Bekir Dindar
Capitalism turns people into uniform subjects. As the world globalizes extensively, people's ideas converge ceasing to be marginal, and meet on a common ground. Even with fashion, a uniform garment may predominate everywhere. We see less diversity and variety. Our education system is also programmed to train uniform subjects; and the same holds for careers. A society that doesn't question reproduces. The ideology of the dominant class always rules the masses. I have experienced this fact actively when I was doing my military service; but then, I think that is true in all aspects of life.
Cevahir Akbaş
Students who get in line based on their gender in the schoolyard, 2015
Ekin Çekiç
My Eyes are Clouded Over
Every day, I walk through the construction yard covered with screens to get to my school that stands alone in Kabataş. As I am a part of the school and the school is a part of a project, I haven't noticed that I was surrounded by these screens. Within that period, I made a pinhole camera. My eyes watching the rapid change within the city at the macro level, tried to record the moments technically as slow as possible at the micro level. Upon noticing that people were making holes on the construction screens to see the ever-changing city, I recorded this transformation with my pinhole camera. Just like the holes people made on the screens, my camera was the eye I opened to this transformation.
Gizem Şahin - Gülce Özkara
Revolutionary Killjoy
X collective shared a dream among friends; they gathered together against the things that went wrong. They decided to create together and change the daily routine. Some things went wrong, and their relation drew to an end after a while. Their dreams came to naught, and their synergy gave way to idleness. X came to a deadlock for some time, angry, and couldn't face the fact, was in a quandary. Then, it wiped the slate clean, and set out on its own. But the clean slate was blocking its own way. Indeed, it acted like a fool, and started thinking "my hands are tied", "it's no go". This stupidity was destroying the capacity to think and imagine. That was a fruitful deadlock, but there was no time for contemplation. So, X became unproductive. It had to move towards the future, and time was flying. It was not that it was sitting on its hands. Somewhere not that deep, there was a stone waiting to be fished out, and X knew it, but it was preoccupied with other things. Stupid stuff.
As the clean slate confines us to a routine, it causes us miss the sincere moments. When Heather Love talks about the book "The Professor's House" (1925), she tells about a couple who focus on maintaining the routine of life, ignoring what they have lost before, and missing what is past. The taken for granted will to go on with life results in not thinking and delaying that important question. The persistent hopes of future interfere with the past. Heather Love emphasizes that negative emotions are essential for organizing. Unfavorable feelings create obstacles for the peace in the parlor. Rather than ignoring these feelings, one should think about them. In order to shake off the stupidity that was brought about by repetition we have to think about creative act(ion)s. It is only through this that we can penetrate into these sincere moments, organize them, and open new grounds.
In the Club Y I was a member of, cisgendered dicks developed mocking remarks, swears and match days as a tool for fellowship and socialization that enhance their relations as resisters. Within the club, mocking-swearing establishes connections between activists/militants in question. The militant/activist should be angry, hopeful of tomorrow, and full of resentment. It was as if the militant was born active, and s/he should always be active. S/he draws his/her strength from the act itself, and transfers his/her strength to the act. No exhaustion! The resentment triggered the exhaustion of Y. Resentment spreads from the outside to the inside, and to Y. resentment is reflected on the body as a "twitch", and breaks the rhythm of the body. The chief militant Şeker Baba (Sugar Daddy) contaminates the other with his resentment via his swearwords. Massive hurling of swearwords intimidates the other. The face of the soul that is intimidated twitches, the eyes bounce. In time, the twitches become frequent. As inertia becomes frequent so does swearing. As swearing becomes frequent so does inertia. The frequency itself becomes frequent. One gets bored. The burden gets even with the body in twitches. A contagious twitch that is. It is also confusing. In fact, the body is calling out that there is a question to be asked. And twitches stir the pot as a confusing and physical resistance that trips up the authority of monotonous practices of action. Twitches try to retrieve the rhythm of the body broken by resistance, and turn into a ghost. A ghostly twitch.
Resentment organizes us. By declaring someone bad and inducing the moments in which we "correct" ourselves, resentment brings about positioning ourselves against others, rather than thinking about ourselves. Listen to Nietzsche, and let an act that is fed by poisoning itself go. Saul Newman argues that since anarchism is built on resentment, it limits itself and turns into a poisoned practice which it is precisely against. As classical anarchism tries to break up the networks of authority, it becomes a routine of resistance that overcomes power. For Nietzsche, rejecting any power and trying to holding it out is an indicator of resentment. Resentment itself enables organizing, but it also obstructs creativity by getting stuck in a single practice. Facing resentment airs the dirty linen of the authoritarianism of organizational practices that impede anarchy's creative power. Instead of resenting power, think of opening different ways with a power that affirms the power of life. In fact, that fluid power is what makes us agents. Power is not something we can hang onto or restrain; it is something omnipresent in our daily lives in different forms and in different relationships. Boozing with resentment and trying to sustain resistance, and ignoring the losses, restrains us to ask the question that might interrupt our journey into stupidity. Resentment is the gripper of desire we all fall by mistake. One who gets stuck in his/her own resentment cannot attend to other's problems. S/he misses the pathways in his/her persistence on walking the tarmac. The hussy violence of this conservatism tarmacs the passenger. Neither the tarmac nor the pathway may bring us to where we want, but we may forget to deviate in our insistence on arriving there. Let's sidestep. So that we can swipe our agency and solidarity from the vicious cycle of resentment.
It is possible to say the performance "In the Blink of a Bird" in the opening of the exhibition with the same title in Depo, problematizes the bodily discipline resistance practices induce; and turns the negative effect the system's deadlock in which we live in into creative agency. In classical resistance practices, the individual who wants to accomplish the objective should progress towards revolution, believe in oneself, and control his/her body. Belkıs says «the most self-confident of women strikes the bargain". But when no one strikes the bargain, the self-assuredness of the forms of organization which constitutes the high-spirited, the unshakable character of the activist is expounded. Yet, one reads the bargain: "we have decided, paid the bill, and settled the hash for your information". We are confronted with a resentful and exclusivist language.
From the performance: « …they are holding books, flags, rifles, scythes, bağlamas and hammers…those with empty hands hold their left fist in midair. It reads on top of the page: no one can finger count us, and no one can destroy us by killing. All are in majuscules…and on the right, it reads: anthems, requiems, variations, minstrels, rifles…"
Bağlamas, hammers, scythes, rifles, flags and books are some of the symbolic objects of resistance. Resistance founded upon specific sentiments and practices is also founded upon specific objects. Manifolders, typewriters, seals, and the monotonous sounds created by them are symbolic objects of resistance that results in a deadlock. Objects or a body movement such as raising the left fist points to the revolution. A bodily position, a word, an object, a sound or a paper become components of resistance. Anything that is permissible in destroying the authority finds its way into the network of resistance, and becomes a resister itself. A manifolder, impressing a seal, the sound of a stamp, a sound of someone reading a manifesto participate in some unity as long as they are harsh, absolute, repetition based and don't allow for any malfunction. In repetition, they specify the limits of their own.
In the aforementioned performance, the table on which the typewriters lie, and manifestos are sealed is crooked. The one who asks what is shameful and says the table is crooked, as well as the one who utters the urgent letter coming from the sister as the revolutionary practice proceeds is the same person. We can call this person with an inspiration from Sara Ahmad's feminist killjoy as revolutionary killjoy. A killjoy expresses that which can spoil repetition, it disturbs, it notices the problem and at least make others notice that there is a problem. The crookedness of the table, the urgent letter from the sister, and that which is shameful may be call of Stenger's Gaia. Those who hear the call and don't fall into stupidity are revolutionary killjoys. They don't respond with a slap to a slap, and don't turn the other cheek, but start questioning the slap itself. We already know that the left fist will rise. We are not surprised as it does; don't wonder "what's going on here?" It is not any different from jogging on a treadmill; it is only when that treadmill is broken or we stumble, and start asking what will happen when we fall from the treadmill, rather than stepping up on it again, we see what makes us fall and realize there are other ways of jogging.
Insisting on a single sentiment, insisting on some sentiment all the time, and a form of resistance fed recurrently from that sentiment results in a routine of resistance. Deborah Gould, in Political Despair, tells about the organization practices of ACT UP activists who are encouraged by rage. Even if they resist, their friends continue dying of AIDS, and after a while, their rage crashes in on them, and they cannot find the strength to resist anymore. When melancholia replaces rage, they become passive. That which was founded upon anger is lost. Denial of their hopelessness and exhaustion results in a deadlock; and ignorance of despair hampers the evolvement of new areas: "We were in such hope that we thought we were not going to die, but we died so much so that we got exhausted. We became unable to act." Although some revolutionary practices appear to be resisting against authority, they transform into a tool of dictum by poisoning themselves and contaminating their surroundings. Political dreams that remain close to unevenness, mistakes, losses and magic obstruct desires by haunting us. We would like to think of different models of action which may erode the traditional subject of resistance who restrains desire, and which may debilitate the grippers of fixed resistance practices. We would like to reveal the different models of action which exceed the boundaries from where the body is restricted and interrupted, because the model of a fulltime activist causes arrhythmia by disciplining the body.
Finally, the relation performance establishes with the objects of resistance, the will to accomplish the goal, and the motive to progress towards the revolution coincides with the feeling that the wall is about to go down. The wall that is destroyed is of cardboard. As the wall is coming down, someone who comes to spectate begins shouting "they are demolishing it, the building is about to collapse!" and panics. It is only that moment that will be experienced and affect us not to be repeated again. It is an act that won't be rehearsed for those who perform it, and an act that is unexpected for those who are observing. It is open to obscurity. It leads to a reaction that is uncontrollable, it astonishes. As what is familiar comes to a deadlock, it unveils indifference, prevents us from asking our questions. Familiar answers to familiar questions render asking new questions impossible. It is only leakages that incur eclipse of reason and thrill us, captivating agencies, creations and legends stir our imagination; it is only they that lead us to a desire for another world by intriguing us.
Isabelle Stengers argues that the routine one practices leads to stupidity to the extent it lapses into caution. Routine is a way to confine oneself to a specific order with the fear of confusion. Doing the same deed over and over again although one knows that there is another way of acting, ignoring diversity, is in fact stupidity. Instead of getting to the root and climbing the ivy, falling into a routine sticking around results in a deadlock. Gilles Deleuze argues that repetition leads to stupidity and kills creativity, and proposes to replace repetition with rhythm. Rhythm is everything except for a military march or a slogan. If the rhythm is disturbed and turns into routine, then one should ask questions. One, who is carried away by the order of life, fails to ask that urgent question. Imagine Stengers' Gaia might knock on your door uninvited. The knock disturbs the peace of watching TV drinking tea. Gaia is the power that distorts the sound of TV, preventing those sitting in the living room from asking the question of "who is there?" for a moment in favor of imagining who has come. It is uncertain who has come, no preparations have been made for a guest, and even there might be danger.
In the exhibition, on the broadcast of His TV, Yasemin Nur tells that she is collecting ashes, boiling different leaves she finds, and that she obtains from each leaf different color and effect. Imagine an agency that reconstructs the body through rhythmic maneuvers. Boiling leaves is a practice of resistance which is not ring, a ring o'roses. As Yasemin N. summons the leaves to her own space, she recreates the missing rhythm of everyday life as a "healing" practice. Seizing the residues of yesterday, collecting what is left off is saying farewell and healing. Yasemin N. soaks the leaves that are left by the side of the road, abandoned to wither away, and immobilized because of mobilization, into water at home. The leaves spring to life by boiling; they revive through the color they give to the water which was trapped inside the leaf with the crack opened by Yasemin N. through boiling, picking and collecting. The color of the water is different faces of the leaf. Yasemin doesn't wait for Gaia to arrive uninvited, she invite her home. Apparently, her home lets the draught in.
References
Ahmed, Sarah. Happy Objects, In The Affect Theory Reader. Ed. Melissa Greg and Gregory J. Seigworth. Durham, London: Duke University Press. 2010.
De la Cadena, Marisol. Indigenous Cosmopolitics in the Andes: Conceptual reflections beyond "politics ». Cultural anthropology 25.2. 2010.
Deleuze, Gilles. Guattari, Felix. A Thousand Plateaus. Brian Massumi. University of Minnesota Press: London. 1987.
Deleuze, Gilles. on Cinema: What is The Creative Act, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_hifamdISs (1987), 18:19.
Gordon, Avery. Ghostly Matters: Haunting and the Sociological Imagination. University of Minnesota Press: London. 2008.
Gould, Deborah. Political despair in Politics and Emotions: The Affective Turn in Contemporary Political Studies. New York: Continuum. 2012
Love, Heather. Feeling Backward. Harvard University Press. 2009
Newman, Saul. Anarchism and the politics of ressentiment. In I Am Not A Man, I Am a Dynamite: Nietzsche and Anarchism (ed) John Moore. Autonomedia. 2005.
Stengers, Isabelle. In Catastrophic Times: Resisting the Coming Barbarism. Open Humanities Press. 2016.
Mustafa Kemal Yurttaş
Gülümsemeyince Yüzün Çok Güzel
* When not smiling your face is a beauty, they said, you're a real charisma, very handsome. Oh my girl, i said, what a pity you'r saying, i wish god always put a smile on my face, f.ck am i ugly or not, me be the one who is not the beautiful as well.
Oğulcan Ekiz
The Process of Formation of Living Beings
Italo Calvino in his essay "Exactitude", argues what sparks his interest in crystal and flame which he defines as the "two absolutes", is the juxtaposition of these two symbols which belong to opposite poles; and refers that process of the formation of living things are best visualized via crystal and flame (Italo Calvino, Amerika Dersleri – Gelecek Binyıl İçin Altı Öneri, Kesinlik, YKY, 3. Baskı, 2013, s. 81-82 / American Lessons – Six Memos for the Next Millenium)
The idea that this pair which create a coherence despite their contrasting structure and color without losing their individualities, representing the formation of living things, recounts something from myself. I tried to share what the idea inspires visually in my mind with the photograph "The Formation of the Living Thing".
Şeyda Temel
Woman and Man