İpek Çınar wrote an open letter to Cemil Batur Gökçeer in Orta Format Update 15. Gökçeer wrote this letter as his right to reply.

 

İpek,

I live in a house in which I will move out of the 13th time in my life, that makes 0,393939396 house per year.

The reason I will move, the day I learned the flat I live in would be sold, when my phone rang and I heard someone would be moving out of one of the houses I had lived in before (and that house was special to me, I used to love it, I had moved out in a rush and I did "Tangle" back then), it seemed like a decision made before me and I would abide by it. Then, my ex-homeowner changed his mind and took me to that house with my boxes. The universe is never explicit with you.

Sometimes, I think fear is not something bad, but rather the sole way of feeling things, while these things usually don't correspond to something real. I would never forget the answer I got when I told a close friend that I like the Black Sea: "How can you like a sea in which you cannot swim in?!" I acknowledged him the right so much so that when I think about our conversation I still feel sheepish.

In your letter, you continuously talk about the "Tangle." I guess soon, when I start compiling it into a book, I will set to work as a different man from the one who was dreaming of a woman who fell in love with a genie. Maybe, one changes not much in time, but the feel of each and every moment is somewhat different. I guess, I have to start working on the book without talking much about that period, still it occurs to me that love was like a chivalry at that time, because it was just a matter of time for someone to realize how incompetent one was who saw that unsurpassable misery, when one looks at the things at hand (Definitely, love requires competence).

Before swinging a sword around becomes a gesture, isn't the device itself has the power to overtake someone completely with its bulk, its trajectory hurling itself firstly forward and then to the ground, when one takes hold of it? One can be baffled by the idea that which possesses which, human the device, or device the human?

…………………….

Sometimes I watch my thoughts spreading like a mist to cover where I look in my mind. I am right now in my new home. This time I am placing the books on the shelves affectionately. This house is like a box and within this narrow space, I seem to gain ground more weightily in this circumstances. Then, a cat comes inside from the window, she starts to walk around this house still not settled. The hairs scattering with her every step that fills the gaps, the dust irritating her, all the noises startling her... There is no shock, all seem to expand something wild and intense widening through permeating. Today, it seems like a hesitation remains to break some things, the space where that cat, who went as she came from the window, opened up, where skin diseases are common, claws as sharp as they can tear down where they cling to.

There are many things to despair one. I guess if I cease to move, all the things I have to overcome already would fell down on me. I couldn't bring myself to finish this letter for days, I have kept it waiting, I have watched the video of the pirate exhibition you did with GAA a little while ago, and I felt like I had the same excitement with you while you were getting ready on the bus. Now I come to realize that, I want to believe in what I watch, what I see more, it is like I have less trust issues with photography now. Even though a problem which has encouraged me in my practice might go away, there is no end to problems or doubts in one's life. When this letter unfolds in my mind, the "medium format" I come upon makes me continuously speak of photography, but nowadays I feel that I don't have much to speak about it. However, next week I will start working in a studio apart from my home first time in my life (It makes 14 moving in).

I am so excited!

This whole letter helped me to get my head together some more. Have you ever seen a head getting together? It shrivels up like a wet soil, gets heavy, it condenses; I guess it is not much of an appealing image, maybe that's why one prefers to be alone.

Say hi to Begüm and Şener. I lay myself open to your arms that strong to bring a man to write that crazy open letter in the midst of all this fuss.