Proje analizi

The name of the course “representations of urban experiences” has been a challenging and an exciting quest for me all through the semester. One day, after we discussed objective and subjective experiences in the class, I challenged myself to pursue an unknown, ambigous project. I wanted to distance myself from the job and try to answer my questions about relatively “objective” representation through an experimental project. The reason why I intended to make a project on the similarities of world cities and the techniques I adopted in this project have one main motivation. It is that I have always wondered throughout the semester whether or not one true single representation was possible. Second reason is that I have always thought myself untalented for visual arts. Hence, I asked as many people as I can reach to send me two photographs, one of which showing their window’s view and as for the second one I left them free to send whatever they feel about their city. The content of the project is designed to answer whether or not all the cities, constructed by human needs, have same elements which make them “city” and the method used, aims to answer if I, as the owner of the project, can break the mechanisms of subjectivity in the experience of respresentations.
In order to analyse the experience of the city, we should first of all answer the question “what makes a place “city.” According to “Harvard Project on the City”, “a city is [a place] organised according to a set of series of general principles which are socially, culturally and politically determined, and in most cases manifested in clear architectural and urban examples.” This defition of city points to the relationship between the physical appearence of the cities and their historical urges. A city is not only a cultural and political construction, for cities carry the collective memory of earlier forms constituted by human needs. Although the outer appearance of the world cities may differ from place to place and time to time, the original city form always remains in our collective memory. (Boyer, 73.)
As a result, my aim in the project should not be to trace the physical similarities that are shaped by culture but it should be to point to the common cultural and political tendencies which affect their perception and experience of the urban places they are living in. However, it was not easy to catch these common points in the first months of the Project. Eventhough I receieved and filed over 200 photographs from 40 world cities, contributors at first were inclined to send lifeless landmarks of their cities. It was as if they were conditioned to percieve the city not as it is but as it should be. However, there is a slight difference in the perception of city among the Turks living abroad and natives of the foreign cities. For the “guests” of a city, repsentation was built over the similarities between their homelands. However, natives were stressing the uniqueness of their cities. For instance, from Dubai I contacted two women from similar ages. First one was a Turkish socialogist living in Dubai for 3 months and the second one was an Arab woman coming from a rich family. When I saw these two pairs of photos, it was quite a shock. Turkish woman sent a modern building with a global Master Card ad in the front side, whereas Arab woman sent a photograph in which one could easily sense the uniqueness of Dubai, with its brand new cars, men with white gowns and women with black veils.
Apart from this instance, my other observation was that Turks were less willing to send the views from their windows. I didnot have the chance to ask why but if we consider the fact that the photos they were sending picturing the ideal city scenes, we may infer that contributors from Turkey are not contented with the lives they are continuing. They ignore the place they wake up and go after the desired city. As Sardar stated, the inference might have to do with the fact that we are living in the the non-West world and “city is taken as the embodiment of what is to be modern, the distillation of its meaning that emanates centrifugal forces sucking in all life, forcing it into conformity according to its pattern of complexity.”
The other problem of the project was about two faced ethical issues of such a vulnerable, ambigous project. The first question was that if my aim is to the break the underlying subjective mechanisms of representation, to what extend I should manipulate the photos. The method used in eliminating the photos was embodying a certain strategy. It was aiming in to find the similarities. But then, manipulation and an omnicient touch was apparent in the job. Hence, eventhough I could show the “multiply-city” by means of adding various personel view points to the job, in the end they turn out to be one single experience designed to prove an idea.
The second vulnerability was that, giving all the freedom to people I have never known, brings together many ethical issues. Whose photographs I am using is always a mystery. Asking for especially amateur photos, I didnot have any mediums to check whose photos I am using.The only control point was to make them write small notes on the photos so that I could believe that it was their own experience. In deed, I had professional press photographers who wanted to contribute as well as amateur city folks who took the photographs by cellphones. My attiutude in solving this ethical issue was altogether emotional. Whenever I felt something wrong about the photo, I chose not to use.
In the beginning I was thinking of using a narrative voice to build a story and to emphasise the similarities between the phtoograph on the scene with a voice from İstanbul. However, throughout the project, almost like a miracle, I started to get very to the point photographs from İstanbul and wanted to weave the narrative through dramatic effects, music and sequence of photos.
The movie part of the film shoots a desprate, beat-like young man, who had taken note on his agenda on the day 21th of June as “It is time to hit the road.” This is a one day journey of the young man, hence the name of the movie is “June 21th.” Waking up one morning, he feels disoriented, unable to separate reality from dream vision. He wonders where he is and opens the curtains. In this scene, we come across a fast flow of window photos. The quickness emphasises the alienation of the chracter to reality. The moment he recognises that he is in İstanbul, he takes leave for journey.
In the “Invisible Cities” the man lacks the knowlegde what is waiting for him in the city. It is almost same as the man in this Project. “He wonders what the palace will be like, the barracks, the mill, the theather, the bazaar.” He also questions if he can buy similar foods, go similar square, pass similar bridges, get on similar trams, face similar resistance to authority, what then distinguishes his city from all the rest. The answer is not given in the film. But I believe that as long as people live and have the same needs to continue their lives, the difference of the world cities are economically and politically motivated physical differences.
The city one lives in is a vicious cylce. It starts in our homes and ends in our homes. It starts from a window scene and ends with a window scene where tow little boys are captivated behind windows. Cities are places where one loses his innocence. The moment one tries to break the fence of the window and tries to go out will end his life in despair. This is the reason why my character in the city tries to run away by a tram whenever he sees boys beaten up by authority. This is the reason why my character searches for peace in religious places and find himself in the bazaar, noisy, money based, mechanic and inhuman. This is the reason why he wants to get on a train to go away and finds himself locked up in his room.