SHOP TITLES TALK TURKEY * SERIES OF SHORT VIDEOS
The district of Laleli is situated on the historical peninsular of Istanbul in immediate proximity to famous tourist attractions like Haya Sophia and Grand Bazaar. Laleli is a transnational center of informal economy formed by suitcase traders from the neighboring countries, ex-USSR states and Turkish apparel producers. The district has a vivid ambition from informal market to become a world fashion center, which together with the formalizing and legalizing the business is obvious from the symbolic production of the place.The shop titles, slogans, and brand names are projection of dreams and emotions and create suggestive and stimulating atmosphere. They together with the rest of advertisement affect the main actors and thus the functionality of the district of Laleli by visualizing a dream, engaging the actors of the space in a common fantasy of glamorous and fashionable lifestyle and attracting and aspiring through unspoken understanding that what is represented is not necessarily a reality. The billboards, shop titles and messages no longer function solely as advertisements but rather as a scenography and fragrance for the space. Grammar mistakes and misspellings are quite common in this saturated textual environment and the ® symbol is popular accessory. Moving ones eyes around the abundance of text hyperreal, surreal and absurd combinations might occur.
The series of short video narratives Shop Titles Talk Turkey is inspired by the amount, typologies, implications, and connotations offered by the shop titles and slogans presented on the facades of the showrooms and shops in Laleli. The short videos are collages from still images of shop titles and messages found in Laleli, used in a particular consequence to form sentences, alone or with slight interventions by the artist.
Veronika Tzekova
March, 2007
* to talk turkey = to speak frankly