“The Ghosts”

Video installation / İstanbul, 2009

The installation ‘The Ghosts’, constructed by Tayfun Serttaş around the union of his performance video ‘the other, the other and beyond’ that he created in 2005 and the photograph ‘Recess at the Kalfayan’ added to his archive in 2007, focuses on the illusion that space creates over memory. ‘The other, the other and beyond’ takes place in some 30 deserted buildings left over solely from Istanbul minorities and mostly waylaid by the declaration of 1936. During the dual channeled video, while the inside spaces of the buildings, the entering of which were made permissible by special authorizations, are documented on one screen, the artist simultaneously cooks a meal inside a building of his choosing on the other. The lightbox ‘Recess at the Kalfayan,’ derived from an image previously not accepted for the artist’s master’s thesis research due to its being ‘anonymous’, focuses on the incidental methods of discussing the ideas of identity and city on a photographic basis.

The work, splitting into two opposing points within the space, questions the ambiguity and permeability between the experiences of private and public space. The near-30 buildings viewed in the videos, entirely deserted in 2005, have been restored today. The photographic space, on the other hand, does not allow for restoration on an innate level and for all its anonimity, maintains its scientifically attained testimonial value.