No photography allowed!!!

I had an embarrassing moment when I visited musee d’orsay for the first time when I was in my early teens. I was stuck in front of the Starry Night Over the Rhone by Vincent Van Gogh. I remember having a lesson on him prior that year so my amazement was only natural. I was trying to take a picture with my funny compact analog camera, without the flash of course, to show in my art class in the following semester when I was caught by the guard. It was really embarrasing being shouted at in the middle of the hall and not having a clue what he was saying. I happen to learn in that very moment that taking photographs were forbidden and I was also clueless about the reason of  it. I am talking about early 90s, when digital technologies were not widespread at all. Since I could not get the rationale behind it that time, I totally ignored it and tried to fool the guards and took the pictures secretly as a perfectly normal turkish visitor:) sorry for that, but I was only 13. And in my ideal museum, taking photographs of masterpieces to share with my friends were quiet normal. Now I am aware of copywright issues. In fact taking a photo in a museum doesn’t violate copyright of an object, but it violates the owner’s right to restrict access if he or she has legally demanded that right. Of course the museums have to protect that right but is it the only reason of the restriction? And if the owner of an art work (whether in museum or not) has no such restriction, can it still be used as a derivative work?  The same question revolving in my head had also been asked in the final jury of my photography class this morning: as photographers, can we use photographs taken by other people in our own creative works? Well, why not? As one of the leading German photographers, Thomas Ruff, did for example by using the pornographic photographs sent to his spam mail without his consent. Though he was criticized for that by some, I think he has quite a reasonable point.

One question triggering another.. This is my regular mood these days since my mind is occupied with my thesis question of how an ideal photography museum should be. Therefore before further departing from my main point, I want to write about an interesting blog dealing with what I have been giving some thought on these days.

No photography allowed

Nina Simon, the blogger behind Museum 2.0 took a thorough look at why at the moment a large number of art and history museums continue to maintain highly restrictive photo policies, and how this does not really make sense..

She asks why museums 1.0 tend to stick to the ‘no photography’ policy, finding 5 main arguments – Intellectual Property, Conservation, Revenue Streams, Aesthetics of Experience and Security – for this approach to (no) photography by visitors:

1. Intellectual Property: Museums must respect diverse intellectual property agreements with donors and lenders, and in institutions where some objects are photographable and others not, it’s often easier to use the most restrictive agreements as the basis for institutional policies.
2. Conservation: Objects may be damaged by flash photography. Some conservators argue that if non-flash photography is permitted, light levels in the galleries may be increased to accommodate visitors’ cameras, which indirectly damage artifacts.
3. Revenue Streams: Museums want to maintain control of sales of “officially sanctioned” images of objects via catalogues and postcards. If people can take their own photos, they won’t buy them in the gift shop.
4. Aesthetics of Experience: Photo-taking is distracting for other visitors. Looking at artwork through a lens means you are having a less rich experience. Visitors may make inappropriate gestures in photos with museum content, thus distorting institutional values and intent.
5. Security: Photographers might take photos with intent to do harm; for example, with plans to rob the museum or stalk another visitor.

Nina Simon does not quite agree with these arguments: “I respect the first and second arguments. I understand the third, though I think it is misguided. And I think the fourth and fifth are bizarre and ungenerous to visitors.” Ungenerous to visitors? Yes, as frequently those visitors pay a quite substantial fee to access the museum and see part of their, we assume hard-earned, tax money flow to the museum’s operating costs. Simon continues: “To me, an open photo policy is a cornerstone of any institution that sees itself as a visitor-centered platform for participatory engagement.” :

She in her turn lists five good reasons why museums should have totally open photo policies:

1. As long as it does not promote unsafe conditions for artifacts or people or illegal behavior, museums should prioritize providing opportunities for visitors to engage in ways that are familiar and comfortable to them.

If your argument is based on visitor comfort and distraction, it should be backed up by visitor research, not personal impressions. Moreover, would staff members be comparably disturbed by visitors sketching in the galleries?

2. Restrictive policies erode staff/visitor relations and overall museum mission statements around inclusion.

The majority of cellphones now have cameras embedded in them, which means that many visitors are walking through your doors with camera in hand. Visitors get upset when they are told to put their cameras away, and it is becoming increasingly hard for guards to control the taking of photographs and their spread on the Web. Telling visitors that they can’t take photos in museums reinforces the sense that the museum is an external authority that owns and controls its objects rather than a shared public resource. How can visitors be “co-owners” of museums if they can’t own an image from their experience?

3. Photo-taking allows visitors to memorialize and make meaning from museum experiences.

There have been several studies that show that creating a personal record of an experience and reviewing it later increases learning and retention of content. When visitors flip through photos from their trip, they are more likely to recall their interest in a given artifact or exhibit than without visual aids. And it’s not just about recall. There are thriving groups of Flickr users who share photos of themselves imitating art.

4. Visitors use personal photos differently from store-bought ones.

The majority of visitors use their cameras to casually record their personal and social experiences, not to take authoritative images of artifacts. And even if visitors do take authoritative (noncommercial) shots, they are unlikely to reduce sales. A great shot of your institution, shared on Flickr, serves as a free piece of marketing that may generate ticket sales. How do you measure the potential lost income from a photographer not buying a postcard against the online impressions his photo makes on others? In the related world of online image licensing, some museums have done studies of the affect of open digital photo distribution on their revenue from image licensing and have seen flat or positive effects from the actions, not negative ones.

5. When people share their photos of your museum, they promote and spread your content to new audiences in authentic ways.

In 2008, a team led by MIT media researcher Henry Jenkins published a white paper entitled, “If it Doesn’t Spread, It’s Dead,” which argues that media artifacts have greatest impact when consumers are able to pass on, reuse, adapt, and remix them. There are two parts to this. First, every time a photo is shared, it extends the reach of your objects and exhibit stories. But perhaps more importantly, Jenkins argues that the creative adaptation of cultural objects through photos and other spreading tools supports communities’ “processes of meaning making, as people use tools at their disposal to explain the world around them.”

Nina Simon does point out that the intellectual property arguments in particular are very complex and should be taken seriously, and goes as far as to suggest the value of allowing visitors to take photograph is that high, that museums should think twice about taking on temporary exhibitions or loans that would endanger the ability to allow visitors to take photos across the institution. Her blogpost has sparked quite a bit of discussion, with one comment from Shelly – tech whiz at ‘revolutionary’ Brooklyn Museum of course – that’s definitely worth quoting here: Changing our policy three years ago to allow for non-commercial visitor photography was one of the best things we’ve done at Brooklyn. We do continue to have some restrictions in temporary installations depending on the lender agreements or artist wishes, but on the whole photography is allowed here and it is central to a visitor-freindly philosophy.

It wasn’t easy – we’ve had to actively think about it and work language into lender and artist agreements. Sometimes there are no objections to these clauses and we can allow it or other times we have to restrict, but ‘trying’ to allow it is one of the many processes we now go through any time we are bringing work into the building or working with artists. The theory is there’s no harm in asking the question…if lenders/artists say no we respect that and communicate the restriction to visitors in those instances. On the whole, we find visitors have been fairly respectful of the policies even when we can allow it in one part of the building, but perhaps not another.

It’s funny, of all the “technology” that I see going wrong in galleries these days, I most often see visitors really engaging with work more with their cameras than anything else. It’s one of the only things I see working.

With museums such as the Brooklyn Museum embracing ‘web 2.0′, more and more institutions joining the Flickr commons (and being nothing but positive about that), the Smithsonian Institution drafting up a complete ‘Smithsonian Web and New Media Strategy’ (and making that public on the web), what’s still holding back the museum 1.0’s from allowing visitors to – at least – take a photograph of their experience? As Nina Simon has put it so well: “How can visitors be ‘co-owners’ of museums if they can’t own an image from their experience?”

my life before vacd

In 2004, I got a masters degree from a  joint sociology programme of University of Oslo and Istanbul Technical University, namely European Science, Technology and Society programme. ESST is part of a relatively new research tradition which focuses on the interrelationships between social, scientific and technological processes. The basic characteristic of this tradition is an insistence on the necessity to think about social and economic circumstances in order to understand the evolution of science and technology. The development of science is often seen as an essential autonomous process; a process of gradual accumulation of knowledge, driven by purely internal imperatives, such as the search for truth. Technology has been seen largely as a process of applied science, a kind of “lesser cousin”, which simply followed from previous scientific advance. Science was conceived as opening fields of knowledge which engineering exploited. This began to change in the 1950´s and 1960´s: a new approach emerged , which regarded scientific activity and technological change as deeply embedded in our society.

The argument was that understanding the development of science and technology involved the recognition that internal scientific and technological advance occurs in the context of powerful social and economic forces, which shape both the development of science and technology, and also shape the impact of any advances.

in vigeland park

This tradition insists that a study of the evolution of science and technology must include social, political, cultural and economic dimensions. I was more interested in the social and cultural dimensions so I spent a year in University of Oslo, Nature, Culture and Politics department of TIK (Senter for teknologi,innovasjon og culture).

Oslo was a great city to live, so green with a splendid nature, surrounded with some great islands and fjords, small and tidy, hosting quiet but friendly, and really well educated people. It was not that cold thanks to the gulf stream. The worst thing about it was that it was quite expensive.

whalewatching in Tysfjord

What remained to me from that great year were some unforgettable friends and memories, an interest in nature and nature photography and a thesis on  a multinational gold mine in Bergama, Turkey using cyanide in its extraction process..

for anyone interested, here is the link for it:

my thesis on social uptake of a techological risk…

Bizim neyimiz eksik?

Tezim için araştırma yaparken rastladığım bir yazı, paylaşmak istedim…

Türkiye’de fotoğrafın karşı kıyısına hiç geçilebildi mi?

Fotoğrafın 200 yıla yaklaşan uzun tarihine baktığımızda, 8 saatlik poz süresi sonunda Niépce’nin tespit ettiği ilk fotoğraftan (Gras’da, Saint-Loup-de-Varennes’teki evinin penceresinden görünüm, 1826/7) ve fotoğrafın icadının (François Arago tarafından) 19 Ağustos 1839‘da, Bilimler ve Güzel Sanatlar akademilerinin törensel birleşik oturumunda duyurulduğu ve tescillendiği günden bu yana geçen 170 yılda fotoğrafın dünyada izlediği, gerçekleştirdiği ve tanığı olduğu dönüşüm ve değişimin, Türkiye coğrafyasında, suretin yasak olduğu, duvarlara resim asılmasının günah sayıldığı, padişah portrelerinin üzerlerinin örtüldüğü Osmanlı’dan başlayarak, pekçok alanda olduğu gibi fotoğraf alanında da gerçekleş-e-memiş olduğunu, tek tük, cılız seslerin ve görüntülerin biraraya geldiklerinde bir gelenek oluşturmanın ötesinde, daha çok karışık, tanımsız, dar, tektip bir görüş alanı için(d)e sıkışıp kaldığını görüyoruz.

Fotoğrafa başından beri dünyanın baktığından başka bir algıyla baktığımız ve ısrarla bu yaklaşımla fotoğraflar çektiğimiz ve Türkiye’deki fotoğrafın dünya fotoğrafı içindeki yeri ve karşılığı üzerine hiç düşünmediğimiz içindir ki, bugün, 2010 yılında bir Türkiye fotoğrafı’ndan, Türkiye’de bir fotoğraf geleneğinden söz edemiyoruz. Dün hiç edemiyorduk ve bu gidişle yarın da edebilecek gibi durmuyoruz. Peki, bu körlük, bu özel olanı yok sayma, bunca kişiselleştirmekten kaçma ve genel geçerli hatta klişe değerlendirmelerle, Türkiye’ye fotoğrafı yerleştirmeme çabaları niyedir? Bu yasaklamalar, reddetmeler, bu hayalsizlikler ve dar alanlarda bunca kısa paslaşma niyedir? Dünya fotoğrafı almış başını (hayallerimizin ötesinde, alışık olmadığımız tekinsizliklerde bizi bırakıp, bir görüntüyle aslında nasıl da hayırlı bir karmaşaya sürüklendiğimizin ve fotoğrafın ancak bu tür belirsizliklerden çıkabileceğini fark bile etmeden) giderken, fotoğrafçılar giderek artan dozda kişisel bakışlarını ve sözlerini tüm dünyaya bakarak ve dünya ölçeğinde değerlendirerek işlerine yansıtırken, bizim bu tek katmanlılığımız, yüzeyde olanı kazıyarak altını görmekten kaçışımız niyedir?

Fotoğraf, kendimizde ortaya çıkar-a-madığınız tam tersine özenle uzak tuttuğumuz, sakladığımız şeylere rağmen yapılabilir mi? Bu, “mış gibi” yapmanın ötesine geçen bir eylem olabilir mi? Bu, bize farklı bir ufuk çizgisi kazandırabilir mi? Bu kadar kolaycı bir yaklaşımı benimseyip, geliştirene, üflesen yıkılacak anlayışları temellendirene ve onların esiri olana kadar, bundan sonrayı kendimize bu bakmayışımızın nedenlerini sorarak kurgulasak daha doğru bir adım atmış olmaz mıyız? Niye bu ısrar?Korku? ya da Doğu toplumlarına özgü cemaat ruhundan kurtulamıyor olmak?, Bireyselleşememek? Derinleşerek değil, giderek yüzeyselleşerek herhangi bir iz oluşturmamak, kolayına kaçmak ve olabildiğince dışardan bakmak ve bu sınırlar dışında yapılan şeyleri sistematik olarak izlememek, reddetmek hatta…Bu sözler oldukça ağır farkındayım ama yüzyıldan fazladır, fotoğrafın bulunuşundan ve Türkiye sınırları içinde kendini gösterdiği Osmanlı’dan bu yana üzerimize serpilmiş ölü toprağını kaldırmanın zamanı gelmedi mi artık? Başka bakmalara da ihtiyacımız yok mu? Ve buna zaten çok geç kalınmadı mı? Daha neyi ve ne zaman farketmeyi beklemekteyiz? Birilerinin bir gün gelip bizi keşfetmesini, “vay siz-ler ne mühim fotoğrafçılarmışsınız, ne eşsiz fotoğraflar çekmişsiniz ve bizler de bunu nasıl görmemişiz, anlamamışız!!!” demesini mi? Anlaşılmamış kıymetler olmayı, ruhumuzun derinliklerine sinmiş olan, “Türkiye’yi en iyi Türk fotoğrafçılar çeker!” bağnazlık ve tutuculuğunu ve sürekli bizim dışımızdakileri suçlayarak, topu hep taca atmayı daha ne kadar sürdürmeyi düşünüyoruz? Peki, kendimize bu kadar uzak gözlerle, uzaktan bakmayı?, ve dışarıyı seyretmeyi?, “içeride” olmayanı “dışardan” kabul etmeyi, dışlamayı, ama içimizde olanları, fırtınalarımızı, kaygılarımızı hiç sorgulamamayı, kaçmayı ve sürekli “bizden olmayanlar ötekileştirmesi” tuzağına düşmeyi… Fotoğrafı düşünmenin önündeki en büyük engelin aslında kendimiz olduğunu görmemiz için daha kaç yüzyıl geçmesi gerekecek?

Ben 20 yıldır bu temel sorun üzerine düşünüp, sorular sorup duruyorum ve hala cevabını bulabilmiş değilim. Bizler yani Türkiye sınırları içinde doğan ve fotoğraf çekmeye bu topraklarda, bu kültürde ve bu ülkenin koşullarında başlamış ve sürdüren insanlar, bu kadar mıyız? Bizlerden bundan fazlası, farklısı çıkmaz mı? Başka sorularımız, farklı kaygılarımız yok mudur? Kendimizi özenle yerleştirdiğimiz “fildişi kuleden” çıkmayı, önce kendimize ve dünyaya bakmayı sonra da bugüne kadar sormadığımız soruları sormayı daha ne kadar erteleyeceğiz? Dünya bizden ayrı bir yer değil, o dünyada fotoğraf çeken fotoğrafçılar da bizden başka yaratıklar değiller!!! Onlar da aynı havayı soluyor, aynı dünya üzerinde dolaşarak çekiyorlar fotoğraflarını (ama farklı yaklaştıkları, fotoğrafı, dünyayı ve tabii hayatı farklı algıladıkları ve farklı sorular sordukları ve en önemlisi de bütün bunların doğal bir sonucu olarak çok farklı işler ürettikleri kesin). E, o zaman, dünyaya bu tepeden bakışımızın dayanak noktası nedir? Kim bize bu içi boş, kof üstünlüğü, bu sorusuzluğu verdi? Kendimizi böyle bir yere nasıl konumladık?

Öncelikle Fransa, İngiltere, Almanya ve ABD’de gelişen ve yerleşen 170 yıllık bir fotoğraf geleneğinden söz ediyoruz. Fotoğrafın 1850‘lerde, teknik gelişiminde belirli bir yol katetmesinin ardından, Martin Gasser’in tanımıyla, 3.evreye yani; “görüntü olarak fotoğrafın tarihi”ne de geçilmiş olur. (1) Nadar, Disdéri gibi Fransız portre fotoğrafçılarıyla başladığını söyleyebileceğimiz bu dönemin bizi bugünün oldukça subjektif, o kişiye ait/özel fotoğrafına yakınlaştıran ilk adımlar olduğunu düşünmek sanırım yanlış olmaz. Her ne kadar fotoğrafın icad edildiği ilk yüzyılda işin tekniğini geliştirmeye yönelik daha çok fotoğraf çekilmiş ve teknolojisi üzerine yayın yapılmış olsa da (yani fotoğrafın “nasıl” yapıldığı öncelikli olsa da), kısa bir süre sonra fotoğrafçıların, “görüntü olarak fotoğraf”ın derdine (yani “ne” çektiklerinin derdine de) düştükleri gerçeğini gölgelemez. Yani kısaca dünyada fotoğrafçılar ürettikleri görüntüler üzerine düşünmeye başlamaya, “bir görüntü nedir?, benim yaptığım nedir?, neyi anlatır, niye böyle değil de öyle çekilmelidir, bu konuda benim tercihim, yaklaşımım nedir?” üzerine düşünerek fotoğraf çekmeye neredeyse teknik gelişmelerle birlikte başlamışlardır, diyebiliriz.

Bizde ise Osmanlı’dan başlayarak hep “dış dünyanın belgelenmesi” öncelikli olmuştur. O döneme kısaca bir göz atacak olursak:

1840’ların başında İSTANBUL kozmopolit, batı etkilerine açık ve kendisiyle ilgili seyahatnameler ve gravürler sayesinde Batı’da görüntüsüne aşina olunmuş bir kent olma özelliğini taşıyordu. Ne var ki İmparatorluk, “Doğu Meselesi” etrafında düğümlenen belirsizlikleri de bünyesinde taşıyordu. Bu olumlu koşullara rağmen İstanbul’da fotoğrafçılığın başlangıcı sıkıntılı ve yavaş olmuştur. Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’nun sonlarına doğru gerilemenin “batılaşamamak” olduğuna inanan yöneticiler, Avrupa’dan pekçok uzman getirerek, askeri, ekonomik ve sosyal alanda önemli görevlere atadılar. Osmanlı’da büyük bir yenilenme hareketi başladı. Reformlar ve yenilikler Osmanlı yönetiminden gelmekteydi, halkın bunları kabullenmesi ise zaman içinde olacaktı.

Kur’anda resmi yasaklayan bir ayet yoktur. İslamda resim yapmak değil, resme tapmak yasaklanmıştır. Kur’anda olmamakla birlikte bazı bazı hadislerle canlı varlıkların resimlerini yapanların, Allah’la yaratmada böy ölçüşmeye kalktıkları için kötü kişi olduklarını ve bu kişilerin kıyamet günü yaptıkları tasvirlere can vermek zorunda kalacaklarını, bunu başaramayacakları için de cehennem azabı çekeceklerini belirtmişlerdir. Bir müslüman’ın insan ve hayvan resmi çizmesi veya fotoğrafını çekmesi haram kabul edilmektedir. Osmanlı İmparatorluğu halkı arasında olan Musevilik’te de tasvir kesinlikle yasaktır. Camilerde hiç figür yoktur. İşte bu tür dini nedenlerle ilk fotoğrafçılar Müslümanlar ve Museviler arasından çıkmadı.

İstanbul’da ilk fotoğrafçılık bugün İstiklal Caddesi olarak bildiğimiz “Grand rue de Pera”da Ermeniler ve Rumlar tarafından başlatıldı. Ermeniler daha çok eczacı ve kimyagerdiler, bu nedenle ilk bulunduğu yıllarda kimya bilgisi isteyen daguerrotype’a geçmeleri kolay oldu. Ermeni aileler İmparatorluğun çeşitli şehirlerinde yaşayan (Diyarbakır, Sivas, Trabzon, Elazığ) çocuklarını İstanbul’a meslek öğrenmek üzere gönderirlerdi. Bu gençler o yıllarda yeni açılmış olan Ermeni fotoğrafhanelerinde çırak olarak çalıştılar.Özellikle Abdullah Biraderler’in stüdyolarında yetişen pekçok öğrenci fotoğrafçılığı bir Ermeni tekeli haline getirdi. Müslümanlar ticaretle fazla uğraşmıyorlardı. Daha çok geleneksel askerlik mesleğini, garanti geliri olan memuriyeti ve ulemadan olmayı seçtiler.

1841’de Daguerre’in öğrencilerinden KOMPA isimli Fransız bir fotoğrafçı İstanbul’a gelir. Pera’ya yerleşir, fotoğraf dersleri vermekte ve malzeme satmaktadır. Yarım asır boyunca fotoğrafçılar Batının iş, eğlence ve buluşma merkezi olan Pera’ya yerleşeceklerdir. Türkiye’de fotoğrafçılığın Abdullah Biraderler’in 1858’de Pera’ya yerleşip, Asmalımesçit’te ilk stüdyolarını açmalarıyla başladığı söylenir.

İstanbul kenti giderek artan oranda merak konusu oluyor(tıpkı bugün olduğu gibi), aynı zamanda da Anadolu arşınlanmaya ve fihriste geçirilmeye başlanıyordu.

28 Ekim 1839’da Takvim-i Vekayi gazetesinin 186. sayısında fotoğrafın bulunuşu duyurulur:

“Bir adam düşüncelerini dikkatle bir noktada toplayıp kanalize etmiş ki, iş acaip bir sanata yönelmiş, sonunda CİLVELİ BİR AYNA ortaya çıkmış.”

Fransız Daguerre 20 yıl uğraşarak;

“Cismin görüntüsünü ışıktan arındırılmış büyük veya küçük kutu şeklinde olan aletin önündeki camdan geçerek içerde resmolunur. Içeri yansıyan resmin bir satıh (cilveli ayna) üzerinde zaptolunması için bazı eczaların hazırlanması gerekir. Bakır levhaya sürülen maddeye iyot ismi verilir. Bu levha iyodun buharına birkaç dakika tutulduktan sonra hemen karanlık kutuya konur. Beş dakika müddetle kutunun penceresinden geçen görüntü resimlenir” = DAGUERROTYPE.

Talbot isimli bir İngiliz de güneş ışığını aynı biçimde kullanır.

Abdülmecit’ten sonra tahta Abdülaziz geçer. Abdülaziz Avrupa’yı ziyaret eden ilk Sultan’dır. Abdülaziz’den sonra tahta V.Murad, ardından da II.Abdülhamit çıkar. II.Abdülhamit Osmalı’da fotoğrafın en büyük destekleyicisi ve koruyucusu olur. Kendisi de fotoğraf çekmektedir. Fotoğrafçılara ülkedeki olayları ve temel kurumları belgeleme görevi verir. Donanma gemileri, askeri kuruluşlar, fabrikalar, devlet binaları, okul, karakol, cami, arkeolojik görünüm ve doğa fotoğrafları çektirir. Bu dönemde çekilen fotoğraflar bugün İstanbul Üniversitesi Kütüphanesi’nde bulunan 800 civarında “Yıldız Albümleri”ndedir. 1850’lerin sonuna doğru fotoğrafçılık faaliyetleri, en azından İstanbul’da, ilk kalkış noktalarını bulmuştur. Bu ilk önceleri yabancıların eseridir (gezginler, görevliler, Tanzimat programlarında çalışan mühendis veya teknisyenler). Ardından gelenler ise, yerel olmakla birlikte kültürel ve dini azınlıklar (çoğunluğu Ermeni ve Ortodoks Rum) arasından çıkmıştır. Bir Müslüman Türk’ün fotoğrafçılık çevresine girişi, ancak Rahmizade Bahattin ile 1910’da mümkün olmuştur.

İlk gezginler genellikle; manzara, Galata Köprüsü, müslüman mezarlıklar, Haliç’in yelkenlerle dolu şiirsel görüntüleri, Anadolu kentleri, İstanbul kıyıları, Galata ve Beyazıd Kulelerinden görüntüler, arkeolojik yapılar, İslam mimarisinden örnekler, yalı, saray, kasır, köşkleri fotoğrafladılar. Fotoğrafçılık 1870’lerle birlikte kendi temposunu yakalamıştı. Fotoğraflara giderek yeni bir unsur daha ilave edildi: İNSANLA BİRLİKTE ÇEVRE. Batılı gezginler İslam dünyasını tanıdıkça çekingenliklerini üzerlerinden atıp, makinelerini sokaktaki insanlara da yöneltmeye başlamışlardı. Anıt, çarşı, sokak, köy manzaraları ve tarihi çevre insanla birlikte fotoğraflanmaya başlandı.

Çevrenin belgelenmesinden sonra görüntüye giren insan’la birlikte portrecilik, stüdyo fotoğrafçılığı doğdu.

Stüdyo fotoğrafçılığının yaygınlaşmasıyla birlikte; simitçi,saka, kasap, berber, şerbetçi, baca temizleyicisi, bozacı, hamal tipleri çekilmeye başlandı.

Cami, sokak, kahvehane, panaroma, köpek, mezarlık, tersane, fabrika, hastane, okul, modern yapılar, köprü ve istasyonların fotoğrafları çekildi.

Osmanlı’da fotoğraflanan daha çok tatlı sular, kıyılar, yapılar, çeşmeler, Boğaziçi, panaromalar….yani hep uzak, uzaktaki ve insansız görüntüler (bugünün kimliksiz, gelenek yaratamamış bir fotoğrafçılığın temelleri). O günlerden miras kalan bir tutukluk, tutuculuk, kapalılık ve ölçülülük hali…

Türkiye’de fotoğraf(çılığ)ın böylesi bir tür yanılsama ortamında geliştiğini söyleyebiliriz. Bu ilk başta yeni keşfi ve tekniği anlamak üzere geçici bir dönem olarak düşünülebilir-di. Ancak bu dönemin yüzyıla yayılarak, hakim olarak ve kolaycılık anlamında Türkiye’de üretilen fotoğrafa sinmiş olduğunu ve büyük ölçüde bugün de devam etmekte olduğunu düşünecek olursak, Türkiye’de fotoğrafın o ilk yılların çok da fazla ilerisine geçememiş olduğunu söylemek, ağır olmakla birlikte, sanırım yanlış bir değerlendirme olmaz. Bu çerçevenin dışında tutulması gereken fotoğrafçılar ve işleri mutlaka var-dır, ancak etkileri bugün de sürmekte olan benzer bir yaklaşımın izleri, bize istisnaların kaideyi maalesef bu konuda da bozmadığını ve Türkiye’de bir fotoğraf geleneği oluşturmaya yetecek kalabalıklıkta soran, tartışan, kavga eden ve bilmediğinin peşinden gitmeye istekli istisnai bir fotoğrafçı grubunun da olmadığını sonucuna götürmektedir.

…

Fotoğrafın “karşı kıyısı” bir yanıyla tehlikeli ama bir yanıyla da çok çekici. Tehlikeli, çünkü doğrudan fotoğrafçıyla ilgili; fotoğrafçının hayata bakışı, hayattaki duruşu, soru(n)ları, zayıf yanları, korkuları, tutkuları, öfkesi, sevinci, aşkları, beceriksizlikleri, sessizlikleri, yalanları, yalnızlıkları, tutunamayışı yani kendine ait hayatıyla belki de o güne kadar yapmadığı ya da ertelediği tekinsiz pekçok karşılaşmayla ilgili. Yani yüzleşmek, karşı-laşmak ve kendinde olanı, kendine ait olanı aramak, bulmak, sorgulamak, ortaya çıkarmak ve onun peşinden türlü, çeşitli iç-seyirlere dalmak….. kaybolmak, tekrar bulmak ve tekrar kaybetmek… Yani özel olanın, içinde olanın peşinden gitmek, genel olandan kaçmak, tektipleşmeye, klişe ifade ve görüntülere teslim olmamak ve en önemlisi de sınırları zorlamak…

İşte fotoğraf buradan ve ancak bundan sonra gel(ebil)ir.

Laleper Aytek/2009

http://laleperaytek.blogspot.com/2009/12/turkiyede-fotografn-kars-kys.html

(1)Martin Gasser fotoğrafın 100 yılı, 1839-1939 için 3 evre tanımlar: 1. Öncelikli tartışma: Fotografik görüntüyü ilk kim tespit etti?, 2. Yöntemler ve tekniklerin gelişim tarihi ve 3. Görüntü olarak fotoğrafın tarihi. “Photography: A Critical Introduction”, 2nd. Edition, Edited by Liz Wells, Routledge 2000.

Laszlo Moholy-Nagy

The foundational purpose for art and artists is

to enhance, extend or refine human sense perception.

Moholy-Nagy

The closing lecture of the year 2009 on visual communication was a worth-mentioning one. It was on one of my favourite subjects, modernism, on which I had in-dept studied from an STS (science,technology and society) perspective in my previous ma study. This time I had the chance to interpret it from artists’/designers’/photographers’ points of view. Referring to the notes of Ms Ayiter that were presented in the lecture, modernism describes a series of progressive cultural movements in art and architecture, music, literature and the applied arts which emerged in the decades before 1914. Embracing change and the present, modernism encompasses the works of artists, thinkers, writers and designers who rebelled against late 19th century academic and historicist traditions, and confronted the new economic, social and political aspects of the emerging modern world.

On a Finnish Trawler by Moholy-Nagy

While we were reviewing the pioneering followers of modernist movement, we came across a so called ‘polyartist’, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy who was among the greatest modern artists, not only for the value of his individual works but for the incomparable quality of his esthetic adventure, with exploratory consistency, through several media. He was considered as a modern example of a ‘polyartist’  because he mastered at several nonadjacent arts, among them painting, kinetic sculpture, photography, film, book design and writing. He was one of the leading figures in the Bauhaus and was highly instrumental in bringing its ideas to the United States. Moholy-Nagy’s interests in a new relationship between the artist and his art, his investigations into the use of light, and his use of new materials made him a very suitable member of the Bauhaus.

In his teaching, speaking and above all in his published statements, Moholy repeatedly insisted on a foundational purpose for art and artists: to enhance, extend or refine human sense perception. He went on to structure his thoughts about modernist culture in general around the idea of a “New Vision,” a “modern way of seeing” in which photography played a pivotal role. His reasons for privileging vision in this way, for defining vision as inherently more “modern” than, say, taste or hearing, are not easily summarized.

One might even propose that the primacy of vision forms an unexamined assumption at the heart of Moholy’s conceptual project, and a point around which its meaning might be deconstructed. In any case, Moholy was perhaps the most energetic among many contemporaries who found in the phrase “New Vision” a suitable label for broad cultural shifts in the 1920s.

“New Vision” was a name for various loosely-related constructions of modernism, of which Moholy’s New Vision was one. He wrote often, in highly enthusiastic and authoritative-sounding prose poem. He seemed to articulate the feelings of many besides himself;  artists, photographers, designers, journalists; and speak for a generation, perhaps even several generations of individuals who sensed a thoroughgoing historical shift in the wind, a change that would change all the way down to one’s individual sense perception.

Vision in Motion

One of his most influential books, Vision in Motion, was first of all one of the major critical essays about artistic modernism, documenting as it proposed new developments not only in painting and sculpture, but in photography and even literature. What Moholy established in Vision in Motion was a model of writing about all the arts as a single entity, to be called art, whose branches (literature, painting, etc.) were merely false conveniences conducive to specialization and isolation.

Here are some passages from Vision in Motion:

‘Art may press for the sociobiological solution of problems just as energetically as the social revolutionaries do through political action.

Mother Europe Cares for Her Colonies by Moholy-Nagy

The so-called “unpolitical” approach of art is a fallacy. Politics, freed from graft, party connotations, or more transitory tactics, is mankind’s method of realizing ideas for the welfare of the community.’

‘The illiteracy of the future will be ignorance not of reading or writing, but of photography.’

‘The photogram exploits the unique characteristic of the photographic process—the ability to record with delicate fidelity a great range of tonal values. The almost endless range of gradations, subtlest differences in the gray values, belongs to the fundamental properties of photographic expression. The organized use of that gradation creates photographic quality.’

Moholy’s analysis of Finnegans Wake, a comic fiction by James Joyce

For all of its intelligence about modern art in general, Vision in Motion is also an “artist’s book,” or book-art of the highest order, about Moholy’s rich esthetic experience, and needless to say perhaps it is a book that only he had enough experience to write and design as well. If we accept the revelations of Conceptual Art that a prose description of artistic experience could constitute an esthetic object, then Vision in Motion has yet other resonances that not even Moholy could have foreseen.

References:

Modernism on http://www.citrinitas.com/history_of_viscom/modernists.html

Afterimage articles:  In Focus: Laszlo Moholy-Nagy by Nancy Roth on http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2479/is_n1_v25/ai_20198550/?tag=content;col1

Moholy-Nagy: To End in a book by Richard Kostelanetz on http://www.richardkostelanetz.com/examples/moholy.php

A Small History of Photography by Walter Benjamin on A Small History of Photography

An update

Here is an update for my entry about sound design. After my trial on designing the sounds of Rubber Johnny movie, I tried to design a jingle for a sound assignment.  Now I am sure I really am very interested in composing and designing sounds for visuals. I didn’t realize how time passed while working on this. This was a commercial of Smirnoff and the original commercial was really mild, having no effects, only an acapella jingle. What interests me is creating the sound effects and trying to create a surround sound perception. I definetely will be working more on this… Here is my first jingle for a commercial:

Das Experiment

I have been experimenting on some psychological stuff these days. The reason is that I have become the unconscious of Müjde Hanım for a project and exhibition for our visiting artist class in uni. What I decided to exhibit is the tree that could have been drawn by Mujde Hanım, so that I will be able to show her innerself in a single piece of work. So I went out to forest, examined all the trees until I found the one that most resembled what I would have drawn if I were her.

Here I must give some information about the tree test of Koch, so as to illustrate why I had chosen this tree as a representation for her unconscious: The tree test is a projective test in which the person is asked to draw a tree(in my case it is the photo of it). In doing so, the participant expresses some aspects of his or her personality, ‘projecting’ his or her deep emotional way of confronting life. Koch (1964) points out that in the development of cultures, the tree has always been the synthesizing symbol of life. Bound to the earth with its roots and with trunk and and leafy branches outstreched, the tree symbolizes the fundamental antithesis of man, who must find a psychological equilibrium between materialism and spiritualism, between security and the continuing struggle with the events  of the external environment, between the dark, silence and slow movement of the underworld and the light, stimuli and lively reproduction on the surface. Koch used the test to study the development of man from infancy to adulthood and the effects of schooling, degree of intelligence, and psychological state, normal or disturbed.

The test is used much less today than in Koch’s time, because many others have been more suitable to the problems of technological society such as the reactions to the stimuli and demands of industry, to urbanization and consumerism and to standardized work. It is used in trying to understand the the personality and mental attitude of adults especially in diverse cultures…

Update:

Before I worked on the project that I wrote about in the above post, I was also thinking and experimenting on my own innerself and tried to visualize some of my deepest fears that I am aware of today… I am not sure if I am on the right track but this is what I came up with at the end of the day…

The metaphor of ‘light’

One of the deepest fears is probably getting hurt in the most unexpected time/place/way. My photo on the left  is a metaphor of course, the ‘hurt’ mentioned here is more psychological than physical. Probably that is the reason why our walls towards others are mostly as high as possible these days, like always in my case…

Spiral of Cistern

To fall into the state of  monotony and banal, to get bored of or not satisfied from what you create is probably one of the nightmares for the most as well…

Fear of death, unevitable for all…

I think this fear is good in a way since it is the stimulus that makes you live the way you like and appreciate at least being alive…

Short cuts are dangerous

Of course short cuts are dangerous. Do I like danger? Not very much. I am a bit coward in this terms. I always follow my dad’s motto: the way you are familiar is the one that is most suitable. That may be the reason I am a bit late on my way. I take my time to digest everything and decide on the next move.But isn’t it also a paradox that I always take risks in my life:) I have started from the beginning quiet a lot of times taking many risks in order to do what I have always dreamed of. Weird enough for a hesitant…

My first sound design

I am very in to sound designing these days.  In my Sound and Image class, I created and designed the sounds of Chris Cunningham’s Rubber Johnny for one of the assignments in which I tried to create a disturbing athmosphere. I consider myself as a good listener and appreciator, if there is such a word:), of music however I had never tried sound design before I started my masters in VACD. I used to play around in Garage Band of my mac and tried mixing but this one is literally my first sound design work. I really liked playing with loops and creating sounds and effects for movies so this one will obviously not be the last.

Now I decided to work on the Modern Times of Charlie Chaplin for my term project .

So, here is my sound version of Rubber Johnny of Chris Cunningham;

A collection of my collections

I like collecting things. I don’t know why but it all started when I went to watch a theater play when I was 13. It was a musical, an operetta in fact, named Meşhed-i İbad:) Well, I am not that old to know what it means but I remember that it was written by Uzeyir Hacibeyov in 1910. I also vaguely recall that it was a humourous play ridiculing money-driven people from all casts.

It was a nice introduction for me to theater plays written and performed for grownups. I was really impressed from the play and bought the booklet of it for future reference and got lost in it. That day I decided to collect all the booklets of plays I watch. Now they are nearly 200 and I like to read them from time to time.

Together with the booklets, I also started to collect tickets. It was unintented though, one day I found out that I left the tickets of the plays I watched inside the booklets:) So that made my second collection. It isn’t limited with the plays now, tickets of concerts I have been to are also added to the collection.

Then came the LP period. When my uncle decided to get rid of his antique music box, I jumped on it. My rivals were far more older than I am but I did not let anyone to have the guts and attempt to take it. They must have thought that I was a real freak:)

People of my age, my sister for example, were collecting issues of girly magazines like Blue Jean, or trying to find out if the Milli Vanilli was real or not like perfectly normal youngsters while I was trying to find out the cheapest old bookstores (sahaf) where I can buy new LPs. I hate trendy things so I gave up collecting LPs for the time being until an ambiguous period. Now I am collecting old photographs, postcards and notebooks instead. The last time I went to Aslıhan Passage in İstiklal, where there are quite a number of sahafs, I found some notes from 1970s, where a girl wrote about the most important inventions of all times in her studybook. She wrote about the steam engine 40 years ago, about which we also had a lesson in our history of visual communication class  last week.

The same invention, different interpretations; this is what amazes me about the old stuff and one of the many reasons why I continue collecting old things although I have a fear of turning my house into a museum some day:) I will come back to this subject later on after a personal in-depth analysis of the reasons regarding my obsession to old stuff. Who knows, this analysis may lead me to a new path in my thesis or in my life.

I will let you know…

I’ve lost touch with my soul

‘As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of

human existence is to kindle a light in the

darkness of mere being’

Carl Gustav Jung

I had the weirdest dream ever last night. The last couple of weeks I was rushing from one place to the other, trying to do lots at the same time yet not being satisfied from anything I do with my split mind. For example I was desperately trying to find a project to work on for one of my grad classes and I was really stuck. Suddenly I realized quiet painfully that I had lost the contact with my soul somewhere in the cacaphony. Thanks god, the catalyst I needed came quick, with this dream.  After a stressfull and tiring day, I experienced a weird moment in the lucid period  just before falling asleep. It is hard to explain and I really don’t want to mention it here, since it was a bit disturbing for me. It was quiet real and the reality of it made me remember every detail when I woke up. The day after, I found myself reading and refering to one of my favourite psychologist of all times, Carl Gustav Jung. And an idea just flashed in my head when I read about the ‘Red Book’ that was released very recently this year, 48 years after he died. Why do I not try doing my own version of  ‘Red Book’, I asked to myself…

Carl Gustav Jung

Before giving some more information about the new book, I would like to make a very brief introduction for him. Carl Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist and founder of so called analytical psychology. His unique and broadly influential approach to psychology has emphasized understanding the psyche through exploring the worlds of dreams, art, mythology, world religion and philosophy. Although he was a theoretical psychologist and clinician for most of his life, much of his life’s work was spent exploring other realms, including Eastern and Western philosophy, alchemy, astrology, sociology, as well as literature and the arts. Jung emphasized the importance of balance and harmony. He cautioned that modern humans rely too heavily on science and logic and would benefit from integrating spirituality and appreciation of the unconscious realm. Carl Jung was also among many great personality theorists who drew inspiration and guidance from the ancient Greek Four Temperaments model and its various interpretations over the centuries. Carl Jung’s key book in this regard, which extended and explained his theories about personality types, was Psychological Types, published in 1921.

The Red Book

The Red Book is a nearly 100-year-old book, bound in red leather, which has spent the last quarter century secreted away in a bank vault in Switzerland. It is big and heavy and its spine is etched with gold letters that say “Liber Novus,” which is Latin for “New Book.” Its pages are made from thick cream-colored parchment and filled with paintings of otherworldly creatures and handwritten dialogues with gods and devils. As written by Sara Corbett in the New York Times magazine, between the book’s heavy covers a very modern story unfolds. It goes as follows: Man skids into midlife and loses his soul. Man goes looking for soul. After a lot of instructive hardship and adventure — taking place entirely in his head — he finds it again.

Apart from its intrinsic interest, it is a magnificent work of art (the original is on show at the Rubin Museum in New York). Written in German Gothic script, with an English translation, it is illustrated with tempera paintings by Jung which reveal him to be a gifted, if sometimes frightening, artist. Jung spent from 1914 to 1930 working on the book, which he felt had emerged from his “confrontation with the unconscious”. There is no final text, only an unfinished manuscript corpus. Yet it enables the reader to gain a window into the genesis of Jung’s psychology in a way that none of his published works has done. He develops his theory of “individuation”: that is, how personality develops over time and how an individual is split between the “I” (conscious existence) and the “self” (total personality including the unconscious mind). Jung came to believe that he had lost touch with his “soul”, that he had sacrificed it to science. “The Red Book” shows, in literary and symbolic form, his own process of individuation.

I also will try to confront with my unconscious and try to create my own version of the ‘Red Book’ for my project. I hope I can manage to finish it in one piece and not get further lost.

History of visual communication: a totally personal case study:)

‘I am always doing what I can not, in order that I may learn how to do it.’ This motto of Pablo Picasso has always been my inspiration throughout my life. Besides, how can I know what I can’t without giving it a try. Whenever this thought starts to wander around my mind, I know that it’s time to follow what it says. And that is always what happened…

To give you an idea about the reason of this entry, I have to go back in time and tell you about some milestones of my life. My emotional path has nourished from various types of art, from literature to music. In my early 10s, reading became my favourite hobby. When I was around 15, a play called ‘Animal Farm’ presented by Ankara State Theater brought a different perspective to my life. I realized that a book I read could turn into a visual feast in creative hands.The sound and the effects together with the striking message given in a predictable yet subjective way made me even more impressed than the book itself. From then on, I had a feeling that visual arts could be the best media to express my feelings. Well, luckily I was born to a family appreciating all forms of art. Especially my grandpa was a talent, he used to write poems for every occasion (the first person who wrote a poem for me was him, and probably will be the last:)), take photographs of me and my sister with his pentax, playing accordion from time to time. His talents did not pass to my mom though. In fact neither my mom nor my dad is talented in any art form.

Being a pilot, my dad was mostly away for  work that time and my mom used to take us to preschool nursery everyday. That was the place my portfolio started to emerge:)

This was supposed to be our car..

I would rather eat this now, I guess I lost my talent:)

futuristic:) I must be the next leonardo predicting the flying cars a hundred years ago:)

not bad for a 4 year old:)

how capitalistic...

the great genious of maths..

hahaha, what an abstract:)

Well, a couple of years passed. I decided to leave my painting career at its peak and decided to express myself  in different media and started to learn how to read and write. I was a very well imitator of the cavemen but a bit faster than them in learning how to write. Everything started with an innocent line. If I knew it would later rule my world, I would be a bit more reluctant to learn:)

Oh, one thing to add, I was a left handed until that time. When I started writing, my teacher forced me to change it, I don’t know for what silly reason. It turned out to be handy though, now I can use both hands. But I’m not sure about my mixed up brain, can it be the reason underlying all my problems:))

first lines...

then sentences...

When I learned how to read and write properly, I started to better express myself. Whenever I was angry with someone, my mom for example, I started to write a letter

what a shame:)

and leave it on her bed. I had a diary and a book for my friends to write their best wishes for me:) Those were the times I was trying to discover what I like. I tried several signitures for example to find the right one, although I couldn’t succeed for a long time. I went to music courses and learned how to play organ, I sang with the children choir of TRT Ankara, played in theater plays at school. Nothing satisfied me as writing did. 

Then came the communication period. Since the best way to do it was writing for me, I started to write to my friends. When I started to learn English, I even found a pen friend from Singapore. We were exchanging cards, drawing sketches for eachother and sending the letters via post. Waiting for an answer was a problem of course. My youth had passed by waiting:))

I also tried to write poems, stories, etc. after primary school and got my first publication of a fictitious article when I was 14. This was also the first money I had earned from a work of mine:) Well, when I read it now, I find it quiet awful but for that time, I quess it was ok:)

Poetry started to take a huge place in my life that time as well. I wrote lots of acrostics to the teachers I liked (how embarrasing:)). It became my favourite technique so I started to write acrostics for everyone I know, I even wrote to the president Özal for example (which I am not proud of now) and Barış Manço that time (a beloved person for me as a child due to his programme I liked to watch and received a nice letter from him which made me extremely happy to get a reaction from someone famous…

that money turned into a lewis 501 that time:)

the first published work of mine

every kind of social messages are given in poems, just consult me:)

Here comes the end of the first half of my history of visual communication. I hope to go on for the second part later on…

So, to be continued…