[ISEA2011] Panel: Alexia Mel­lor (moderator) – MIND THE GAP

Panel Statement

Chair Per­son: Alexia Mel­lor
Pre­sen­ters: Kerry Doyle, Karin Hans­son, Chan­tal Za­kari, Arzu Özkal, Clau­dia Ped­er­son & WRMC Col­lab­o­ra­tive

MIND THE GAP play­fully al­ludes to trans­porta­tion, but ref­er­ences bor­ders and gaps of all kinds: ge­o­graphic, so­cial, and eco­nomic. This panel dis­cus­sion is aimed at in­ves­ti­gat­ing the var­i­ous ways con­tem­po­rary art is ad­dress­ing is­sues of eco­nomic and cul­tural glob­al­iza­tion, and urban mi­gra­tion within the artis­tic and so­cio-po­lit­i­cal tra­di­tions of Is­tan­bul and Turkey. MIND THE GAP pre­sent pa­pers and dis­cus­sions from in­ter­na­tional artists and schol­ars in re­ac­tion to the con­cepts of cap­i­tal­ism, con­sumerism and cul­tural im­pe­ri­al­ism, and the ways that we ne­go­ti­ate in­di­vid­ual and col­lec­tive iden­tity. MIND THE GAP draws from Nicholas Bour­ri­aud’s no­tion of the al­ter­mod­ern, which of­fers a new vi­sion of the mod­ern in which ideas of iden­tity are fluid rather than rooted in our ori­gins. With this spirit, MIND THE GAP asks the fol­low­ing ques­tions:

  1. In the face of global eco­nomic and en­vi­ron­men­tal crises, what op­tions do we have for a new vi­sion?
  2. What does na­tion­al­ity mean in a ho­mog­e­nized world in which multi­na­tional chain cor­po­ra­tions are on every street cor­ner in every cor­ner of the globe?
  3. How have our de­f­i­n­i­tions of place been al­tered by the tech­nolo­gies we use every day?
    “MIND THE GAP” in­ves­ti­gates the pos­si­bil­i­ties of con­tem­po­rary art prac­tices to shed light on and af­fect the po­lit­i­cal and so­cio-eco­nomic forces at work on local and global lev­els.
  • Alexia Mel­lor, The WRMC Col­lab­o­ra­tive, USA