Hello, I'm ipin (germain),
For the workshop, I'm axing my work on street-art and graffiti in Ankara. It's my practice and my principal art interrest, so I just create a blog for the time of the workshop, to speak about the walls of Ankara (and naturally, what is on!), and also my personnal artistic researchs..

So I create it for my family and friends but I try not to do something boring 'cause too personal, and if you want to have a look, the web adress is:

** http://ankarawalls.canalblog.com/ **

so check this adress, let have a look, and it is open to comments, questions... what you want!

20 EYLÜL 2007 PERSEMBE
CEMRE 2 FiLM GÖSTERİMİ
Yönetmen: Mehmet Ali ÜZELGÜN
(YER: Mimarlar Odasý Salonu, SAAT: 18.00 )
Konur Sokak No: 4 Kat: 5 06650 Kýzýlay-Ankara

Hi,

ground zero, pre-bounce;

My previous messages are not directly or artistically refers to "persons" but (pre)judgments they either carry or being imposed by a larger context, which is more than the sum of us. So, those implications and references are not directed at anyone. I don't feel any hate to nothing and no one. I just don't like some. And suspending those are not sincere.. I may avoid but I will never ignore... So, lots of hard feelings, but no offense.. these are just words, aren't they? Yet, an old Latin saying; "nomina sunt consequentia rerum" (Names are "conclusions of" (or) "overtakes" things)

Issues about Cyprus, Palestine, Kurds, Bosnians and Balkans, Jews, Muslims, Christians, Iraqis, Iranians, China, Korea, 9/11, Igloolik inuit hunters, this and that... I don't map my mind by those. Those may come forward in every context you get into. Those may be subjects in offenses and defenses in various arguments. I am not really into that. But producing such categorical instruments and subjects by the way we approach and choose to use them as, the value we -possibly- give to them.. is -usually- sick. Whether by "good intentions" or not. Doesn't matter for the result.

So why approve and sustain this by repeating it -whether with good intentions-?




There are some notes I've been taking since my last postings, and some ideas from conversations between various people around "my access" of the Ankara public space.

I will take the risk of possible further irrelevancies.

first bounce;

I am a PhD student in Art. My undergraduate and MFA studies were also in Art. Not in history of.. or philosophy of.. but Art. And beside that, it still sounds funny or at least unrealistic by its means, I am trying to train myself as an Artist. And that time exceeds to a nearly little more than 1/3 of my lifetime.

I have come to some definitions in my little world, that are not really rigid conclusions but temporary step-ways to proceed. One of them is that "I" better be "in between" and be none in order to mediate. A "medium" so to speak... In order to make connections, you have to have at least 2 tips, or ends available.. which means, is not (pre-)occupied. That is the only way I know to tell a story, or have a narration. And at the other hand, mediating something alters it. Definitely alters (at least this is somewhat definite in my under/interstanding).. So telling is "making". You have positively no way to keep it as it is.. for whatever it is. For it is being something by your making of it.

And getting into systems is only possible by getting in the shape/mood they require. For that reasons you always have to make an "arrangement" and differentiate. This is all about the issue of presentation and story-telling. Present and past is man-fiction, future is science-fiction... but some does "really" hurt.


second bounce;

There seems to be an incredibly huge amount of intrinsic stories build up through out the history, and also the history itself build up that way. And there are areas of sophistication. (I really cannot communicate with sophists...) And now and then, I see that I "have to" communicate with those systems, whether in means of bureaucracy, or health services, law, any governmental issue and such areas of massive knowledge and micro hi/stories. Political philosophy, sociology, critical texts and theoretical texts on Art and 20th Century philosophy... so forth..

I always feel that I have to shift to something other than myself to communicate with those. Communication is only possible if you make this shift. There are a priori moods and forms for communicating with those, a form for writing a petition to the local government, a form or method for analyzing postmodern theories, a line to wait before until the officer calls you by a look. Those, require a uniform "other", or at least requires the opposite subject acts in a uniform way. That is characterizing a "system", the idea of it, the modus operandi is operating to form homogeneity. That is all for making prediction and control/prevention available. Therefor, -I don't want to sound like a purist, but- the more points of different coverage systems interfere, the more you alter your subject to be visible or communicable. Language is only one of those "systems of coverage". So, equalizing all to one (in quality and quantity), making them the SAME, is the ultimate destruction.. Isn't that the significant mistake -or intention- sits at the core of the idea of Globalization? And now in "light house Ankara project's" context, isn't it ironic that it is almost mandatory to communicate on LOCAL issues -on a global context/by a singular, uniform, system of coverage-? Mind the gap!


third bounce;

A diagnostic mistake is the worse. I can tolerate a surgical instrument forgotten inside my body after a right diagnosis and an appropriate treatment. But a wrong diagnosis would definitely kill me. In relation to the previous bounces, do we really sure about the subject, the context, the method -that has been put forward informally- and the outcome we foresee?

fourth bounce;

Am I local? No.

What part do I occupy in the "public space -whatever that is-" in Ankara? Not much. (I have a really boring routine). And I don't see the right for myself to talk about it (this expression may communicate a wrong idea, I think I am still thinking Turkish. What I am trying to fit is; I may say something but that would be exterior to the subject for I don't really experience it, or what I experience is not quite significant and/or relevant to the subject itself. What I experience is just a little tiny subjective particle and that is what it is. So as an artist, I may magnify it and expand it to a greater degree but I choose not to. There goes the subject... -maybe because I am not the "right" artist with relevant definitions-...)


fifth bounce;

Hi,

My friends are like me... I don't have any disabled friend, yet we may have a lot in common -like choosing to stay indoors most of the time, being bored...etc-. But those I know, those who I go out and sit in a park and get drunk.. I observe one significant thing -this will unfold as "boys" and "girls" but not really sexist and have a lot in common also-; Boys get more conservative and almost fascistic about politics and social life (the "public space" and acts of theirs?) and girls get more cosmic..Like Reiki and energies and yoga, sending positive vibrations to world and gathering some from it, "channeling" the energy...etc. I come up to this over like 25 or so people... That is "strange"... They all go out to dance and drink and get social... But the undertone gets bi-polar as such. Those are people from my generation, kids I used to know, my friends... Sons and daughters of families that were happy once... My neighbors, whom I can hear the sounds of a dinner table being set at the evenings... I just start to write like my grandfather... I feel so dead.

Now they are talking about killing in a possible civil war. And they are talking about how positive energy can make this world better... The great gap between physics and meta-physics get wider and deeper.. yet we all go dancing later... is that the "public" thing you're talking about?


sixth bounce;

I sense anguish and hate. And I am not going to decorate it. Theoretical/meta-physical violence and Practical/physical violence don't differ too much. They all kill (you can kill "more" by the previous one, and also that can shift its subject into a "market"...hmm..promising..). And it is really SO so easy -and may appear unintentionally by good intentions-. (So wrong Mr. A. Smith...so wrong about empathy...)

The trendy "public" issue... If that will be a civil recuperation of a civil issue by civils, that has the be docile at the first hand (because there is at least two docile issues, one creates, puts forward the other and normalizes it -a gallery opening for our public art?-). And if being an NGO serves as a band-aid, I personally prefer not. (yet its function described as "being a mediator to mediate Turkish artists to Europe.) Make the periphery available to the center (and paradoxically, making the "center" from scratch...for the center has a periphery now..). So age-old, hysterically same thing... Or I may definitely start to loose it...


Isn't that the "OTHER" issue? that has been ages old?

Isn't that the problematic of Orientalism? That has been ages old?

Is that the UPDATED version of those in the GLOBAL context? NOW?


..



Frankly, I criticize myself and what I say with quite attention...

Please don't be tourists. Please find a way escaping it. Don't ignore but avoid. Because we will definitely WELCOME you -in anyway- with our good intentions.





Thanks for reading all six bounces..

Hi.

My name is Daniel Caleb Thompson and I have taken over the web presentation of the Light House Ankara blog & website, and I would like to ask Burak, Canan, Duygu, Basak, Özgür, Cigdem, Ozan & Kutlu if English translations of Blog postings written in Turkish will be (or should be) offered for the other artists and international visitors to the site.

By the way, I was born in the USA and have not only worked together with Naomi Salmon on several occasions in the past, I also respect her as a person and consider her to be one of my friends. I suppose that should mean that we will all hate each other - but the main reason why I choose to live in Europe and raise my daughter here is because - as opposed to the USA - Europeans tend to be considerate of other people and not mistake the map for the territory. (i.e. all Israelis are baby murdering photographers and the mere fact that the Κυπριακή Δημοκρατία is under any sort of control by Türkiye kinda makes statements in Turkish about فلسطين more like the pot calling the kettle black.)

At any rate, just thought I'd take this chance to say hello, get mixed up in the discourse and basically wish everyone a nice morning! Just think about it please - working together requires COMMUNICATION and COMMUNICATION (on a blog) can only take place between people speaking the SAME language.

Daniel Caleb Thompson