Proto5533: STEREO-REALITY

Artists: Volkan Şenozan, Deniz Tortum
Curator: Ulya Soley
6 – 27 February 2016, Saturdays 12:00- 18:00

Opening: February 6, Saturday, 16:00 – 18:00
İMÇ 5. Blok No: 5533, Unkapanı-Istanbul

After-Party: February 6, Saturday, 21:00 – 01:00
COOP, İstiklal Caddesi, Suriye Pasajı No: 166

Talk: Cinema vs. Games
Fatma Çolakoğlu (Film and Video Curator at Pera Museum) and
Hasan Çolakoğlu (Country Manager- Turkey for Riot Games)
20 February 2016, 16:00

Publication: SECRETS ARE LIES
Edited by Berk Çakmakçı
Contributors: Aslı Serbest & Mona Hatoum, Austin White, Bora Akıncıtürk, Can Evrenol, Deniz Tortum, Erdal İnci, Fatma Çolakoğlu, Gabriel Sanchez, Onur Gökmen, Ulya Soley, Volkan Şenozan, Yılmaz Şen.

‘On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.’(1)

Proto5533 presents STEREO-REALITY with Volkan Şenozan and Deniz Tortum, curated by Ulya Soley, which explores how ‘post-internet’ art accommodates the current equations of private is public, real is virtual and secrets are lies.

Seemingly, the boundaries between public and private life have been dissolving as the rise of the digital (the Internet as a $11 trillion economy) continues. As increasingly more personal lives become public online, ‘you exist as much as you expose yourself’ motto pushes its way into the culture, and surveillance is internalized. At the same time, alternative methods are increasingly used to secure privacy in this current situation. What are some visual consequences of this duality, especially regarding the ‘post-internet’(2) works? The exhibition takes its title from Virilio’s idea that rather than replacing reality, virtual reality sits alongside actual reality, so that our current reality consists of two overlapping channels, much like stereo-vision or stereo-sound, and it brings together video and audio installations of Deniz Tortum, an experimental video and filmmaker, and Volkan Şenozan, an artist known for his net-based digital collages and videos.

Deniz Tortum’s single channel video Corridor of Memories Walkthrough (2015), stands at the intersection of game and video art, which enables a sort of slacktivism, inviting the audience to watch but not to participate. In this “anti-game”, the artist walks between hills made of his and his poet friends' images, and on the left hand corner he appears as a regular gamer. The work explores the social implications of using computer-generated models. These models are able to provoke the relationship between a real world that is lost, and can be replaced by its representations made solely for computers/machines.

Volkan Şenozan’s audio-installation Desiring Machine version 2.2 (2016) features improvements and refinements to the previous editions. Its title refers to Deleuze and Guattari’s Anti-Oedipus, in which they explain the mechanical nature of desire. Comprised of a printed drapery hung from the ceiling, its imagery predicts a sterile future while its materiality functions as a cover. Its audio component is a robotic voice that starts speaking out the following sentence: “I am a machine (a real one). I breathe, I heat, I shit and fuck.”

A publication accompanying the exhibition and edited by artist Berk Çakmakçı, brings together writing and visual works from different fields that adopt a certain common language, engaging with the ‘post-internet’ culture and presents a bilingual resource on the subject matter. Overall, the exhibition will explore what could be produced out of this dynamic with our current tools and strategies.

Peter Steiner, Caption of The New Yorker cartoon, published by The New Yorker on July 5, 1993.
Although the term ‘post-internet’ was first used in 2006 by Marisa Olson, it opened up a wide dialogue, and it was discussed, changed and evolved continuously since then. Here it refers to a certain common language of art engaged with the Internet.

Deniz Tortum is a filmmaker and a graduate student at MIT Comparative Media Studies. His first feature film, Zayiat has been screened internationally, including SxSW and !F Istanbul Film Festivals. At MIT, Deniz is also a research assistant at Open Documentary Lab; his research currently focuses on documentary games and virtual reality.
deniztortum.co

Volkan Şenozan was born in Ankara in 1984, studied economics at Izmir University of Economics. He developed an interest in coding around 2007, which eventually lead to an enthusiasm towards new media arts. His art utilizes disturbing images of taboo subjects. Highlights disruptive phenomena in a hidden yet brave and ambiguous style. He uses aggressive montage combined with partly found-footage material and mental as well as visual mind games, such as hidden links, resulting in a powerfully crude final image. He had a solo show “Real as a Feeling” at Torun, Ankara in 2014. Lives and works in Istanbul.
volkansenozan.com

Ulya Soley studied Art History and Psychology at McGill University. She co-founded Maybe Art Projects, an independent platform that explores ways of curating. Currently she works at Pera Museum and regularly contributes to Istanbul Art News.

Special thanks to: Fatma Çolakoğlu, Mari Spirito, Volkan Aslan, Nancy Atakan, Cenk Al, Selim Can Bilgin, November Paynter, Hasan Çolakoğlu, Emre Gözgü, Onur Gökmen, Gabriel Sanchez, Can Evrenol, Aslı Serbest, Mona Hatoum, Bora Akıncıtürk, Yılmaz Şen, Austin White, Erdal İnci, and contributors of Proto5533’s fundraising campaign on KissKiss BankBank.

Proto5533 presents exhibitions by emerging artists and curators, with guidance from art professionals, mentor curators, from Istanbul and abroad. Proto5533 is a collaboration by Protocinema, an itinerant, site-aware art organization, protocinema.org, and 5533, an artist run space, imc5533.blogspot.com.tr, bringing together an active generation and providing the relationships and tools to nurture its meaningful growth.

Selected Curators: Naz Cuguoğlu, Kevser Güler, Mehmet Kahraman, Ghaith Mofeed, Nicole O'Rourke, Ilhan Ozan, Ulya Soley. Mentor Curators: Celenk Bafra, Curator, Istanbul Modern, Istanbul; Anne Ellegood, Senior Curator, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Övül Durmusoğlu, Independent Curator Berlin/Istanbul; Anthony Huberman, Chief Curator, Wattis ICA, San Francisco; November Paynter, Associate Director of Research and Programs, SALT; Yasmil Raymond, Associate Curator, Museum of Modern Art, New York; Mari Spirito, Director, Protocinema, Istanbul/New York; François Quintin, Director Fondation d'entreprise Galeries Lafayette, Paris.

For more information please contact: Mari Spirito, +1917 660 7332, +90541 468 02 14, mari@protocinema.org, or Ulya Soley, +90537 2010111, ulyasoley@gmail.com