AR Augmented Reality is becoming more and more popular day by day. As an American Arts Incubator Amplify 2019 I adore using new tools to tell my stories. My last exhibition Hamam had all secrets revealed with augmented rality app ARTIVIVE.
Here are some images and comments about art critiques from the exhibition.
Here are some images and comments about art critiques from the exhibition.
Augmented Reality Art via ARTIVIVE App |
Preface
I
define myself as a set designer and visual storyteller. Using a 3D modeling
software offers unlimited possibilities when designing space for the stories I
tell. Many of my stories have gender roles, social issues, and LGBTQAI rights.
In my studies, there are frames and connections of ancient mosaic coating
patterns that symbolize the limits of living in unity. As a
cultural heiress who feeds on archaeological sites that I have established
close relationships with in my childhood, I am very impressed by the methods of
telling stories about the optical illusion language and periods of mosaics.
While
creating space for the stories I tell, all my angles work like a storyboard. My favorite tools are 3D softwares because they have the power to fill
the gap without any gravity and budget. Using 3D
softwares for drawing offers the possibility to use tools such as 3D printing,
CNC or laser engraving while producing my work. Besides, I prepare 3D animations, AutoCAD drawings and photos to visualize my stories.
The
materials I love vary according to the concept I am working on. As an artist with stage and set design experiences, I am fascinated by
the language of the materials and their out of general purpose potential.
I
was taught to remain silent about my existence. That's why most of my stories
have secrets about the society I belong to, and the mosaic frame patterns I use
frequently, borders, turn into areas that I need to fit.
I
have been abstracting ancient mosaic tiles in recent years and have been using
storytelling methods about their period. I am
fascinated by the illusions of their frames, their borders and the 3D surface
they try to act as. With the interfaces I use, I feel that I have reached
the threshold filled with 3D anxieties that the mosaic masters of the time
tried to reach through three-dimensional programs. I read archaeological
publications and Queer theories for the fiction of my stories. Following the American Arts Incubator program I am a participant in, I
continue to work on new tools to improve my 3D design skills.
The
bathhouse series was shaped through researches to identify women, the subject
of my previous exhibition, in certain areas. While
working on "Gynaeceum - Women's Gathering Place", which is my
archaeological and historical research series, the analysis of public
buildings, private properties, body, gender has led me to baths with
interesting readings. Bathhouse series, which emerged on the social and
spatial change of the bath, which is one of the architectural structures shaped
by the bodies as a reference to spatial encounters, also takes on the mission
of transferring information to the future while feeding on verbal expressions.
Although
the tranquility caused by the diffusion of daylight leaking from the eyes of
the elephant to the place with steam, creates sub-dome verjuice, the baths
hosted socialization, riots, organizations, pleasure, healing, murders,
legends. Today, the "Hammam" exhibition, which has
turned into a very touristic experience and whose number is gradually
decreasing and whose original architecture has changed, looks at the keyhole
with its personal testimony, verbal memory and various constructions, and
brings the audience to the invisible behind the visible with the Artivive
application.
Valuable
names such as İlker Cihan Biner, Kerim Kürkçü, Lütfiye Bozdağ, Tuncer Gül wrote
various texts for the series shaped with the images of east-west. It is divided
into 4 baths: Coldness, Warmness, Heat and Hypocaust.
Ahmet
Rüstem Ekici
Fine touches, spaced loincloths, flaming bodies
Another day from fetus and
Blood
While beginning,
I bleed a branch with my nails
I touch an unopened rose
Friend Z. Özger / One day, making love to me
0.
Prologue
Breathing
with prohibited desires causes the body to close in itself.
In
an inner world where the sun is not rising and darkness collapses, feelings are
buried in the
mechanism
of shame. Now, the entire development area has the risk of turning into a
desert.
It is only a matter of time
to be blown away from among the noisy masses who speak
to us and impose borders.
Nevertheless,
we start looking for someone to share this loneliness in streets, parks or
other places
where
the day is unknown. We are thirsty for a glance,
a
hint or a touch. We attempt to find ways to tear off the darkness within us.
We
venture out of our own cave to fall on the roads. We think that neither death
nor
oppression can stop us.
Hazards
appear at the door. Here comes the question of embarking on adventures,
that
we can call freedom, eroding borders and building ourselves. Indeed,
we
keep thinking that what keeps us in this world. We confuse upon the
difficulties
of lifting and throwing whatever is written on the body. We search
for
possibilities to find gap places.
Nipple,
lips, hips... As we feel that every corner of our body is cut off,
it
becomes inevitable to come face to face with death. On the verge of
nothingness,
the
desire to touch the stranger on the edge of the cliff begins to grow day by
day.
Like
the snowball, the surface of the skin is filled with endless vibrations.
So
we can say that; Being able to crack or escape from the patriarchal
order
kneaded with dual gender domination takes place as the building
block
of each of us' s struggles. Hasn't the way of our ocean-like worlds passed
through
parks, bathhousess, bars? These places,
where
our first sexual experiences, love and friendships take shape,
surely
exceed the power lines of the classical space.
1. 'Hammam'
as an interact.
Ahmet
Rüstem Ekici traces an escape place in
the drowned to the point world, where various forms of sexuality are
prohibited. The artist deals with the surfaces of baths, which
have been the subject of fairy tales, archaeological research, and mythological
narratives from Anatolia to Europe and even the Far East for centuries. However, these areas are not studied with a mystical view of
orientalism. The works of art transcend Orientalism, born at the
heart of colonialism, processed as a spectacle. The venues
are removed from the context of Pandora's box and covered in flesh. Bodies, objects spreading to the works are not processed with an
oriental closure or sub-erotic references. The
oriental sexuality we see in some places, the exotism of Arab boys, especially
Ahmet Rüstem Ekici, is a narrative form in which he avoids. But by gathering all our courage, we need to explain how mystery, which
is the key concept of orientalism, is processed by detaching it from its
context. Ahmet Rüstem Ekici, who has turned the conception
upside down, focuses on the indicators in the baths that turn into a place of
sexual experience. In doing so, it transcends the natural-artificial
duality by creating a digital universe. Space
frames, body marks, erotic objects shaped with antique mosaic coatings connect
on the fabric and connect the most distant possibilities. Thus, the hammam emphasizes a reality that can express the sexual energy
field.
2.
Epilogue
What
does the concept of heterotopia point to?
For
example; prisons, mental hospitals, cemeteries are the characteristics of
heterotopia. Today, the concept still remains useful. It means, these mechanisms, which occur as visibility-guiding visions,
having changeable or dynamic qualities, are always in a position to show. Each position, which we can also call function devices, points to
different regimes of power. Although the bath is seen as a cleaning
area (or heterotopia) before social dynamics, this situation is reversed in
Ekici's works. The perception of classical space may indicate bilateral
gender domination such as men's bath or women's bath. But the exhibition get over this situation via queer theories. The
bathhouse opens the door to many stories and experiences as the place where
sexual experiences or the contacts of the bodies form on the brink of borders. Finally;
The possibilities of the rainbow are not too far away. In this context, Ahmet
Rüstem Ekici's Hamam exhibition is waiting to be seen. Many more stories
buried in the gaze will come to light with the Works of art.
A homoerotic exhibition; The Bathhouse
Lütfiye Bozdağ
AICA member, Art Critic
Ahmet Rüstem Ekici, who sets off from the concept of
Turkish bath, offers the opportunity to discuss some of the new concepts added
to the field of art with his latest works in his exhibition at Gallery Bu. We can list these concepts as follows:
"homoerotic", queer space, "Layhar shroud",
"Hermaphrodite", "gay sex".
The artist, who chooses to make a rich art with
various techniques such as paintings, prints on fabric, installations,
holograms, animations with the art vive application, materials, and the
interior design education, takes advantage of the experience of décor and stage
design, by taking the bathhouse. The bath, which has
been known since ancient Rome, offers a concept that allows us to think of it
as a queer space with the concept of homoerotic.
Ahmet Rüstem deals with the bath, which is the place
of washing, cleaning and purification of both the Ottoman and the Republican
era since ancient times, not only as a place, but with all its elements and
cultural aspects.
Bathhouses
in the official ideology of history; Although it is the place of water
purification and cleaning, it is known as socialization areas built in an
architectural form in line with the religious beliefs of societies. With
the possibilities offered by technology today, the central heating system and
thermosiphons in the houses have eliminated the need to go to bathhouses to
wash and get clean. In
addition, many people do not want to go to the bathhouse due to the risk of
infectious diseases passing into the body in the bath environment. On
the other hand, despite all these, the artist wants to show us what lies behind
the tendency of men to go to the bath, the other side of the bathhouse, which is
covered by the ideology of official history. The subject that the artist wants to
draw attention in his exhibition; In the oriental view of the West, perceiving
the baths in the East as erotic and exotic places and revealing the clues that
are the basis of this perception. The bath, which was avoided due to epidemics and
superstitions in Medieval Europe, has modernized in Europe today and has turned
into saunas, which is the gathering place of gay culture. Although
it is known that baths have been used not only for body cleaning but also for
pleasure and entertainment since the Roman period, it is thought-provoking not
to be mentioned as a sexual pleasure place.
Although
the document regarding the use of the bath as a gay-sex place in the Ottoman
Empire is not recorded, in the article of Sarper Yılmaz's[1] On the Concept of the Boulders; We learn
some information from the Kulhanbeyi Betting section that Ebuzziya Tevfik
described in his book The New Ottoman
History.[2] When Ebuzziya
Tevfik was exiled to the island of Rhodes, he learns this topic from a cave
called Sami and explains it in his book: “Sami,
who went into many jobs after losing his mother and father, applied to Pat
Burun İbrahim in the Gedikpaşa bathhouse, which is the head of the supporters
of the church when he has no place to accommodate. However,
there is a prerequisite to be accepted to the Kulhan. Halva
and pilaf should be cooked that night in the Kulhan and the child has to find
the necessary ingredients in a way that will be accepted. The
child who supplies the material delivers it to the Kulhan owner. With this,
dinner is prepared, the candidate child does not attend the dinner and serves
everyone water. After the meal is finished, the Kulhan owner bites the
bread with three fingers, and he immerses it in salt, he reads a poem, which is
considered sacred for the beasts, and throws the bite into his mouth, and those
on the table repeat it. The original form of this poem published in the
newspaper Yeni Tasvîr-i Efkâr is as follows:
The name of
this home is real kulhan,
It is a
place for the homeless people
Many men
were brought up from Kulhan,
Who knows
who is where Pinhan today.
Does not fit
in parent's arms
Kids are
guests in this furnace.
Koca Layhar
is our father,
God is the
sultan who doesn’t have any equal
Let’s repeat
hu for the spirit of Layhar, hu
For him,
rich and poor is on the same level
A
sibling must be assigned to the child who is accepted to Kulhan. This
also has a ritual. Children who will be siblings are stripped of being born
from the mother and wear a big shirt brought together by the Kulhan owner called Layhar Shroud. The child
on the right puts his right hand on the right arm of the shirt and the left
hand on the left. The body is unique, while with two heads and two arms visible
from the outside. That night, two children sleep in this shirt. In the
evening, backgammon, checkers and similar games are played, songs, manias,
ghazals are sung. Then they are laid on the prepared ashes, the little ones are
usually buried in the ashes in pairs and naked, such as rugs and sacks are
covered[3]. ”
Although this information does not provide any clear
information about the fact that the bathhouse was a homoerotic place during the
Ottoman period and that gay-sex was performed, the artist included “Layhar's
shirt” in one of his works as a result of implicit information and oral
history. The artist transforms this shirt, where two young men enter the body
naked and spend the night together, transforming it into an object of art.
The artist thinks that the bath is not a power area
but a transparent one. Here he wants to show that the positions have
disappeared, that everyone can see each other naked or that they can see each
other half-naked in the loincloth, so that the hierarchy has disappeared and
that the loincloth equals everyone as a uniform garment. Ahmet Rüstem treats
the fictional bath as a queer space, while the loincloth is a sexless garment
that women who cover a part of the body use by men as well.
Also, we know that the loincloth is both the same and
the separator in the Ottoman baths. Bath attendants Non-Muslims do not want to
wash Non-Muslims, so they are given loincloths in different colors and weaves,
so that according to the loincloth woven in different colors and patterns, it
is understood who is Muslim and who is non-Muslim. The artist is making designs
referring to these loincloths. On the other hand, the bathhouse, where the
hierarchy disappears among Muslims, where men leave from stress and relax, is
the area of relaxation with the softness of steam, and the relaxation where the
body gets loose itself.
When we look at the architectural space, we know that
the bathhouse is generally square and the center is designed to have a navel
stone and there are private rooms in it, and these private rooms are used as
closed spaces for privacy. The artist designs the bath bowls, one of the most
important elements of the bath, in the form of a nipple, and aesthetizes them
as an erotic object. The piercing on the nipples placed in the middle of the
bath bowl strengthens the homoerotic contact of the bath, the artist presents
these forms as an installation in the form of about 10 ceramic bath bowls.
Another concept that Ahmet Rüstem featured most in
this exhibition is keyhole and peeping. All the visuals in the exhibition evoke
the feeling that we are spying on one of the key holes. Three-dimensional
animations give the feeling of looking out over the bathhouse. The sense of
blinking and peeping while walking in a bathhouse, the wondering under the
loincloth, and the handling of the homoerotic atmosphere on the fabric such as
peeping through the keyhole, reinforces the concept of the exhibition with the
pattern, figures and colors of these fabrics. The animations that show that the
naked body is dressed when touched create a different excitement with the
viewers seeing that the naked body they touch is covered with clothing. The
illusionic air in the bathhouse, which gives the feeling of watching the naked
bodies secretly through a keyhole and peeping in the bath, gives the illusionic
air in the bath with animations made by the artist hologram and art vive
application. The animation fan shows two-dimensional images rotating on the
basis of 20 frames through three-dimensional program. With this program, which
has a three-dimensional interface, the interior images of the bathhouse create
an exotic atmosphere with its moving parts.
All pictures printed on fabric have a frame. He says
that the mosaics of ancient times always have very big frames and he wants to
make them look like mosaic panels that try to provide three-dimensionality with
those frames. I wanted to give a
three-dimensional feeling, but I did it mostly with animations and digital
techniques, he says. It provides
mobility to some places in holograms and animations. When viewed from a distance,
some images whose depth is not understood turn static and two-dimensional
images into three-dimensional images that move using digital three-dimensional
techniques and gain depth. In fact, the artist says that he carried these works
beyond three dimensions with hologram printing, and that he can tell erotic
stories that he could not tell with two-dimensional pictures with hologram
prints and animations.
The artist, who chose to use flip flops slippers
instead of wooden clogs, one of the important elements of the Ottoman bath,
draws attention to the fact that flip flops slippers are sexless. In an image
of these slippers, he makes a homoerotic reference with a condom on the side by
positioning two slippers together.
The exhibition attracts attention with its being the
first exhibition that handles the concepts of "homoerotism", queer
space, "Layhar's shirt" and "gay sex" together.
[1] YILMAZ
Sarper; 1 On the Concept of the Kulhanbeyi, Journal of Academic History and
Thought, Volume III, Number: 8, May 2016
[2] TEVFİK
Ebuzziya, 1973, History of New Ottomans, Kervan Kitapcılık Basın Sanayi ve
Ticaret A.Ş., İstanbul
[3] YILMAZ
Sarper; 1 On the Concept of the Kulhanbeyi, Journal of Academic History and
Thought, Volume III, Number: 8, May 2016
Augmented Reality Art via ARTIVIVE App |
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