"SANAT-TEXNH", Mimar Sinan Museum, Istanbul. Curated by Efie Struza(Greece) and Beral Madra (Turkey).
String, black light, metronome, clockwork toys, laundry detergent, variable dimensions
This piece derives from expanding the chess map in space. Guided by the chess map, cotton strings are attached to the opposite walls of a room forming - weaving a cross in space. Due to black light, the strings glow in the dark as if being light beams. Since however they are real matter they obstruct the spectator to "enter" the piece unless one decides to bend and cross over under the luminous strings, which hover in space at a distance of 150 cm from the ground.
This move on the part of spectator (the first spectators being Turkish since the piece was originally designed for an exhibition in Istanbul) is - when it happens - a product of recognizing that this cross formation is not a religious symbol per se. It rather connotes the concept of geographical coordinates as tools of defining space, locality, and territory while suggesting furthermore that the dense telecommunication networking of our times promotes interconnectedness and awareness of interdependence.
In this light, spectators entered the piece to experience themselves in space, or to wind the small clockwork toys (dinosaurs initially, other bipedal toys later) who left their marks on the glowing detergent, or moved freely cross the room.
