Video Installation, 2022
Ekmel Ertan, Ozan Atalan
Commissioned by and exhibited at Mixer, İstanbul

SENKRON 'Simultaneous Video Exhibitions' at Mixer; It meets with the audience between 15 April - 30 May 2022 under the management of Bilsart and Versus Art Project. Senkron brings together art institutions, artists, curators, and art professionals from different cities by focusing on video art in Turkey; It is an inclusive event about video art through exhibitions/events/talks and screenings. In this context, with the invitation of Mixer, Ozan Atalan and Ekmel Ertan's exhibition titled YOLO meets the audience with their new video productions, in which they shape their ideas and production processes together.

YOLO, You Only Live Once is a video installation jointly produced by Ozan Atalan and Ekmel Ertan as a response to the current biological, economic, political, and psychological insecurity and crisis. YOLO is based on the idea that the life we ​​live turns into a consensus-based simulation that begins with our socialization, which we cannot interfere with. In the installation, we seem to notice this simulation environment represented by the Amusement Park only in the moments of deterioration visible with glitches. Something is not right. In pursuit of happiness, we try to network our bodies post-digital with more prosthetics and subordinate them to its life guidelines. The body-mind dichotomy's legs open wider. Our minds cannot convince our bodies despite the hysterical effort to have fun in a non-functioning simulation. The word YOLO, which is one of the linguistic products of modern life, gains a meaning that criticizes the utilitarian pursuit of happiness, which is broken from the real, within the scope of the exhibition.

"Bugünün Tarihi" projesi, Ekmel Ertan’ın yaşadığımız günün tarihini tumak amacıyla üç bölümde kurduğu, her bölümde yeni bir yerleştirmeyle tamamlanacak çok disiplinli bir kurguyla sunuluyor. Seramik, 3d lazer print, video ve ışık yerleştirmesinden oluşan sergi seyirciye bire bir deneyim sunuyor."

https://www.facebook.com/medyascopetv/videos/1040161959672052/

I designed the line animations and coded a player tool for the piece directed by Şule Ateş. Animations implemented by Design-Insitu. I programmed a Player tool, which  is custom designed and coded for this piece, also can be used in similar performances. It is open source and free to use. You can download and use it.

avPhelp file is here: avPlayer_HELP [pdf]
you can download the  source code here: avPlayer [zip]

Hero's Handbook
Written by: İlhami Algör Adapted & Directed by: Şule Ateş Digital Dramaturgy: Ekmel Ertan Light Design:Yüksel Aymaz Assistant Director: Tanju Girişken Performer: Deniz Celiloğlu

Adapted from İlhami Algör's novels Albayım Beni Nezahat ile Evlendir (Colonel, Marry Me to Nezahat) and Fakat Müzeyyen Bu Derin Bir Tutku (But Müzeyyen, This is a Deep Passion), this performance tells the story of a man who takes a mind trip following the image of a "hero" in the streets of Istanbul. Accompanied by a video animation, this entertaining story takes the audience to the naive and familiar world of black and white movies and questions the image of "heroic man" in the minds of a generation who grew up with these images.

Lasts app. 70'; no intermission.
Co-Produced by: Talimhane Tiyatrosu, Istanbul Theatre Festival

 

61m.amberplatform.org
61m Kahya Bey Street is a documentary project, conceived and implemented in collaboration with Seçil Yaylalı, in Ömer Hayyam, in Tarlabaşı district. Artists are worked with children to document life in the neighborhood. The project was shown at the exhibition titled “We Decide How We Reside” in the frame of Wohnungsfrage at Haus Der Kulturen Der Welt in Berlin. Please click for more about the local project, the exhibition, and the conference.

“We Decide How We Reside” is the title of the exhibition that is curated and organized by HKW (Haus Der Kulturen Der Welt) and took place at HKW in Berlin. Other invited artists/groups are Kotti Shop from Berlin and La Folie Kilomètre from Marseilles.

Wohnungsfrage Conference: the framing event of the workshop and exhibition organized by HKW took place in the frame of Wohnungsfrage Conference

61m Kahya Bey Street project site
We Decide How We Recide project site
We Decide How We Reside, HKW referring page
Wohnungsfrage, HKW web site
berlin exhibit at Apartment Project

I.  bb1 bb2 bb3 bb4 bb5 bb6 bb7 bb8 bb9 bb10

Ekmel Ertan – #direngeziparkı #direndemokrasi – From The Billboards On The Streets

II.

1
2
3
4
5
6

theCube is a public art project, which is a sculpture as well as a virtual gallery.

 

theCube is a conceptual gallery, a white cube converted inside-out. The codes on the three faces of the cube connect the audience to the artworks exhibited in the virtual gallery, utilizing a smart mobile device. theCube also moves the gallery outdoor to the public space. Therefore it is a literally public gallery which is available to the by passers in public space.

 

The virtual gallery is also networked through out theCubes placed in various location in different cities on the globe. Every sculpture takes audience to the different exhibitions in the rooms of the virtual gallery. The(TODAYSART)3 which is theCube placed in a public space in Grote Markt in Den Haag, The Netherlands takes the audience to the TodaysArt Festival's exhibition which occupies three rooms in the virtual gallery. The co-operating institution curates their exhibition in the dedicated rooms of the virtual gallery. Virtual gallery has a custom interface for the curator organization through which the organization curates new exhibition, as they like.

 

theCube is a cube-like sculpture. The sculpture is a 0.6 cubic meter block stands on one of its corners which is cut partially to let the cube stand on with its 3 faces diagonal to the ground. This position lets only the three faces of the cube exposed to public in a conveniently visible angle. Those three faces have 3 different QR Codes, by which the cube connects people to the three halls of the online gallery. Virtual gallery is like a gallery with connected rooms which has doors in different cities of the world.

 

The audience needs a smart phone with a QR-Code reader application installed, to reach the gallery through the sculpture. If you have a smart phone you can easily install a QR-Code reader and capture the code to enjoy the artworks in the connected rooms of the virtual gallery but also visit the other exhibitions in other rooms.

 

As a public artwork, theCube takes the increasing number of the mobile gadgets into consideration and suggest using the technology for a cultural purpose. theCube moves the gallery out to the public space in a private manner through the smart mobile devices.

 

theCube has many achievements like being a sculpture and a public art work, letting the white-cube (the conventional gallery) really public out on the street; connecting virtual to physical and local and letting virtual get concrete; creating one internationally accessible yet local gallery; letting the virtual gallery visible and accessible to non-web-users.

 

the(IABA)3

theCube placed in Attalos Square in Antalya in the frame of International Architecture Biannial Antalya 2013, Experimental Architecture Exhibition.

 

the(TODAYSART)3

This is the second installation of theCube. It is placed in Grote Markt in Den Haag in the frame of TodaysArt Festival 2012.

 

the(ISSIK-KUL)3

The first implementation of the theCube realized in Issyk-Kul at Kyrgyz Republic in the frame of Nomadic Art Camp. the(ISSYK-KUL)3 is placed at a Yurt Camp by the Issyk-kul lake near to the village Tosor. The first three rooms of the gallery dedicated to Issyk-Kul exhibitions which is curated by Bishkek Art Center.

theCube is conceived and created by Ekmel Ertan.

Usually photographs become entities by what is left out; the scene you picture is an isolated individual presence of what you see. Yet, we were intending to document Istanbul as a whole with its unending vibrant life and not the individual components that constitute this whole. This is the reason why we chose 360-degree panoramic photography as a medium of expression. Istanbul is a city that forces you to live its own way; you can never ignore its rules. Regular panoramic photographs equal all objects included, but this is not what Istanbul forced us to do. It made us change the order of things and we ended up with an optically distorted horizon line. Horizon line here is not the regular linear spine of the scene; rather, it comes further from where it was taken as granted and becomes an object itself. The resulting visual conglomerate depicts the richness of daily life “all around” Istanbul and can be seen as a “natural” collage.

These photographs were taken as separate images with a compact digital camera and then stiched digitally on the computer environment. The distorted perception obtained after the stitching process is purely an optical effect and there is no “Photoshop manipulation” at all.

This was a collaborative work, created with Murat Germen.

Exhibited at:
Gallery Marmara-Manhattan, 301 East 94th Street NYC, February-March 2003
Atakule Vakıfbank Sanat Galerisi, Ankara, 27th January-15th February 2004
Diyarbakır Sanat Merkezi, Diyarbakır, 20th February-11th March 2004

International Photography Awards 2004 Professional Photograpy Mention in Architecture / Cityscape category

Blow In is an online system for diverse communities to share an event physically-yet-online.

Blow In connects people remotely yet in a physical way in order to achieve a goal. The participants have to blow into a DIY windmill to constitute and partake in its action. The action can be a protest against the stupidity of a politician, public lies or generic injustice. Artists can use this tool to publicly activate their work. Activist can use it to bring people together for a cause. Friends can play online games based on physical effort. Even believers can pray remotely but communally.

Blow In is a web-based system. On the web site you can find all the information, instructions and applications you need. As a participant you select the event you will participate. Before the time of the event you will get reminder emails. At the time of the event you get online, select the way to Blow In and start the related application. The application will guide you. You start blowing in simultaneously with all the networked participants. During the event you will see the visualizations, which show the total power created by all the participants as well as your own participation to the sum. At the same time, you will also watch the final effect of the Blow In session which can be another visualization or a sound or a video which shows the achieved action in real time.

Blow In is being produced in the frame of E-Tribal Art project.
tribal_catalog (related pages only) of the Cluj Exhibit.

blowin.amberplatform.org

 

Technical Rider
Drawings:

Memory #1 is an interactive installation. A panning view of Bosporus is projected on the screen. When the audience enters in the installation space, according to the movement of the audience, the sliding image becomes blurred except the buildings belong to the old, which are symbolize a period of Bosporus. Those ones continue sliding on the blurred background of accumulated pixels of the images of the parts belong today. And an old song from the voice of Safiye Ayla is heard.

This is an installation that stimulates the memories of the participant through his/her own movement in the installation space even if he/she is not from Istanbul. The version is based on the Bosporus, İstanbul.

This installation exhibited at
"Portable Art", Atakent Cultural Center, Ümraniye, 2010
"Portable Art", Ali Emiri Cultural Center, Fatih, 2010
Bishkek Art Center, Bishkek; August 2011
"Lunapark", Dortmund, 2011

choreography and performance: özlem alkis and pep garrigues;
real-time light installation: ekmel ertan

When I join in the team, the piece was already had its unique identity. Additional lighting should have fit in the piece’s already established aura but also open up a new dimension for the dancers to extend the piece. The piece was very minimal and clear in the use of space and body; additional light should have been acting in the same manner. I decided to use moving light stripes, which are, form wise, continuation of the frames that are on the stage. I wanted the light stripes functioning conceptually besides being graphic elements. Performers on the stage are creating - or finding themselves in - a strange and unknown territory, I used the light stripes to add the third person’s existence into the space, that could have been the spectator’s point of view or the big brother. Performers had to react to the light, but also the spectators are expected to react since the definition of the space that was presented by the performers for the first ten minutes of the piece, is suddenly broken and changed to the space where the spectators in as well. After that change in the territory, the light stripe replaces the frames on the stage, which redefines the territory. A game of power, existence and governing starts between the bodies and either the light or the definition of the space by the light.

Performed at:
Festival J’en rève, Fondation Cartier, Paris FANCE Centre National de Danse Contemporaine, Angers Centre National de la Danse, Pantin, Paris, FRANCE Istanbuldanse Festival, Aller, Istanbul, TURKEY Festival Ile Danse Ajaccio, CORSE Hebbel am Ufer HAU 3 ,Berlin, GERMANY Centre Chorégraphique National de Montpellier Montpellier, FRANCE

showed in 2nd Sinopale...

This installation consists of two television sets facing each other. In one of the televisions, we see a man is sitting cross-legged on the floor and watching the other television while continuously zapping. This is a video fed by a computer connected to the television. The other television is receiving the current broadcast and changing channels while the man on the opposite television is zapping.

In this installation, I am interested in the notions of reality, image and interaction through the media. I like to force the viewer to ask questions on the real, the reality of the image and the interaction in today’s mediatized world.

This installation interrogates the relation between the reality, the media and the viewer through the shift in time and space. Two televisions that are looking at each other are in a meaningless relationship. This meaningless relationship is not much different then similar situations in our daily life. The image of the man in the television suggests that the media transforms its viewer and imprisons him in its own virtual domain. Although the fact that the man can still control the other television might prompt us to question the supposition of imprisonment, this is a meaningless interaction in which two devices are performing a human action through the representation of a human. The representation of the viewer as an image or an image as the viewer inspires questions on the image of the broadcast on the other television.

linkedin facebook pinterest youtube rss twitter instagram facebook-blank rss-blank linkedin-blank pinterest youtube twitter instagram