Panel Statement
Panel: Short:Circuit: Cross Border Communications in New Media Between US and Turkey
Declaration of Sentiments/Gün interrogates current perceptions of digital culture networks as a new, technology-based phenomenon, male dominated, and located exclusively in the Western domain. The project consists of a series of events taking place and off line for nine months with a group of women artists, scholars and activists working within Turkey and transnationally. The project advances the contributions of Turkish women to digital culture by way of connecting traditional women’s culture, in this case in the form of the gün (the Turkish term for regular and informal meetings gathering women friends for convivial and creative purposes) with the work of women currently using new technologies to address questions of identity, cultural and political representation from a local (Turkish) and a global perspective. The Gün is scheduled to coincide with ISEA and with the Istanbul biennial this year. I will be presenting on the resulting documentation of Declaration of Sentiments/Gün in the form of a limited edition art book and its parallel open platform version online.
- Claudia Costa Pederson
- Ass. Prof. Arzu Ozkal is a Turkish born media artist and designer. Her practice engages with different interpretations of the body and its relationship to the environment. She raises questions about dogmas, traditions, laws, and patriarchal value systems through videos, public interventions and performances. Ozkal received her MFA from the Department of Visual Studies at University at Buffalo (SUNY) and BFA from Bilkent University. Her work has been exhibited broadly in exhibitions and festivals nationally and internationally. Prior to joining San Diego State University in Fall 2011, she spent three years on the faculty of the Art Department at Oberlin College teaching new media practices. contrary.info