[spectre] CitySense: Surveillance, Secrecy, Security, Control at garajistanbul

[nat muller]

dear friends and colleagues,

if you happen to be in istanbul next weekend; do drop by for the event  
listed below!

best/

nat

-----
Kosmopolis and garajistanbul present:

++CitySense: Surveillance, Secrecy, Security, Control ++

curated by Nat Muller in collaboration with NOMAD

Date evening event: 20 September 2008, 20.00h
Date panel: 21 September 2008, 15.00h
Place: GarajIstanbul, Tomtom Mah. Yeni Çarşı Cad. Kaymakam Reşat  
Bey Sk. No:11a 34433 Galatasaray-Beyoğlu / İstanbul
More info:
http://www.garajistanbul.org/
http://www.kosmopolis.nl/

--
Saturday September 20, doors open: 20.00h

++City Sense: Surveillance, Secrecy, Security, Control++

A playful evening pondering media, control, surveillance, secrecy and  
art in urban environments.++

It is no big secret that urban centers have become sites of  
surveillance and control. Gone are the days that the urban city  
dweller could carelessly drift – as the 19th century flaneur,  
strolling from one area to the other, and then disappear anonymously  
into the crowds. As our urban experience might have become more  
anonymous in regard to social interaction, our behavior – how we  
move, what we see, hear, taste and smell - is becoming more regulated,  
watched and controlled. Anonymity, it seems, is no longer an option.  
Our urban sensibilities are often directed, mediated and pre- 
programmed, either by security measures or by other overt or hidden  
codes of conduct. It is no coincidence then that how we consciously  
sense our cities – our “City Sense” – ultimately defines how we  
position ourselves as citizens.

CitySense offers a playful interpretation on how to actively engage  
your urban senses and reveals the hidden, and questions the exposed in  
an evening choc-a-bloc with video screenings, live food and smell  
installations, live audio-visual performances, and a party to close  
off the night.

Performance Installations by: Maki Ueda, Wietske Maas. Live  
Performances: Sasker Scheerder & Radboud Mens, Edwin van der Heide,  
Koray Tahiroğlu,  Not at Home. Video Screenings and installations:  
MediaShed, Nicolas Provost, Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay & Pascal Lievre,  
Daniël Melse, Matteo Venet, Mattias Geurts, Dimitri van Loenen, Başak  
Kaptan, Efe Hızır, Dilara Kurtoğlu, Denizcan Yüzgül, and Burak  
Arıkan.
--
Sunday September 21, 15.00h

++Security’s Spectacle: The Seen and The Unseen++

In cities in The Netherlands, as well as in Istanbul, we see an  
increase in the “spectacle of security”: more police, more metal  
detectors, more bag&body searches, more surveillance cameras, etc.  
This visual performance of surveillance and security significantly  
changes the outlook of our cities, but also how we experience them,  
conduct ourselves in and through these controlled zones, as well as  
how our conceptions of private and public are affected. Within the  
current obsession of assessing and visualizing that which cannot be  
seen, i.e. the threat, how do the senses fare which are invisible,  
such as sound, smell and taste? Are they part and parcel of the system  
of control, and is what we hear, smell and taste pre-configured. Or  
can we, as is the case with counter-images, always find a system hack?

Presentations by: Lemi Baruh (TR), Maki Ueda (NL/J), Wietske Maas (NL/ 
AU), Sasker Scheerder (NL)
Moderated and introduced by: Nat Muller (independent curator) and  
Başak Şenova (curator and director, NOMAD)