can a city be a stage?
about the projects:
the Covid 19 pandemic created the biggest global crisis of the 21st century. it all started as an epidemic in china and was initially perceived as a local problem. however, it spread all around the world in a very short time and changed the world as we know it.
indeed, the pandemic was considered as a health problem first. but then it brought along economic and social problems on a global scale. due to strict measures and quarantines all type of gatherings including concerts, performing arts, theaters, performances got cancelled. it made almost impossible to organize any kind of event in a confined area.
during this period, artists started to look for different methods to express themselves and present their projects. that is how “city as a stage” was also born. could dead and cold streets of this post-apocalyptic era be turned into a stage? could a dancer perform on them where no audience exists? could these performances be fitted into a photo frame that can describe all these processes?
artists often abandon their reality and chase the impression by imitating the prisoner leaving the cave, as in plato’s “often cave” theory which was also interpreted by freud. like the prisoner who left the cave, artists leave the community first and then they come back with a smart plan to rescue the others from the dark hall.(1)
this project was carried out at a time when everyone was imprisoned in their homes under quarantine. artists who did not abide by the quarantine and prohibitions left their community first, then returned to their caves to reunite and reflect this experience to the audience, just like the unification metaphor in lacan’s theory of the “mirror stage”.(2) compared to the conventional style where artist and audience meet during the performance, they came together after the event in this case. also, the project establishes interdisciplinary connections between “devices” and artists to create an “apparatus” as a result. for this purpose, the city, architecture, camera, photographer, dancer, choreography, and time became a part of the mechanism that exists in synchronization. this mechanism enabled the artists to use the city as a stage and present the performance as a collection of movements which was concluded by the artist’s reunification with society.
application and technique:
in terms of artistic concept, outdoor shots were taken at night. In terms of background, relevant and relatively illuminated places were selected. It was inevitable to employ the long exposure technique to take photographs at night. also, as the concept required to present the city as two-dimensional as possible, low apertures were preferred. by all means, the background in the photographs was displayed as they were on a single plane as in a cinema hall. hence, the performance gained a more three-dimensional behavior by detaching the artist from the background with the help of flashlights.
the long exposure was applied at both low aperture and low shutter speed which allowed the artist to move approximately 10-15 seconds. an experimental lighting technique had to be developed by disconnecting flashlights from the camera and they were detonated via a remote trigger. upon compilation of the pose choreography and right combination of the flash setting, the photographs were taken on top of each other by applying subsequent posing times.
march 2021 – vienna/austria
(1) baudrys, jean-louis, 1975, article (das dispositiv: metapsychologische betrachtungen des realitätseindrucks)
(2) lacan, jacques, 2010, reading french psychoanalysis, from chapter (the mirror stage as formative of the function of the I as revealed in psychoanalytic experience 1)
