İhsan Oturmak

Order, 2015, wood, iron, and concrete slab, 96 x 125 x 18 cm

Innovation I, 2014, mixed media on canvas, 200 x 145 cm

The conceptual summary of these works consists of questions concerning the ways in which the self and the condition of uniqueness, while being shaped by one’s essence, may be exposed to external events and consequently abandon their former characteristics. When the self, or singularity, is eliminated through events such as revolution, transformation, reform, uprising, oppression, punishment, or discipline, through what formal or emotional threats can it be destroyed or damaged, and with what unrelated conditions can it become intertwined? These works are the outcome of my attempt to raise such questions.

How can singularity reveal its existence by assuming a new and different position? Can it continue to carry the characteristics of its former state? Can it remain as it is? Can it enter a new period by displaying behaviours desired by others, while adding new qualities to that period? Although “input-process-output” is an industrial term, are there fundamental principles that have also transformed it into an educational term? Or is this transformation determined by formally prescribed behaviours? Perhaps we can believe that everything is natural. Yet we know that theoretical structures influence both formal and intellectual characteristics. In order for the individual to become socialised within society, it may be considered useful to overlook certain personal and regional differences. We can simplify the process by teaching the same lesson to five different classes as though they were a single class. We may also erase previous data and behave as though nothing had ever happened.