title: "backbone and stranger " or “japanese lantern”
form: suggestions for a performance and video tape of performance
1.
To H.AKÇURA
Who is this child?
Who is this youngster?
Who is this man?
I thought these again when I looked at your poster. Throughout the years, I saw you many times at many places. And every time I saw you, the foregoing questions crossed my mind. Was that it? I neither sought l the answers to them, nor it occurred to me to ask somebody who were you. But I always remembered your face. But the body under that face was unclear. If somebody had asked me until one day ago, I wouldn’t be able to describe you. When I saw you at the final hours of 2000, I looked at you carefully for the first time. Because the look in your eyes was the same as the last look of my dog which I left at my hometown (don’t be afraid, my dog is still alive).
Let’s go for the project. I might say I envied you when I first heard of it. Because the ‘mirrors’ at least fell into my interest as both a concrete object and a notion, and were the main ingredient of a future-oriented show project.
I asked to myself “Who the hell is this Hakan Akçura anyway?” Although Açık Radyo was my favorite radio station, I always listened to the interviews with you without paying attention, or tried to avoid them. And at last I saw your poster. “Oh, it is that child, sorry that youngster, sorry that man!”
From that point onwards, that face identified with the mirror. Yuk, this is even worse!...I can’t describe how I wanted to join, how I regretted not to meet you. I regretted why I missed all those opportunities to be introduced to you. I said “It serves you right, imbecile reptile!” to myself, then I thought “What would have I done if I joined, other than supporting a man who craves for the public’s interest and feeding his ego?”, proving the proverb The cat could not reach the liver so she said it was dirty. From that moment on, I was not interested in you. I didn’t look at your posters, I didn’t get your telephone number or address. Why should I get them? Dandy!...
Then came the New Year’s eve, that unlucky night (the night was unlucky, but you were lucky, because you met me) that poster appeared out of the blue before my eyes. But I only looked at your photo as a child. “How sweet...” Then I read the word ‘mirror’. I turned my back to the poster. Then I turned again, and saw your present photo. “Yes, that’s him!” Then I looked at your mustached photo and said “Yuk, how ugly!” Then I turned my back again. I tried to think of other things. My friends were having a good time. But was standing there as if I’m turned to stone. I was thinking “It will be good to step in the new year by kissing somebody” and right at moment I saw you walking by me towards the door. That’s enough! Speak of the devil! To relax my mind I went back to my previous train of thought. While your shoulder in a blue shirt disappeared in the crowd, I thought “Yes, I’d better kiss somebody, it might bring me luck”. I turned to my friends, and faced your poster again. “Why not? I can kiss him. His name is Hakan...Hakan Akçura...Is he a relative of Gökhan Akçura? His brother, I suppose. (Gökhan Akçura, the script writer, a student of Turgut Özakman. A long time ago he had written a script entitled ‘Hotel’ for the actors Zeki Alasya and Metin Akpınar. You were a child then. See the first photo).
When we met among the crowd a few minutes later, you looked at me, smiled and said hello. I thought you mistook me for somebody else. But after having a talk with you, I understood both of us were at the right address. You suggested me to join your project, and I was looking in your eyes, and the thing I mentioned earlier happened. The morning of the same day (December 30, 2000) I was at my village and applying some medicine on my dog’s ear. Our eyes met. The look in his eyes was so strange and his eyeballs were in a very strange process of changing that my hand stopped in mid-air with bewilderment and fear. Was it metamorphosis? It was a look and color change I never saw in an animal in my life (and I lived with animals all my life) or even in a man. It was as if the entire chemical structure of his eyes were undergoing a change... When I saw the same thing in your eyes (probably due to alcohol), I said to myself “I think I’m reaching spiritual perfection”. Or the gods finally understood that this way their messages would reach me quicker. I thought “Joining his project might be more attractive than kissing him”. But all night I got neither your address nor your telephone. Next day I decided “Since I didn’t kiss him, I’d better join his project”, and got my friends working to find your address.
Here’s my story. If you wish, I can join with a little performance. A generally visual performance supported by action, voice and maybe a few words, taking five to ten minutes. Maybe on the last day of your project, because I don’t know how much time I have to develop it. Maybe a performance based on the notion of ‘backbone’ (I think you remember to have suggested it) and describing the ‘stranger’...
2.
Until I met you today, I was focusing on a different plastic. But after leaving you some other things sprung to my mind. And I think I liked them.
IDEAS ABOUT YOUR PROJECT
A big Japanese lantern, and a round, triangle or rectangular box. Covered with thin paper. I stand in it. I begin to write with a brush dipped in oil paint on the interior side of it. I draw various figures. I write in different alphabets. I write the same or different texts. Naturally the words, both written and uttered, will be selected specially. As I write the paper will get oily, so the more I write the more the paper will become transparent, and the more the interiors will show. I shall use a sound effect consisting of urban noises, daily life sounds, and excerpts from news bulletins. It will also contain techno music. Within the effect, a story progressing in a linear way will appear time to time, and disappear time to time. I think you like it. I shall show as different shapes in it. There will be a surprise here... The final of the performance will be different every day. It will take just five minutes, and performed every day or some selected days. The only problem is to make that lantern and to purchase paper every day.
