Cihan Kaan

Kaan's first work, a hardcore techno record was released under the name 8Bit in 1995 on Digital Hut Records, a now defunct record label out of Brooklyn, New York and was composed while still a high-school student entirely on a Commodore Amiga using tracker software OctaMED.[3] An earlier demo of his composition style had been described by artist The Horrorist as sounding gritty and lo-fi, thus "8bit" and giving rise to the origins of the name.[4] Subsequently, under the pseudonym 8Bit, Kaan released several more records and has his music appear on various compilations across a variety of record labels.[5]

In 1997, his directorial debut was for the music video "Action High"[6] by punk band Electric Frankenstein. From 1998–1999, he began what would be writing a trilogy of music videos for various techno artists. The first of this trilogy was techno act Atomic Babes and their song "Purple", closely followed by "Refuse to fight" for DJ Frankie Bones both of which aired on MTV's electronic music only show MTV's AMP.[7][8] In 1999 he directed "Playing with Lightning", which also appeared on the soundtrack for the movie Blade.

He has moved from behind the camera to in front appearing in the video "Get Over It".[9]

In 2005, he wrote and directed a short film titled, 'She's Got an Atomic Bomb'[10] subversively titled but described as focusing on "...the culture of fear – people are scared. I want to focus on issues, but the film is undeniably a comedy that deals with something very serious. It's got punks, mobsters, squatters, thieves, a graveyard-shift manager at a sewage treatment plant – everything is positioned under the street, so to speak."[11] The film was toured at film festivals and four-walled taking various accolades with it.[12] It is a science fiction comedy based on a punk rock femme fatale who is falsely accused of a terrorist plot to blow up a sewage treatment facility in Brooklyn who then plots to build an A-Bomb with the help of the local Russian Mafia.[13] Stylistically the film contains references to John Waters, David Lynch and grindhouse style cinema. The film was subsequently distributed at Hot Topic and GoKart Records.[14] It was also nominated and won awards at other film festivals including, the Coney Island Film Festival, The Lost Film Festival and taking home the Audience Award at the B-Movie Film Festival.

Kaan then went on to write and produce a second short film, 'Shuffle Mode', an avante-garde commentary on technology and edited the feature "Let's Stay Together" which was featured as one of Rolling Out's Great Black Independent Films of 2012.[15][16]

His first book, Halal Pork and Other Stories was published in Spring 2011. It was released by UpSet Press, a small press from Brooklyn.[17] It was "...the fastest selling book by a first time author published by UpSet Press".[18]

The publishing of the book made him the first American fiction author from Crimean Tatar descent. His op-ed writing has appeared in a number of places including Al Jazeera English,[19] Elan Magazine[20]