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NON-BEING

Brass framed mirror and motor mechanism  50 x 85 cm 2023 

DANCER IN THE DARK: APPEARANCE 40x40x38 cm 13 Pieces Basalt Cube 2022 The first of two projects conceived at SAHA Studio is derived from the video work Dancer in the Dark, produced in 2003 as an outcry on behalf of all others, in reference to the human rights violations that took place in Turkey in the nineties, especially in South East Anatolia, which were not covered in the press or other media outlets despite being resurfaced, or the news content of which was heavily distorted.  Taped in front of a camera that strictly recorded sound with its lens covered, this early video consists of a voice announcing to the audience in his native Kurdish language that he stands right in front of them in an increasingly tense tone, which represents the other, the minority, the ostracized and the invisible. The camera was thus functioning akin to a tool that allows seeing rays such as infrared, gamma rays that the naked human eye cannot normally perceive. The new project, which tries to "bend" this two-minute moving image, consisting of a total of 3000 frames and 13 subtitles that transmute the sound to image, is called Dance in the Dark: Appearance, as it has started to take on another form in recent years.  Starting with “Hey! Do not you see me?" and ending with “I am here!” these 13 frames turn into 30-centimeter basalt cubes engraved with these subtitles. Inspired by the civilizations established in and around of Diyarbakır for centuries and the nations living on these lands, the edifices like Sur (city walls) they had built with basalt stone obtained from the lava that cooled after the last eruption of Karacadağ two million years ago, and ultimately, the transformation of this burning material into massive rocks, the work has the intention of muffling, transforming, and sculpting the video.  

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BUTTERFLY EFFECT: STAR7 tampered cinema magazines, Drawings: Alican Leblebici 2022

Produced for the exhibition “Envy Enmity Embarrassment” (2013) with the support of Arter, Butterfly Effect is the other work that has provided the ground for thinking over the various states of video and was eventually transformed with the intention of “bending.” The derivational work was conceived in response to the fact that people who take on performative roles in contemporary art videos, appear to be a means of expression of the artist and become mainly anonymous, unlike actors in movies. The drawings of the people of various age groups and genders from The Butterfly Effect by the artist Alican Leblebici, who was invited to collaborate with the artist on this project, are superposed on the cover of cinema magazines that came out on the year these people were born in, trying to elevate these people to the status of movie stars. As an endeavor to prevent the anonymization of the figures in the video and the disappearance of the magazines, which take a lot of effort to prepare and publish, the work titled The Butterfly Effect: Star tries to create a kind of refraction of time by combining the birth of the magazine and the actor, a brand-new birth and a single body. This work, in which the cinematographic reference spreads from the magazine's content to the titles of the videos, the figures' actions of holding their breath and puffing their cheeks, letting their breaths go with all their strength at the point where they are exhausted is featured as the cover stories of the magazines. Their breath, which is decisive in their life and death, and the "butterfly effect" created by these encounters open new channels of thought on human strength, weakness, and existence.

Speechless

Marble powder, polyester

62,5x36.4x40.7 cm

2021

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I HAVE GOT THE POWER

              The artist’s work titled “I’ve Got the Power,” created through the BStart Project Fund, is a statute of a rhino with a height of over 3.5 meters, revealing its metaphor thanks to its impressive presence. The rhino refers to dominant societal mechanisms of power, and some societies believe that its horn has aphrodisiac effects. There is a point in the statute where we witness the elongated horn of the rhino plunge into its own body, thus transforming into masculine power, energy, potency / impotency, with the horn resembling the phallus and the rhino rearing up with such pain as the horn pierces the body.

             Every play creates a provisional and limited space. Within such boundaries, a unique and absolute order prevails, and then order is required as such. The slightest violation of such order spoils the play. Berat Işık, in his work where he visualizes the concept of power domination through a symbol,pursues violations of this order. Expressing the tension of power in an efficient manner, he uses play aseither representation or struggle. Huizinga mentions that struggle and representation as two functions are interrelated: play is a representation ofstruggle, but also, play is a struggle of representation.

I’ve Got the Power

2016, Heykel / Sculpture

Polyester 310x210x65 cm

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"Lost Highway" With the Touch of Sarkis

40x40x40 cm Compressed Asphalt Cube

         Those who have turned the world into a shithole, call them humankind, the superpowers, or what you will, keep walking their sacred path with their heads held high as if they will never be gripped by the very shithole they help create. 

          The Lost Highway is not a call, not a revolt, nor a cry for help.

The cube presents an abyss no matter which way you move. It thus presents an opportunity for us take a last look at that which has already plunged into the abyss. An invitation to thought, like that evoked by Malevich’s Square, on these last seconds, or decades, or centuries, before we too inevitably plunge into that very abyss. 

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"Alien"1999

Photo 50x70 cm

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