My Highlights from Moving Image Istanbul 2014

Nancy Atakan and Volkan Aslan, Any Questions?, 2014, at 5533

It’s a simple video showing a kind of collective performance involving five people from the local art scene scribbling questions on a found blackboard. Sentences written on the board refer to the questions raised in projects and discussions held by the artists’ initiative in Istanbul. I like the way the more the number of actors or the discussion augments, the more vague and illegible the questions become.

Shaun Gladwell, Study of Stillness and Balance, 2014, at Mark Moore Gallery

In this video we watch the artist performing in order to find his balance on an unmoving bicycle. He tries to stay as still as possible within various urban spaces at nighttime. I like the way the artist treats the notion of stillness and balance as a connecting metaphor between the spiritual culture and the modern or contemporary notion of well-being in the sociopolitical context. 

Mounir Fatmi, Technologia, 2010, at Analix Forever

A sophisticated and complex work that links ancient traditional techniques of art making, such as Arabic calligraphy, with the veteran of conceptual art, Marcel Duchamp, and his optical art, to unveil the modern and industrialized society. In an exploration of circular movement in the ancient and modern world, the artist contributes to the debate, or ongoing negotiation, between East and West, or tradition and modernity.