folio / / 2014–2015 / / 15
French theorist and curator in the field of new media art, who explained the basic principles of new media art and spoke about how divisions to genres and branches should be dismissed, and art practices should be conceived in a more connecting and interdisciplinary fashion. The participants of the symposium also shared their own experiences. You see, they all approached the project from a different angle. And it was overall the greatest challenge: to bring together people with similar affinities, but slightly different strategies of functioning. It was precisely because of these differences in the timelines and formats in the activities of the working groups, that I set up a separate exhibition called Archive Visualized, next to the closing exhibition of the triennial, and it presented all five works (of the working groups) in a single space. I wanted to demonstrate the complexity of the different strategies and formats that the participants used. Both the audio and the video documentation were presented; the finalized and non-finalized products; books, artworks, and also the working process, which was to present the research and collaboration of each group. Each group, after it was formed, established their
own modus operandi in terms of the research- and presentational phase, according to their own affinities. All of them, after the available time for research and collaboration, also organized public events according to their respective relevant issues: workshops, performances, audio-visual events. Set up on the fourth floor of the former tobacco storage (the other three occupied by the closing exhibition of the triennial), Archive Visualized thus became an exhibition for three months; a cabinet of wonders, but also an inspiring place for numerous artists and students who came there to visit lectures, projections, or simply to explore, see, listen and browse. Apart from the said long-term projects, or working groups, there was also, as you have mentioned a central exhibition. Was that a required condition or your own idea? Of course, it was a condition for participating in the triennial; in fact, upon the invitation the organizers mentioned nothing but the exhibition. Personally, I tend to generally understand exhibition projects in a much broader sense,
partly due to my work in the field of education; besides, I thought that setting up a “spectacular” exhibition for a quarter of a year in a city that really needs a good example in terms of continuous activity, much more than just occasional events, was problematic. On the other hand, the exhibition was, because of the specific local situation (also) a vital and necessary part of the project. If the triennial was happening in Ljubljana, it might not have been necessary. But in Izmir, art is still predominantly regarded as an escape from everyday life, and understood as an object, not as a process. If I would only talk about the process and the working groups, the entire triennial would be too hermetical for the local scene, which is why I tried to use the exhibition as a context for the interpretation of the processes of these groups. It was all closely intertwined. As a matter of fact, the exhibition was just a different way of presenting the contents behind the working groups. I was in fact trying (like with the Studio as School group) to create different formats for the interpretation of contemporary art, and to open up different entrances for the expert and layman audiences.
Archive Visualized / Vizualiziran arhiv: Yaban Bastan, Deep Blue / Globoka modrina. 21. 3.–22. 6. 2014. Photo / foto: Uğur Uygun, Uğur Yanık, Emre Çakır