FUSING INTO THE TRANSLUCENT LAYERS

published in Biennial 7+ Egofugal: 7th International Istanbul Biennial,
curated by Yuko Hasegewa (catalogue)
(both in English and Turkish)
ISBN 975 - 7383 - 22 ­ 7
© Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts, Istanbul, 2002

Istanbul. Whenever this very city closes her petals, she captures the blowing winds within herself. The reminiscences influenced by these winds have shaped the loaded memory, cultural structure and even the architectural texture of the city. To come across “accidentally” with any of these reminiscences is just an ordinary and repeatedly experienced intersection. Nonetheless, tracing these memories is not as easy as it seems, yet the city consists of many superimposed layers and maps having translucent zones with overlapping borders. While physical boundaries are diminished by any short-term memory based information, physical relations block mental boundaries. The fast flow of life covers the historical, cultural and geographical characteristics of the city with borrowed images. It assesses its beauties by hiding them; the city grows like a giant puzzle by being fragmented.

This time the Biennial fuses into this crowded and spinning city, like an agent, along with the concept of “Egofugal”. The revealed intention of the Biennial is to open up fields of collective consciousness via the city and her habitants, rather than an attempt to conquer the venues. The biennial takes place in an extremely tough period where the economic crisis, hard life conditions, restless and knotty future narrations block the perception of daily life. “Egofugal” lays emphasis on the healing facility of art: it proposes a more positive and productive mode of in a mere definition of metaphysical sharing. It makes obvious that the good will that is eclipsed by daily life greed is still “there”. It also reminds us that we are always capable of struggling against the axioms of financially oriented politics triggered by the male-dominated culture and the capitalist logic. It simply relies on “collective intelligence” to enlighten the corrupted visions.

“Collective Intelligence” also operates as a key concept to generate the venues of the biennial. “Egofugal” spreads out mostly to the same venues as the previous biennials, hence, the way it communicates with the venues operates in a different level. On the one hand, it utilizes the spatial memory of the venues, one the other hand it exploits their historical and cultural characteristics without touching them. It does not have any intention to cover the identities of the venues or to transform them. Neither do the venues face manipulation, nor do the works aim at being the extensions of the venues. Through the alike approach with the layered structure of Istanbul, the works become positioned among these layers along with whatever they carry. “Collective consciousness” generates the interaction between the spectator and the works. The only way to share the information which the works carry is to be equipped. The Biennial presents the development and transformation processes of the structure, language, dynamics and agents of a culture that has been produced by the overriding technologies in progress.

A lot of the works are surrounded by the relics of the machineries in the Imperial Mint as one of the main venues of the Biennial. Having been built just after the conquest of Istanbul, the Imperial Mint had developed into a centre which controlled the state politics for economics, and also followed the up-to-date technological innovations of those days. In the late 19th century, the latest technology of minting machines and devices were ordered and the major staff were recruited from Britain, and a mint similar to the one in London was set up with the new machinery. The steam engine installed here is one of the foremost in Ottoman Empire. Thus, the most significant design and the symbol of the Industrial Revolution had arrived in Istanbul long before the industry itself. The Imperial Mint had always been the focal point where technology was highly admired.

This time, the Imperial Mint is hosting an exhibition which acts parallel to its history. Works of art presented here track the traces of collective beliefs in a retrospective approach: from the optimistic “New Age Futurism” of the late 60’s and early 70’s to the opposing disaster theories which can transform this belief to a catastrophe; Via the works, the products of both technology and the politics of economy that dominates the world as such from sci-fi narrations that forecasts utopias to dystopia, to cyberpunk literature that was shaped by the man/machine integration; from the comics culture that merge the genres of suspense, horror, pornography, black humour to the culture of information technologies.

For instance, “Futuro”, the renowned ski and vacation cabin, designed by Matti Suuronen in 1968 is located in forecourt of the Imperial Mint. Recalling the New Age myth UFO, this cabin is one of the cult designs of the extensively optimistic vision of the late 60’s, which perceives the World as a spaceship travelling in the space-time continuum and the humankind as the big family of passengers on board. Another work interacts with this vision: David Noonan and Simon Trevaks reflect the anxiety for a possible accident that can be easily turned into a dreadful technologic catastrophe with their work named “99”. Chris Cunningham displays an extract from the popular culture in his shocking and terrifying videos. These videos are the mere synthesis of the narratives and image production schemes such as comics, music promos, science fiction, fantastic cinema and horror movies. They are alienated to the places they are displayed as much as the images they reflected. An alternative kind of alienation can be observed through the anime character “Ann Lee” which emerges in the works of Phillipe Parreno, Pierre Huyghe and Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster: she also indicates a specific segment in time. Without having any “memory”, Ann Lee brings in a misery almost similar to the “Blade Runner” movie character Rachel-the replica- who yearns for the reality of her fabricated past. Every single new story adds up Ann Lee’s memory, cuts her off, eventually isolates her from the surrounding world. Just as the shell metaphor of “Ghost in the Shell”, memory modules are uploaded, downloaded and are even deleted on to her awaiting image. As Ann Lee manifests “I’m not a ghost, I’m just a shell”, she does not only outline the conceptual frame of the Biennial, but also describes the correlation of the exhibition with the space.

Another venue, the Hagia Eirene Museum, is one of the first churches built up on a basilica plan in Byzantium. As the daylight concludes its domination on the interior, the works in here become much more legible. They commence their statements one to one with the spectators, offering experiences rooted on personal levels. Originating from his own body and using the discourses of the human body as the basis to his works, Magnus Wallin visualizes the fragility of the ideal human myth established in western culture. The interrelation of the geometric forms within Tomma Abst’s paintings indicate a similar conflict to the spectator who can enter this territory. The plain and sterile video of Hussein Chalayan and his designs where personal experiences are expressed through the envelope-clothings also takes place in this church. Ana Maria Tavares prepares the spectator for a solitary journey. Frédéric Bruly Bouabré assembles an alphabetical line of pictograms in which he projectes the collection vast knowledge of both material and spiritual worlds. Jan Fabre’s work awaits to be discovered by it’s spectator’s instincts, in a distant corner, Fabre forces the spectators to get involved in a collective experience where the senses are directed to be used in extraordinary ways. Hagia Eirene Museum hosts 22 artists.

Yerebatan as a basilica cistern (Sunken Palace Cistern) is a perfect match for cyber punk narratives with its historical references, architecture and mysterious atmosphere. Most of these narratives take place in dark, gloomy and multi-layered cities under the heavy rain pour like the flow of overloaded/uncontrolled information data. The greenish shallow water reflecting on the huge shining columns and on the moistened dorms with the continuous sound of the spelling of water prepares a ground for cyber punk sequences. Lee Bul’s cyborgs designs, bodiless beautiful semi-ghosts, and many screens displaying “Ghost in the Shell” covers most of the space. With all the works installed, the cistern refers to a quite rich archive such as the drawings of Masume Shirow, William Gibson’s fictions, Philip K. Dick’s replicas, city descriptions of Bruce Sterling,, Tarkovsky’s infamous movie Stalker, the film-noir atmosphere and dark designs of Blade Runner. The plot organization of “Ghost in the Shell” appears as the most dominant theme of the space. In the story, “augmented” humans wired to an Electronic net and cyber spirits are drawn to track down an uncontrollable cybernetic ghost in dystopic darkness, so as to find a memory and identity for themselves. At the end, the cybernetic ghost frees itself from the body by cloning itself infinite times.

This time the cistern operates as an “inter-zone” which is charged by Lee’s approach and imagination. Lee produces “cyborgs”. She reanimates manga and anime stereotypes with the most generic feminine poses. However, each time, these cyborgs, which erect as the sign of advanced technology, are incomplete: either they appear as one organ or a body with “lacking” organs. Lee, who merges power with vulnerability, criticizes both male-dominated discourses stimulating the popular culture and the one sided myths uplifting technology. On the other level, she codes these cyborgs as a “new mode of being” generated from the integration of two mechanisms (human and prosthesis). Just like her mutant monsters, these cyborgs give various references to the human body which forces itself to transform in order to adjust the pace of daily life. Also, these cyborgs project the effort of the body to be free from its limits as it struggles to adapt properly to the extensions of communication technologies devices and the grotesque appearances it takes as it the body tries to unite with mechanic modules. On the other side, Hinterberg’s work of “aeriology”, beneath copper wires, holds the pulse of the Cistern by gathering the resonation. The enchantment of the light reflects on the copper wires and the mood it creates gives another angle to the sci-fi atmosphere of the cistern. Meanwhile Guillermo Kuitica and Omer Ali Kazma’s works, like techno-agents, interrupt the narratives of the space.

Platform: Ottoman Bank Contemporary Art Centre introduces the exhibition “snow.noise” by Cartein Nicolai. It is rather a distinctive venue from the others. A sterile, clear gallery with a blank memory. The exhibition transforms this white gallery into a chemistry laboratory with a combination of works on the formation of snow crystals. Hence, chemical attraction, intuition formations and emotion layers are processed as subjects of an experiment.

Beylerbeyi Palace points the footing of the Biennial on Asian part of the city. Colonnades of the Palace welcomes Evgen Bavcar’s photographs, as well as Leyla Gediz’s works and Okisata Nagata’s sword. Embracing a transmission of collective sensibility and communication, Bavcar’s photographs reveals new unspoiled terrains of perception and cognition: they illustrate new spaces within the space via collective experience.

The Biennial also unveils another interzone which is constructed upon a platform defined by “sleep”. Francis Alys’s slides which imply the theme of “sleep” through a collection documenting the streets of Mexico City are projected in an atmosphere of comfort in the Imperial Mint. Watching a being asleep demands an altered state of “existence” and “non-existence”. The performance of Ma Liuming derives the spectator with an intense purity into a distinct state of conscience, in which he leaves his physical substance to the hands of the spectators. Each and every time sleep constructs its own spatial definition.

The Biennial swathes the city like a spider web throughout the locations of Tower of Leandros, Bosphorus Bridge, Turkish Bath in Çemberlitas, Maçka, Findikli, Besiktas, Tophane and Sultan Ahmet Square. It fuses into the transparent layers of the city. Istanbul appends the Biennial into the amalgamation of techno-surreal imagery, a wonderful scenery, sterile and hygienic gigantic shopping malls, night clubs with cut-and-paste decors, crowded centres, districts of the rich and the poor with anarchic street aesthetics, skyscrapers and overlapped historic references. “Egofugal” traces the hidden beauties in the city while inscribing a map for alternative ways of cognition, sensation and existence.