“Doublethink 1”
Video Instalation 4 min. 43 sec.
Contextos Intermédios, Tecla Sala, Barcelona
Biennal de Valls, Barcelona
Loop 2009, Barcelon
All the nations that were founded late 19th century or early 20th century are based on their national symbols, heroic stories, made-up mythologies and independence war heroes to create and strengthen the consciousnes of being a state and to connect the citizens horizontally with the bounds of the brotherhood. In the case of Turkish Republic, one of the most important national symbols is the national anthem, “Istiklal Marsi”
It is formed of 41 lines and 256 words and any Turkish citizen is obliged to know it word by word beginning from early childhood. Is it possible to think of this hymn (which all the students in all the schools sing every monday morning and ever friday evening until reaching the university years) in a different way?
The doublethink project consists of two video installations. To form the first one, all the words of the anthem were put in alfabetical order. This coincidential method of creating a new, almost dadaist poem, sometimes ended up creating new meanings, and sometimes totaly absurd ones. Afterwards, the video has been created by the first 256 images which google images finds searching for the turkish anthem “istiklal marsi” . Each image lasts on the screen during the reading of the words that forms the new poem. The overrepetition of the words such as patria, blood, nation, citizen, martyrs, as well as the repetition of the images of national ceremonies, flag, the school kids etc. can be observed in the video. The aim of this randomly made video is to invite the audiance to think about the fragile theme of being a nation, to forget about its sacred meanings and to trivialize it.
