Berat Işık

Press, 2016, Video, 4’33”

My work titled Press consists of footage recorded by a camera placed inside a mechanism made from forty retractable ballpoint pens. In naming the work, I deliberately draw on the dual meaning of the word “press”: pressure and the media. At first glance, the tips of the ballpoint pens pointing towards us resemble the muzzles of guns aimed in our direction. As the pens click open and shut, however, we realise that they are in fact ballpoint pens. On the screen, the pens sometimes move freely; at other times, they click in the rhythm of military boots marching in formation, or open and close like applause. As the pens repeatedly click open and shut, they also whisper to us about the difficult history and current condition of the press in Turkey.