071 Issue # 11/11 : Public Issues
vary, of course, but once you open yourself up to the other's experience, that otherness can undergo change. For instance in the neighbourhood, we were perhaps the others ourselves, a minority group with a way of life different from that of the majority of people living there at the time. Isn't it more healthy if those who have this other role keep changing? Empowerment is too large a claim; it actually suggests that we have the power. Why don't we take this as something done together, collaboratively? At that point we can talk about empowering space and everyday life rather than persons. Empowerment is not something that can be done only by one side in a relationship. Oda Projesi, which takes nourishment from urban space, and whose survival is based on the city's dynamics, cannot have power by itself.
Open-endedness Derya: What is the role of open-endedness in Oda Projesi's works? In her article in October, Claire Bishop (2004) discusses the question of open-endedness, and argues that it is a problematic artistic strategy. She thinks that art can convey political messages by performing disruptive gestures that make spectators question themselves rather than by being open-ended. Özge: Open-endedness is not something that those sharing an environment (including us) are aware of in practice. Rather, this is specified during the process; in other words, we cannot design a project as open-ended from the beginning. Only if the will of the participants has continuity or if a state of action-reaction is created may the project become open-ended. This is like not cutting the process with an abrupt end; and if there is a halt, it is a matter of resuming the process with new things to say... the fact that objects appearing as products actually function as vehicles defines open-endedness.
References Agamben, Giorgio (2000). Means Without End: Notes on Politics. University of Minnesota Press, Mineapolis. Babias, Marius. "On the Strategic Use of Politics in the Context of Art". In: IKSV (2005). Art, city and Politics in an Expanding World, Writings from the 9th International Istanbul Biennial, Istanbul. Barthes, Roland. "Authors and Writers 1960". In: Susan Sontag (ed.) (1982). A Barthes Reader. Hill & Wang, New York. Bishop, Claire. (2006). "The Social Turn: Collaboration and its discontents". In: Artforum Vol. 44, 2/2006, pp. 178–183. Bishop, Claire. "Antagonism and Relational Aesthetics". In: October, Vol. 110, 3/2004, pp. 51–79. Bourriaud, Nicolas (2002). Relational Aesthetics. Trans. S. Pleasance & F. Woods. Les Presses du Réel, Dijon. Deleuze, Gilles. "Intellectuals & Power (A conversation between Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze)." In: Donald F. Bouchard (ed.) (1977). Language, Counter-Memory, Practice: Selected Essays and Interviews by Michel Foucault. Cornell University Press, New York. Erdog ˘an, Necmi (ed.) (2002). Yoksulluk Halleri: Türkiye'de Kent Yoksullug ˘unun Toplumsal Görünümleri [States of Poverty: Social Representations of Urban Poverty in Turkey] Demokrasi Kitaplıg ˘ı. Holloway, John (2002). Change the World without Taking Power. The Meaning of Revolution Today. Pluto Press, London. Kravagna, Christian (1998): http://www.republicart.net/disc/aap/ kravagna01_en.htm. Lind, Maria. "Actualisation of Space: The Case of Oda Projesi". In: Claire Doherty (ed.) (2004). From Studio to Situation. Black Dog Publishing, London, pp. 109–121. See also www. republicart.net/disc/app/lind01_en. htm. Negri, Antonio (2002). "The Multitude and the Metropolis". In: Posse [See Trans. Arianna Bove, http://www. generation-online.org/t/metropolis. htm]. Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. "Can the Subaltern Speak?". In: Patrick Williams and Laura Chrisman (eds.) (1994), Colonial Discourse and PostColonial Theory: A Reader. New Columbia University Press, New York. Ouroussoff, Nicolai. New York Times, (12 March 2006): http://www.nytimes. com/2006/03/12/arts/design/12ouro. html?_r=1.