Today I led the first part of a two-part experimental video workshop at
Diyarbakir Sanat Merkezi (Diyarbakir Art Centre) in Ofis. It was designed to break down some of the 'canonical' works* into single actions that played with ideas of SPACE and VOICE--the two main components of my practice. With a strong traditional documentary tradition (in both film and photography) in Diyarbakir, I was attempting to work with a way to introduce critical concepts of disrupting the field, and making the medium visible to itself. It was interesting exploring terminologies such as space, which cannot directly translate in meaning between English and Turkish.
The task set for the next session was to use one of the actions proposed in the films to explore ideas of "THE EDGE" of the city (again, edge does not directly translate, but ideas proposed by the borders of language, those by class, and those by the military are very visible in the daily life of the city). I'm really looking forward to see what everybody comes up with!
The works cited, and their actions are
here.
*drawn from the pool of those available online - I can't overstate the importance of keeping this knowledge in publicly accessible domains as an educational tool. Thanks to the custodians!
