Imagine Istanbul

IMAGINE ISTANBUL

The role of a designer is to see the full image, how people are formed by these different forces.

The role of a designer is being able to place itself like a fish above the surface of the water and see what really surrounds us. Being able to see what is the water that’s beneath us; to understand the water and the needs of others, and work in his surroundings. Being able to know which kind of water it is what we are longing for. And thus, giving it back to the people in question.

eline hesse elsje meijler migle nevieraite saar scheerlings nel verbeke design academy eindhoven forum 3 teachers: robert adolfsson peter van casteren nicoline dorsman isabelle makay februari 2013

without feeling (that what creative people visualise) there’s no identity -adriaan van der staay

HOW DO CITIZENS OF ISTANBUL IDENTIFY THEMSELVES IN TIMES OF GLOBALIZATION?

INTRODUCTION what is identity and what is the shared identity of a community? in which forms does this identity present itself? in what way is it split, how does it shape itself? what is the impact of globalization on the individual and, broader, on the identity of a community? what/who are the instruments that react or act on its own environment? what is the role of the creative professional as translators of the things they perceive? “without feeling there is no identity” (adriaan van der staay)2. how do we place ourselves as a fish above the surface of the water and how can we see what really surrounds us? let’s talk in the first place about people, the complexity of the subject, then later on about the systematic research. let us translate this to the glance, the perspective, the eyes. the eyes of istanbul. all this gives us the necessity to touch upon this material in a research that softly embraces all of these questions, that relate to what we want to say. our own eyes. we start with our own eyes, as a way of introduction. an introduction, a gateway to our research topic. all what came before our final goal. for us, as children of our time, it appeared to be much more about abundance, about fluidity and complexity than about something straightforward (a straight line). let start this first chapter with an introduction. the steps necessary to form a coherent whole with the five of us: eline, saar, elsje, migle and nel. to work as a research group with one shared goal, consisting of a large amount of input. allow us to construct this research paper by using rooms as chapters, consisting of the main characters of a continuous process. let us describe them as rooms, in which we dwell, from one to the other, always taking with us what was being said or experienced in the previous ones. some of those rooms only tell about conversations, in others are more active things are happening. these rooms are part of our overall house, but a house as an abstraction. a house without entrance, in which as a reader you awaken together with us. the space in between those rooms we describe as a the hallway with many doors. it is our chosen method to make the described material less bare and appeal in a tactile way to the imagination. we invite you, as reader, to follow us through our house.

ENTERING

THE EMPT

PTY ROOM GETTING TO KNOW EACH OTHER AND FINDING COMMON INTERESTS

The empty room, a blank page.

Everything is blank, unwritten. The start of this journey takes place in a hallway, a space with many doors. We are in that house without entrance, only doors, entrances to other rooms. On the righthand side we open the door of a bare room, silent because of its emptiness as if everything here will happen for the first time. It is a room were the word monotonous reigns supreme, grey walls and ceilings, no curtains, no furniture. Free of content and identity. It is in this abstract room that we meet for the first time. A group of five strangers. Where do you start to write in these room, still blank? It is in this room we have to find a shared interest. Here we tie our eyes together, a shared perception. Let us place a table in the middle of these grey walls, as a starting point for a first conversation.

We start with our own eyes (the research group consisting of five members) as a way of introduction. Our thoughts, five pairs of eyes bundled and in the middle of that the general intention/the general theme: ‘the role of a designer in a globalized world’. During a conversation, in the hitch between our words, shared interests and fascinations appeared. That for us all it can’t and may not be about what can be described black on white. Far more we embraced a chaos as being the truth.

Abundance opposite a fixed unity. Human complexity opposite a formal simplicity. What turned out to be important for us, is the influence of globalization on (social) media, politics, society as a complex whole. What is it that influences the individuals that are a part of this society and which decisions do they make towards it? Throughout these words our shared interest became clear, ‘identifying’. This subject in specific, turned out to summarize our need for complexity, the complex structures of the individual. How we give meaning, through identifying, to our own and common identity. The ‘I’ against its society, the ‘we’ as a community, of which it is a part.

Once the word identity was written down, little by little our research took shape.

Step by step and keeping in mind that it was the starting point of a process, changeable and susceptible to influences. The empty room had a table in the middle, on the middle of which a sentence was written. It was the table of imagination; Imagine Istanbul. How do citizens of Istanbul identify themselves in times of globalization? With this sentence as a starting point we can begin to fill this empty room and make it our own.

FILLING

THE EMPT

PTY ROOM RAISING QUESTIONS AND GATHERING PROPOSALS

As creators we now start to turn our empty space into a living room. In the middle of the room, there is a table, some chairs and coushins decorate the furniture like a grotesque coronet. One that invites you to take a seat. Here at this table the first conversations take place. In the somewhat more warmly decorated room, coffee and tea stand by, both of them because that is what you do when the guests are not yet familiar with each other’s habits. On this table we place more advanced propositions and ideas. The search for a common solid foundation on which we can build further, still is a bit difficult to construct out of the chaos, still for all of us there is a presentiment that this is already in sight. We have a look at what we did the last time in this room and separate the essential from the side issues.

Throughout this process, we notice that our different singualar marks collide as much as they overlap. It is not easy to point five noses in the same direction and to make it completely clear in which direction we want to progress. Just as much new ideas flow abundantly. Streams of thought, assumptions, fantasies and proposals are placed gracefully on the table. There is no need yet to be concrete. With our noses pressed against the tabletop, everything still seems far away and all what is presented on it still prompts a lot of questions.

How do we start this investigation, because of the distance everything seems like completely abstact material, while we just want to touch upon what is identity, what is human. What is it then what we want to go investigate in Istanbul? And maybe even more important, who do we need for this? In the mean time it is already clear that creative professionals in Istanbul are important, as well as the common people in the street, commonness in order to reach a diverse truth. How do we reach this last group who doesn’t have professional websites? Who are the citizens of Istanbul? How can we approach them in an honest way? What is identifying? What is globalization? We have to let all of these questions sink in, it seems handy to us to ask ourselves what it is we want to obtain exactly, come up with potential answers and afterwards look again at our questions in a clear way.

How do we tie together the different parts of this complex whole? Clearly (because of all these questions) now that the subject has been set, it has to be broadend, founded. The following weeks we establish a theoretical mulitude, we create paths and patterns through theoretical kindred spirits and theorists who can provide us with some insight. Once we had zoomed out, some of those ideas took a prominent place in our mindmap. Not only is there a necessity for a theoretical fundament. We create a practical fundament as well, a mimesis, work methods. Regularly we organize an supper together to get to know each other better, so that we can have broader and more honest discussions an get closer to our topic. Furthermore

we create an account on the tool Evernote, an online empty field, so to speak, in which we can share all our thoughts, links, texts, source material, etc.

On the table stacks of paper arise, that present themselves as reading constructions. Following the rythm of a modern city they are built as quickly as they are torn down. We leave this first room, ready for a next step in our process. We return to the hallway to pick another door, where we can consruct frames of thoughts and arrange them.

SITTING DOWN IN

THE STUD

UDY ROOM STARTING TO COLLECT THEORETICAL MATERIAL

The studyroom, a theoretical ripening.

Under our arms we clamp the material of the previous room. This studyroom has large windows that divide the room following the rules of geometry with regularity. Its impact is great and it knows remarkably much daylight. The room has a small door, on our right, with a staircase descending to the cellar which founds the whole house. In this second room we find a large desk where we spread our work in an organized way. The light strikes down and divides our material in regulated parts of shadow and light. This gazing upon our material gives us the urge to order it, discursive unions develop. Our fresh look gives us the ability to make connections we hadn’t noticed before. The classification of the material gives us some more direction.

In the centre of this discursive ordening we place once again the theme.

Once the theme is placed in the centre, the need for a founded theoretical frame arises. Let us have another look at the introduction of this text: What is identity and what is the shared identity of a community? In which forms does this identity present itself? In what way is it split, in which ways it shapes itself? What is the impact of globalisation on the individual and, broader, on the identity of a community? What/who are the instruments that react or act on his own environment? What is the role of the creative professional as translators of that which they sense? “Without feeling there is no identity”. How do we place ourselves as a fish above the surface of the water and how can we see what really surrounds us. How do we, in the light of this all, bring our overlapping topic, ‘the role of a designer in a globalized world’, to a concrete investigation, that touches that what we want to say?

In order to be able to frame this all, we use some different points of view, researches and/or anthropological frameworks as a foundation for this research. From the chaotic heap of processed information, ordered paths seemed to arise, of which some theories would begin to function as building stones. Like this we let ourselves be influenced by some phrases from the philosophy of art which give prove of an interest in the non-rational element of art, the power of imagination. This is what among others Adriaan Van der Staay2, Frank Vande Veire4 and different quotes by Freud can provide us with. Also the anthropological introduction on the phenomenon of Youtube (mediascape) by Michael Wesch17 strongly raised our interest with regard to this research. To be more precise how man identifies himself through the ‘mediascape’. The term ‘mediascape’ and foundation of globalized phenomenon we found in the theory of Arjun Appadurai1. In order to endorse the

phenomenon of globalization the ideas of Appadurai - an established value in the field of anthropology of globalization - turned out to be very helpful as well.

Let us first of all start by unravelling our thesis, frame the most fundamental terms in our research. This technique we also applied later on with our interviewed ‘creative professionals’, so that they, before talking about the whole of our investigation, defined the topics to be discussed individually. It turned out that, in this case as well, everyone’s singular mark allowed a variation on the interpretation. But, justification for this phenomenon we can find also in the writings of the French philosopher Bernard Stiegler, in his book ‘Als een vis boven water, over de wording van een filosoof ’. “The same moment when I address you this evening, I am gradually individualising: individualising myself means by searching, perfectioning the symbolic coherence of my argument. But I can only succeed in individualizing myself if I can make you to individualize yourselves with me. If my individualization is succesful, it will have to be successful within you, may it not be in the same way, because in what I am telling you, I understand and interpret something different than you.” 3 Through all this information we are giving the possibility to build a strong foundation consisting of different frames. Theoretical frames, as the building blocks of our thesis.

It has been a while since the light has set and our material wraps itself up in an increasing darkness. In the room on our right we take the stairs descending down into the basement. We let us be guided downstairs by the rules of the steps.

FILLING THE

THE BAS

SEMENT BUILDING THE FUNDAMENT

The basement, an archive.

An archive and the foundation of our research as well. In this basement, grounding the entire house, we found an order, we divide the room in three spatial files that frame our research. Just like in our first room, everything here has to happen for the first time, only empty classifying racks occupy the bare walls, geometrical frills, calculated lines. On this new surface, the timeless depth, not a speck of dust seems to have dropped. It is a quiet, functional room that serves only for storage.

Here we classify the abstraction, our desk research in three basic corners: identity, globalization and identify. And in the middle of this, a space for shifting and overlapment arises. Let us start by summarizing frame by frame: identity, globalization and identify. Afterwards, you can dive in the archive yourself to read the extra information where your interest may have been triggered.

1. Identity “If we want to understand what identity is, then we have to look for an other entrance way; not in the timeless depth of our genes and brains, but in the shifting screen of the world outside which constantly functions as a mirror for identity” 8 (Paul Verhaeghe). Of great importance for our research is how, indeed also through the process of globalization, the large outside world affects the small inside world and vice versa. How man identifies himself and how he gives form or tries to give form to his own or a shared identity. Let us outline the term identity for our research as a balancing act between a ‘becoming’ and a ‘being’. Thus we read in Paul Verhaeghe’s book ‘Identity’ a number of clarifying statements concerning this being formed. “Identity is defined for the greater part by the surrounding, human beings are basically social animals whose evolutionary heritage contains both a tendency towards solidarity as towards egoism. Environmental factors determine what gets the upper hand.” 8 How then to determine our concerning identity in times of globalization, if we take our research question in consideration. For this the thoughts of Stine Jensen and Rob Wijnberg in their book ‘Thus I am’ showed us a possible direction. “Our identity seems to exist, but evaporates in a world in which everyone has a nickname on the internet, is a jobhopper or wants to be a world citizen.”7 In other words; in this day and age everyone can construct his own identity by a simple click of the mouse button. We have a huge amount of freedom by means of social network sites and YouTube to possess multiple identities. Keeping this in mind, contributes to the way we observe the citizens of Istanbul. What is the connection or the differences between what is someone’s history and in which way that someone has given form

to his or her life in the present? A possible example can be how a Moslima wearing a headscarf constructs her identity by means of religion but at the same time forms her identity by buying clothes at the European clothes chain Mango. The complexity of identity is being neatly mapped without giving a concrete answer, their goal is therefore the same as ours, but ours consisting of visual language, of the imagination of. It is the different layers of identity we try to represent, its shifts, ...

“A national identity is an organic phenomenon. It is never static and always subject to political, social an cultural movements”14, we can read in Gabrielle Kenedy’s book ‘Identity Land, a space for a million identities’. Identity can not be categorized or simplified, even though we, as human beings show the urge to do precisely this very often. That is also why we asked our citizens for ‘the typical citizen of Istanbul’. Within the search for an impossible answer lies the complex truth. The latter is also being discussed in the essay ‘Identity through a psychoanalytic looking glass’, by Stijn Vanheule and Verstaegh, ”we want to see those differences so badly, but the truth is that identity lies on the inside, making the study of which much more difficult.” 10 For more information we direct you to our book ‘theoretical framework’.

2. Globalization The globalized world, as being discussed, is spreading. Per definition globalization is the integration of the world on an economical, financial and communicational level, but we know by now off course that its impact reaches much further than that. Everything is thus present and explores other territories. Geographical and non-geographical borders become fluid.

“It’s a tedious moan these days to hear how globalization has to led to homogenization of cultures. It is a given that everywhere from Sydney to Barcelona will be home to many of the same shops selling the same things, cafés that sell the same coffee, and people who share similar lifestyles and even value systems”14, describes Gabrielle Kennedy in ‘Identity Land, a space for a million identities. Arjun Appadurai1, a well known expert in theoretical studies on globalization, brings us to a more correct understanding. In Appadurais theory five important contemporary scapes are being developped: ethnoscapes, mediascapes, technoscapes, finanscapes and ideoscapes.

Each one of these is built out of specific own perspectives. Appadurai articulates interestingly that nowadays people live in so-called global ‘imagened worlds’ and not just in local ‘imagened communities’ anymore. The definition being: the image, the imagined, the imaginary - these are all terms that direct us to something critical and new in global cultural processes: the imagination as a social practice.

No longer mere fantasy (opium for the masses whose real work is somewhere else), no longer simple escape (from a world defined principally by more concrete purposes and structures), no longer elite pastime (thus not relevant to the lives of ordinary people), and no longer mere contemplation (irrelevant for new forms of desire and subjectivity), the imagination has become an organized field of social practices, a form of work (in the sense of both labor and culturally organized practice), and a form of negotiation between sites of agency (individuals) and globally defined fields of possibility. “This unleashing of the imagination links the play of pastiche (in some settings) to the terror and coercion of states and their competitors. The imagination is now central to all forms of agency, is itself a social fact, and is the key component of the new global order. Appadurai credits Benedict Anderson with developing notions of imagined communities. (Some key figures who have worked on the imaginary are Cornelius Castoriadis, Charles Taylor, Jacques Lacan (who especially worked on the symbolic, in contrast with imaginary and the real), and Dilip Gaonkar.)” [From wikipedia].

Interesting for our research are the mediascapes “are results of the diffusion of the ability to produce media images and the global spread of media images themselves.

Mediascapes are deemed to provide ‘large and complex repertoires’ of images and

narratives to local groups around the world, which are used in creating local narratives, and providing metaphors through which people live.”1 Here we get interested in placing this mediascape in our research. To be more precise how our ‘creative amateurs’ touch identity through these media. Thus we start amidst this mediascape a facebookpage, a field where there is a room for the ‘creative eyes of Istanbul’. This active community, this scape in which all is organically determined by people, and their created identities, strongly attracts our attention, if we want to understand what identifying means today. It is necessary for us to dwell as well through this mediascape, if we want to understand what identifying means today. Appadurai’s theories slumber even later on through our research and documentary, be it underlying and not explicit. in the middle of our research the term ‘imagined world’ rests as the foundation on which we build further. Imagine Istanbul. Our suggestive subtitle refers on one hand to this Appaduraian term, on the other hand there is the question of exciting the imagination, to touch imagination like we want to witness it in our research with our interviewed creatives.

This discussed mediascape shows how these new media are capable of giving ‘power’ back to everyday people. As been discussed by Michael Wesch17 in his anthropological introduction to Youtube. An idea that opens a lot of possibilities for the future, as well as a crucial idea for the professional designer in a globalized community. If we want to understand what gives form to the contemporary identity, we can not ignore the constructions of this mediascape. “In fact, Facebook is a nice example of how identity works. People choose their friends and join groups as they want. Some people love the connections with the city they live in, others with the school they attended. There are other people who just want to connect worldwide with everyone who likes Russian literature. Some do both. Basicly every individual has different interests. It is everyone’s choise to indicate what is more important to him. Why should I feel connected with someone only because he is living in the same city or region as I do? I am not saying it doesn’t matter where you come from or what your religion is, but it is up to every individual to give these elements the weight he or she thinks they deserve in his or her identity.”14This was written by Erik van Kessel, in the framework of the exhibition ‘Identity Land, space for a million identities’, a project of named Van Kessel in collaboration with Z33, last autumn in Hasselt. Identity Land, interesting as an extension of our research, an imaginary society that translates a new postnationalistic attitude that is spreading itself all over the world, without any fixed location but with the capacity of surfacing everywhere, created by people themselves. In fact you could call Facebook an ‘online identity supermarket’.

Imagine that someone from Istanbul has a Turkish flag as his facebook cover, that means then he gives the Turkish nationality great value - or that he thinks it is beautiful, or that he wants to be just like his friends or idols...

From this point of view, it does not only say something about him, but also reflects some of the influences of the society in which he lives. The Facebook page we started later on was a good way to inform the people participating in our research about our process, but more on this subject later on in this text. In a globalized world you could say that the whole world could be your field of research and at the same time, the whole world could also be your audience. This effect (that the world can be your audience while your message was created reflectively between four walls) we can see very clearly in the medium YouTube, as discussed by Michale Wesch17 in his before mentioned anthropological introduction to Youtube. The accessibility and possibilities of this channel, which makes it possible that a homemade video is being watched worldwide. An ‘imagened world’ without boundaries.

3. Identify “Without feeling, there’s no identity.”8(Paul Verhaeghe) “Artist are valuable allies whose testimony has to be well-considered because they know lots of things between heaven and earth of which our educated knowledge can’t even yet form any sort of conception.” (Sigmund Freud) Frank Vande Veire4 remarks within our context that in contemporary philosophy there is a general line of thought which comes down to the fact that in Friedrich Nietzsche’s footsteps, several thinkers, each in their own way have been convinced that truth isn’t possible anymore without a ‘dark mirrorglass’ of art. He describes the increasing respect for a thinking of difference in art; that art provides a different kind of reflection than a mere conceptual thinking. Art articulates something about ourselves which isn’t always possible to explain completely and therefore keeps fascinating us longer. Every little thing we send out into the world, says something about ourselves and every subjective utterance articulates someting objective. It opens something captured in images - about people in general. This last thought we find important to continue our train of thoughts. If we want to understand more about people, there have to be taken into account also different communication channels than only the verbal speech. In our research, in our documentary the analysis should linger as a unfixed conclusion. In order to push our way through towards the ultimate heart of the matter, if this one even exists, we refer to a book that deals entirely with this subject; ‘The imagination of emotion, art as a binding element in contemporary society’ by Adriaan van der Staay.

“In order to comprehend what is going on around us, art has as many reasons to exist as science. [...] The general thread running through this reflection is the thought that there should be, besides the attention for reason, science and technology as much regard

work with us

THE EYES OF ISTANBUL How do citizens of Istanbul Identify themselves in times of globalization

for the field of imagination. As much attention should be given to imagination, emotion and subjectivity. This doesn’t exclude the first group from being a part of culture or even contain themselves parts of imagination. The one doesn’t replace the other.�2 Thus writes Adriaan van der Staay, also he mentions that with this thesis he only wants to put under attention that, besides the area of reason, in a culture there is a huge territory where other human capacities and needs apply and other fundamentals. If we only take reason as a starting point, we will tend to see this other territory as the negation of reason, and think of it as being irrational. But by doing this one underestimates fundamentally the meaning, the permanence, the expansion of our culture of a non- rational element, that is constantly present and determines an important part of the developments. The human spirit, so it be, has not one, but two eyes to experience reality.

With this insight we leave the basement and we go to the following room. We know we will often return to the basement. It feels good to be able to put aside the information in this classified storage space. In this way we can use the collected information in an efficient way and replenish it without end. In this way also shifts are possible.

A storage room the installment of the research proposal. We can now focus. It is time to create some order, cut the Gordian knot and become concrete. Our research proposal gets concrete, our expectations demand and our ambitions as well. After writing our proposal down, like a writing off, we put it away, in that kind of cardboard box that never gets out of date. Let us conceive this part as a temporary summary of the journey we want to take and what we have already concluded. This before we continue. Thus if it interests you, you can consult this small booklet.

Research proposal The eyes of Istanbul how do citizens of Istanbul identify themselves in times of globalization?

To tackle this research question, we use two types of viewpoint, that are parts of the same whole; the creative field. This we translate to the way we look, the perspective, the eyes. In this way we can also divide our research question in two, on the one hand ‘how do citizens of Istanbul identify themselves in times of globalization’ and on the other hand ‘how do creative professioanals identify the identity of citizens of Istanbul in times of globalization’. This we split up, first we have the creative professionals and secondly the creative amateurs. This last group we see as singular identities who also work creatively on finding their own way of forming images in a mediascape as well as forming carefully their own identity. We would like to discover how these creative people are pointing out the underlying aspects of daily life that shapes the identity of the city. In this way we aim to grasp a kind of mindset or feeling that is not directly visible or understandable in daily life.

Each shows its perspective towards the city and tells something about the identity.

What does it tell about people in general? Even the question what does the word identity mean for you, will lead us to different interpretations. Though patterns will also appear.

Subquestions What is identity and what is shared identity of a society? Through which forms does this identity present itself? To what degree is it split, through which forms does it give itself form? What is the impact of globalization on the individual and on a larger scale on the identity of a community? What/who are the instruments that react or act on their own surroundings? What is the role of ‘creative professionals’as translators of the things they perceive? What kind of different views on identity (in globalization) can we find within the creative scene in Istanbul? And which are most relevant today? Do we find these points of view in the daily life in Istanbul? On the streets, at peoples homes, but also in the digital Istanbul.

Methods To get a full picture of this identity we want to employ a variety of methods; both digital and non-digital. At first we want to document the daily life in Istanbul, asking questions to regular citizens on the street and to go in depth in the interviews with professional artists. As well, we want to look at online Istanbul; the

‘mediascape. For this reason we will look at Facebook-pages of citizens, YouTubers and bloggers to give us a mozaic impression of an identity. As a method, for example, to get these ‘creative amateurs’ involved, we will set up a Facebook page. What we do is look for our mentioned creatives - both amateur and professionals - in Istanbul. Research by interviewing, build up theoretical frameworks and combine the online with the offline.

Our goals and ambitions Try to find these points of view in the daily life in Istanbul. On the streets, at peoples homes, but also in the digital Istanbul. How can we eventually use the possibilities globalization gave us, designers, to document the points of view in a way that it comes back to the people that it’s about? How do we translate this in a way that it doesn’t stay this separate layer that only makes sense in the world of designers, artists and anthropologists? We are using points of view from various artists to get insight in the broad range of what your role as professional creative person can be in globalized times. At the same time we, as designers, are translators or communicators. By using new (mass)communication tools, we can make the translation back to the subject.

But after all they are both in the ‘imagined world’ and they speak out something touching an interesting about human beings in general. In the end we want to bring the outcome of our research back to the people that it’s about. So everyone can understand it. Give back through the same media we used so much for our research; YouTube.

Reach it, touch it, make it human and to not see it as an end-conclusion.

GETTING READY IN

THE DRESS

SING ROOM PREPARATIONS FOR OUR TRIP TO ISTANBUL

The dressing room, the preparations for Istanbul.

We leave the basement behind for a while, because we now have a clear goal and structure in our mind. In this dressing room we do the necessary things to prepare ourselves for our trip to Istanbul. All the tools we need are there; it’s now a matter of getting started, picking the most fitting ingredients to get the best out of Istanbul. We need to get in contact with our subject, but we also question how to do that. In this room there are pinboards where we hang up our ideas and thoughts about whom to contact and how to do that. It’s time to test whether our theories have value in the real world. You could describe this room as having a structure, a backbone, but still it is a room with many uknowns.

Now that our goals and ambitions got a clear form, it is time for us to take the next step. It is time to get to know people, gather contacts, make appointments.

The professionals we can find through the internet; we fill a paper; a brainstorm of artists who indirectly say something about identity. We try to approach a broad variety of artists, so that we can philosophize about a common theme. We make contact through e-mail or telephone and we can arrange meetings that will take place later on.

To contact our ‘amateur eye’ we create our own digital platform. Starting from the design of the mediascape we approach we start a personal YouTube video. This video introduces ourselves. Contact us!

Also on this mediascape, it seemed like a good research method to start a Facebook page, in order to place ourselves in the middle of the field we want to investigate.

We will try to engage as many people (involved in our research inteviews but also contacts of contacts) to like our page, and possibly contribute to answering the question ‘what is the typical citizen of Istanbul?’ We stalk our acquaintances, friends and family, Turkish Facebook platforms and other online groups.

To increase the attraction we create our own identity. We give our research and our research groups a name. Online you can find us now under the name eye/D, The eyes of Istanbul, in search of the identity of the citizens of Istanbul in times of globalization. Flyers and posters are created, also in our recognizable company style, to attract an audience for our research. Interactive. To involve the creative amateurs by putting posters up inviting people walking on the streets of Istanbul to answer our main question ‘how do citizens of Istanbul identify themselves in times of globalization?’ and ‘what is a typical citizen of Istanbul?’.

The next step was to draw up some questions for the creative professionals and the creative amateurs. There are some overlaps, but also some variations. The interviews with the artists are more about how they touch upon our topic, through their work, ‘how do they identify the identity of the citizens of Istanbul?’. We also ask some overlapping questions to our creative amateurs; here the emphasis is more on ‘how do they identity themselves?’ As mentioned before it seemed like an interesting technique to us to first of all unravel our thesis and frame the most essential terms in our research separtely. For example ‘what is identity?’. In this way they defined the discussed terms individually, before starting to discuss the whole of our research.

It turned out that, also in this case, everyone’s singular mark allowed a variation on the interpretation. In the end we would like to make a document that is not only about the subject, but also part of it. We would like to make it communicate in this extremely human, emotional way we see daily on YouTube and Facebook but also in the urban life and the art life, consequently that the document makes sense to the people we are actually using in a visual experiential way. We would see it as trying to get in touch with our topic, in a postmodern way of documenting it.

Or as already mentioned; in this way we aim to grasp a kind of mindset or feeling that is not directly visible or understandable in daily life. How does reality shapes itself and how creative people communicate, how do they identify themselves and say something about the identity in Istanbul in general? As we said; how can we eventually use the possibilities globalization gave us, designers, to document the points of view and illustrations in a way that it comes back to the people where it’s about? How do we translate it in a way that it doesn’t stay in this separate layer that only makes sense in the world of designers, artists and anthropologists? In this way, we come to the final conclusion to start a YouTube channel, the media to present our documentary, in the middle of the field it describes.

We leave the room excited but also with a lot of unknowns in the back of our minds. We have a strict schedule and are careful to bring all the necessary equipment.

ISTAN

NBUL EXPLORING THE CITY AND INTERVIEWING THE CITIZENS

Let us start the day inside the house, with a shared brunch, before opening the door to the most hectic room of all, Istanbul itself. Now that we are prepared, we can finaly open this bright pink door that was our grabbing our attention since the moment we entered the hallway.

When we opened the door giving entrance to Istanbul, a black veil covering the sky had already fallen. Our bus glides through this city, for the time being still an abstract game of luminous rectangles, the windows behind which people pass the last convivial hours before going to bed. We are in Istanbul the city, a construction made by our citizens, the identities whom we will visit starting tomorrow. We get to know each other better in this room. We have to rely on one another.

We quickly realized that there is nothing that we could have done to prepare ourselves better. We had a clear list of questions, all the camera equipment, and a good open attitude. However, with all the preparation and organizing, we could not have prepared for the unexpected answers, and the cultural differences; only a trial and error approach works in these environments. When we awake, the city promisses us other things, there is light while we walk through the streets to our appointment. Our first appointment, the first ‘identifying citizen’ is already expecting us.

We start our day at Sitki Kosemen’s place. A humouristic photographer and documentary maker, who introduces us into his workspace. He provides us with insight in the hstory of Istanbul and how this affects its inhabitants. Using three cameras we document our experience in order to use it later on in our documentary. With the five of us we entered his studio; a few hours of lots of Turkish tea, long conversations would follow. Because his work was focused on the people of Istanbul he could give us a strong first impression; he told stories of Russian prostitutes, Armenians, Greeks, all living in Istanbul. Passionate about showing an Istanbul that is so varied, with so many micro-narratives, that it is almost impossible to tie them together to make one story, one identity. Strongly he himself stated that globalisation hardly had an effect on this identity, but mostly economically changed the city. Whether this was his opinion of how things should be or whether it is how things are is questionable, as it always will be when discussing big topics. Important for him was how people still seek to ground their roots. As he mentionned even though the world has become more connected, people still seek to ground their roots.

After our visit with Sitki Kosemen our next appointment is on the agenda. The subway brings us to the area where another photographer lives and works. A young man with a bright face introduces himself as Ali Taptik and is more than happy to talk to us. Interestingly his take on what identity means was that “identity is a construction, it is like a sticker that you put on, and sometimes you want to scratch it off”.

Again this links to the Verstaegh’s theory that people naturally create these ‘stickers’ to more easily categorize and group people on the surface. He also reiterated that there is no typical citizen of Istanbul, the only thing that typified a citizen was the chaos that they have to deal with on a daily basis. For Taptik, Istanbul is like a mirror that continuously reflects its citizens and vice versa, the two cannot be separated when speaking about identity. This connects with Verstaegh’s aforementioned theory that identity is mostly a result of nurture rather than nature. In fact, literally in Taptik’s photographic series, Taptik often makes the visual connection between the traces of people, and the people that occupy these spaces. Because Istanbul is his home, he is able to reach deeper than the surface.

The two interviews are finished and we gather in the evening. An intensive days runs on his last legs. Slowly we started to blend in a bit more with the life in Istanbul. We prepare ourselves for tomorrow and get a necessary good night’s sleep.

G

GLOBALIZATION IS ONLY HAPPENING ECONOMICALLY -SITKI KOSEMEN, PHOTOGRAPHER

IDENTITY IS A STICKER THAT YOU CAN PUT ONTO YOUR SKIN -ALI TAPTIK, PHOTOGRAPHER

The university Bahçeşehir Üniversitesi in Istanbul has offered to help us with our research. With their help we hope to be able to come closer to the inhabitants of Istanbul. First to await us, is a group of Turkish students who want to be of service with our research. We share our work method, goals and ambitions and promote our facebook page. We were able to attract the attention of two young ladies. They will help us the following days with communicating with the Turkish speaking people of the city.

From our experience it became clear that our team of five is too many for an intimate interview. Therefore we divide our group in two and the first part leaves for an appointment with the mysterious contemporary artist: Extrastruggle. To the question what identity means, according to him, he responds: “it is a costume I must to take off”. He explained that the Turkish identity is often torn, between the secular Ataturk and conservative Islamic stream; while of course this is a broad and general interpretation one can see the evidence in divide of identity by just walking on the street. This is again a surface level identity, which tends to polarize people. He also tried to change people’s perception of what is to be a Turk (simular to Taptik). For example he told us; as a child in school he was taught to praise Ataturk, and that a Turk was only one type of person, one identity, while in reality many different nationalities and ethnicities form or influence the identity of the citizen due to Istanbul’s rich history.

The ones staying behind prepare for tomorrow and roam the surroundings in order to collect images. Images that may provide the documentary with some ambience and sensibility. After this busy day we share our findings and experiences af the day while enjoying a tasty Turkish meal.

IDENTITY IS A COSTUME I MUST TO TAKE OFF -EXTRASTUGGLE, GRAPHIC DESIGNER/ARTIST

Once again we divide our group in two. The first part goes roaming the streets with our two Turkish students, looking for people to interview. We hang up posters with an inviting text to describe the typical citizen of Istanbul. We hand out flyers to make the people known with our digital platform, our Facebook page.

In order to draw people’s attention we create a space with fluorescent pink tape. A space in which we can ask the citizens of Istanbul in what way themes like identity and globalization are being experienced. The group of people we talk to is very diverse. Everyone has his own interpretation and vision.

The other part of our group visits the SALT institute. A gigantic building. Gleaming with pride and wealth. Here we have an appointment with Meric Ohner, a woman who worked on an enormous archive of ‘creative eyes’ in Istanbul. Her point of view is above the professional eye and can give us from her experience and knowledge a different look on our subjects. She tells us how the image of Istanbul as a meeting of two continents, doesn’t correspond with how someone really experiences the city. Of interest to us was her project ‘Becoming Istanbul’ an online database of different newsclips, YouTubefilms, works of architects and artists that all together say something about the identity of the city.

After this, this part of our group goes to the next meeting in a different part of Istanbul. Here we meet an extravagant contemperary artist. Her name is Kezbanarca Batibeki and she introduces us to the world of the women of Istanbul. Identity to her was something very personal, and something your choose to construct yourself; “Identity is yourself, I think. I always try to be myself.”.She described Istanbul as a very inspiring openminded and diverse city. The middle class women of Istanbul that surrounds her constantly sparks ideas for her work.

Artist Kezbanarca Batibeki gave us a more feminine perspective; she gave us a view of how women’s identities are formed. She told us about an installation she made, ‘The Cage’. There she shows a middle class women watching a popular tv show in a ‘kitsch’-setting; “this woman is caged in her own expectations to improve her status and identity, limiting her from forming her own”. This is a good example of how the globalized ‘mediascape’ influences this identity. The mediascape often reflects our hidden desires of who we may want to be like, but not always in an empowering way.

Our group reunites for our last meeting af the day. To meet a real citizen of Istanbul we arranged a meeting with an inhabitant of Istanbul who turned out to be a designer. We find him in a livingroom like setting. A meeting place for the creative citizens. After a drink and some small talk we go to a small restaurant to have supper. Before we leave, we leave behind some stickers and flyers and hope they will attract even more interested people to our Facebookpage.

THE CITY IS BEING BRANDED AS THE CITY ON TWO CONTINENTS -MERIC OHNER, RESEARCHER AT SALT INSTITUTE

NOW YOU LIKE TO VISIT ISTANBUL, BECAUSE OF GLOBALIZATION -KEZBANARCA BATIBEKI, CONTEMPORARY ARTIST

While a part of our group hits the street again for some interviews, the other part takes the ferry and a cab to a meeting in the Asian part of the city. Here we meet Mehmet Binay, a charming movie and documentary maker. He perfectly articulated; “Istanbul is like a mosaic of our country”. The reality in fact has become so complex and fragmented, like a mosaic, that it has become impossible to describe it more than a colourful confusingly ordered chaos. He described identity as “not what or who I am, but how I feel myself ”, indicating that his self-perception forms his identity. Interestingly he feels the urge to tell a diverse array of stories about peoples’ struggles with identity in his documentaries. For example, one of his documentaries is about convert Armenians; “being born with an identity and having to change it, not on your own will, is quiete tragic I think”. “If you go out on the streets of Istanbul there is a whole suite of interesting stories you can cover, one life is not enough for that.”

Nice. The local bus takes us back to the ferry that brings us back to the European side of Istanbul.

ISTANBUL IS LIKE A MOSAIC OF OUR COUNTRY -MEHMET BINAY, DOCUMENTARY MAKER

We go out on the street and have conversation with the locals. We are once again joined by our Turkish students and they help us making contact and have our questions answered. Many of the people we questioned didn’t believe a typical citizen exists, although you would expect a large scale of different answers, wich it did, some patterns also appeared. Some characterised it as being able to handle some kind of chaos, echoing what photographer Taptik said before. For example, a saleswoman at the market explained that a typical citizen “always runs, always in a hurry, and gets up early otherwise he will lose the day”. Some argued that the typical citizen of Istanbul once existed. The typical citizen remained a nostalgic memory of elegant men who would shine their shoes, and women with “diamond crochets on their headscarves”. Around midday a part of the group leaves for the university to interview some more students of Istanbul there. One girl from Izmir also shares the point of view, that Istanbul citizens tend to be, “a little stressed out”, another girl simply described it as “tiring”.

I LOVE MY PRIME MINISTER -WOMAN INTERVIEWED ON THE STREET

I LISTEN TO ARABIC MUSIC -MAN INTERVIEWED IN A MOSQUE

GLOBALIZATION? IT MEANS NOTHING TO ME -WOMAN INTERVIEWED AT A TERRACE

IN YOUR IMAGINATION YOU CAN DO ANYTHING -MAN INTERVIEWED ON THE STREET

The last day gives us some room to explore this metropolitan personally. The interviews and meetings are finished. Today we allow ourselves to be tourists and let this colorful city overwhelm us. This room of vivacity and elegant abundance we close with the strange realization that everything is once again for always different.

That we carry our bagage with us to the next rooms and that in this room not a single step will be taken, concerning this research anyway.

Afterwards we can conclude that this is our most fun and active room up untill now. However it is time to move towards the exit of this room and continue in the studio.

THE ST SETTING UP

TUDIO REFLECTION TO START WORKING ON A FINAL DOCUMENT

THE R OVERVIEWING FROM

ROOF PUTTING UP A CONCLUSION

Reflecting on our material, coming to a conclusion.

How do citizens identify themselves in times of globalization? ‘How do citizens of Istanbul identify themselves in times of globalization’ and on the other hand ‘how do creative professionals identify the identity of citizens of Istanbul. How do these creative people point out the underlying aspects of daily life that shape the identity of the city? In this way we aimed to grasp a kind of mindset or feeling that is not directly visible or understandable in daily life. Each shows its perspective towards the city and tells something about the identity. How can we still see a clear conclusion, within this mass? Therefore we need to place ourselves as a fish above the surface of the water and see what really surrounds us. Zoomed out we see that we were dealing with the complex structure of identifying, how identity forms itself.

We start with identity as such.

As we begin, let’s talk at first about the individual human, the subject and it’s complexity. The complex structure of an individual though the mass, the society, the structures to which he belongs. The ‘I’ can only be an ‘I’ as long as the ‘I’ moves within a ‘we’. The ‘individuation’, a term borrowed from Bernard Stiegler, the relationship between individuals, is a continuous process; the structure can never be completed. This would mean the end of this process, and at the same time the end of the individual, what would imply that the ‘I’ can never truly become unified with itself, and that it’s perpetually involved in a process of becoming (with relationship to others). Man is continuously involved in a process of individuation. It is impossible to truly know the individuation, in the common perception of the word. Within this individuation there is also certain subjectivity, an interpretation/ reading of the multiple ‘I’. The process of individuation exhibits itself within artifacts. These artifacts are e.g. laws, language... that receive autonomy. The ‘I’ can only be an ‘I’ as long as the ‘I’ moves within a ‘we’. The outside world influences the intern world, and vice versa. Through a globalized world this ‘we’ is extending, more and more. Everything is present, and is spreading out continuously. The lines of the borders have become vague. The mediascape, as mentioned before in our text, plays an important role in this imagined world. Because of this central role, we realized the importance of using this mediacape as a research method. We used the possibilities globalization gave us, designers, to document our story and illustrate it in a way that it comes back to the people in question. Therefore we present our documentary in the form of a YouTube channel (see the exhibition). The mediascape not only exposes us to different cultural identities, it often acts as a mirror of who we want to be. We mentioned before how a Facebook page can be like an online identity supermarket, an empty field where one can visually construct

his/her identity. Let this be a figurative representation of how identity works. It’s almost like a Tabula Rasa, emptiness we have to fill, to give form to a personal identity. Is it that we define ourselves the best, with what we consume, with what we do as a job, by the city we live in, our roots, or to which group we belong?

By asking the question ‘what is identity’ to both artist and street persons we got a clearer picture what elements people in Istanbul use around them to construct it.

There was a general contradiction in that some found identity being something that the individual can freely construct themselves, and for others it is a sticker put on them by their surroundings. In terms of aspects that are placed centrally to how an identity is constructed we got a variety of answers: “Identity is a costume I must take off” (Extrastruggle),“There are always some stickers, put on to your skin, on to you surface... and then sometimes you like these stickers... and then they get old and you try to scratch them off... and sometimes you tear a bit of skin in the meantime... and some parts of the paper are left there” (Ali Taptik). Sitki explained that one’s roots and history are also an important aspect that can define you. The people and the city are constantly reflecting each other and influencing each other’s identity, one simply does not exist without the other. This resonates with Paul Verstaegh’s theory that when trying to come to an identity one must realize that when it is under construction the environment factors have a stronger influence.

If we then focus on the subjective expression of the creator, how does he or she direct it towards the other, how does he or she connect ‘I’ with ‘we’? One could say that just like in art, each personal story has a broader existential meaning. We searched for an answer that was not there. Is it that citizens long for a typical citizen of Istanbul that once upon a time existed? Which due to constantly changing influences does not exist anymore. We were not searching for concrete answers to our questions, but in fact the truth (as can be seen in our documentary) often lies between the answers of each individual we met. We found that the truth of an identity often lies between the individual and his or her surroundings, as Ali Taptik said; “The city and the people are alike, it’s not two separate identities.

I try to see things as a whole, not separate” . The stickers that we place on ourselves, is like an emptiness we need to fill. It is the infinite process of the interaction between the inner and outside world.

A role of a designer is then to see the full image, how people are formed by these different forces. The role of a designer is being able to place itself like as a fish above the surface of the water and see what really surrounds us. Being able to see

what is the water that’s beneath us; to understand the water and the needs of others, and work in his surroundings. Being able to know which kind of water it is what we are longing for. And thus, giving it back to the people in question.

BIBLIOGRAPHY books: 1. arjun appadurai ‘modernity at large. cultural dimensions of globalization.’ university of minnesota press, minneapolis, minn.

2005, 2. adriaan van der staay ‘imagining emotion, art as a binding element in contemporary society’ rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten, amsterdam, 2007 3. bernard stiegler ‘passer a l’acte’ of ‘als een vliegende vis, over de wording van een filosoof’ garant, 2007 4. frank vande veire ‘als in een donkere spiegel, een inleiding in de moderne filosofie van de kunst’ sun, amsterdam, 2002 5. orhan pamuk ‘museum of innocence’ faber and faber, london, 2010 6. orhan pamuk ‘istanbul, memories of the city’ alfred a. knopf, new york, 2005 7. rob wijnberg en stine jensen ‘dus ik ben; een zoektocht naar identiteit’, de bezige bij, amsterdam, 2011 8. paul verhaeghe ‘identity’, de bezige bij, amsterdam, 2012 articles: 9. gabrielle kennedy ‘identity land; space for one million identities’ http://www.design.nl/item/identity_land_space_for_one_million_identities (15.2.2012) 10. verstaegh and verheule ‘identity through a psychoanalytical looking glass’ http://tap.sagepub.com. (2009) 11. mediascape. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/mediascape (2011) 12. alexander satar ‘interview; orhan pamuk: ‘i was not a political person’’ the new york times, august 15, 2004 13. caglar keyder ‘globalization and social exclusion in istanbul’ international journal of urban and regional research, volume 29.1, maart 2005 14. gabrielle kennedy, ‘identity land; space for a million identities’ een project van erik van kessel en drooglab in samenwerkinkg met z33, hasselt, 2012 15. necmi sönmez ‘istanbul: look beyond the hype’ the art newspaper, issue 216, september 2010 16. suzy hansen ‘the istanbul art-boom bubble’ new york times, februari 12 2012 online documentaries: 17. ‘an anthropological introduction to youtube’ by michael wesch, presented at the library of congress 18. ‘the culture clash in istanbul turkey’ video and reporting by emilie eaton 19. ‘life in a day’ youtube crowdsourced documentary, techland 20. ‘the new ottomans-the cafe’ al jazeera english 21. ‘the edge of heaven’ fatih akin imagine istanbul

IN THE IMAGINATION YOU CAN DO ANYTHING