A blog for selected texts of Basak Senova in various books, catalogues, and magazines. Some of the texts posted are copyright, and their holders are indicated.


25 May 2007

FACING WITH LIQUID CRYSTAL MEMORIES

published in Das Lied Von Der Erde curated by Rene Block. (catalogue)
"Facing with with Liquid Crystal Memories"
"Begegnung mit Erinnerungen aus Flüssigkristall"
–on Ebru Özseçen's work "The Red Architecture Venetian Boy's Dream Ornaments,
1997-2000". june.10.2000-oct.3.2000 in Museum Fridericianum Kassel
ISBN 3-927015-23-7
(both in German and Turkish)
© Museum Fridericianum Kassel, 2000.


It is about love. It is nothing, but “love”.

Entering a dark room by passing unexpected trap doors in the mind. Being armed, still feeling insecure as if trying to control unrehearsed, loaded words of praise that slip out to the ground.

No action to take. No word to say. It is automatically banned in the mind. The load of the room is at its ideal state; any articulation may possibly disorient its sense of balance. The nature of this zone somehow forces the visitor to obey what it possesses. Being a silent witness. Being a subtle part of this vague huge black box. Starting to get a morbid pleasure out of this surrounding. It is the genuine of the artist as the architect of such a layered organic/mechanic construction. Disguising her intention on the invisible facet of these layers.

A master memoir slams into the conscious with seven diverse moving images, which are demanding, insensitive and indifferent to each other. The magnet-like attraction catches the visitor like the way they pull each other. In the vein of desire machines, the seven pieces operate by catching and stimulating the visitor’s desire mechanism. The power it generates overloads the layers of the black box by channelling this energy to the visitor. This energy attacks the mind and strikes back to the dark walls of the room.

Focusing in and out the slices of memory. Getting lost in the maze of scales and movements of these lightening images. It is an unparalleled beauty. The “visitor” begins to feel agitated at the slightest incident of the memories; a shallow pain diffuses from scars of the past. A sense of belonging, which could also be a mere part of a sexual nature. Feeling high. Recalling various old smells. Tasting the bitterness of a chocolate.

“Isn’t it exactly the symptom of love?”

A challenge that has to be taken to retain an identity and integrity. A dead ringer for watching one’s obscene record as if reading the colourful stanzas of a romantic poem. Extreme cases. An acute pleasure. A sense of hysteria. A paranoid crisis without experiencing the preliminary requirements to understand it. Violence and aggression seem to be the only stimulant for the warped mind. Destructive.

Tidal movement of the mind coordinates with the looping images: The machine passionately works; marble grapes shines on the tray; wooden staircases evokes the fantasies; the gracious chandelier constantly brightens and darkens; the fish net waves while dressing the old, lonely facet; the innocent boy plays with his wicked toy; the transparent feminine glass objects glitters. Thousands of stories to remember, to tell, to hide and to forget. This invigorating experience cannot be just a tool to satisfy the temporary needs and hunger. There is a missing link somewhere; between the embarrassing actual experience and the fiction of the future within a daydream. Embarrassment always comes into surface at a point where the mind is disillusioned with life.

Isolation.
Desire.
Passion.
Anxieties.
And fears.

Remembering a devoted attachment to anything. It is about love. It is simply “love”.