Wet Games — Exhibition view, Haus am Lützowplatz, Berlin, 2026
Wet Games | 2024-2026 | Participatory objects & video-performances
Wet Games creates a game space to expose hierarchies, desires and changing roles within public and private relationships. Umut Azad Akkel's objects mask themselves as playful and approachable arcade consoles, yet their true intentions reveal themselves through the details of their forms and materials.
To complete the game cycle, the audience must team up and discover through play how to activate the games. The positions of the screens dictate the roles within the game, determining how participants look, interact, and relate to one another.
Wet Games — Exhibition view, Haus am Lützowplatz, Berlin, 2026
Wet Games — Console I — Exhibition view, Haus am Lützowplatz, Berlin, 2026
Console I's video-performance game is activated using a joystick and a button. By figuring out how to play, the audience gains full control to exert power over Akkel’s body and self.
Wet Games — Console III — Exhibition view, Haus am Lützowplatz, Berlin, 2026
Wet Games / Console III— Video performance trailer, 2024
Console III requires two participants to operate. By figuring out how to activate it, they can shatter a glass plate over Akkel’s naked body.
Console II displays only broken glass, with no possibility of controlling the outcome. Positioned above the audience, its video shows Akkel pouring the glass onto the camera.
Wet Games — Console II— Exhibition view, Haus am Lützowplatz, Berlin, 2026
Wet Games / Console II — Video performance trailer, 2024
Wet Games — Collages— Exhibition view, Haus am Lützowplatz, Berlin, 2026
The ongoing collages poetically draw on Akkel’s personal experiences, memories, and emotions. Each collage is encased in an A1-sized plexiglass plate. Click the thumbnails below to view the collages in detail.
