TREASURE HUNT
published in Regrets, Reveries and Changing Skies curated by Fulya Erdemci.(catalogue)
"Chapter 3: Treasure Hunt"
(both in English and Turkish)
september.23.2001-october.27.2001 in Karsi Sanat Calismalari, Istanbul.
ISBN 975-93621-6-3
© Karsi Sanat Calismalari, 2001.
“There is a memory of the future inside the mirror,
and memory from the past, everything meeting
in the present as a phenomenon of
existence and also the acceptance of life as it is”
Michelangelo Pistoletto*
To stop abruptly in the midst of action accelerated through adrenalin of the rush brought about by breathlessly consumed successive days. Trying to grasp the true experience. Seeking for a clear vision after being detained for a while by the vision of others. This is the starting point of everything. The moment in which everything is frozen. It is a time frame which turns out to be an adventure along with the joy to control the sightline.
Making predictions for the past rather than the future. Discovering new curves, waves, missing details, obscured secrets and concealed beauties. Dwelling in past readings with the full excitement of a treasure hunt.
How can one be sure of what really happened? To what extend is it possible to experience something without revealing its layers? How about the ones lost in memory, did they really happen? Does everyone remember the same thing? What was the whole story? Did everyone feel the same thing? How sharp can the distinction between a reality and a daydream be?
Readings of the past. Dreams. Memories. Reality. As if a hazy path to a sun-drenched texts by Proust. The odyssey becomes deeper as the blur between “reality” and imagination becomes more distinct in his writings which open both the mind and the heart of the reader. A sentence from “Regrets, Reveries, Changing Skies” activates the compass for this treasure hunt: "There is no great difference between the memory of a dream and the memory of a reality"**. Along with the memories, many paths extend to the past. Most of the time a prediction starts the journey. There is always one or more reading inscribed in all of the journeys. Each reading guides towards a reality and each reality illuminates a new path to the future. These is no anxiety of getting lost in these journeys, they change their route towards discoveries free from regrets.
Moving forward through spirals. Re-living everything over and over but each time recording it from a different angle. Finding new clues of the treasure inside details. Converting life into something legible. To be able to become surprised again.
A calculated, written past created through a distant stance taken towards life defeats and castrates life. What is being spent is an abandoned life. Everything is perceived with the vicious manner that of a small child with lost enthusiasm towards a game never played. Maybe the solution is traveling into the past, following a dream that flows towards the call of the treasure. However this call never implies an escape; these journeys go beyond the effort to change life, by operating as a “mirror” which reflects every detail about life as it is.
* Stallabrass, Julian (a quote from an interview with Michelengelo Pistoletto)
Tate: The Art Magazine. Issue No.25 2001 Summer, page 45.
** Proust, Marcel “Regrets, Reveries, Changing Skies”
Pleasures and Days. no. 3 1896; tr. 1948.
