Zarbscape

Implicit or explicit, rhythm is very much integrated into our daily life. In this regard, visual rhythm, too, is quite essential for us and the patterns we see all around us are probably the most important part of our visual atmosphere which creates the sense of visual rhythm.

Although some patterns we come across, like the pattern on the wall covering or the table cloth that we choose to decorate our living spaces, or the patterns in an art work that we engage with, create a more or less conscious visual experience, most of the visual patterns in our lives are neither of our choice nor within our conscious perception. The ways the surfaces in our environments are covered with certain patterns are mostly out of our control, moreover in many cases, we do not pay much attention to them. In addition, not the visual aspect but other concerns like the economic, structural or functional ones take precedence in their appearance or construction. For instance the flooring in closed spaces, the pavement designs, the road lines all come in certain patterns and hence create a sense of visual rhythm for us, but we hardly ever notice them. Not all people, for example, could tell what the pattern of the tiles covering their bathroom floor looks like from their memory, although it is a place they visit a couple of times every day.

Hence, the patterns are everywhere, we live within them, we glide through them, we walk on them every single day and they are a part of our lives. However, we hardly notice or make much of a connection with them. Zarbscape intends to make visible what is unnoticed by showing the world "through the window of" those patterns.

The name of the work is a compound made with "zarb" and "scape". “Zarb” is a concept related to musical rhythm. In the Persian Classical Music, it is the name of the main and most important percussion instrument. Similarly, transformed to "Darb" in the Turkish language, it denotes each of the strokes in the rhythmic cycles, or the "usul"s of Turkish Classical Music. The second part of the compound word, "scape" is almost self-explanatory. The work, after all, intends to show the “rhythmic-scape” within the landscape, the city-scape or even the home-scape.

This idea of making the patterns in daily life visible can be implemented in various ways and mediums. In this implementation of the project, the preferred method was a two-dimensional photo story and the medium was print. For this, I started by taking five photographs of some monuments or places which I thought would be well known to the audience. This familiarity with the subject matter of the photographs was important since it would be much easier for the audience to engage with the work if there was something in the photographs they could relate to immediately. The expected audience was members of Bilkent community, especially from the Communication and Design and Graphic Design departments. Three commonalities between them were Ankara, Bilkent and to a lesser degree METU. Therefore, the photographs were chosen to be images either iconic of or reminder of these places.

First one was the photograph of the statue located at the meeting point of Sakarya Street and the Ataturk Boulevard, one of the central locations which almost everyone living in Ankara has gone through a couple of times in their lives. The second one was the Baraka building in the METU campus. I was guessing that the most people who would come to see the exhibition would have some connection with METU and this small structure is an iconic part of METU campus. The Third one is the bus stop near the dormitories in the central campus of Bilkent. Rather than being iconic, this place has a functional importance. Some of them taking busses to go to the downtown from here, this place would establish a spatial and mental connection between Bilkent and Ankara for our expected audience members. Fourth one was one of the iconic city monuments which gained a renewed importance and recognition due to unfortunate mine "accidents" which happened in 2014: the miner statue located at the Kültür, or as it is more widely known, Olgunlar street. And the last photo was taken in another one of Ankara's iconic places, which recently gained a different meaning: Kuğulu Park. Targeted by the mayor in the recent years and saved from partial destruction by the people of Ankara who diligently protected it at that time, Kuğulu Park has reinforced its status of being a place with which the residents of Ankara identify themselves by becoming one of the central locations of the Gezi movement in the city. Apart from that, being my favorite public place to spend my time in Ankara, it also has some individual self-reflexive value for me.

Along with making it easier for the audience to engage with the work, the familiarity with the locations in the photographs was a key feature also because the project, as stated above, intends to make visible that which they walk through in their daily lives but hardly ever see. Thus, the locations had to be places which the audience members had supposedly been before. Not only this, but also the locations had to have some distinctive, conspicuous pattern in their surroundings. This also dictated the angle and framing of the photographs: those patterns had to be clearly visible in them. This part, indeed, proved the most difficult part of the work: finding iconic or familiar places with conspicuous patterns around them and taking photographs which were both esthetically appealing and also somehow displaying those patterns.

Last part of the implementation was superimposing the patterns in the images onto the photographs. This brought in the second, the vertical dimension of the photo-story. At the top photo, the pattern consisted only of thin lines and in the following four photos, with the lines getting thicker and thicker, patterns, as intended them to be, became more and more visible. The photographic image in each repetition became more compartmentalized with smaller and smaller "window"s or patches of it remaining. 

The horizontal ordering of the photos was also done according to the patterns. The pattern with the most straight edges and pointed corners was chosen to be the first one and pattern of each photo to the right became more round or curvy, ending at the last photo with a totally circular one.

The audience reaction at the exhibition proved that the choices made about the locations were for the most part corroborated. The "entry point" or the "initial connection" for many a people who beheld the work was one of the photographed locations. In several incidents, the first reaction was "oh, isn't his place...?". This also helped carrying them to the second level of appreciation process: curiosity. They knew something about what they had in front of them, but they did not know the entire story. What they knew about it, however, compelled them to find out what was not manifest readily. They did not know why the photographs were incised with ever more thickening lines; they did not know what those lines and the patterns formed by those lines meant. This made them curious and attracted many either to come closer to find a clue or approach me to ask.

Since I believe that discovery, and the joy that comes with it is an essential part of art appreciation, and also since I am a firm believer of the principle that learning and exploration is an individual experience, I would prefer the audience members to find out the pattern-photo connection all by themselves without feeling any need to ask me. However, I accept that it was not as easy to make the connection at first. In this regard, I think it would help If I included some sort of written statement, may be the first three paragraphs of this very text, available to them near the work so that they could make all the connections and find all the clues, all and only by themselves.

Finally, as I said before, a two dimensional photo-story is only one of the ways through which the basic idea of Zarbscape can be implemented. An animation with a very similar approach could be another idea. This time, after a full image fades into the frame from white, while zooming in the image to a part of it with the pattern, the lines of the pattern would emerge on the image, just like in the photographs in the printed implementation, and they could become thicker and thicker, covering, at the end the entire surface and making the frame pure white upon which the next image fades in. This could be played in an endless loop. Another idea could be connecting not the visual but the auditory signs with the patterns. This time, again in an animation, certain patterns from places with distinctive auditory signs would appear visually on the screen while accompanied by the audios recorded at those places. Especially, public transport units with announcements and crowd noises could be a good candidate for this kind of approach. 

patterns... patterns...

"...the noblest qualities we are capable of perceiving in things: rhythm and harmony."

huizinga

how does the pattern of the tile in your bathroom floor look like?

it had been ten years… 

ten years since he left the shores of his beloved island in a swift running hollow ship, laden with food, wine and armor. ten years since he last felt in his hair the breeze of the rocky hills and the green meadows of his homeland. ten years since he last felt the warm, soft skin of his wise, white-armed wife next to his…

ten years...

ten years of blood and gore and flesh. ten years of iron and wood and bronze. ten years of sacking and raiding and killing. ten years of fight and combat and war. ten years of defeat and surrender and attack...

ten years...

and after ten years, as the rosy-fingered dawn once more showed her pink cheeks from behind the mountains, he was on the shores of a foreign land, a place not his own, not his ancestors', not his kindred's. a place where he had no roots and would not have any branches. a place to where he was dragged ten years ago following the lead of proud, arrogant men, for a cause which was not his. "oh passion" he thought, "oh lust. what a burden you are on the shoulders of us, the mortal men. wide-seeing one of the dazzling bolt, that mighty dangler, always has his way with any fair girl he pleases and he always gets away with it while we mortals have to die in our thousands when one of us is enchanted"

so after ten years he was still on the shores of the land of horse-breakers, once more very early in the morning, he was sitting down at the beach and looking towards the sea and thinking of all those that he loved beyond its loud-roaring waves. he was tired, weary and much wounded from the battles he fought. he wanted an end to this misery, he wanted to go back. he was known to be a man of many twists and turns, a great tactician, the wise and the resourceful one. yet, he was unable to find a way to bring to end this much prolonged war.

those who presided over the clouds had a liking towards him. especially the bright-eyed daughter of the mighty dangler was his patron and supporter. she wanted an end to this carnage too. and she wanted that end to be in her champion's favor. she knew the end of the horse-breakers would come from within a horse. she knew horse-breakers would be broken by a horse. so, she tried to inspire her champion to devise a schema. he was still at the beach, trying to think a way out of this bloodshed himself.

so she, whose shield is the thunder, sent a couple of stray horses running through the beach to inspire her champion. he, the cunning man, looked at the horses, running together side by side, free as the wind through the beach and all he could think of was he and his wife walking on the white-sanded beaches of his island. she shook her head in disappointment. "oh these mortal men," she thought "take away their women and after ten days their brains are clogged by their lust". 

then she did her second trick, more splendorous this time, more dazzling, she had the waters of the sea rise in a column towards the sky and just as the columns was five times the height of a man she gave it the shape of a giant horse on its hind legs. he, great teller of tales, was amazed to see this and felt good that he would have some interesting story to tell his friends after dinner. she, the gray eyed one, shook her head in disappointment. "oh these mortal men," she thought "give them a chance to  touch the miraculous and all they can think of how they will brag about it over wine".

then she did her third trick, even more miraculous this time, she moved the last remaining stars in the early sunset sky and bring them into a formation whose contours defined a horse running in full speed. he, the master mariner, lifted his head towards the sky, squinted his eyes and was puzzled by the way stars lined up. he rubbed his eyes and looked again. "i must be very hungry" he thought "i see a whole roasted pork when i look at the stars. i should better go eat something". she, the tireless one, was tired. she shook her head in disappointment once more. "oh these mortal men," she thought "move the heavens in front of their eyes and they won't see it if their belly is empty".

so she did her last trick. she brought about an unusual wind, blowing and flowing in all the different directions all at once. she churned the air with strong currents and she moved the clouds. she brought them all together and gave them the shape of a giant white horse running towards the sun in front of a dazzling background of the purple morning sky. but he was too afraid to open his eyes lest he would have sand in them, let alone look up in the sky and see the giant horse. "storm is coming" he thought "let me return back before it hits hard". she, the third born of the gods, shook her head in disappointment again. "oh these mortal men," she thought "they are too fragile that even one grain of sand is enough to make them blind to see it when you bring clouds down to them"

following the path he followed everyday, he started walking towards his camp. for the last ten years, he had walked through this very path so many times that he had almost memorized it. he knew every pebble, every rock on it. he could walk it blindfolded, without any visual aid. it had become so ordinary for him. but now, the unusual winds which the bright eyed one blew to move the clouds had also moved the sand on the beach and changed the pattern on it. he could not tell which way he should go. he did not have any consciousness of his whereabouts. luckily the lookouts in the camp started to play the drums in that particular noisy, alarming rhythm which was used to call men to arms. hearing this, the cunning one started moving towards the sound. as he was running hastily to reach the camp without paying much attention to anything around, he suddenly felt a warm, soft feeling under his barefoot. he looked down and he realized that in his hurry, he had stepped onto a large piece of horse dropping, still fresh, warm and smeared all over his foot. he looked back, there was a huge pile of it sitting in its own rising steam in the middle of  his path. "damn it" thought the man of much-enduring "what kind of a horse does this, it must have been a giant beast". 

then he repeated the last words aloud: "a giant horse" and he looked back towards the sea into the horizon and felt proud of himself. and that is how the man of twists and turns came up with the idea of the hollow-bellied horse which would break the horse-breakers.

and she, the mighty daughter of the mighty father shook her head in disappointment one last time and "oh these mortal men," she thought "no matter how sublimely you try to inspire them, they still find their inspiration in no place other than dung and crap" 

what is it?

When we think of all the rhythm in our lives, the hidden ones, like the heartbeat, the steps we take as we walk, the stairs we ascend or descend, the pounding of the words as we speak or letters as we type and the explicit ones, like the rhythm in music, obviously rhythm is very much integrated in our daily practices. In this regard, visual rhythm, too, is quite essential for us and the patterns are probably the most important part of our visual atmosphere which creates the sense of visual rhythm.

Although the explicit patterns we have in our lives, like the pattern on the wall covering or the table cloth that we choose to decorate our living spaces or the patterns in an art work that we engage with create a more or less conscious visual experience, most of the visual patterns in our lives are neither of our choice nor within our conscious perception. The ways the surfaces in our environments are covered with certain patterns are mostly out of our control, moreover in many cases, we do not pay much attention to them. In addition, not the visual aspect but other concerns like the economic, structural or functional ones take precedence in their appearance or construction. The flooring in closed spaces, the pavement designs, the road lines all come in certain patterns and hence create a sense of visual rhythm for us. We live within them, we glide through them every day and they are a part of our lives. However, we hardly notice or make much of a connection with them.  

This project aims to make an implicit or hidden part of our daily experience more explicit and find clues about our perception of visual rhythm.