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INTERVIEW - 60 Days of Lockdown - LUXELAKES·A4 Art Museum

Interview in 2020

The Covid-19 pandemic sweeping the world in 2020 gave birth to the “60 Days of Lockdown” project. It brings together the voices of 79 artists from 23 countries, depicting our current reality in text and image, where social distancing and online interaction have become the norm. Beginning on June 23, 2020, A4 Art Museum will share life experiences and reflections on art from these artists in an online exhibition and book.

Artistic Director: Sunny Sun

Curator: Cai Liyuan

http://www.a4am.cn/website/activity_info/id/687/nid/94

A short video interview about how I am doing one year after participating in the online exhibition. (2021)

My Own Greenhouse & Hane

My Own Greenhouse

Combination of sound field recordings and synthesizers.

"There were even times when I thought that, as long as I was waiting for him to do it, I might as well go ahead and strike a match and burn one down. It's just a beat up old barn, right?" Barn Burning, by Haruki Murakami

It's been 15 years since I first moved out of my parents' house to live alone in Istanbul, but we now live together under the same roof in my family’s farm house in Nif Village/Fethiye due to coronavirus. Living in the countryside, however, is a blessing in these difficult times. But honestly, as a socially alienated artist, -although my family is very supportive- often it's challenging for me to adapt to my relatives’ behaviors. Considering that families are one of the important foundations of society, they still try to shape my personality. The necessity of physical distancing myself from my neighboring relatives further strengthened my social distancing against my hometown societies. That's exactly when I developed obsession with the story of "(Barn) Burning." The sound work is highly influenced by William Faulkner’s 1939 short story “Barn Burning”, Haruki Murakami’s 1983 short story “Barn Burning” and Lee Chang-dong’s 2018 film “Burning.” It focuses on my own relationship between my family, our barn, our greenhouse, the fire, and me as dictated by the natural surroundings of my hometown.

I’ve started to listen to the surrounding environment more hoping to understand the hometown societies. The dominant sonic background in the areas of the greenhouse in Nif Village is mainly generated by the voice of the natural sources, the urban anthropology, the geography and its climate. I jammed other synthesizers such as a groove-fuelled bass line and chord progressions. My loneliness, desire, and fury keeps peering around the edges of this sound-work.

Hane

Sounds for an Empty Housean album with three sidescreated by 44 Welsh and International sound artistsin dialogue with an empty house A project of Soundlands, Plas Bodfa Projects and Amgueddfa Llwch. My track "Hane" is also included in the album that I manipulated the original sounds of the empty manor house in North Wales during the mix to create this industrial rock-inspired piece.

The Complete Sounds for an Empty House by Bengisu Uykusu

About Me

Bengisu Uykusu is a multidisciplinary artist working in the fields of photography, video and sound-art. She studied at SAE Institute İstanbul (Major: Cinema & TV), Bahcesehir University Music Department (Major: Jazz-half scholarship) and received her BA degrees from Istanbul Bilgi University (Major: Music-full scholarship). As part of the Erasmus exchange program, she went on exchange at the Malmö Music Academy-Electroacoustic Music Composition Department in Sweden. Uykusu is currently studying philosophy through Istanbul University-Distance Education Centre. She works for documentary video production companies and advertising agencies. She has participated in a number of group exhibitions and performances around the world.

INTERVIEW for Lacuna Festivals 'Distance 2021'

MULTIMEDIA ART & INTERVIEW for "Water of Change."

My hometown experiences an intense drought. We used to share a water well with my aunts and uncles in our village. But now there isn't enough water for my entire family to share. For the past few years, the well has not provided enough amount of water storage for farming. As a result, many families are searching for ground water in order to dig their own private wells. Through their relation with water, I wanted to illustrate how my family interact with their environment.

And this is my introductory video of my artwork. It's a privilege to participate in Disappearing Dialogues and Media Art South Asia's project "Water of Change." You can check their website to discover works of other amazing artists about Water: https://mediaartsouthasia.org/watersofchange/

VIDEO ART - Water Flames

This work focuses on the balance between fire and water. However, the rapid pace of climate change is affecting Earth's energy balance. Recent wildfires have sparked concern around the world. Hopefully, various nations united together to battle wildfires. Even volunteers joined crews fighting wildfires. This video is dedicated to those who were putting their lives above everything else to save lives and protect the environment.

When Istanbul has battled the first wave of coronavirus, I spent more hours online in my house alone during the lockdown period. That's why I've developed a liminal experience that I was between who I was before and who I was to become. While I was video chatting or playing video games with my virtual friends, I experienced the world through the screens. It has created an entirely different perception of reality. My memories of events were replaced by virtual reality. I felt betwixt and between. I constantly questioned my memories, wondering whether they were real or not. I needed evidence such as videos or photos. Therefore, I always had to dig through the screens of the devices for my memories. I didn't know whatever was true, "to go hiking with my relatives" or "to hang with Noctis, Gladiolus, Ignis and Prompto”? Since I have played games due to Simulacrum, it blurred the reality of my memories across the screens until it formed Hyperreality.

Why not respond to this hyperreality that I developed? I compose my works of art through a mimetic dimension due to reflection, transformation of actual experiences with my own perception. For this reason, I decided to create double exposure photographs to represent my blurred reality. The base photos were taken at my home with my smartphone during the lockdown. And, the layer photos feature analogue photos that I took before lockdown. Consequently the photographs are blended together to reflect the contrast and the dichotomous visions. By its nature, endings are sudden, and plans are unknown for what's next, I am asking which really is the impact of maintaining a digital presence during the liminal period. Oh, I have stuck in Limbo of the screens…

SOUND ART & VIDEO ART - 大丈夫 - Daijoubu

An experimental sonic&virtual Japan travelogue. Following my visit to Japan, I began to compose this experimental sound piece which is based around electronics, samples, and the field recordings that I had recorded with my handy recorder. When I finished the composition, I decided to make an audiovisual out of the footage I filmed while on the trip. I named it “大丈夫 - Daijoubu” because I heard and used the term a lot while climbing Mt. Fuji with my friends. I really like the word as it gives a sense of things being alright…

PERFORMANCE ART - Lead Pouring

In Turkish the tradition of lead pouring is named "kurşun dökme," which is performed to warn off the evil poisonous eye. Evil eye (nazar) is a glance that is thought to be able to impose harm or death to those it falls upon. After the Covid-19 Pandemic had broken out, I moved to the woods. I decided to make a small ritual as a performance art at one of my village’s water supplies to reconnect with nature and erase the evil eye of Covid 19 from the earth. I took a pot first and melted the lead. Then I poured the melted lead into another pan with cold water that I took out of the water supply. The lead took certain forms with each drop. If the pieces of lead have too many sharp edges, it is read as the person or thing is badly affected by the evil eye. For this reason, I gently tapped the pan with medical instruments such as a thermometer, a stethoscope, a syringe and a scissor in order to help the lead absorb all the power from the evil eye. Some people assume that the sample of lead solidified might protect them against bad luck. Thus, under my mask, I placed the lead in my mouth. It's also believed that if you dip the bread in the water that is used in the ritual and eat it, it would give you good luck. So, I was sharing the bread with my chickens!

Sound Art Info: Combination of environmentally-concerned sound field recordings and synthesizers which are reflecting the relationship that exists between the forest and community.

Cameras: Ayhan Gürsoy, Sinan Gürsoy

Performance, Music, Editing: Bengisu Uykusu

Photo Set: Pastoral

VIDEO ART - Your Own Personal Buddha

Loneliness and your craving for the ideal community... Real-life boundaries construct barriers around you in your daily life that do not bring you pleasure or happiness. You may find serenity in a reimagined community and religious cult. Your own personal Buddha, follow her/him/them and touch faith... This work is a tribute to Nam June Paik and Martin Gore. It shows the process of creating your own reimagined religious cult as well as the creation of her/his/their alter ego which becomes remarkably meditative. (It is a work of art -fiction-. It doesn't intend to outrage, insult or hurt any religion or the religious organization sentiments, beliefs, or feelings of any person or community.)

VIDEO ART - Keklik - The Partridge - Home

Since the Covid-19 Pandemic had broken out, I temporarily moved to my hometown, which is a Mediterranean forest village: Nif-Fethiye/Turkey. In our neighborhood, multigenerational family members live together. My mother’s ethnic group is “Yoruk” which means walkers. They are referred to as nomadic tribes of Turkmen origin who had emigrated from the steppes of central Asia to Anatolia. My mother's nomadic grand-grandparents used to live in the tents. During the summer, they shepherd their goats to the mountain plateaus, where lower temperatures helped keep farm animals cool. When the autumn rain came and the grasses grew again, they headed to the coast. Though my close relatives have become fully sedentary now, they maintain the tradition of keeping a mountain house in the Nif Village for the summers and generally return to their Fethiye Coastline house in the winters. In this project, I wanted to document my Yörük aunties’ relationship between social organization and their summer house.