it's the final countdown

14 Mart 2010 Pazar

Northfork


 
And in that journey of dying you see many things. 
But all issue I had passed. Because I was to be a witness. A helper. 
And that's the thing, I think, is important about that, is the ability for us to be witness.
Not only for our births of coming in, but going out.

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23 Şubat 2010 Salı

Respect+Admiration+Trust = Love


hayir ciddi ciddi kiyisindaydim, domino's pizza kuryesi tarafindan itilmistim oralara. tamam abartiyor olabilirim ama korktum, hem de oyle boyle degil.
yazasim da yoktu, buraya bir sey eklemek icimden gelmedi nedense, aslinda o potansiyele hala sahip degilim ama zorlayacagim kendimi, bakalim.
buaralar yaptigim en yogun sey film izlemek oldu, A. sayesinde Hal Hartley karakteri olmak istedim.
dersler ise ayni gerginlikte ve israrci bunlaticiliklarinda devam ediyorlar.
ah gercekten yazmak istemiyorum.
hoscakal simdilik.

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30 Ocak 2010 Cumartesi

cok ozlemek

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24 Ocak 2010 Pazar

Bir kere yetmez iki kere sev beni. Uc kose yetmez karelere bol beni.


hava buz, soguktan oyle kasmisim ki kendimi, eve gelince sirtimin agrisindan dogrulamadim bir sure. bizim oglan rocky balboa'nin karlar altinda fenalasan ahu tugba edasiyla ama bir o kadar da azimli training durumu aklima dusuverdi. ve ardindan ruscuk ayani ivancan ve iri kiyim diri vucudu icimi titretti ve ben de eye of the tiger it's the cream of the fight diyerek cilginca dans ettim, parmak ucumda dondum ve an geldi van damme oldum spagat actim.
umay umay demis: sakin benden once perhizi bozma
ve aslinda ben bugun is gorusmesi gorunumlu ales sinavina girdim, bolme carpma ve farkli kelimeler vardi, atalet dedim merkezkac ve anlam butunluksuz kelimeler, oysa tayf nedir hic bir fikrim yoktu ve bos biraktim. karakter analizim ise "karakter-sizsiniz" diye sonuclanirsa hic sasirmayacagim.

bina guzeldi, geydi! gaudi, audi tt.

off umay umay ve rocky cok alakasiz oldu yine beceremedim dogru duzgun yazmayi hell yeaaaah

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16 Ocak 2010 Cumartesi

"En İyi Isırık Cildi Kızartmayandır" ve aslında "Öpücükte İsraf Haramdır" (Tûsî Bahnamesi*)




Yukarıda gördüğünüz fotoğraf Osmanlı cinsel hayatının hukuki mercide işlenişine bir örnek teşkil etmektedir. Kadı elinde zıbık sallandırmaktadır. Bildiğimiz dildonun geleneksel adının vücud bulduğu zıbık, dönemin çükü kalklamayan kocalarına nispet eden kadınlar tarafından kullanılırmış. Hatta bu resim de kadının kocasını hukuk önünde castre edişine "cuk" oturan bir iş olarak okunabilir. Arkasına aldığı bir grup şahit ile kocayı işlevsizliğinden ötürü suçlamaktadır Osmanlı kadını. Helal olsun! dedirtmektedir hatta.

İnternette gezinirken rastladığım bir alıntı: "Kadının biri zamanında mısır çarşısına gitmiş ve satıcının kulağına eğilerek 'bana bi zıbık ver ama tul-i arabi(uzunluğu arabınki gibi) ,kutr-i kurdi(kalınlığı kürdünki gibi) ,nefasat-i türki(güzelliği türkün ki gibi) olsun' demiş satıcı kadına alaycı bi şekilde bakarak 'abla öylesini bulsam ben kullanırım' demiş"

Evet böyle hoştur...

Daha geriye gidip farklı bir örneği buraya taşıyarak biraz daha bilgilenelim haydi!

1201-1274 tarihleri arasında islam dünyası sınırları içerisinde yasayagelmiş feylozof Nasîrüddin Tûsî bizler için tıp bilim kitabı niteliğinde "to the point" bir derleme hazırlaşmış, ben de bu enfes parçanın kendimce en makul yerlerini sizlerle paylaşmayı görev bildim.

"Şöyle bil ki ey oğul; alt dudak, yanakların içi ve gözler dışında avradın her tarafı ısırmaya müsaittir. Ama avrat ‘‘hart’’ diye ısırılmaz, herşeyin olduğu gibi bunun da usulü vardır ve bu işte dişlerin vaziyeti pek mühimdir. Avratlar, erkeğin dişinde üç özellik ararlar: Parlaklık, keskinlik ve hem eşit hem de uygun boy... Donuk, yumuşak, iri ve sallanıp duran dişler kadına ikrah getirir."

Ya peki Tusi'ye göre "güzel avrat" nasıl olmalıdır?
İşte cevap:

"...Ey oğul! Simdi sana avratların güzellik alametlerini anlatacağım. Bu alametlere sahip olan avrat, avratların en güzelidir. Alametler ne kadar az ve eksik olursa, avrat da o kadar az güzel olur.


Avradın dört nesnesi kara gerek: Saçı, kaşı, kirpiği ve gözünün karası.
Avradın dört nesnesi kızıl gerek: Dili, dudağı, yanakları ve avurdları.
Avradın dört nesnesi yuvarlak gerek: Yüzü, gözü, topukları ve bilekleri.
Avradın dört nesnesi uzun gerek: Boynu, burnu, kaşı ve parmakları.
Avradın dört nesnesi hoş kokulu gerek: Burnu, azası (eli, kolu, ayaklari ve bacaklari), koltuk altları ve ayakları.
Avradın dört nesnesi geniş gerek: Alnı, gözleri, göğsü ve butları.
Avradın dört nesnesi dar gerek: Burun delikleri, kulak delikleri, göbek deliği ve ağzı.
Avradın dört nesnesi küçük gerek: Ağzı, elleri, ayakları ve kulakları.
Ve dahi avradın başı ne büyük ve ne küçük ola.
Ve boynu ne uzun ve ne kısa ola.
Ve eti dahi değirmi (yuvarlak) ola.
Ve benzi ak ola veyahut kaz benizli veya karayağızın güzeli ola.
Ve teni de pembe ola.
Ve saçı sık ve uzun ola. Zira saç avradların yüzsuyudur.
Ve güldüğü vakit güzel ola. Zira avradın gülüşünün hoşluğu, diğer özelliklerinden önce gelir.
Ve gözlerinin karası çok ola, kaşları da çatık ola.
Ve yürüdüğü zaman, kalçasının etleri deprene.
Ve huyu tatlı ola, sözü tatlı ola ve yumuşak ola.

İşte ey oğul! Bu yazdığımız şartlar hangi avratta varsa, o avrat güzelliğinin olgunluğuna ulaşmış demektir...’’



Evet, Tûsî böyle özetlemiş durumu, benden size bir nasihat; siz siz olun kadına "ağaca çıkar gibi" sarılmayı unutmayın sevgili sevgililerim.

Bkz: Cinsel bilgiler kitabı

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9 Ocak 2010 Cumartesi

Black Hole of Adolescence




“I froze. I can’t explain what happened. It was like a déjà vu tip or something…
a premonition. I felt like I was looking into the future…
and the future looked really messed up.” (Keith)


This study examines Black Hole, the graphic novel of Charles Burns, through analyzing main characters’ transformations and their emotional life from a Freudian psychoanalytical perspective. Black Hole is literally a story about teenagers and their psychological, physiological and actually sickening transformations in various forms of alienation and defense mechanisms. In the story of teenage angst or turmoil of growing up and social exclusion; adults – parents or teachers –, who are the figures of authorities, are seen at the peripheries, they are not visible in teenagers’ life worlds.

Charles Burns’ story starts in suburban Seattle, during 1970’s with an unknown sexually transmitted disease that deforms the high school students’ bodies. As we read the story, we could realize that the bug or the teen plague is a metaphor for adolescence and fear of bodily mutations, sex and being ostracized by classmates and families; hence the bug helps us to highlights the adolescents’ love, lust, fear and self hatreds. Additionally, dreams and particularly sexual symbols have an important role in the development of characters; whose lives intersect as time passes. The story of teenagers’ growing up, fear and loneliness ends up tragically for most of them since there is no going back to their normal, boring lives again.


Teens of the story are no longer able to deal with their out of controlled, hormonal bodies. One has a small tail, the other has a second mouth on the neck that talks when he falls asleep, a girl shed her skin like a snake after copulation, one of them has a face that covered with hair, another girl has webbing between her digits; both of these freakish characters’ deformations, odd distortions could be read as the external manifestations of their inner conflicts. Some of the teens can easily hide their mutations but most of them have problems with their deformed bodies and they leave their sterile and controlled environments, drop out of school and start to live in a closed community hiding out in the woods; where is cold, dark and insecure. They spend their time living under tents, eating junk food, using drugs and drinking alcohol as a temporary escape.

Black Hole is an experience of disgust, and unease of a transition period, an internal turmoil for teens, who are trying to be an individual and find their own way. The emotional and hormonal distortions of adolescence are drawn by Burns through the bodies of characters. Characters feel themselves as monsters and their anxiety about sex manifests itself physically. As the characters lose control over their own bodies, Burns changes the frames’ styles, prefers wavy lined frames to define the fantasy world or dreams but after a while it becomes difficult to understand the difference between frames; and also the readers lose the control over the story since they could not understand the difference between reality and fantasy. Thereby, a process through which the ordinary reality dissolves into the truth can be seen in Burns’ story that narrates processes of teenagers’ dispersals.

In Black Hole the imaginary and the real progressively dissolve into one another and characters and also readers become incapable of distinguishing between what is fictional, what is in their mind and what is social reality. Many of the oedipal images are repeated through the story, nearly in each chapter we see shattered glasses, snakes, holes that are represented within flashbacks, aspirations for the future, dreams, hallucinations and fantasies of the teens. It is only at the end of the each chapter that we understand real situations.

Id, Ego and Super ego during Biology 101
 
The story begins with a vaginal like opening in Biology 101 science class at high school. While two protagonists, Chris and Keith dissecting a frog, which is surrounded by liquid like a vagina, Keith collapses, and is sucked in a nightmarish vision of the future that reflects a foot with a cut, a back and skin split along the spine, a swirled pubis, a hand covering genitals, snakish images, holes and many phallic symbols such as branches and broken bones. Although the two protagonists are ordinary kids, their world starts to change after Chris’s relation with Rob. Keith and Chris are virgin at the beginning of the story and when Chris has her first with Rob, and then crisis starts. Page to page characters experience a conflict between their Super ego and Id; and feelings of anxiety, guilty and inferiority become the main parts of the story.


Rob’s second mouth, dissected frog, Chris’s damaged foot, and bodily openings are the black holes of the story, where the Id tries to take the control, and these pictures are the repressed drives of each character. Therefore, Freud’s explanation of human psychic structure with three interactive components is important to understand the Black Hole. These three components are Id, Ego and Superego and they work in coordination, mainly unconsciously; and any lack of harmony among them led to disorders (Freud, 1962). In Black Hole characters’ internal disharmony, emotional disorders could be read in dreams, free association sessions and art as in the examples of Keith and Eliza.



Freud states that a newborn is dominated through instinctual needs for immediate pleasure that is the Id, which is the primary psychic structure and is responsible for the very basic impulses and drives that we continually repress them at the unconscious level. The Id, the most primitive part of the pscyhe, is egocentric and operates according the pleasure principle, seeking release and gratification. Sex (Eros) and aggression (Thanatnos or death drive) are two important drives for self gratification; these are the two major instinctual drives of psychic development (Freud, 1962). Hence, anxieties and fears of Black Hole’s teens underline the duality of the human psychic development that means gratification and desire of non-existence, the death- instinct could be experienced together.

Although the id is the reservoir of the libido, which is distinguished by the Ego through diverse mechanisms of repression, the Ego remembers the repressed memories since these memories are transferred into “screen memories” and also Id finds alternative expression for the repressed impulses (Freud, 2003). Therefore, we could say that the balance between the Id and the external world is maintained by Ego that separates what is real and act according to reality principle as opposed to the Id that contains primitive drives. Individuals’ safety and psychic integrity is the main concern of the Ego, and also some of the Id’s desires are organized and then expressed through Ego since it searches for appropriate objects to satisfy the Id. Third component is the superego, which represents the internalization of parental and societal demands and prohibitions that works with the Ego to control the gratification of the Id.

On the one hand, super ego acts as censor over the ego's moves and helps individuals to fit into society; and on the other hand it manifests itself as conscience and a sense of shame and guilt. Thence we could interpret Black Hole’s characters’ copulation scenes literally through this sentence: “You are never the same again; you do not belong to the home any more”. There is something Unheimlich that is the fear of the unfamiliar, which has not been experienced before and led the hidden, unknown, concealed or repressed to come to light (Freud, 2003). When Chris and Rob have sex in graveyard, Chris loses her virginity. Since they rebel against the rule of Super ego, they are not belonging to home anymore, and they feel sense of shame and guilt very deeply.

Daily representations of the death instinct could be seen in Burns’s characters’ desire for peace, their attraction to drugs and alcohol, their attempt to escape, and their strong desire for rest and sleep are all the examples of Thanatos, which promises release from the struggle. Thus, it is obvious that each character has a tendency towards self-destruction and an unconscious wish to die in the forms of aggression, cruelty, murder, and destructiveness. Characters’ “object-cathexes” are tied to their earlier sexual phases and these are surpassed through the stages of psychosexual development; teens of Black Hole are they are less well-adjusted individuals in a transition period, who are driven to abnormal reaction formations or substitute formations, and therefore they have the possibility of neurosis (Freud, 1936). These teens in the story are faced with obstacles to satisfaction of the libido’s cathexis’, and they remain fixated within the conflict between the libido and the ego, which can lead to alternative sexual discharges. Return of the repressed or their rejected libidinal longings manifest themselves as in the formation of teen angst, characters’ neurotic behaviors.


The concept of unconscious is interpreted as a forbidden zone and as an inescapable uncivilized side of each individual; and individuals’ secret uncivilized desires find outlet and could be explained through the analysis of dreams (Freud, 1980). As I mentioned before, our primitive impulses are repressed; however, Freud believed that the sexual impulse was so powerful that it continually threatened to “return” and thus disrupt our conscious functioning. And dreams become for Freud the clues to the secret functioning of the unconscious and normally overlooked repressed. According to Freud the dream-work deforms the unconscious drives and turns them into a more acceptable form so that the subject can come face to face with them.

Adolescence and Characters in Black Hole
 
 

 
“Adolescent has to integrate and move into a different space;
and there are internal changes that lead the consolidation of
the identity or self representation (Giovacchini, 2001)”.

Adolescence is a period that teens learn who they are and shape their identities in relation to other people around them, role models, peers, and family; as a consequence adolescence has always been considered to be a crucial developmental stage. Erikson states that adolescence is the period of psyche to start to establish an identity sense and to achieve autonomy (Erikson, 1968). Similar to Freud’s psychosexual stages Erikson examines eight stages that people go through their lives to reach self development; and besides he details adolescence by referring Freud’s genital stage (Erikson, 1963).


Emotional changes control this identity construction period and adolescents generally experience loneliness, sadness, and complex emotions and fears about sexuality. These feelings are “teen angst” that can disrupt previously secure and quit life. As Erikson states that teens want to give up self doubt; and at the end of the transition and change period of emotional and physical turmoil, teens develop a sense of ‘who I am’, an identity and self-certainty, indeed (Erikson, 1963). Teens of the story represent a transitional phase of psyche and also corporeality with a sense of uniqueness that differentiates him-her from parents and peers; and “there is a marked increase in the intensity of the biological drives and an initial hypercathexis of the oedipal objects” (Trosman, 1978).

Freud analyzed five stages of sexual development to describe the determination of personalities. These stages are named as Oral, Anal, Phallic, Latency, and Genital; and each stage emphasizes sexual gratification that experienced on a particular area of the body; and personality develops through these stages. Characters enter their final “genital phase”, adolescence, according to Freudian sexual development theory; and they desire members of the opposite sex to fulfill their sexual instincts; and Black Hole highlights the difficulties of Genital stage for adolescents that adult sexual interests come to dominate. Characters of Black Hole are trying to find new ways to their desperate lives to enter and survive in the adult world, however they are not able to cope with the death drive and everything is intermingled; thence they projects some of their aggressiveness towards themselves and towards the external world.

Chris is governed by the death drive, which emerges as a response to the frustration in the face of the impossibility of going back to time of the womb. Water is a symbol of the unconscious and crucial factor for Chris’s mutation. The first act that Chris makes is the releasing of water in the camp, symbolizing a release from the unconscious; and then she shed her skin like a snake; that means she wants to give up all the bad memories with the water. Her rising out of the water could be read as a reflection of giving of life and also her unconscious drive to regression. She is in love with Rob, the guy who has effected by the bug before his relationship with Chris and has a second mouth in his neck that talks as his unconscious voice; however she has a sense of shame since she is not able to hide her deformity as a result of the disease. So, she has a desire to turn back to her purity, to her secure, heimlich life world.


Keith, shy at girls, is attracted to Chris, smoke – drinks and drugs. His friends and he employs alcohol and drugs as a catalyst for sex. Keith becomes addicted to drugs and alcohol to fill the space opened by his emotional loss, and the more drugs he takes the bigger the internal space grows, the more the internal space grows the less he is able to make conscious choices. When he learns Chris’s feelings about Rob, he does not give up and he tries to protect Chris from the chaos in the woods. Similar to Chris, he was virgin at the beginning, but then he meets with Eliza, who is lucky as Rob to hide her distorted body (her tail), eventually he feels in love with her; but never forgets Chris.

Eliza, the Lizard Queen. The adolescents find security in their own groups, in secret societies that provide the needed support; and creativity is an alternate to neurotic forms of conflict resolution within adolescent their own communities. Creative individual has a capacity to transform the unconscious stirrings so that they emerge under ego dominance; and the character of Lizard Queen is an example of this transformation. She invests her both emotional and mental energy to art works; her room is full of phallic sculptures and drawings. Unlike to the Chris, she does not escape and instead she tries to push prejudices about her away. She feels in love with Keith and after their copulation or when Keith loses his virginity, he has the bug on his body.

Dave, the murderer. As the bodily transformations start, the gap between the social reality and the truth is opened. Dave is an ordinary nerd of the high school, and he loves Chris, who is not aware of this poor guy. He might be the extremely ostracized character of the story; however his invisibility has led him to move very effectively since no one thinks that he is suspecting of committing crimes. The murderer’s grotesque face becomes the mask veiling the truth. What we have here is rather than his mask being a metaphor standing in for the truth, it is the face as a metonymy standing in for the truth.

These youths are about to losing control and their rationality; actually they are suffering from anxiety, the internalized social world of shame, guilt and punishment becomes a threat for them. But, in Eliza’s relation with art work, Keith’s premonitions and dreams, Rob’s and Chris’s escapes from home or the other mutated teens’ new lives in the woods proves how the ego defends itself through different ways of defense mechanisms. As Freud mentions that, when the anxiety becomes overwhelming, the ego unconsciously blocks or distorts impulses into a less threatening form to cope with reality and to balance the conflicting demands of the id and superego. In Black Hole, Burns tries to communicate directly with the unconscious of the reader. The unconscious is his target and he draws symbols to match the unconscious drives. Alienation, detachment, fear and violence are all analyzed in terms of their relations to death and nothingness during the story; and they are mainly composed of dream-visions. The relationship between the Id, the ego, and the super-ego, together with the external factors influencing this relationship are narrated through novel.

Bibliography


• Erikson, E.H. Identity: Youth and Crisis. New York: Norton, 1968.

• Erikson, E.H. Childhood and Society. (2nd ed.). New York: Norton, 1963.

• Freud, Sigmund. “The Interpretation of Dreams”. New York: Avon. 1980, pp.272-282, pp.307-326

• Freud, Sigmund. The Problem of Anxiety. W. W. Norton & Company, New York, 1936, pp. 80-104

• Freud, Sigmund. “The Uncanny”, Screen Memories. New York: Penguin Books, 2003, pp.1-22, pp.121-140

• Freud, Sigmund. "The Ego and the Id". The Hogarth Press Ltd. London, 1962.

• Giovacchini, Peter L. “Dangerous Transitions and the Traumatized Adolescent.” The American Journal of Psychoanalysis. Volume 61, Number 1 / March, 2001, pp.7-22

• Trosman, Harry. “Freud's Adolescence and the Prolegomena to Psychoanalysis.” Journal of Youth and Adolescence. Volume 7, Number 3 / September, 1978, pp. 215-222





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gozden uzak olan gonulden de uzak olurmus


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5 Ocak 2010 Salı

my dear unconscious




bir an oldu ve patlak verdi, bosaldi her sey. aslinda boyle abartili bir cumleyle yaziya baslamak hatali oldu, oyle derin ve karisik bir sey de anlatacak degilim ama olsun. kesik kesik bazi goruntuler, cok eskiden kalma... her sey soyle basladi:
A. ile sabah bulusup kahvalti yaptik, oturdugumuz yer gayet sicak oldugu icin montumu cikartmistim; ve her seyin baslangici olan o siyah hirkami da... gayet keyifli geciyordu dakikalar taa ki oturdugumuz yerden ayrilmaya karar verene kadar. Hirkamin ardindan montumu giymeye calisirken hirkamin kollari israrla yukarida toparlaniyordu, toplanan kollari bir turlu bilegime getiremedim, ve yillar once hayattaki en zor sey oldugunu dusundugum durum ile karsilastim.
Kendi kendime tekrar ettigim cumle zihnimde yankilandi: "eger bir cocuk annesinin-babasinin yardimi olmadan montunu, icine giydigin kiyafetin kollari yukari toplanmadan, giyebiliyorsa, o cocuk artik buyumustur."
O an 4 yasina kadar oturdugumuz ev beni icine alan bir flashback seklinde donmeye basladi. Yazarken cok zorlaniyorum, sanirim ilk defa o donemde oturdugum ev hakkinda bir seyleri yazmayi deniyorum.
Capa'da 4 katli bir apartmanin en ust katinda oturuyorduk, hatta ustumuzde cati kati vadi ve annem oraya battaniyeleri yikadiginda cikip asiyordu. Cati katina ufak bir merdiven ile cikiyorduk, her defasinda dusme korkusu yasadigim merdiven nemden dolayi siyaha calan bir renge sahipti, ve sanki bazi bolgeleri yumusakti ya da korkudan onun erimesini istedigim icin oyle hayal kuruyordum, her neyse...
Annem ve babam calistigi icin gunduzleri anneannemin ve babaannemin altli ustlu oturduklari Aksaray'daki apartmana giderdik zeynep ile, birakilirdik demeliyim. donuste babam alirdi beni, ve babamla eve donmeyi pek sevmezdim cunku yurumek zorunda kalirdik, ve hep karnima ya da belime tam tarif edemedigim bir agri girerdi, ah bazen omzuna alirdi beni, o zaman dunyalar benim olurdu elbette. bazen cok mizmizlanirsam, Gamze Pastanesinin az ilerisindeki sarkuteriden cikolata alirdi bana, eve gidene kadar bitirirdim cikolatayi-ki annem gormesin.
bir turlu konuya giremedim ama her seyi bir anda gordugum gibi buraya kopyalamak istiyorum, ve bu da oldukca karmasik hale getiriyor isimi. evet, nerede kalmistim, 4 katli apartmanin en ust kati... aslinda bu bir aile apartmaniydi, her katta bir hane vardi; diloslar bizim alt katta yasiyorlardi. ben banyo yapmaya onlara inerdim, suyu sevmedigim icin ancak dilosla olunca o sikintili surece katlanabiliyor(musum)dum. dilos da bize mozaik pasta yemek icin sik sik ugrardi; annemin eskiden neredeyse her hafta yaptigi bu lezzet artik hanemize pek girmez oldu, gecmis korkunc bir sey, uzerinize ozlem cokuveriyor konustukca.
hanemize girdigimiz an dokusunu ve rengini tuhaf buldugum hali karsiliyordu bizi, turuncu ve oldukca sert olan bu haliya bir defasinda yogurt corbasi dokmustum, ve holdeki, ayaklari metal olan masanin altinda buluvermistim kendimi, emekleyerek kacmistim sanirim cunku ellerimin acidigini hatirliyorum. peki kizmislar miydi? hic bir fikrim yok. (buarada babam her aksam eve yogurt getirdigi icin uzun sure onu yogurtcu sanmistim)
o halinin uzerinden yuruyup sola kivrilinca benim kaldigim odaya geciyorduk, orasi televizyon odasiydi, ve ben de vaktimin cogunu he-man ile uzayli zekiye izlemeye taptigim icin o odada geciriyordum. camin karsisinda iki kapakli bir cekyat vardi, o cekyatin uzerine cikip sesimi kaydederdik annemle. arabesk sarkilara bayilirdim, biricik-gurbet kuslari ve bergen favorilerimdi. naylon coraplari giyip, uzun bir kazagin beline kemer takip sarkilari ince ince okurken kendimi annem gibi hissederdim. bir gun cekyata uzanip he-man izlerken alnima cekyatin yerine asla tam oturmayan kapagi dustu. annem ufak bir bez parcasiyla kapagi sikistirirdi hep, ama ben cizgi filme dalip megerse o bez parcasini cekmisim ve sonuc. asla susmayan bir elif! butun apartman ayaga kalkmisti, annem beni hemen diloslara goturdu orada kanayan yere pansuman yaptilar, gerisini hatirlamiyorum.
kaldigim odanin tam karsisinda salon vardi, oglen saatinde annemle sutlu turk kahvesi icerdik, tadini hatirlamiyorum belki benimki sadece suttu. ve benim amerika'da okuyan iki cocugum hakkinda konusurduk uzun uzun. kari ile mari isimli bir kiz bir erkek evlat sahibi olan ben, bacak bacak ustune atip konstugumu hatirliyorum ama icerik, ımm yok kalmamis aklimda.
salonun yaninda annemlerin yatak odasi vardi, ici sari ust kismi kahverengi olan bir battaniye ortuluydu yataklarinda. en sevdigim seylerden biri aksam ben uykuya dalmadan once babamin kahverengi battaniyenin ustunde oturup bana bremen mizikacilarini anlatmasiydi. masal bittikten sonra uyku vaktimin geldigini isikli kol saatiyle bana soylerdi. markasi casio olan saatin cok guzel parlak yesil isiklari vardi. o isiklari gormeden uyudugumu hic sanmiyorum.
yatak odasinin karsisinda banyo vardi. banyo yapmaktan hoslanmadigimi yukarida yazmistim, sanirim o nedenle bizim banyodan cok diloslarin pembe banyolarini hatirliyorum, belki pembe degildi ama ben pembe goruyormusum belli ki. ah simdi hatirladim, bizim banyoda bir hortum vardi, ve bazen - sanirim yaz doneminde- o hortumla annem beni yikardi, suyun beni usuttugunu, titredigimi farkettim bir an. belki de yaz degildi ama atesim vardi. of cocukluk karman corman bir donem. bir girdap gibi, derine indikce kayboluyorsun. miden daha da bulaniyor cunku basin hizla donuyor...
mutfak kismi ise cok silik, sadece annemin fayansi una bulayip kedi ayagi isimli hamur isini yaptigini gorebiliyorum buradan bakinca. tuzlu hamuru kuzuk parcalara ayirip, eliyle ya da oklava ile hafifce duzlestirip, ardindan duzlestirdigi parcalarin alt kisimlarina bir bicak yardimiyla bir iki cizik atardi annem. tavada sisip bulut gibi olan hamurlar, tabaga alininca tombulluklarini kaybedip sadece garip sekilleriyle yenmeyi beklerlerdi. pismis hamurlari elime alip bazen bir fili bazen de bir eli hayal ederdim; ama bir kediyi degil. hamur isine merakim o zamandan kalma, ve tatliya olan duskunlugum de. (tipki antredeki ahli gibi turuncu renkte bir yemek kitabi vardi annemin)
artik buyudum, cunku montumu giyerken icimdeki kiyafetin kollarin yukari toplansa da beni o an kurtaracak annem ya da babam yok, kendi kendime kor topal idare ediyorum. bazen catlaklar oluyor, idare edemedigim akintilar yasaniyor, o zaman cok kuculuyorum, ve cok korkuyorum. donmek istedigim yere tam anlamiyla cok uzagim. buyumek cok zor ve katlanilmaz bir sey. ve nostalji bir o kadar da olumcul...

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1 Ocak 2010 Cuma

always more than words can say degil mi ama?

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willi dorner ile arada kaldim





arada kaldim tam arada...susam sokagi ile buyuyen her cocuk iki canavar arasinda kalmis adamcagizin soyledigi bu kelimelere asina olacaktir. derdim ne susam sokagi ne de arada kalan sefil adam ama willi dorner'i izlerken aklimin kaciverdigi nokta tam da orasi oldu.


willi dorner, avusturyali bir sanatci; bodies in urban spaces de kendisinin lisa rastl ile calistigi ve sahsimca cok methedilen isi. benim gibi agorafobiniz arada nuksediyorsa hele ki insanlarla temas halinde fenaliklar yasar gibi oluyorsaniz dorner'in isi sizi de cok heyecanlandiracaktir. kesik kesik nefes almaya baslayacak ve belki de kisa surede ekrani kapatacaksiniz. dikkat, cop gibi yigilan vucutlar toplu mezarlari da cagristirabilir !

http://www.ciewdorner.at

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31 Aralık 2009 Perşembe

Sartlar neyi gerektiriyorsa...



Boynum cok agriyor, burnum surekli akiyor ve basimdaki tikaniklik bir turlu gecmek bilmedi. Bugun herkese, her seye nefret doluyum. Sizi sevmiyorum!

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2009'un son gunu



2009 benim icin olabilecegi kadar kotu gecti, sınırları ve sinirleri zorladı. almadigim red kalmadi, neye elimi atsam elime degen seyin bir tarafi ufalandı...fenaydı kısacası ve ben de esref-i mahlukat'a donusemedim onca fenalıga ragmen. Neyse, cirkin gecen senemi yukarıdaki sekilde sıkıstırıp zapturapt altına aldım. Haydi hayırlara vesile ola, belki 2010 daha kıvamında gecer.

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30 Aralık 2009 Çarşamba

Sevgili A.E.Bulbul, tesekkur ederim





I am starting this diary on a sunny day

Like a mirror for me to know who I am

I feel things inside, overwhelming things.

I feel my pulse beating.

I'm confused, nervous.

Like something missing, a desire...

I can't yet control

On the edge of an abyss,

I feel this crazy urge to jump

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28 Aralık 2009 Pazartesi

A Path to Self Realization or Victimization: Female Body



This study examines the social construction of female bodies through analyzing anorexia and body building as two crucial bodily performances that challenges the discursively defined, idealized female body and her identity. Fleshy materiality; linguistically and culturally marked surfaces of female bodies that has served for production and continuity of particular culture is replaced by subject’s own corporeality. Butler’s notion of “performativity” is the starting point to discuss the unnatural status of gender; and corporeality of bodies is highlighted through analyzing Todd Haynes’ short film “Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story” and Ms. Olympia(s); and then in the last part, focus shifts to the Foucault’s definition of “individuality”, which is explained in negative terms, to underline the difference between victimization and / or resistance of female bodies during their performances.


In her book Volatile Bodies, Grosz states that “body is represented and used in specific ways in particular cultures” and therefore human body and its embodiments should be work through discursive performances (Grosz, p.18). In contemporary world, or in terms of Giddens late modernity, without addressing the necessity of the deconstruction of dualistic Western metaphysical perceptions of body, it is no longer possible to take a step to thoroughly conceptualize the contemporary representations of body and identity.

Body and mind do not represent the two distinct categories, and indeed they are mutually theorized the subject’s unity and self realization or emancipation. Since body is a “political field where power relations can be observed”, self control over body is the main tool to reach self realization; and if the body is the field of power and implementation of discourses then resistance is inevitable against the political regulations that take place on the surface of discursively normalized individuals (Foucault, p.173). Female body is a useful site of repression and production since “it is both a laboring, sexual and reproducing body“(Bakare-Yusuf, p.318).

Sacredness or Handicap of Corporeality

Munson points out “the physical traits of sex are culturally elaborated and given meaning within a culture through construction of gender that means people take some cues from their physical characteristics of the bodies with which they are born but they learn to use a variety of signals to demonstrate their similarity to other people in specific gender category.” (Munson, p.127-143) The biological differences that are used to legitimize the women’s limited access to power in society and that are attributing women the passive sexual and / or political role, represents their secondary status to the men. Hence, marginalization of women has been seen as natural and regarded as the fact of their biology. The concept ‘gender’ explains how an individual’s biology is culturally valued and interpreted into locally accepted ideas of what it is to be a woman or a man. That means gender and the hierarchical power relations between men and women are constructed meaning that the associated roles and expectations of gender identities can change from culture to culture. In the first chapter of her book Second Sex de Beauvoir argues that women are biologically disadvantaged compare to men; and it is the reproductive handicap of female body (de Beauvoir, p.35-67). Thus some feminists like de Beauvoir, emphasize the importance of the rejection of the reproductive disadvantage of females’ bodies to gain the similar capacity of power in the context of public life.

In response to this negative attitude towards body and women, Moira Gatens in Power, Bodies and Difference states that, there are also “some feminists advocate the affirmation and celebration of women’s bodies and their capacity to recreate and nurture” (Gatens, p.120-137). Gatens claims that these theories are important responses to the female body and also identity politics however both of them interpret body as something given, innate and territorially defined. While the former response focuses on the sexual equality principle, later one emphasizes an essential sexual difference of the female bodies; thus these responses to corporeality of female preserve the binary oppositions, indeed. Butler gives somehow different explanation to gendered, sexed bodies and identities. “Gender ought not to be conceived merely as the cultural inscription of meaning on a pre- given sex; gender must also designate the very apparatus of production whereby the sexes themselves are established. As a result gender is not to culture as sex is to nature, gender is also the discursive/ cultural means by which “sexed nature” or “natural sex” is produced and established as “pre discursive”, “prior to culture”” (Butler, p.346)

‘Performativity’ is an important concept for Butler as “the repetition and the ritual of gender performances have an ongoing outcome. They contribute to the naturalising of the bodies, making the cultural fiction of gender appear credible and real.” The gendered body is performative, thus it has no ontological status apart from the acts that constitute its reality. Performativity could be interpreted as a paradigm shift in the study of gender and corporeality, because Butler’s claim about the inscription on the surface of bodies led us to read gender as something “only produced as the truth effects of a discourse of primary and stable identity.”(Butler, p.173) The examples of anorexia and body building confirm “the play of absence and presence on the body’s surface”, and as a result of minimal or excessive use of body we faced with multiple ways of deconstructing individuality and reconstructing the subjectivity. (Butler, p.172)

An Androgynous Utopia: Gender destruction of Karen Carpenter

“Anorexia … is an obsession evolving out of a complex internal apparatus of resistance and control; it is an addiction and abuse of self control, a fascism over the body in which the sufferer plays the part of both the dictator ad the emancipated victim who she often resembles.” (Film, 23′)

My first example is a short film about an anorexic body and her identity crisis; and I interpret this process as a resistance and protagonist’s death as a way to self realization. The film, Superstar (directed by Todd Haynes ), focuses on Karen Carpenter, who found dead in her parents’ home from anorexia in the 1970s and connections between her illness, family dynamics – controlling mother, celebrity, consumerism, and U.S. politics.

Superstar portrays the reasons to the crisis of the idealized female body in the image of Barbie and conceptions of normalcy trough the examination of Karen, who is sick of consumption and starves herself even as her image is consumed. Karen’s family tries to domesticate her with an organized marriage to reimpose her stable female role both in biological and sexual terms that means her family locates her into an institutional setting to maintain the control over her body. Although, Karen does not internalize the normativity and she resists proscribed ideals of femininity, she could not reject them at all. Hence, the process that what Karen experiences is all about a crisis of identity. She does not know what she should do; she just knows that it is not possible for her to live with her image.

Karen’s anorexic body and her identity crisis are fed by domestic crisis of the Carpenter family and also by political crises that are represented on T.V; they are the images of the Holocaust, the bombing of Cambodia, the Vietnam War, and the White House. As Landy underlines that domestic crisis that disrupt Karen’s integrity, are mother-daughter arguments and mainly about Karen’s career, her clothes, her weight, and her desire for independence, and these scenes of domestic crisis are connected to the public space conflicts. (Landy, p.123-140) After each image, Karen’s bodily performances and her identity become more fragmented and abnormal; and therefore her story shows that bodily boundaries, definitions, gender codes are never sacred since body always exceeds control. Her bodily presence is often relegated to the status of non-existence. Her illness makes her a subject instead of putting her into the place of victim, who suffers because of the physical and psychological pain. She is able to express her bodily absence and the presence of her pain, of what makes her as an agent instead of a normalized individual.

“The imitation that mocks the notion of an original ”: Ms. Olympia

Does femaleness produce femininity? What about the people, who do not fit the strictly defined boundaries of male and female that create a third space within binary oppositions? In what terms those identifications related with gender- a set of signifiers, and its structural units (female- femininity and male- masculinity)? Is it possible to equate high heels, breasts, make up, varnished nails or long hair to vagina? If the answer is yes then we should question about the Ms. Olympia, the idealized female body builders of each year; and try to understand the difference between Lenda Murray, Iris Kyle and their performances as a part of femininity or masculinity since their bodies do not seem that much lack of feminine signifiers. These girls wear high heels during their performances, they have varnished nails, and generally long blond hair; actually they have a dramatic or maybe an absurd charm (Coles, p.68). Being female has its own signifiers however, the female body builders challenge all traditional ideas and signifiers about femininity, and demonstrating that how sex, gender, sexuality served as a natural package, the femininity, the female bodies and even the most and the strongest signifier of maleness – masculinity are constructs.

Ms. Olympia competitions are the publicly constituted spaces where the bodies of female body builders are highly controlled; actually these competitions aims to normalize the “grotesque bodies” of body builders. Castrated feminine markers of body builders are controlled, they are dressing up with feminine signifiers and through their dress code (which are sexy bikinis) and make up, female body builders are allowed to enter in male gaze of heterosexual culture (Schulze, p. 261). Muscularity and power are linked to masculinity and thereby these are the feminizing strategies to make female body builders normal (Ian 1990, p.72). Fetishized feminine curves are eliminated by muscles, since these curves are the signifiers of female sexuality, cancellation of them marks female body builder’s sexuality as indifferent to men. Their bodies are grotesque, perverse and do not look like normalized, discursively individualized feminine bodies; these performers outgrow its own self, transgressing its own body (Bakhtin, p.317). Their performances can be interpreted as a performance of drag since we could argue that she is performing the space of masculinity, and resists traditional reading of her body. Artificial nature of femininity is grotesquely demonstrated through make up, hair, fetishistic dress code and breasts. Thus we could read female body builders image as an example of MTF transsexuals.

To conclude that female body builders’ dragish or MFT styles, mimicries highlights that what we socially, culturally learned and internalized as natural is no longer possible since there is no proper fe/male body that is taken for granted. There is nothing inherently natural to about gender, and gender is a kind of mimicry and when female body builders imitate these roles through their bodies than we meet something highly artificial and grotesque. Their female body is a copy, or imitation and their muscled bodies are the imitations of their imitations. However, through their performances fixed boundaries are blurred, they dismantle the slashes.

There is no power without resistance, and female body is not merely a victim

In Discipline and Punish Foucault explains how disciplinary power creates individuals form a mass of bodies through three elements; hierarchical observations, normalizing judgments and examination. Power relations construct the social reality through the implementation of these three elements as surveillance mechanisms, and people are the objects of the “regime of truth” that is controlled via these processes; and then they are transformed into individuals by experiencing, internalizing the knowledge and/or microphysics of power in everyday life; and since women are their bodies, particularly female bodies are subjected, used, transformed and improved (Foucault, p.136) Bodies are inscribed with power; they are the fields of power relations. Regulation and representation of bodies in social sphere show us the construction processes of useful, normalized bodies within the society (Bird, p.91). Body is rationalized and has become an object of expert mechanisms. Anorexia and body building are responses to overdetermined female bodies appearances as decorative presentations.

Anorexics and female body builders use their bodies in unconventional ways that challenging gender stereotypes. From traditional points of view the body has generally been associated with the innate, immutable, the god given; but these female performers reject the notion of a preexisting body since people are able to intervene their bodies and treat them merely as costumes. On the one hand anorexics’ and female body builders’ projects explore the problem of territorially defined bodies, and on the other hand they rewrite their identities, which are stuck within their bodily boundaries. Therefore, these performers prove how the identity is a fragmented and multiple process of becoming rather than fixed categories indeed. Anorexia or body building could be read as a project that is a path toward self determination for women to gain control over their own bodies.

Minimal or excessive use of bodily performances constitute women as subjects who use their feminine body as a site for action and protest rather than as an object of discipline and normalization. To sum up, woman is the creator not just the creation; not the passive object of another’s decision, and they are not the scopic objects of the “collective male gaze” between private and public spaces, contrarily they are the directors of the voyeuristic terminology over their bodies (Mulvey, 1975).

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24 Aralık 2009 Perşembe

sevgili noel baba sana sesleniyorum

ben ebit, onumuzdeki ay 25 olacagim ama senin kocaman bir kalbin oldugunu bildigim icin boyle samimi bir dilekle sana kosarak sarilmak istedim. evet, senden bahsediyorum noel baba. senden bir ricam olacak, yeni yılda asagida gordugun birbirinden guzel bes saat arasindan birisini bana getirebilir misin? anadolu yakasina duserse yolun lutfen ugra, odamdaki kucuk balkondan iceri girebilirsin. yatagimin uzerinde fıstık isimli bir arkadas olacak, hediyemi ona emanet edersen en kisa surede elime gececektir bu guzel saat.
isteyenin bir, vermeyenin iki yuzu kara noel baba. seni bekliyor olacagim.

XoXo

Hamis: pembe tercihimdir, hic olmadi beyaz olup kenarlari pembe olani getirirver.

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21 Aralık 2009 Pazartesi

‘‘What happened? Why, at the age of thirty-two, was this smooth-voiced girl from Downey, California, who led a raucous nation smoothly into the seventies, found dead in her parents’ home?’’

Teori dersinin odevi Karen, kadin bedeni ve yarattigi resistance uzerine olacak, umuyorum, baslamak uzereyim... "there is nothing that she is in control. so, losing weight signifies not just weight control  but total control.... ve boyle ilerleyecek bakalim neye benzeyecek, bitince koyacagim. Todd Haynes'in filmi uzerinden gidecegim, barbie dolls = ideal female body falan fiti...
Hamis: Annesi cok fena, yuzune tuz ruhu dokulmus sanki?

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20 Aralık 2009 Pazar

Ozkorkmaz Gunlukleri da dam dam da dam paah

Sıkıcılıktan okunamayacak boyuta erisen bu alanı birazcık renklendirmem gerekiyor, nasıl olacak bu iş pek bir fikrim yok. Eski bloggerlarla arayı bir an önce kapatabilmek için blog yazmaya yeni başlayanların vazgeçilmez tekniğidir hevesle gunde bir kac defa giriş yapmak. Bende boyle islemiyor durum, su uc cumleyi yazana kadar icim daraldi, ruhum bunaldi, mideme agrilar girdi. ama yok bu defa azimliyim sıkıcı da olsa, sadece kendimin gorecegi bu blogu bir sekilde doldurmaya karalamaya baslayacagim. yandaki fotografi kendime armagan ediyorum ebit, oldu mu?

hadi kalasin saglicakla
sii yuuu tomorrooov

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Response Paper #6: Jacques Derrida

Western way of thought is basically repressive, search for a universal system of thought that shows the absolute truth and beauty through the use of binary oppositions. However, Derrida argues that we can never arrive at an absolute, final meaning. Neither at the beginning nor at the end is there a point at which the definitive meaning can be found, since there is neither a beginning nor an end.


According to Derrida, meaning is encoded between binary oppositions, but the first term is not always the valuable. Instead of accepting the slashes, rigid boundaries around the meanings Derrida wants to show how the truth can be so relative and how these binary oppositions are not opposite and can be exist together. Therefore he is interested in deconstructing, neglecting the boundaries between oppositions. Since meaning is not stable and always postponed; so it can never be finally fixed; that means different context give words different meanings, the centered language system can not have a constraining power over people. Actually, he radically deconstructs the traditional theatre, decentered the power of the text writer and gives each one a chance to write his/her role. In my response paper I am going to give two examples to reveal the role of the individual and how their inscribed bodies serve as a marker of (multiple) identities.

First case is going to be about one of the impressive and also unbearable performance of Orlan, French multimedia artist, which deconstructs the usual, taken for granted status of body and its unity in Derridean terms. Her performances are criticizing the essentialist views about body, especially female body and the concept of beauty, which are regarded as innate, immutable and God given in the context of Western metaphysical thinking. In the second case I am going to give a more radical example of Australian artist, Stelarc’s performance “Suspension”, which is an identity lack performance and challenges the sacredness of body since the artist hangs his nude body in flesh-hooks suspension.

“My body is my art” (Orlan)

Orlan is inspired by Duchamp, so considers her own body a "readymade" that means she describes her body as a combination of manufactured objects rather than a territorially defined pure unity. She cancels the function of aesthetic surgery and presents its an unusual meaning(s) through her performance.


Orlan’s performance could be read as a self determination of a woman, who is the creator, not the created and gains control over her body. Instead of having her body beautified, she uses surgery as a medium for a deviant project, to make her face ugly. What we have internalized as the nature or the territoriality of the body is an outcome of social and cultural norms and continuities. But Orlan’s performance underlines that there are possible constructions and multiple differences that challange imposed perceptions or “truth” about what we have learned. To deconstruct binary difference disrupts both ontological and corporeal security. If we interpret her body as a text, it is going to be obvious that her decision to change her bodily fixity also alters her textual stability. She disrupts the place of the words within the text and claims an alternative reading to the preexisting readings of body, and indeed enables a risky dream of control over life, deformation, paralysis and death.

The surgical operation is controlled by herself; the performance takes place under local anesthesia. At the end of the each surgery her look is constantly shifting, her face transforms something more ambiguous and looks different. As she changes her face, her body becomes more alien and more fragmented. Since Orlan writes her own destiny during her performance, she is not the victim or the passive patient, she is the subject and the object of the transformation.

“The body is obsolete” (Stelarc)

Stelarc subjects his body to hanging by flesh-hooks, attached to a number of rocks to be counterbalanced, in his Suspension performances. These performances determine the limits of the body in relation to forces of nature, particularly of gravity. The whole performance becomes a very physical extension of the body, where the skin begins to lose its shape and artist reaches the physical and psychological limitations of the body

Stelarc's artistic performance discovers the idea of "enhancing the body" both in a physical -technical- and psychological manner. Through Stelarc's work, we reach a third stage of corporeal existence since the body becomes both the subject and the object in order to discover its limitations and also its future. In his interview with Ctheory.net, Stelarc explains the meaning of the “obsolete body”, he states that: “The body lacks of modular design, technology is what defines the meaning of being human, it’s part of being human. Especially living in the information age, the body is biologically inadequate.”

As he argues that the suspension itself is an end, it is the mimicry of overcoming gravity. Suspending the body with hooks helps the body support itself, thus the body becomes it's own support structure. So, performance of hanging the body imitates the passivity of the flesh and emphasizes the inevitability of death in order to create new capacities for the living corporeality.

Postponed meaning: What counts as a body?

I tried to explain the how the binary opposition between mind and body or any dichotomies is no longer possible. Cartesian dualism put a hierarchy between the mind and the body. The mind constitutes the ultimate meaning, essence of men, whereas the body is excluded and acts just as a medium; and hence reality is only accessible through the mind that means body is just an object. Both Orlan and Stelarc erase the slashes between the dichotomy of mind and body, especially put the body at the centre of their performances, they have their bodies and they are their bodies indeed. Thus these two artists challenge the political, ethical and physical norms of the Western society; and their definition of body and absolute meaning.

Orlan and Stelarc use technology to inscribe their bodies. They use their bodies to inscribe their art. Body is not conceived as inferior to the mind. Each performance of the artists change the shape of their skins, they look different at the end of the each performance, so they gain different inscribed identities, which are constructed by its performers. Additionally, Orlan and Stelarc perform their corporeal transformations by putting their skins and also identities in a process of becoming rather then being since there is a postponement and transgression of the meaning in both performances. Their bodies or identities are both objects and subjects of the performances, therefore we could say that their performances’ should read through Derrida, and beyond the Cartesian duality of mind and body since it is both mind and body.


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8 Aralık 2009 Salı

Response Paper #5: Karl Marx

In today’s world, classical theories of Marxism are not effective tools to analyze the historical and social changes. Contemporary world is the world of transformations and emphasize much more on the mixture and unpredictability in society; and everyday life becomes a more dynamic, pluralistic, contested sphere; and expresses a range of highly differentiated meanings. It is no more possible to describe it as homogenous whole that resist for a communal identity or ideology; individuals increasingly shape their own identities through reflexively social practices. Hence in order to understand the society and its transformation, we should study on the routines, everyday practices, ways of doings and operating and power relations within these practices rather than economic base, and relations of production at the institutional level. I am going to explain Agnes Heller’s notion of Objectivation in everyday life and then the importance of New Social Movements as a more fashionable – desired way of resistance rather than proletariat resistance in itself.


“Objectivation” in and for itself

As I understand from my readings, Orthodox Marxism is located at the centre, has the dominant power of the sacred reference; and interprets Marxism as the science of the society. Then manipulates historical materialism to discover the laws of history and societies; hence in a narrow sense, classical Marxist theories explain the modern capitalism in the world that we live in. So, the analysis of capitalism works like an historical analysis; but the problem is this analysis of capitalism has become an analysis of whole humanity, -pure theory and illogical practice-. Revolutionary shift from capitalism to communism is not an outcome of an ethical or philosophical choice but rather an inevitable step, works like a destiny for humanity. This is a vital point for me to criticize classical view by giving references to Heller.

Agnes Heller, Marxist critical theorist (lets over stigmatize her, she was Hungarian and Jewish) and Hegelian philosopher, argues that rather than existing area of exploitation and oppression, everyday life is an area of contestation and struggle, through which individuals reflexively define themselves, their relationships to others. Individuals have power to reproduce or reshape their place as an outcome of their active participation and differentiated lifestyles in EDL, thus when we question about EDL this will allow to question about the whole society and power relations.

Heller tried to problematize the link between alienation, social reproduction, and humanization & democratization of EDL. As a Marxist theorist, for Heller, capitalist division of labor, the hegemony of bourgeois ideology were regarded as barriers to the development of critical thought, the rationality of intellect, that leads individuals to challenge dominant norms and rules, individuals turn increasingly inwards focusing only upon themselves, their own EDLs and final products instead of the complexity of the processes. In my opinion what makes Heller more crucial and different than Orthodox Marxists is her emphasize on morality; and she argued that social fragmentation, particularizm eroded the collective morality, thus prevented collective action. Heller examined the alienated human potential by working on objectivation and argued that the solution can only be found by criticizing the practices of everyday life, which is colonized by the institutions. Objectivation in itself is the backbone of EDL, works as a guide, an index; and individuals internalize this framework by using everyday language, tools, norms & rules. Objectivation for itself underlines the fragmented and heterogeneous structure of the EDL. While the former legitimizes the EDL, second one makes us to think critically on EDL and open the path for freedom. I exemplified Heller work because bottom up theory is the lack of traditional Marxism which regarded individuals as invisible actors and values, beliefs and customs as irrelevant.

“Men make their own history” (Touraine, 1981)

In contrast to the proletariat’s movement, NSM do not seek to control the state; and instead display new forms of democratic organization; also they have raised awareness of the common problems facing humanity by rejecting authoritarianism.

Newly emerged global actors -such as anti-racist groups, LGBT organizations and environmental groups- are active participants of NSMs. I think that their goals are different and more moral form traditional socialist movements. First of all they are not rooted in the working class; and their interests can not be reduced to their class interest; indeed they have radically redefined class. Secondly, each individual has power to write his-her own history and social movements represent the organized collective behavior of actors to control their own historicity. The movement of 19th century can not be regarded as a social movement since the strategy, direction of every move and result was deployed, and was known by Orthodox Marxist theorists. Since Orthodoxy constructs itself on the historical engineering to control the predictability of history; underlying mentality is to know today, to predict the future through the interpretation of similar mediums. Like a fortunetelling to learn about the curse of the history; and this is the teleological assumption of Orthodoxy.

What is ideology? Is it purely false consciousness of the proletariat, who are not aware of their own historical role? What about the importance individual desires, or the determinant role of particular ideas? If the revolutionary process from capitalism to communism is historically over determined, then how could we talk about the role of individual? Is there any “good” ideology? Was the ideology of bourgeoisie good enough when it resisted to the feudalism? Class conflict or any social conflict can not be reduced to the struggle between owners of the means of production and exploited workers, as in the Marxist analysis. The concept of class is challenged by culture and identities; and economic determinism is no longer effective to understand the nature of the struggles of diverged identities’ interests. New struggles do not merely focus on issues of income, or political representation and therefore these struggles are defined as social or cultural. Resistance is now visible in the streets; it is not the proletariat’s collective action but the small battles that will transform society by destabilizing coercive state and delegitimizing its dominant discourses of power. To understand the nature of resistance we should look at the micro level resistances, and tactics that create alternative sites of equality.

Looking for a better life

With the demise of communism in Eastern Europe and then the collapse of Soviet Union in the late 1980s, Marxism has experienced a shift toward newer forms of multicultural approaches basically on identity politics. If the aim of Marxism is to reach a better life, then Marxism should continue to be theoretically productive, providing critical insights on the multiple problems and crises with globalization. EDL is a crucial field for Marxist theory to deal with the unintended problems of globalization such as ecology, terrorism, and the proliferation of new forms of identities. EDL is not just an area of production, and reproduction. It rather includes the ways of governing the society, and the repetitive character of EDL embodies power relations and therefore when we understand the nature of the repetitions and the micro level naturalized power relations, we will be able to solve the complexity of society and historical transformations.

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24 Kasım 2009 Salı

Response Paper #4: Judith Butler

“In the theatre, one can say, 'this is just an act,' and de-realize the act, make acting into something quite distinct from what is real.” (Butler, 527)


If performances are received by audiences as distinct from one another and form what is real, could we argue about the influence of transgression of gender roles on the stage to define what is proper outside of a performance space?

Roles on stage - Roles in everyday life


M. Butterfly is a play by David Hwang – inspired by Madame Butterfly. The play based on true events, is about the relationship between Rene Gallimard, a French diplomat assigned to Beijing in the 1960s, and Song, a Chinese opera performer.

Song manipulates Rene into disclosing secret diplomatic information and spies him for the Chinese government. Gallimard is unaware or willfully ignorant of the fact that in traditional Chinese opera, all roles are performed by men, so their affair lasts for many years. Since, Gallimard betrays his country; he is tried for treason, which led him to learn the truth about that Song is actually a man employed to pose as a woman in order to extract state secrets from him. At the end, Gallimard dresses like a woman and commits suicide by stabbing his heart with a dagger. This kind of a suicide performance is generally associated with woman, so we could say that the European, white masculinity's fantasy of the Oriental woman intervenes a homosexual desire. M Butterfly constitutes a distance between the gender and the body; the play deconstructs the binary oppositions, which structure the meaning. Hence we could say that the play challenges the perceptions about social, political, cultural and especially gendered identities of the Western audience.

Does crossgender performance keep the existence of the dominant masculinist hegemony, just by defining the genders as different and unequal? Or does the use the transgressive energy on theatrical presence destabilize accepted categories? Hwang's play as a transformation from Madame Butterfly into M Butterfly could be read as a play of repressed homoeroticism that elaborates the construction of a marginalized sexuality. And, in my opinion this deconstructivist example is crucial to understand the work of Butler, who states that appearance contradicts the reality of the gender.

Hwang’s play is a contemporary example of transgression of gender roles on theatre; however the situation is as much as complicated in the works of Shakespeare and also in the Ancient Greek Theatre. Boys were the central female figures in Shakespeare's day; their high voices and smooth skins without hair differentiated them from the mature male actors and gave them the advantage on the stage. Additionally, in Ancient Greek the hypocrites were always men. Female roles were played by males before puberty and before their voices changed. Since the hypocrites were all male, the mask was necessary to let them to play female roles (the mask hides the identity or puts the ambiguity of M.) it was necessary to make them look female for female roles.

We are all M. Butterflies – (are we?)

In the previous part I try exemplify Butler’s ideas on performance and gender construction on the stage, to prove the impossibility of strict definitions or failure of guesses about the gender categories, gender preferences and sexuality. Butler states that gender is not a fixed category but one continually constructed in social interactions. Actually RuPaul was right, “We are born naked. Everything else is drag.” or the rest is performativily defined from a Butlerian perspective. In this part I am going to ask my questions without referring any artistic performance.

Butler claims that there is no essential category for gender. Gender is not something that is internally built but something that is achieved and is always reproduced by the body. The body creates an illusion of these true social scripts and identities through repetition. Her attempt to refigure the body moves from the periphery to the center of analysis, so that it can be understood as the very point of subjectivity. Also, Butler argues that, this illusion is the dichotomic relationship between fe/male, and it is constructed through a performative fulfillment by social sanction and taboo; and there is social punishment for not conforming. But what about those people with non-conforming gender identities, practices? If there is punishment and there is nothing internal provocating his/her gender identity how would someone be socialized into the wrong gender or decide to express the wrong gender?

On the other hand, in my opinion there is something lack about those who challenges these gender roles, in her article. Would I have to be a part of a sexual or racial or any kind of minority community, to criticize the corrupted mentality of heteronormativity? What about those who are heterosexual, are not they able to challenge their given gender identities?

The body is constantly doing new acts, and gender is in a constant flux. So, Butler’s idea of performativity has then constituted the idea that gender is always moving and shifting. Based on her theory, gender is not a stable and an innate fact. And I am definitely agreed on the importance of Butler’s theory and concepts since they deconstruct discussions of body’s and gender’s essential sameness or difference. Overtime, we believe that gender is something that we rely on, and must have a concrete definition; however Butler’s ideas on body and gender, open a room to shift and move freely; additionally her framework explains gender beyond heterosexual ideals. But I still have questions about those who are aware of the vitality of body as a political site for representation and socially-culturally construction of gendered categories through reiteration in everyday practices, but those who reject to be M. and instead prefer their gendered bodies, their Madame or Monsieur.

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17 Kasım 2009 Salı

Response Paper #3: Umberto Eco

During the late '60s the rigid categories of works of art has started to change; and beyond the fixity of works, we have faced with newly emerged hybrid forms that emphasized the openness, the contingency and the continuity. New paradigm has mainly focused on the “open work of art”, the dynamic processes rather than the completed works or the static objects. Umberto Eco is an important actor for us to highlight the notion of open work. Eco examines the idea of open work, which reflects the relativity and discontinuity of the modern world, to explain the obvious difference between modern and traditional art.


According to Eco, most extreme form of the idea of the open work is formed by “works in motion”. What such works have in common is the participant or interpreter is required to complete the work of art, to cooperate with the author in making the composition, that means author leaves some of the components to the interpreter or to chance, thus giving them a multiplicity of possible orders. Indeed, the construction process of an open art work could similarly be read to the construction process of Self, and I am going to explain this analogy through Bakhtin dialogism as a starter, then I am going to emphasize Cortazar's novel Seksek to analyse the open work in terms of hypertextuality and literature.

Dialogical Work, Dialogical Self

Traditional monological and dichotomic form of subject was challenged by Bakhtin’s According to Bakhtin, individuals complete their Selfhood by interaction & communication, when they are in a relationship with other, who has a surplus of seeing and is able to see what we cannot see. We have the same surplus of seeing too with the other, a kind of intersubjective cooperation for social totality. So the construction of every Self is dialogical, there is a mutual necessity in the relation of “I & the Other” to complete a view about the Self. Similarly, by referring Eco's texts, we could talk about the mutual necessity between the author and the interpretor to gain a complete perspective about the work of art; and therefore we could suggest the analogy between “Self and Work of art” in terms of reciprocity.

On the other hand, Bakhtin considered language and its system as hybrid as society to explain heteroglossia that means language is something multiple, include various kinds of voices, words from different people with different social and cultural backgrounds. And additionally individuals use different words in different contexts, so individuals are not the passive, obedient actors under the text, or social structures. Maybe the terms of heteroglossia lead us thoroughly to think about the active role of interpretor.

Although subjects -or interpretors- are ideologically marked by particular cultural and discursive formations that are determined within asymmetrical power relations, as Bakhtin mentioned that, subordinate social groups-or interpretors- can diagolize and rewrite monological discourses with new meanings. To sum up, open work as a kind of dialogue, is not simply an exchange; indeed, it stresses the continual interaction, interconnectedness, and an intersubjective communication. Hence, the construction process of the open work provides us with the most important medium that is dialogue, through which selfhood is expressed and realized. So, Umberto Eco's open work could be seen an example of dialogism.

Cortazar's Seksek, an example of Hypertexuality

The idea of openness of the work of art can be seen in the multiplicity of interpretations and the continually interactive play between reader and text or author in literary theory. However, while the literary text itself remains the same, different readers have different highlighters to the text as a matter of form rather than its content. This is somehow distinctive then to say that different readers will interpret the text in various ways. What happens is that readers' ideas about the form of text are different beyond its content. And in my opinion Eco's definition of open work could be challenged by the relations between content, form and the reader or interpretor.



This becomes apparent in works of hypertexts or Cortazar’s Seksek. Cortazar's work is a game with multiple endings and with this game the reader reaches an interesting spatial metaphor; hypertextual structure offers a single drawing with a multitude of combinations. Seksek is divided into three parts and 155 chapters as two different but interrelated stories. The work can be read either in direct sequence or by jumping through the chapters. The later alternative reading offers an alternative narrative within the text. The work does not end with the word “the end”, instead there are three stars at the end of the first book. Seksek has a hypertextual, experimental structure where the reader can access the information in different contexts. Reader's involvement is important in this hypertextual work because the reader makes the link between two different moments of two different stories.

In Seksek, same textual elements of information are used to reestablish different stories through hypertextuality; and what makes this work unique is the meaning that is produced by the interplays of the inner texts which reactivate readers of the work to experience the text in different ways and construct different forms between inner texts. Hence, it is the form -not the content- , the new strategy of the open work that make the meanings reachable and interpretable.

Questioning the text, questioning the world

Text is a social construct and hypertext is a paradigm for the social construction of meaning. Hypertext is a structural strategy with its new field of possibilities, where the reader or interpretor finds a space for freedom. And as a multicentered medium, hypertext or postmodern textuality destabilize the traditional textual practices and cultural discourses that we experience through the texts; and thereby it liberates text - and us- from the limitations of strictly defined linearity and hierarchy.

Within the blurred boundaries of postmodern textuality, we become able to subvert our habit of reading and thinking as a result of interaction and multiplicity in a decentred work without any given interpretative privilege. This challenge of postmodern textuality allows us as reader of texts but also informs our readings of the world from a multi perspective and anti hierarchical function, and I think, this is the point where Bakhtin and Cortazar meet beyond the work of Eco.

In conclusion, the idea of openness suggests a wide range of information that admits for numbers of possible readings, and it is the very condition of every work of art, specifically in literary works. Texts encourage the readers, interpretors to provide what is not there, so that the whole communicative process of reading itself becomes interplay between the clear and the ambigious, the expressed and the unexpressed. The readers can be successfully engaged with the experience of the interaction and in turn produce and create themselves as well as the production of meaning.

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