OpenWork is a performative space and a theatrical exhibition of transitions. It is all about this rigidity we call the world. Definitions; with corners and walls to be crashed. All the teachings and perceptions that squeeze human being into a concrete mentality only. All the boundaries that make the 'one' the 'other'.

 

The abstract gates and the plan created by the resonating audible surfaces that work just like a musical instrument turn into a game of 'exchange' with the touch of the visitor. While the installation embodies a monumental spatial arrangement and size intentionally, this hierarchical immunity is accompanied by tonality and flexibility when the visitors come into contact with the space. At this point, it is as if those big stones are moved, the meanings are reversed, and the decisiveness in which the human is in the center becomes essential. This game is also a gentle/soft protest and a gentle question mark to the new world that is established or created in front of us.

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Fragments of Experience

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A ghost in the middle of the city.

A relatively large crowd welcomes us.

We cannot fully perceive the state of being inside and outside.

The space is open to us.

At the same time, monolithic surfaces also act as illusions.

We cannot find ourselves a place for unity of time and space to embody it with our behavior.

And this orientation effort makes us a part of the installation.

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In installation, the visitors become the exhibiting piece of the exhibition.

 

The themes of replacement, exchange, come into play as soon as the work meets the visitor.

The visitor, installation, ground, time, power, and the boundaries of all these are now vague. The installation, visitor, power, the one which is passive, determinant and permeable are all uncertain.

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We touch the surface.

The surface responds to us.

It continues with the reaction of the gates and the installation

Meanwhile, somewhere else in the installation, there are other people

who are also interacting with the surface.

Gates, silhouettes, changing power dynamics, versatility,

deconstruction of rigidity, all together,

we continue as an experimental game, maybe

maybe as an interaction.

But that's actually inside the scene.

The main position is in the audience.

Watching this is actually going through a gate, again

watching the transformation of an era (example of Pruitt Igoe) and playing with power.

 

All this creates an unpredictable union.

This is not a sculpture, or a performance or a space. In fact,

It is a reality

that is consumed as soon as it is produced in the mind of the one who is inside and the spectator, and that is destroyed along with it.

 

We stay here for a while.

Maybe silence reigns, maybe that voice.

The surrounding is illusionary.

But our senses are sharp

We focus on sound.

And we leave.

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The Way, Process, Materials

 

It is essential to ensure the negotiation and interaction between the subconscious, consciousness and matter in production. We all agree that art and design are not just about the matter. It is essential to ensure that perception and matter appeal to all senses. And there, it is important to create a change of consciousness, a mind game through matter. All of this leads us to the choice of material and its ironic relationship with form.

 

The representation of our ironic monumental form is, of course, stone. We take lightness against the (heavy) weight of the stone, intangible and unchangeable. This lightness refers to a feeling of softness, changeability and inclusion rather than lightness as a matter. This again brings us to the instrument. We make the whole arrangement from thin metal springs. We make this space that we can stay against all its weight, and get involved. This is the tangible equivalent of our form that is an experiment of change of meaning which is not an impersonisation.

 

With this choice, the audience sees that they are in a non-stop fictional place. On the one hand, they feel and experience otherness. The gates intentionally do not connect to form a wall or corridor. Instead, it acts as a free passage. We show all the infrastructure that supports this atmosphere and narrative without hiding it. This situation is part of the installation. Light and sound systems and structures are not hidden and reveal themselves, which makes the audience go back and forth between fiction and reality. This is what we want.

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Surfaces

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Surfaces are resonating, auditory gates and walls, creating a sound as if an instrument. As visitors touch, the installation becomes a performance that makes a sound and stretches. With this, the stone surface references and the continuity goes through a change in meaning. And this creates another mise-en-scene.

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Walls don't exist; gates are open, permeable and for everyone. This replacement we create with material finds meaning with surfaces.

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Performative Space, Condition and the Command of Control

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The artist/designer' is not the divine creator of the installation. They do not claim to form or create.  They embody themselves and others in that situation, creating specific conditions like a lab director. The conditions and changes in the space are determined by the visitor.

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The command of control belongs to the visitor.

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We put human at the centre.

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Melek Zeynep Bulut