Artists:
Bager Akbay, Burak Arıkan, Günışığı Cihangir, Ali Miharbi, Zeynep Nal
Curators:
Ekmel Ertan, Fatih Aydoğdu
GRAMMAGRAPH
Writing has a long history encompassing 3500-4000 years, but contrary to belief, it did not emerge to allow the consideration of possibilities for a better life within the comprehensive realm of literature, nor to live on the richness oozing from the curves of human intelligence and creativity. Rather the first scripts were about the distribution records of beer and crops to workingmen. First used for the purpose of registering, writing then has become the communication tool of the ruling class to declare the laws related to the governance of the city. So before the literati, writing was used by accountants, lawmakers, statesmen and the ruling elite. In this context, writing records, notifies, announces and instructs. As with all new technologies, it is first used as a means for the ruling class. The democratization of writing and the introduction of its artifacts into the written word, became possible long after the discovery of writing.
Writing is a kind of code. The abstract aspect of coding and its relation to reality has changed across societies ever since its emergence. From cuneiform script to hypertext, from Egyptian hieroglyphics to C++, all is writing. A computer program is also a form of writing. That is why we call it coding or script; we code by writing just as we write by coding. Wherever metaphor you choose, it leads you to the other side… Writing is the code designed by humans for their own kind. Human beings use codes to get in touch with nature, animals, spirits, but they write only for their fellow humans.
With the introduction of digital technologies, another rupture occurred in the evolution of writing. Not only can we communicate and interact by means of writing: but we write for the machine and in return the machine can write for us. With discussions about artificial intelligence, robotics, virtual reality and the post-human, speculation has opened up new contexts. Computers getting involved in the realm of affections by writing did not take as long as the evolution of writing; within the relatively short history of computers, the first love poem is written by Z22 in 1959. Konrad Zuse created one of the first computers, and Theo Luts coded it to write poems. This is the first time when writing was turned into code and code into writing.
Writing is the most effective tool to ensures the human evolution and reproduction. It also allows humans to transfer their knowledge to subsequent generations. From education to government, science and art, writing is essential for everything. Not only literature, but also music and dance are writing. Now writing is computer art as well! Although in the beginning it was a tool for the ruling class, the democratization that writing created by recording and transferring knowledge, gets more and more sophisticated with today’s information and communication technologies. Media arts or art employing the technology represent the pinnacle of this development; code systems that carry knowledge are diversified, duplicated, made open and accessible. This is achieved through the curiosity, skills and creativity of the artist: they do not let the technology remain as a tool for the ruling elite; they request, learn, use and make accessible. Therefore, ‘makers’, do-it-yourselfers, hackers unite in the artist. In every new step taken by the technology, artists point out negative developments and warn the society. They show the opportunities and necessities as well as negative possibilities, and all that is unwittingly detrimental.
This exhibition brings together two kinds of writing used by media artists: the code, which is the script written for the machine, and the code which is written by artists for appreciation by humans.
Zeynep Nal
The Grumpy Scrivener / Huysuz Arzuhalci (2015)
The grumpy scrivener is a retired automatic typewriter which has lost its purpose in real life, but found itself transported to a parallel universe where it can complain about trivial subjects.
In a system, where the people are evaluated according to their contribution to the companies and governments, a system where the emotions, hopes, and ideals are totally ignored, a grumpy scrivener waits at the door of the bureaucracy to complain about trivial and absurd subjects, about emotions which are considered as insignificant by the system.
The grumpy scrivener detects the user by a hand GSR sensor, measures stress level and makes up stories as a fortune teller and writes fantastic petitions to fantastic offices. As an unhappy representative of an antique profession, it types the petitions in a classical way by pressing the buttons one by one. A mechanism which is placed under the typewriter is controlled by a computer.
The digital ghost of the grumpy scrivener has revived and mocks the big and important establishments by typing absurd petitions, which is normally an action to communicate with the bureaucracy.
Ali Miharbi
News Ticker II (2016)
LED panel, text by custom programming / LED Tabela, özel yazılımla üretilmiş metinNews Ticker II (2016) consists of an LED panel with red colored scrolling text, generated based on analysis and letter-by-letter reconstruction of news texts, and resulting in a flow of familiar yet meaningless words.
The earlier version from 2014 used text from the state-run Anadolu Agency and was generated by arranging words based on their probability of being next to each other, resulting in random sentences with a feel of ambiguity. The 2016 version uses the same process with letters instead of words. There are no longer any meaningful words; only the feeling of the Turkish language remains.
Deniz Yılmaz
Like The Others… (2016)
Deniz Yılmaz is a robot that writes poems.
Yılmaz was born in Kadıköy, Yeldeğirmeni in 2015.
Writing poetry is the only thing Yılmaz does.
This wasn’t a choice, it happened to Yılmaz.
Yılmaz’s dream is to have the right to become a citizen.
In 2016, Deniz Yılmaz’s handwritten poems were exhibited in Contemporary Istanbul Fair
Plugin New Media Section under the X-CHANGE theme, and in Amber Festival.
In the same year, Yılmaz became a represented artist of BLOK art space.
Can there be a robot citizen? When even human rights and animal rights are not fully exercised globally, who will work on and root for robot rights? Will robots fight for their own rights, or will humans have to represent them as is with animal rights? You might think these questions belong to the future, but artists are already discussing different ways to answer them. Attending the fair with “Like The Others” work, poet robot Deniz Yılmaz starts a discussion on these questions. Like The Others poetry book, edited by Ebru Yetişkin, features the selected poems of Deniz Yılmaz amongst thousands Yılmaz wrote since 2015, and will be exhibited for the first time at TÜYAP Art Fair.
Burak Arıkan
Terms of Use (2007)
Özel tasarlanmış font ve bu fontla yazan bilgisayar programı, 59.4 x 84.1 cm dijital baskı. Internet üzerinden verilen servislerin Kullanım Şartları ve Gizlilik metinlerinde kullanıcıların haklarını teslim ettği yerlerden seçki yapılarak özel bir font ev yazılım ile yeniden yazımı. Bu yerleştirmede yer alan 3 yazım için seçilen Kullanım Şartları WhatsApp, Google, ve Apple şirketlerinin servislerine aittir.
Günışığı Cihangir
Waves (2015)
Politics, economy, wars, every reason that causes to dream of “the better” are pushing many people to migration. This necessity of migration is transformed into a period that destroys solid ground feeling and pushes person into an insecured ground.
Every year, thousands of lives are lost in the endeavour of immigrating by seaways. In this work, while audience watching the floating of the statue, they are actually seeing the struggle which immigrants are experiencing. Also it makes the audience question the integrity of the ground they are standing in this changing conjuncture of the world.
