SELÇUK ARTUT’S “A/B” EXHIBITION MAY BE VISITED FROM 11 FEBRUARY - 20 MARCH 2010 AT THE AMERICAN HOSPITAL ART GALLERY “OPERATION ROOM”.
Put to the test by a bombardment of images, our capacity for perception is being pushed to the limits each day. Everywhere we look, we see screens, screens, and more screens, big screens and small screens. Mobile phones, cameras, computers, animated billboards, watches, televisions, et cetera. There is no doubt that for the person looking at it, each screen conveys an intense flow of information. And so today, being the screen-crazed people that we are, we find ourselves captive to a four-cornered prison. Ever since we first began visually recording moments of life, we have been playing myriad games with our perceptions. Series after series of sequences of squares-hopping, jumping, flitting, reflecting back on to our watchful eyes-impel us to question the profound relationship between reality and representation.
Do those series of objects lined up in a sequence always tell us stories about the existing world? Can we possibly simplify the definition of written literature as the effort of so many disjointed words to come together and form a coherent whole? As tiny, individual words are lined up, they form sentences, and the sentences form paragraphs, and the paragraphs form texts. Yet to what degree do our thoughts and the methods we use to express our thoughts adhere to such formulations? How clearly can a written text actually show itself to us?
 |  |
When such instances of disjointedness are combined with other narrative forms, to what degree does the equation we imagine to exist between them clash with the narrative world and the world of ideas that we’ve already constructed in our minds? How much damage does the former do the latter? So maybe then it’s best not to undertake any such narration, right? Or to the contrary, maybe we should show all the time?
We want to film for everyone who wants to act in this film to do so. This artistic production of ours should have not one owner, but a large number of shareholders, with each scene belonging to someone else. Like Martin Heidegger states in his essay, The Origin of the Work of Art (Von Ursprung des Kunstwerks), a work of art produced today cannot be considered the product solely of the artist who has produced it. Artistic production should not be perceived of as an interpretation or reflection of reality, but as reflections of a community’s shared understanding. In this respect, this film is therefore our film-the film of a series of individual, disjointed thoughts. A film that comprises a whole, made up of a sequence, containing meaning. A common ground where your understanding and my understanding meet.
 |  |
We’re going to give you a script-but you only get to see one sentence a day. We want you to imagine, stage, and photograph whatever that sentence means to you on that particular day and send it to us. Later, we will put the scenes together in a sequence and make a film out of them. Disjointed, it will lack any formal connecting thread as a visual narrative language, but who knows, maybe we’ll come up with a work of textual integrity, a series of instances bound by the ties of coincidence. And then we’ll sit and watch our film all together. But that’s not all: next, it’s up to us whether we just look at what has been done or see into it, probe its depths. So now let’s play a little swapping game. It goes like this: I give you a text, you give me an image.
Selçuk ARTUT
Selçuk Artut lives and works in İstanbul. He has received his BSc in Mathematics from Koç University, İstanbul and his MA in Sonic Arts from Middlesex University, London. Currently, he is teaching Sound and Interaction courses at Sabancı University as a full-time faculty member. His artistic activities are mainly focused on contemporary media practices such as sonic arts and human computer interactivity. His selected exhibitions and performances include Younger Than Jesus (Newmuseum, NY, USA), NewsPaperBox (File Festival, Sao Paolo 2008), Substairs (İstanbul Biennial 2007), Improvhelsinki (Helsinki, 2007), Bares do Porto (Portugal, 2006), New Electronic Music (İstanbul, 2006) and Aldwych London Transport (London, 2004). Artut plays the bass guitar in Replikas (www.replikas.com) as a professional as well as individual art activities.
American Hospital Art Gallery “Operation Room” Tel: 0 (212) 444 3 777
|