Bad News / Good News
TRT: 3 minutes
2005
Bad News / Good News is a video diptych, which explores representation of gender and sex, issues of stardom and melodrama in cinema. Bad News is a video/sound collage comprised of de-contextualized representations of a woman in terror, agony or anguish. The footage is extracted from three Turkish films entitled The Crying Woman (1967), My Beloved Hooker (1968) and They Call Me “Flashy” (1969). All three films star the same actress Turkan Soray, also known as the Sultan of Turkish cinema. Images of the same woman reacting to tragic events accompanied by highly melodramatic music and sound effects are juxtaposed one after another. Yet, the cause of the tragedy remains unknown since the narrative is fragmented and the melodrama is isolated. Good News, is also constructed from segments of old Turkish films, starring Cuneyt Arkin, probably the most famous actor in Turkish cinema. Unlike her female counterpart, he is always active; initiating action rather than receiving, inflicting pain rather than enduring. By juxtaposing the woman in continuous positions of weakness, passively experiencing the post-tragedy, forever reacting rather than acting with the violent, active powerful man, the video creates a splitting experience for the viewer as it builds its own music out of fragments of separate narratives.
Palindromes
TRT: 9 minutes
2005
Palindromes divides the video screen into a grid of nine frames. In each frame an object -usually associated with female interests and crafts, such as lace, cakes and silk flowers- appears to be made by a pair of hands. The process of making may seem a bit strange in close observation, since in fact, what appears to be made is actually being un-made and then the video is reversed.
Vacancies
TRT: 13:40'
2005
Vacancies is a site specific video installation, shown in the Oppidan Arts Group exhinition at the Morris Building in Huntington, WV. The vacant ground floor of the prominent building in downtown Huntington was temporarily converted into an art gallery. The video installation brings views of other vacant storefronts from the downtown area to the vacant storefront of the gallery, thus temporarily occupying it.