from: serpil öztaş
title: it is august
form: e-mail letter

It is August now. I pick up a thing from the shelf where the staff of the cafe I am sitting in put leaflets announcing cultural events.

It is a cartoon leaflet.

And a man screams. Yes, it is a scream.

It contains 6 photographs showing his evolution. At first I am reviewing the photographs. It looks the third and fourth photographs were moved. The main similarity of the last two photographs is that there is a smile, a light in the eyes of that man, that screaming man at that.

Who is this man?

I wonder.

I turn the leaflet over. Oh my God! It is full of small, entangled writings looking like a mess. (I think I began to recognize this man).

I can’t read those writing now. Later...

So that leaflet containing 6 photographs got around with me in the front pocket of my bag for days. Some small pieces of paper were added to it, removed from it, it waited side by side with or upon my pack of cigarettes all day me to touch it, some times I used it as a bookmark. Then one day I read it (not at one sitting).

I thought of your choices, added some to them, extracted some from them. I tried to understand the JOURNEY YOU SET OFF ON YOUR MIRRORS.

Why did I feel close to this man? Is it the fact that he was born 14 years and 1 day before my birthday, or is it what he reflects, that deceives me?

I don’t know yet.

BEFORE: The season changed.
AFTER: I vaporized.
NOW: I can’t notice.

A short time ago I set off on a journey with materials that can reflect. Now I take photos of the objects’ images deforming on reflectors. Or I share them with the sensitive side of a film.

Thanks to the staff of glass and frame shops I met during my journey in question, I salvage mirrors from their garbage cans and take them to home (small, long or short mirror pieces ideal for those who want to see just their eyes).

JUST LIKE HOW BIG AND STRANGE SHADOWS CAST BY A NOT WELL-ADJUSTED REFLECTOR AROUND AN OBJECT AND ON THE WALL GATHER ON THAT OBJECT AND DISAPPEAR AFTER SOME TIME, PERHAPS A CONSIDERABLE NUMBER OF SHADOWS CASTING AROUND YOU NOWADAYS ARE ABOUT TO ENTER YOUR BODY GRADUALLY, PERHAPS YOU ENJOY DANCING WITH THOSE SHADOWS (WHICH ARE ROTATING, CHANGING, BELONGING TO YOU, NOT RECOGNISED BY YOU, OR KNOWN BY YOU VERY WELL...)

In short, we do not know each other –yet- in the known sense.

With love...