I had great time at Cura Bodrum
Sunday, June 27th, 2010Cura Bodrum is a project of Iz Oztat and Emincan Alemdaroglu, founded in 2008. It is an international residency program aiming to bring artists, researchers, writers, etc… from around the world together provide them a space for brainstorming, collaborating, producing and sharing… Patrick Lichty and I were invited to give a workshop on interventionist media art practices (see previous entry). Read about this year’s program, participants and many more on Cura Blog.
I had an amazing 10 days during my visit. Although, it was remarkably difficult to focus on work knowing the gorgeous Aegean was just there, we were able to produce a lot.
I did a trial run for a new piece I am working on. With most of the Cura residents, we went to one of the ‘largest coffeehouse companies of the US’, which is becoming more and more popular among the Turkish youth. We went in the coffeeshop one by one in 3 minute intervals and ordered turkish coffee –to make one takes about 3mins. The guys working at the place had to make turkish coffee but nothing else for almost 30mins. Even though the machine temporarily broke down, they managed to meet the demand. The most interesting part for me was that none of the coffeeshop people commented on the absurdity of the situation, although they sensed something unusual was going on. To me, this is a study on how corporations and the setting comes with them control human interaction. In a regular/local Turkish shop one would rarely see a ‘big welcoming smile’ on the cashier’s face, because you would know the person isn’t really happy about the position, and customer happiness isn’t really his/her biggest concern. Anyways, these guys were able to keep the big smile and avoid questions as written in their ‘corporate guide to creating a profitable workplace’.
Nazenin Tokusoglu (a dear friend from high-school) wrote an article for HaberTurk about this year’s program. Click here to view larger.
