan Tosun is a citizen of the world; he studied economics and engineering and worked for many years in the field of software engineering. He has lived in various countries around the world for many years. He has staged nearly a thousand performances. He possesses an interdisciplinary creative approach that combines analytical disciplines such as system design, structural analysis and modelling with narrative construction, rhythm building and atmospheric design. In his work across cinema, literature and music, themes such as the individual’s inner world, alienation, failure and existence are central. In his narratives, ‘situation’ takes precedence over ‘event’, and ‘process’ over ‘outcome’; silence, repetition and gaps are employed as deliberate tools within the dramatic structure. His literary trajectory progresses along a parallel intellectual axis with his film and music productions, alongside the novel "Verum".
How Does Galaktik Dasein Connect with Audiences?
The project’s creators, painter Ayşen Gürdal and musician Serkan Tosun, engage with the audience through a completely improvised performance. Without any prior preparation, on the day and at the time of the performance, acting entirely independently of one another in the moment, Ayşen begins painting on a blank canvas whilst Serkan begins making music; as the spreads throughout the space, the audience also becomes part of the performance with their emotions, anxieties, joys and sorrows of that moment.
Types of Galaktik Dasein Performances
Galaktik Dasein: the Performance (40 min)
A pure performance piece. Ayşen Gürdal and Serkan Tosun are on stage, in a programme where the audience are merely spectators, watching the performance from their seats.
Galaktik Dasein: the Action (90 min)
The audience is part of the process. In this program, the audience steps into the moment with a canvas and paints before them, reflecting their emotions, thoughts, anxieties, and joys onto the canvas as they merge with the rhythm of the music.