from: öniz öztürk
title: an essay of a mirror on unnecessariness and mirrors
form: text; electronic text file

AN ESSAY OF A MIRROR ON NEEDLESSNESS AND MIRRORS

I naturally read your announcement, and I would naturally reply it. But that reply would delay a little, like many things I do I would postpone it until the eleventh hour. The reason of this delay is not that I am a lazy person, it is rather that in my opinion your project requires a process I have to compose the colors and shapes appearing in different dimensions, refraction and clarity in every mirror, and that I have many reflections of you. Then I read your article captioned 'Unnecessariness and Mirrors' caused me to hurry up, because it was sad to see that the genuine content of your announcement and the likable hurry and enthusiasm you reflect in your interviews had been misunderstood even by the people who were closest to you, had been labeled 'unnecessary, narcissistic and exhibitionist'. So I wanted to surpass sending a letter of opinion/support to you, and to hold a mirror to the personality of Hakan Akçura as an artist, which I could comprehend better than his other reflections, together with the images of my virtual friend Nick, my real friend Hakan and others. Let me hold the mirror that way, so that it would be easier for me to overcome the obstacle of language while I express what I perceived, so that I shall be able to travel on the pleasant and free way of subjective immunity. When you first told me about this project, I saw your starting point as a dark, deep and irregular path, and your recoil from that path to your own self like a bullet, like I saw you. I predicted my yesterday the
broken, clumsy and reserved adventure of that arrow shot by a bow. Therefore I shall hold a mirror to your art/you by taking off from your 'I Want My Mirrors'. However, since I shall direct that mirror reflecting you to your friends who made such comments, you will be referred to in third person singular in my sentences, dear Hakan.

"Know yourself "

This saying had been inscribed on the Delphi temple in ancient Greek, and although it is perceived as "Know your limits" in the present times, it really refers to getting to know yourself, watching yourself. As an art of living, this saying referred to understand your personality, then using it as a stepping stone to understand the universe, to take care of your body and soul, to love yourself, all creatures and the cosmos, and it was considered a prerequisite for wisdom and, in turn, happiness. Socrates, the master of self-knowing, said: "An eye looking in another eye cannot see itself unless it looks in the best part of that eye, i.e. the part that sees. Therefore, an eye wishing to see itself must look in another eye, and at that eye's skillful part, i.e. the part capable of sight."

An artist reflects, shares and gives the objects he observed in his art, and it is natural that while he performs the art of living, which is the source of all arts, will seek himself as the subject of his life in the eyes of those subjects. Akçura was so selfish in his exhibition entitled 'City Pictures where he shared with us the images created in his mind by the city maps, in his exhibition entitled 'Self' where he shared with us the confrontation of people with themselves as isolated from the time, and while painting the selves of people who depicted their rooms in the Internet; and he is so selfish in this universal event of art which he started by taking off from his own self. And he is unnecessary as much, on his quest to know himself, to love the life and the universe..

"The true journey is to return to the past."
(Ursula K. Leguin)

For thousands of years philosophers and artists thought over the meaning of life, and presented recipes of happiness to people by means of their works. Spinoza categorizes the modern man's instincts under three headings, for the purpose of applying a systematic method to speak ill of him: divitae, honor, libido. His philosophy proves with evidences that that passion and misery are a kind of psychiatric problem verging on madness; that the most famous people are in fact the most stupid members of the society; that pleasures not supported with universal affection and lacking the real affection leads one to deep melancholy and, in turn, to depression, and asserts that Man will not enjoy the real happiness unless he integrates with the universe to know, like and realize himself. On the other hand, Goethe's Faust manages to resist against all seemingly unavoidable traps set by the Satan after having taken a bet with Mephisto. He lives the pleasures presented by sciences, sovereignty, lust and beauties to the limit, but never says "Stop, don't go!" to them. Having experienced all individual happiness to the hilt, Faust finally helps to reclaim a marsh at the end of his life, says "Stop, don't go!" to the affection for humans, nature and universe, and thus finds the real happiness.

The material world keeping a distance to the arts in the modern times occurred when the competitive capitalism spread to the world. All ancient civilizations had a form (style) composed of the forms, functions and structures of all kinds of objects, words and actions used and made in daily life, they had not lost their poetic aspect yet. After the merchandise and capital market spread, the violence-based oppression was replaced with exploitation as a paradox of history, so that all forms, symbols, collective works, monuments and festivals became history in the process of passing from essay to product. Prose, invading the objects, people and relations which lost their poetic aspects, was now the new language of the world. As a result of this process, we passed from Dede Efendi and Itri to Mahsun Kırmızıgül, from festivals where traditional dances had been performed around a bonfire to burning the waiters' jackets on the tables of restaurants, so that we found ourselves in a society where the people are spending their daily lives without producing anything, let alone art works. Don't you think the world would be a better place if those people, who are living their lives reduced to short and dry sentences and continuously repeated words of machines, figures and reports, lacking even the form of prose, where visibility was reduced to the paparazzi and soap opera levels, could spare half of the time they spent lying at their therapists' couch to arts? Where production lost its real sense and people became unable to produce their own lives, a revolution will start to develop. And the fact that a revolution that would ensure the people to achieve a contributory productivity can only be made by using the modern arts descending from the modernism and by using the technology, is another paradox.

"The main purpose of life and work is to ensure the individual to turn into a different person."
"A game is worth to play only if we do not know what will happen at the end of it."
(Michel Foucauld)

Hakan Akçura puts himself in the center of such a world, i.e. acts as a subject/theme of art, and invites us to that art. In his projects containing unusual, original themes, he aims the modern arts to reach greater crowds, edits enjoyable art games. He developed this unique, unparalleled artistic project for the masses, so that he invites the artists to make a revolution, and us to paint a world together before entering it. The facts that he himself stands at the center of that world, that he, the creator of this concept, is going to be the subject of other artist on the one hand and remaining outside the creative process on the other hand, and that the both former and future artists do not have a clue about the identities or numbers of the subjects other than themselves, or about the picture to appear when this puzzle is completed, are all among the jokes this mischievous designer of art games shares with us. Even he doesn't know what result will outcome, but if his announcement is answered as much as he wants, he will have inspired and encouraged other artists to follow his lead, so that chances are he will help to reclaim a marsh. On the other hand, it should not be ignored that even a single mirror describing his announcement as narcissistic, or reproaching or insulting him, can break the light of thousands of other mirrors at times. Where will Hakan go from the point of zero located at the end of this curve where courage meets cowardice, vexation meets exuberance, whether he will set his eyes on new choices, is ours to see. We'll see whether we shall be able not to procrastinate to hold our brushes, not to refrain from providing our colors, not to fail to reclaim the marshes in our lives. We'll see them at the end of this game.