GMU:Istanbul/city faces

INTRODUCTION

When we create this project, we think about the society in Istanbul, for us was really important to create a conection with the people of Istanbul. At the beggining of this project we ask our self what can we do to get in touch with the “real” people of Turkey. As foreigners of this country, we try to saw the daily life of the city in the short period that we were there. Knowing people taking to them and as well trying to be part of them, we discover how different is the culture as we imagine (stereotypes). Is hard to describe a daily life in a city in a short time but we can say that this city impressed us. Is a city where the economical contrast is very present, also where the religion a enormous power has but at the same time he contradicts himself. All of this situations inspired us to make intervensions in the public areas of istanbul We meet incredible students from the marmara university who help us to develop our city faces project.

CONCEPT

The main concept of this project was to show the expirinces that we experiment there. We catch in video the most impresive moments of our stay in Istanbul. we try to collect many videos to show the culture and the daily life in this huge city. After one week we take the city as a museum and with a projector we reproduced those images in the streets that some how were conected with this videos. We saw the reaction of the people in a positive way, the students of the marmara university give us the idea to recreate the same idea in germany. thats why we decide to project the same images in Weimar. For us was a really nice experience to show those videos in a different country. This project was made with a lot of feelings inside and therefor we received the positive aceptation in the two countries.

PROBLEMS

Evidently the projections on public spaces needs to be make it during the night. A small problem was that many of the stores were closed. We needed the support of many stores to get electricity for the technic (proyector and computer). We walked trought the city in the night searching for the perfect places to proyect. We made some test from our window in hostel and like that get to know how can we work faster. This test helped us to recognize in wish point of the proyect we need technical help, therefore we decided to make the proyections with the help of one of our classmate (Regina Raush) who fix the projection with the program (mapping). As well we discover the best position for the proyector, many angles, hight and several changes for the projection in the points that we wanted to do it. At the end we get the support that we need it for, electricity and a place to put the projector.

CONCLUSIONS

With this project we realized that the perception of life in many countries is different. It is not just about Germany and Turkey. The cultural diferences are also between our native countries (Colombia and Spain). Something that untill now catch our attention is the time, the time in each city in different and move in different ways. The little details are in general dificult to see. We were really lucky to get to know the people from the marmara University and for this reason was easier to get in contact with the people there not as turist. They helped us not only with the language, they were the whole time with us, walking, visitng the people, and showing us the most interesting places in the city (where they work and where they live). The fact to know one city in this way, expand our visions of the world and also in the artistic way. For us art is also to get into different cultures and work with them.

FINAL PRESENTATION

For the final presentation in the bauhaus university (summery 2012). We prepared a video documentation showing the proyections that we did in istanbul. In this documentation we includ the test of the proyect and how was the days during our stay there.