{"id":1207,"date":"2022-09-26T18:24:35","date_gmt":"2022-09-26T18:24:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/discojournal.com\/?p=1207"},"modified":"2024-03-29T16:17:41","modified_gmt":"2024-03-29T16:17:41","slug":"when-the-dust-settles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/discojournal.com\/2022\/09\/when-the-dust-settles\/","title":{"rendered":"When the Dust Settles – Nicky Broekhuysen & Mine Kaplangi"},"content":{"rendered":"
CREATIVE<\/a>, <\/span>ESSAY<\/a>, <\/span>ODE TO THE PAST<\/a>, <\/span>VIDEO<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n
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By Nicky Broekhuysen & Mine Kaplangi<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

When the Dust Settles<\/strong><\/h1>\n\n\n\n

An unsettled experimentation on a 2016 exhibition The Digital Archaeologist<\/em><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Keywords: media archaeology; binary code; collaboration; digital archive; experimentation<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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I have realised that there is no final \u2018ordered end point\u2019 rather there is just the space through which one passes on the journey to discovering the beauty and mystery of the unknown behind the chaos. The world has become a place where one can no longer look for security and meaning in the physical spaces and systems in which we live, we have instead been forced to turn inwards, to seek meaning in ourselves and in our connections.   <\/p>Nicky Brokhuysen, 2018 from her Artfridge interview[1]<\/sup> <\/em><\/cite><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

How do we remember [ex]hibitions? Feelings of the day, [art]work, space? <\/em>
Time runs in various ways in digital realms. I always wonder how we will recall the space when it’s [meant to be] temporary. <\/em> <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Figure 1<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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a hot soup<\/em>
on a cold Berlin night<\/em>
where we came out<\/em>
coup<\/em>
loop<\/em><\/p>\n

record of time<\/em>
please hold the space 2m between<\/em>
forms of memory<\/em>
temporal length of an existence<\/em><\/p>\n

how can we learn<\/em>
from becoming<\/em>
unstable, constant change in place<\/em>
and time<\/em>
the   Depth of Delusion Ensemble[2]<\/sup><\/em><\/p>\n

sandstone<\/em><\/p>\n

stone stamp<\/em><\/p>\n

dream of a wind<\/em><\/p>\n

resistance [of the ink]<\/em>
a sense<\/em><\/p>\n

when breaking the codes<\/em>
unfolding the layers<\/em><\/p>\n

a warm soup<\/em>
on a cold night<\/em><\/p>\n

how<\/em>
we relearn<\/em>
how to write<\/em>
how to read<\/em>
how to dream<\/em><\/p>\n

a story within the distance of a metallic sound<\/em><\/p>\n

whales carried the books<\/em>
piled on<\/em><\/p>\n

for us<\/em><\/p>\n

we will figure out the rest<\/em><\/p>\n

haplessly<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

As an independent curator and art practitioner, my understanding of digital event programming, archiving and recalling previous exhibitions changed drastically in the last years, mostly due to the pandemic, an event which has consequently changed many previously held perceptions. As a means to further explore this change, I offer Nicky Broekhuysen\u2019s exhibition The Digital Archeologist<\/em>, as a pathway to guide us as we meander through these far corners of the digital realm in our search for understanding. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wrote this text Dig Deep<\/a>[3]<\/sup> in 2016, three years after the Gezi Movement in Turkey, where due to the political situation, digital spaces became safer places to gather yet still we tried to hold on to the physical as long as it was due. Since then, many things have changed in my hometown Istanbul where various [art] spaces have closed and been forced to move or transform themselves\u2014a familiar phenomenon currently occurring in London, my new hometown, thanks to state-led gentrification, the financial crisis and other inhumane policies put forth by the current Tory Government. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is our responsibility with these memories, then, these artefacts? Just because you remember them, will you be able to hold them when the time comes or when they are urgently needed? Or should they perish into the [in]visible archives of the digital? Does the past become present when you recall them? Who has the keys to the ongoing archiving of the internet lockers? Mckenzie Wark rightfully and beautifully suggests that \u201cwe need another worldview, one drawn out of what is left of the actually collaborative and collective and common practices via which the world is actually built and run, a worldview of solidarity and the gift. A worldview that works as a low theory extracted from worker and hacker practices, rather than a high theory trying to legislate about them from above.\u201d[4]<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sustainability works differently regarding individual memories and storytelling, yet websites need budgets for eternal open-sourcing. We all do have our open and private libraries of knowledge productivity in the arts, yet when shared in social media, newsletters, forums or even diaries, one can lose their way in the maze even with the help of keywords. The Matrix is expanding, and binary codes are now similar to recipes; all we need to do is to cook with the taste of our own hands.[5]<\/sup> Therefore experimentation, i\u015f birli\u011fi[6]<\/sup>, collective-collaborative<\/em> practices and repetitive acts of making kins are essential for our times to bound the time with the work and resist the destruction of our worlds in the making.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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interlude<\/em>…red or blue?<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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How our paths were crossed with Nicky Broekhuysen<\/strong>
a short story within a story<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

BLOK art space<\/a>, where I first worked with Nicky, has been closed since I moved to London, right before the pandemic started in the winter of 2019. The Bumiller Collection\u2019s studio, which generously hosted The Digital Archeologist<\/em>, has also since closed its doors to contemporary interventions instead of continuing as a nomadic space. So we follow a phantom of stamps that echoed inside the walls of an Islamic Art Collection\u2019s project space that no longer exists. When I think about apparitions and recalling archives, I always find myself thinking about artist Patrick Staff\u2019s work, The Foundation[7]<\/sup>, <\/em>which takes place around the iconic Tom of Finland Foundation in Los Angeles, an archive dedicated to protect erotic arts. Even though the preserved art and works are different, the methodology of Staff\u2019s response to this archive as building relations and stories between objects, artworks and the foundation\u2019s space rather than categorising them is quite spellbinding, a term I frequently use to describe Nicky\u2019s practice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Figure 2<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It was a vociferous Istanbul afternoon when I met Nicky; we found our peaceful moment in an antique shop next to BLOK art space, where we would work together in the following days. Nicky had a Turkish coffee; I made a silly joke to break my social anxiety by offering to read her future [reading one’s future from the coffee cup is a way of saying for future-telling]; Nicky accepted it gracefully as she is always ready for a midday seance. She closed her cup, turned it upside down, and handed it over. I put a cold 1 Turkish lira on it and waited for a while; we talked about our passions, families, and many others. Time passed impatiently; I opened the cup and immediately realised it was not just another exhibition experience with a temporary companion. Nicky was quite special, and so was her cup, showing me a giant ‘0’ next to ‘1’. Such a poetic way of starting a journey with a magical artist like Nicky, who works with binary codes, intuition and repetition as methodologies that create magic when combined. I smiled and laughed for the entire day as the proper grinagog of the project space I was working at the time couldn’t handle the flow of emotions I was receiving through Nicky’s presence. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I always think Nicky works with time
repetition, decisions on how to continue
complete
rather than what she uses, rather than the binary
0’s 1’s are not only binary code; they are Nicky’s language, shapes, tools,
addressing the potential rather than the limitation
now they are colourful
they bloom in spring
we had explosions of them in Istanbul on the walls of the gallery we worked side by side
and the drifting sound waves floating in the digital sphere[8]<\/sup>
the fact that nothing in life can remain static, she says
for transitioning, for in constant fluid being
they choose to become something else other than what they are already named, constructed<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Figure 3<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Figure 4<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Every year following the summer of 2013 was getting stranger and weirder for Istanbul; I was already convinced that Nicky and I were meant to know each other beyond time and space. Our journey was not for or about us, but for both of us to have the courage to face and to reveal something immense that you would rather prefer to have company while it unfolds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When we make exhibitions, we respond to certain things, experiment and create spaces and stories, but these come to life through various spatial, emotional, and temporal relations. I have recently grown more tempted and interested in these relationships, more so than even at the beginning of my [art] journey. It took us a couple of years to become close friends. After Istanbul, Nicky invited me to her Berlin exhibition at the Bumiller Collection<\/a> and to write about her work and practice for the exhibition catalogue as well as to moderate the artist’s talk alongside the exhibition’s programme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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