NOMAD:
NOTES FROM THE QUARANTINE, 2004
Istanbul, Daydreaming in Quarantine, 2003
Walking Istanbul, Notes from the Quarantine, 2004
Extrastruggle presents Turkish Light Arts, 2002, Extrastruggle
The first ones, 2000, Hatice Güleryüz
El Filan Sallıyorum, 2000, BabaZula(Ömür Kökeş, Nermin Er, Merih Öztaylan, Murat Ertel)
Derdimi Anla, 1998, ZeN
Comics Extracts from Bahadır Boysal, Suat Gönülay, Galip Tekin and Kemal Aratan, 2004, Erhan Muratoğlu

Video Compilation
film / video on DVD, sound, colour
Coordinated by NOMAD, Basak Senova and Erhan Muratoğlu
Contribruting Artists: Erhan Muratoğlu, ZeN, Memed Erdener aka Exstramücadele, and Hatice Güleryüz


Notes from the Quarantine is a video/film compilation presented by Erhan Muratoğlu and Basak Senova of NOMAD for the exhibition “Call Me Istanbul ist mein Name”. This compilation consists of the documentation and works of two projects about Istanbul: Istanbul, Daydreaming in Quarantine (Graz, 2003), and Walking Istanbul, Notes from the Quarantine (Holon, 2003-2004), The Istanbul project reflects on a particular period in the recent history of Turkey where the terror imposed by the harsh dynamics of politics and economics has registered strongly on Turkey’s largest city, Istanbul. At the same time, the project reflects the fact that the consequences of these dynamics are being ignored: political unrest; IMF-dependent economy; internal migration attack; and a constant cultural schizophrenia fed by conflicts between East and West; secularism and fundamental Islam; left and right; and eventually nationalism and separatism.

By departing from that flux of political and cultural conditions, the whole project addresses the visual and aural representations and productions of a targeted generation that was stuck between two generations--that of the early 1970s as highly politically engaged and severely punished for that engagement, and that of the 1980s which has been totally apolitical. Yet, the production mechanism and the assembly of this in-between generation was either neglected or dissolved in the fast pace of life before. In its consequential level, a breakdown of this cacophonic yet treasure-like sub-cultural mass reveals the suppressed resisting mechanisms of the period veiled with black humour and parody. It also aims at providing substitute modes of readings of the urban contingent culture developed in or after the 80's.

The Istanbul project consists of several inter-related parts: artistic productions; cultural artifacts; and visual and verbal information via comics and fanzines which have been developed by the curators of the exhibition, together with two graphic designers and an architect.

Istanbul, Daydreaming in Quarantine operated with the feeling of pressure, violence and confrontation; these feelings were also the points of reference for the visual language of the exhibition; whereas Walking Istanbul, Notes from the Quarantine focused on the visual notes, remarks and traces of the city as the reflection of the inner-world, which is trapped in the mundane and untamed realities of the streets. The overall visual design of the exhibition was based on darkness and the uncanny encounters of the works with the audience; the space inhales another language through unexpected familiarities with the geography it occupies. What brings the works selected for this exhibition together are not only the similarities in their subject matter, but also the artists’ approaches to these themes and their forms of elaboration.

Text by: Basak Senova