Realistic Worlds

#11
Ray Ewing
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We come across all kinds of various images in our daily lives. From the visuals on product packages to artificial forms and gigantic prints, there is a constant reference to themes which attract our attention. For we all have our own phantasies; we all have things we want to own, places we want to be.

Ray Ewing's "Realistic Worlds" is only a little part of these kind of settings within the real world. As we see in Ewing's project, the image of a standard building complex can reverberate the idea of vacation in our minds. For there is a general conception that "There should be palm trees in a holiday resort." Likewise, "sea, beach, sun" are the sine qua non of the idea of vacation, and thus holiday advertisements are full of images like that. It is crucial at this point, to recall Burak Arikan's exhibition "Please Do Not Disturb" on the concept of holiday. An enquiry on the representational images and networks in tourism through introductory films on countries neighboring Turkey, we have observed words evoking this kind of perception and their connection to each other in a digital print which is part of Arıkan's work.

Apparently, it is just that easy to play with our visual perception and manipulate it. Ewing presents his photographs in which he displays the conditions that play with our perception, with a title that manipulates our perception. Just like in "Landscapes" published in Update #10, as we manipulate our own perception and take for granted a lot of things, to allow others to do the same is as easy as duck soup. Hence, when we look at the photographs, we play a game in which we search for reality/artificiality unawares. Naturally, it is also a part of this game that the photographs through which we analyze reality, are seemingly realistic illusions of the world in which we live in.