[-empyre-] ISEA, some parting thoughts.

[Lichty, Patrick]

Interesting conversation about tourism.  One thing I had been thinking about is the idea of home and the concept of the tourist as proportional to the distance they have from their perceived home.  In my 3 years or so of working with Turkish artists, my initial meeting with Basak Senova taught me that existentially speaking, Turkey was "a long way from home" for me, but after spending a chunk of time there, enough time to not be a tourist, but not enough time to become established, my sense of home totally changed, as some part of the heimlich emerged in Turkey for me. The people and culture are viral, so beware.

Although I've been working around and studying Turkish media art for a while now, I feel that the comments placed here have been at such a level that much more commentary on my part would only muddy the waters.  having ISEA in Istanbul has been a fantastic moment in the New Media dialogue, and I'm sure it will continue to bear fruit.

I think that Claudia mentioned that in regards to the Bienniale, the engagement with Gonzales-Torres framed the discourse in the LGBT discussion as one of its components, which I can absolutely see as I am now going through the catalogue.  I also have been discussing the show at length with colleagues of mine, Turkish and otherwise, LGBT and otherwise, and I'm looking forward to studying more closely this edition's expansion of social dialogue in Turkey.  Early on, I think there was some discussion about the corporate agendas of Western Bienniales and I noted that the Istanbul's framework is clearly unique, and the family and organizations that dominate it creates a fascinating discursive matrix.

Patrick Lichty
Asst. Professor
Dept of Interactive Arts & Media
Columbia College Chicago
916/1000 S. Wabash Ave #104
Chicago, IL USA
"Sometimes you do things not for the logic of them, but only for the fact that it is the right thing to do, and that is all."