The residency continues, and today began with a discussion of David Morely's notions of home, “Heim”, “Heimat” and the constructions of belonging in regards to identity and space. What creates a sense of home – is it place, people, attachment to objects? What also creates “other-” or “alien-ness”? Burcak Bingol mentioned that otherness is a counterpoint to the self; a reflection of subjectivity.
Following, Iz Oztat led a discussion of issues and expectations that the participants of the residency have, which was captured on paper and then mindmapped by Rebecca Weeks. The map seemed to have concrete issues in contrast (epistemologies) with qualitative ones like altruism, empathy, love and beauty (ontologies). This map was displayed for the remainder of the day.
Participants also contributed to a T-shirt design for the residency, twhich we'll produce in the next couple days.
Lastly, participants had an assignment to go to one of several spots on the Bodrum Peninsula and perform psychogeographic research to determine the terrain of social issues in the area. Guy Debord defined the term psychogeography as the set of practices that show the relations of people to the urban landscape. In this case, each participant was allowed to pick a place on the peninsula and given five hours to find their way back to Bodrum Central district. This employed the Debord's tactic of the derive, or use of wandering to interrogate the landscape. The result included participants infiltrating buildings, playing local pastimes with the population, haircuts, hitchhiking, museums, bars and much more.
We hope that the residents will add comments about their psychogrographic experiments in whatever language they wish here...
