12/12/2019 Aporia and Anthropocene of 16th Istanbul...

12/12/2019 Aporia and Anthropocene of 16th Istanbul Biennial ‘Seventh Continent’

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DEC.8.19

Aporia andAnthropocene of 16th

Istanbul Biennial‘Seventh Continent’

16th ISTANBUL BIENNIAL

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Where did we ever get thestrange idea that nature—as

opposed to culture—isahistorical and timeless?

We are far too impressed byour own cleverness andself-consciousness… We

need to stop tellingourselves the same old

anthropocentric bedtimestories.

—Steve Shaviro 1997Words by Canan Batur | Images Courtesy 16th Istanbul Biennial

What does it mean to talk about the Anthropocene in 2019, knowing the criticisms of its incapacityas a term to reflect on current environmental concerns, transformations, and decay? As manytheoreticians, scientists, philosophers and researchers are trying to give up the haunting ghost ofthe term ‘Anthropocene’, one feels the need to facilitate, to find a way, in order to understand thedecision of its usage. Does its pertinence lie through tentacular thinking, instead of pushingforward a certain inadequate definition of the Earth’s epoch or geological time, or is theemployment of the term ironic? When reducing today’s urgent environmental questions down tothe sole question – and issue – of the climate, it is often because we rely on globalised models thaterase both the immense inequality in the world’s ecological transformations, and theconsequences of this transformation for human and non-human populations. Matters ofenvironmental justice undoubtedly intertwine with problems of socioeconomic inequality, from thegendered repercussions of ecological damage or from the insufficiencies of democracy at everylevel. Is it enough to talk about geography, history, demography, culture, archaeology, politics – asdivided by Bourriaud in his curatorial statement – without talking about the metabolic rift ofcapitalogenic climate change, and the racial Capitalocene?

Yet this iteration of Istanbul Biennial stands well away from both the political and economic contextof its host city, and the cultural and social conditions that come with this dangerous generalisation.

Consequently, one wonders what the ambivalent aspiration of the 16th Istanbul Biennial is – Is it away to criticise the current conditions without any realisation of its relationship to its host country,other than a few retorts by artists reflecting upon the very premises of the biennial’s curatorial

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statement? Or is it a way to provide a certain nostalgic or romanticised vision of the era? Whilst itmay deliver a blunt response to the current global context, Seventh Continent lacks any sense ofcultural specificity, and makes no attempt to say something to – or about – an expanded compassof the term. Commissioning 38 new works out of 220 artworks from 56 artists involved provesambitious yet vague, and at some points provides problematic contemporary conjunctures. In fact,some individual artworks seem to promise much more than Seventh Continent ultimately delivers.

In the entrance to Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University, Istanbul Painting and Sculpture Museum(Antrepot 5), the main venue of 16th Istanbul Biennial, Rebecca Belmore’s Body of Waterwelcomes the visitors. It feels like this is there to almost offer a glimpse of what to expect from thebiennial’s curatorial proposition and vision. The work comments on transition, borders, andtherefore exclusion, depicted through an S-shaped canoe covered by an aluminium-cast tarpaulin.It almost insinuates this iteration of Istanbul Biennial’s overall fragmented yet scant vision ofenvironmental concerns, with a dominant Western and modernist imposition which becomes astifled and alienating discourse with no visible call for a medley of multitude.

Dora Budor’s works titled Origin I-III embraces not only the visual form of a larger environmentalreflection, but also it utilises an open-ended audio archaeology to produce new reflections ofIstanbul’s own unstable images. Displayed in a large glass vitrine, the work transmits sounds fromconstruction next door in Galataport, and through these score-like frequencies, movement andhues of dust are reactivated within glass structures, almost giving the polluted atmosphere ofJ.M.W Turner’s The Burning of the Houses of Lord and Commons from 1834, aptly providingpolyvalent perspectives.

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On the same floor Feral Atlas Collective, a highlight of the biennial, presents itself as an exhibitionwithin exhibition. Uniting more than 100 scientists, humanists and artists, Feral Atlas Collectivecombines art, science and humanities to specifically focus on ‘feral’ ecologies that have beenencouraged by human infrastructures. The evidence accumulates, in extensive archival worksfeaturing videos, soundscapes, photographs, documents and watercolours. It provides an affluentepistemological and ontological approach on hot-button issues, triggering an immediate andintimate reaction, something more than the biennial itself achieves.

Known for his works that draw upon the sub-sensory or suppressed aspects of materials andhistory, Phillip Zach’s Double Mouthed creates parallels between Los Angeles’ man-made BronsonCave and Istanbul’s Yarimburgaz Cave, flickering between fictional scenes and documentary-styleinterviews with archaeologists. It reminds a forgotten yet significant aspect of Turkish mythologyand epics, where caves have a magical and mystical presence, representing themselves as a placeof transformation, rebirth and growth, with attributes of asylum, protection, and shelter. In line withZach, Max Hooper Schneider displays To Become a Melon Head, traditional Turkish shadowtheatre and twenty-five watermelons, as incarnations of future ‘neo-morphic’ brain-bodies,attempting to examine the interactions between human and non-human, folk traditions andscientific research. Muge Yilmaz’s altar, Eleven suns, looks like an archaeological excavation site,

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recreated with semi-mythological anthropomorphic creatures, and referencing speculativefabulation and feminist science fiction. On the top floor, the space built by Gunes Terkol and GucluOztekin, WORLBMON, containing tulles, curtains, canvases and sculptures acts as a space ofgathering in where some of the biennials public events will take place.

The first event, on Friday evening by Guguou, a collective by Güneş Terkol, Güçlü Öztekinthemselves and Oğuz Erdin, took shape of a beautifully absurd and wonderfully bonkers musicperformance. Next to WORLBMON, Mika Rottenberg’s video Spaghetti Blockchain, oscillatesbetween Tuvan throat singers in Siberia, the CERN antimatter factory, a potato farm in Maine andan imagined factory with tabletop vignettes for producing ASMR, gives a sense of the unsettlingappeal of Rottenberg’s odd, free-associative world.

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A clear vision of creating (non)fictional historical re-enactments centres at the Pera Museum, one ofthe biennial’s secondary venues. Even though Piotr Uklanski’s series Eastern Promises presents aproblematic tokenism of orientalist sentiments, Norman Daly’s Civilisation of Llhuros, a uniquecreation of fabricated ancient civilisation, and the striking drawings of Luigi Serafini from anillustrated encyclopaedia titled Codex Seraphinianus, are genuine stars of the biennial. The mix ofsuperstition, myth and worldliness with the physiologist and scientist Ernst Haeckel’s magnumopus from 19th century Kunstformen der Natur illustrates on animal and plant life, gives a solidoffering to the intermingling narratives, yet stays titular and isolated throughout the biennial. OnBuyukada, where five venues are invaded, Sedat Pakay’s documentary From Another Place onJames Baldwin’s visit to Istanbul in the 1960’s really stands out. Subtitled to Turkish for the firsttime, Baldwin talks smoothly about living abroad, the black experience in America and his privatelife, all whilst smoking cigarettes next to the Bosphorus.

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Bourriaud’s Istanbul Biennial holds up a mirror to the face of the Anthropocene yet without a dropof hope, and without the potency that an expansion of the term itself might suggest. What is leftbehind is a conformist and tragic vision – dark curatorial concepts for dark times? There is merit inraising awareness alone. Yet, barraged by so many stories, from so many timelines, tongues andtemperatures, it seems disconcerting, grappling for a clear vision. Nevertheless, it is always easy totalk about what is wrong – it’s not a criticism intending to say the wrong shouldn’t be talked,displayed or discussed, yes indeed it should be talked, it’s more about having the ability eradicateas Shaviro once said ‘the old anthropocentric bedtime stories’.

De la autora

Canan Batur es curadora, investigadora y escritora turca con sede en Londres y Estambul. Escuradora asistente en el De La Warr Pavilion. Además, actualmente diseña un proyecto en 1.1,Basilea, y trabaja en el establecimiento de un nuevo espacio en Estambul con un enfoqueespecífico en la preservación, recreaciones históricas y educación alternativa (que se anunciarápróximamente). Anteriormente, fue co-curadora de Give Up the Ghost, Baltic Triennial XIII (2017-2019); I was, but just awake under Art Night 2019, and It was a dream of a trip in Shangai encolaboración con la Bienal de Shanghai XIII (2018). Fue una de las cofundadoras de clearview, unproyecto de espacio / programa de residencia en Londres (2016-2018); y trabajó con Cell ProjectSpace, Chisenhale Gallery y Beaconsfield Gallery Vauxhall. Fue becaria curatorial en ShanghaiCurators Lab, 2018 y RAW Material Company, Dakar en 2019. Sus temas de investigación actualesincluyen la objetividad en la performance y las formas de idear la translocalidad radical y facilitar elpensamiento cuántico.

About the author

Canan Batur is a Turkish curator, researcher and writer based between London and Istanbul. She isthe Assistant Curator at De La Warr Pavilion. Additionally, currently devising a project at 1.1, Basel,and working on establishing a new space in Istanbul with a specific focus on preservation, historicalreenactments, and alternative education (to be announced soon). Previously, she co-curated GiveUp the Ghost, Baltic Triennial XIII (2017-2019); I was, but just awake under Art Night 2019, and Itwas a dream of a trip in Shangai in collaboration with Shanghai Biennial XIII (2018). She was one ofthe co-founders of clearview, a project space/ residency programme in London (2016-2018); andworked with Cell Project Space, Chisenhale Gallery, and Beaconsfield Gallery Vauxhall (notably).She was a curatorial fellow in Shanghai Curators Lab, 2018 and RAW Material Company, Dakar in2019. Her current research topics include; the objecthood in performance; and the ways to deviseradical translocality, and to facilitate quantum thinking.

Images

1. ‘Body of Water, 2019’ by Rebecca Belmore. Photograph by David Levene

2. ‘Origin I – III by Dora Budor. Courtesy the artist




6. Still from ‘Double Mouthed’ by Phillip Zach, 2019. Multi-channel HD video and sound installation2-channel videos: 140’ and 187’ (separate audio, looped), 1-channel sound channel: 274’ (looped).

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Courtesy the artist.

7. ‘WORLBMON, 2019, by GŸnes Terkol & GŸ�lŸ …ztekin. Photograph by David Levene

8. ‘WORLBMON, 2019, by GŸnes Terkol & GŸ�lŸ …ztekin. . Photograph by David Levene

9. ‘Spaghetti Blockchain, 2019, by Mika Rottenerg. Photograph by David Levene

10. ‘Spaghetti Blockchain, 2019, by Mika Rottenerg. Photograph by David Levene

11. Details and pieces comprising ‘Eastern Promises’ by Piotr Uklański’. Photograph by DavidLevene

12. Details and pieces comprising ‘Eastern Promises’ by Piotr Uklański’. Photograph by DavidLevene

13. A film about James Baldwin’s life in Istanbul, where he lived sporadically from 1961-1970,presented by Glenn Ligon. Photograph by David Levene

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