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The Story of Istatistiklal
Istnbul: an alienated, thus addictive organism which continuously expands, spreads, and inflates: Istanbul: any attempt to grasp or trace the totality of the city would be far too slow for the speed of its metastasis.
Istiklal: a part of the city which functions as the spine of this giant organism with lots of aberrations in itself, yet mirroring the whole city: Spending the day, living the night, following the life on an axis starting from Tünel, flowing to Taksim Square. Being acquainted with the city through the inputs of this axis. An amalgamation of obscure passageways, kitsch decors, anarchic street aesthetics, techno-surreal imagery, storefront galleries, smoky cafes, seedy bars, sweet shops, trendy stores, used bookstores, forbidden doors, lusty nightclubs, and historic buildings, the old tram along with overloaded population. The city treats its guests so well by spreading a seductive hospitality powder all over its layers. Nonetheless, once the city detects its inhabitants, it starts to practice the most puzzling survival games on them.
Yet, there are attempts, ways and modes of survival…
In 2002, a group of people, with a subliminal motivation to overcome the survival game of the city, started a project called Istatistiklal. They were architects and students from various universities.
In the beginning, the project had no definite duration, no strategy, and no goal at all. The drive was to define an enigmatic organism through a scientific methodology: Simply by counting. Being as objective as possible. Being as mathematical as possible. Statistics would be the weapon of choice to overcome the game of survival. Armed with statistically-based methods of analysis and urban research, the team began its investigation, only to find that the city constantly dictated new modes of analysis. The more they analyzed and counted, the more they were drawn to alternative methods of recording and counting. The more they counted, the more they revealed the signs displaying the enigmatic entity of the city. It became an absolute obsession for them. They were counting all the quantities necessary to give a sum of a whole number, then they were developing new technologies and methods to count qualitative things: Flowerpots, steps, vehicles, persons, gestures, habits, and so on. They were merely adding new features and layers to the survival game of the city. All these features dissolved within the fast pace of urban life as the system relentlessly hacked itself, each and every viable interference being easily and rapidly absorbed into theprocess. After accumulating hundreds of maps, graphics, charts, drawings, photographs and texts, they came up with a mass of information on, for example: »surveillance: how we are being watched«, »consumption: how we are eating«, »pedestrianism: how we are walking and being challenged while cruise along this axis« and finally »numbers: what we are in terms of figures for Istiklal and for this giant organism«.
In sync with the nature of this very game, the project has ended up with a variety of exits. Each exit has brought another production, as different players of the game present evidence in different ways, adding up to the work in progress which is the project. Among the byproducts which form the inventory to date are publication. A talk. A design. A video. An exhibition. In this iteration, the project reveals itself in the form of an installation where Istiklal is remapped within the environment of ZKM, processed by three players of the game: Ertuğ Uçar, Simge Göksoy and Erhan Muratoğlu.
Text by: Basak Senova
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