On Dissent _ A collective narrative

An artistic research project by Reloading Images (Berlin/Trento) and IKSTD (Izmir)

“Revolution starts with one person at a time, talking to each other"

Cesar Chavez

“I once fell in love with myself being someone else”

Zaat El-Abed

Concept

A group of artists, filmmakers and writers will come together – both virtually and at times in real space - at different places in Europe, Turkey and Egypt over the course of six months, between March and July 2012.

Working between language and action, collecting, writing and performing, the group will work under multiple authorship compiling texts, gestures, pictures, ideas eventually weaving these threads into a text-, image- and performance-based narrative, starting from a series of conversations with people living and working in Cairo. As a result, the outcomes will take the form of a publication/script that will be the starting point for a performative and interdisciplinary presentation to be premiered in Fall 2012, at Depo-Istanbul.

The script will be an associative account starting from the question of how subjective experiences intermingle and unfold into a collectively, experienced political situation and vice versa. How do these fragmented realities transfer into a political narrative and what gets lost in this process? This is told against the backdrop of a global current of dissent in its manifold articulations, and more specifically the post-revolutionary situation in Egypt with its repercussions elsewhere.

From these general perspectives, we are interested in looking at how subjectivity is shaped and transformed during those exceptional circumstances. We intend, on the one hand, to research the personal and private dimensions of a political, revolutionary event and, on the other, the role of the media in the representation and exploitation of these.

Protest is, always simultaneously, produced (organization) and represented (symbols): is protest just an empty signifier neutralized by the media? What is the position from which one can speak about resistance and articulate its nature? Is there the possibility of converging everyday life and revolutionary actions? What is this fracture called revolution within the private sphere? Is it possible to articulate a revolutionary horizon starting from the subjective experience of different singularities? The dichotomy between public and private is at the heart of any possible revolutionary proposition: the critical condition of this relation opens up a wider discourse on the ways in which the logic of representation is tied to the private dimensions that any revolution entails.

Plan of activities between March/September 2012

a-      Kick-Off and Workshop in İzmir: 19, 20, 21 March 2012

In collaboration and with the support of Yasar University, Faculty of Communication and K2 - Contemporary Art Center, Izmir

Monday 19th

@ Yasar University, Faculty of Communication, Universite Caddesi, No: 35-37, Bornova

1.30-5.30pm: Workshop by Reloading Images and IKSTD - First Part

Tuesday 20th

@ K2 - Contemporary Art Center | Cumhuriyet Blv. No: 54 Büyük Kardiçalı Han, Kat:2, Konak

4.30pm-6.30pm: Open roundtable and conversation + Film screening

Wednesday 21st

@ Yasar University, Faculty of Communication, Universite Caddesi, No: 35-37 Bornova

1.30-5.30pm: Workshop by Reloading Images and IKSTD - Second Part

b-      Research in Cairo

An artistic residency to produce and document a series of private conversations around the personal and public dimensions of the recent and current events, one year after the end of Mubarak’s regime, with journalists, curators, academics etc. These conversations will be edited and they will form a loose base for a semi-fictional narrative to be developed subsequently into a performance.

c-      Launch in Trento: the launch of the project activities and output will be organized in Trento, Italy.

Project Output: DIY/Digital Publication and performative presentation.

Core team: Kaya Behkalam, Roberto Cavallini, Carla Esperanza Tommasini for Reloading Images and Tuna Yilmaz for IKSTD.

This project takes place in the framework of EU-Turkey Tandem programme.

Tandem Turkey is a new initiative by Stiftung Mercator (Essen) and the European Cultural Foundation (Amsterdam) together with MitOst (Berlin), Anadolu Kültür (Istanbul) andIstanbul Bilgi University (Istanbul).

For more news and infos in general about the Tandem constellation and specifically about our project, please visit the new Tandem Website.