Century-old
Church now a culture
center
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/century-old-church-now-a-culture-center.aspx?pageID=238&nID=45562&NewsCatID=385
Kendirli Church, which was built in 1860 with financial
support from Napoleon III, has been reopened a cultural center in the
southeastern province
of Gaziantep.
The building on Atatürk
Boulevard, which previously served as a movie
theater before becoming teachers’ lodgings, has now been reopened as the Gazi Culture
Center by the local
metropolitan municipality.
Besides Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of modern Turkey, who is animated as a robot, the building
displays many Turkish public heroes such as Şahinbey, Özdemirbey and Karaylan,
who were significant heroes during the defense of Gaziantep against the French during the War
of Independence.
Gaziantep Mayor Asım Güzelbey said the building was restored
in the 1970s, when it began serving as teacher’s lodgings. He said that because
of this restoration, the building had lost some of its historical features.
“We have started working to turn the building into a
cultural center without making any restoration.
Thanks to a 3-D technique, which is being used for the first
time in Turkey, visitors
will have chance to see an Atatürk robot, as well as the heroes of Gaziantep,” he said.
The mayor said he saw a similar project at the Presidential
Museum during a trip to the United
States, adding that they wanted to do the
same thing for Atatürk
April/25/2013
Video art celebrating its 50th year in world
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/video-art-celebrating-its-50th-year-in-world.aspx?pageID=238&nID=45560&NewsCatID=385
Turkish artist Recep Akar is presenting his video art
project ‘100x100=900 (100 video-artists to tell a century),’ which aims to
celebrate 50 years of video art as part of an international project
Turkish artist Recep Akar will be presenting his video art
project “100x100=900 (100 video-artists to tell a century),” in a celebration
of 50 years of video art by focusing on 100 years of history. Organized by
Magmart, the aim is to celebrate the first creation of video art, which was
started with Nam June Paik’s first screening of video art in Germany.
The world premiere of the event will take place in Rome, and will feature more than 40 artists in the project
from Germany, Argentina, China,
Italy, United States, England,
Brazil, Greece, Spain,
Russia, Peru, Colombia,
Iran, Albania, India,
French, Romania, Armenia, Hungary
and the Philippines.
Akar will be in the project with his work titled “Misdeed,”
which is a single channel video. As a form of artistic expression, all motion
and still pictures attract Akar’s attention. He has produced short films,
documentaries and videos, presented at various international festivals and
exhibitions. He has recently produced works mainly in the field of video art
and is currently continuing his post-graduate degree in Cinema and Television.
Period around 1972
According to Akar, “Misdeed” describes the period around
1972, and was inspired by a poem of Can Yücel. “1972 was a very significant
year. It was a very significant year in Turkish history. It was the aftermath
of a coup d’etat. The aim of my video is to reflect the darkness of the era,”
he said.
The idea base of the “100x100=900” project is that in order
to evolve it is necessary to understand what of past must be archived for
future generations. In this sense, the event contacted 100 video artists to
interpret anyone a year of the past century, in an attempt to create a global
narration of 1900s. Processing the past through the moving image (cinema,
television, the Internet) is one of characterizing elements of 1900s. The event
will gather 100 videos together, and throughout 2013 these videos will be shown
in many different countries.
The aim is to show that video art is an art that has been
intimately close to the languages of the contemporary world.
The project’s aim is to give absolute freedom to artists and
enable them to focus only on their own work on a certain year. This will bring
an unsettling re-alignment of our view of the 20th century.
“100x100=900” also calls on the artists to experiment with
different contexts for their own production.
The aim is to show that the global vision of artwork
determines a meta-layer reading of any artwork.
This is the first time that such a project has been tried,
at least for video art, so it is an experiment in itself.
At the end of project, the curator will publish the work in
a catalogue. The intention is to cut a closed number of young art critics in this
publication, preferably of different geographical and cultural origin.
Recep Akar
He was born in Istanbul
in 1979. He graduated from Marmara University Faculty of Communications
Department of Cinema-TV in 2001. He has produced works in the fields of short
film, documentary and video since 1998. As a form of artistic expression every
type of still&moving images attracts his attention.
He has recently produced works mainly in the field of video
art. He is continuing his post-graduate degree in cinema-tv and is giving
cinema lessons at Lycée Saint Michel.
http://9hundred.org/viewbig.php?i=38
photos
http://www.google.hr/search?q=recep+akar&client=opera&hs=fyL&channel=suggest&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=RhZ5Uf3KHqOn4ATw2IHoBw&ved=0CDoQsAQ&biw=1024&bih=651