Istanbul, 59 Locations: A Format For
Nightcomers, provides a screening format for Nightcomers, one of the night programme projects of the 10th International Istanbul Biennial (September 8 - November 4, 2007).
Hou Hanru invited Bik Van der Pol to come up with a format for Nightcomers. Inspired by the phenomena of the 'dazibao, Bik Van der Pol responded with a 'video dazibao', asking: what is the most democratic form of expression in our age of new technology and global communication? How can this be demonstrated in the urban space today? What does access mean, really?
During the Cultural Revolution in China in the 1960s and 1970s, the 'lower class' was encouraged to post their critiques on the elite in the form of 'Dazibao' (a journal/poster with large letters). Street corners became public forums. In spite of totalitarian propaganda, this approach showed a form of radical democracy, and even assumes an urban guerrilla-like insurgency.
The 'Dazibao'was banned in China after the Cultural Revolution precisely because it challenged the totalitarian rule; it became the voice that called for reform and an openness from the 'bottom' of society.
Instead of designing an architectural structure, they developed a specific 'agit-prop' screening format for screenings on different locations all through Istanbul , and a free guidebook, to create full access with the Biennale on both sides of the Bosporus.
For an everyday public access to this exhibition, for the thousands of people living in areas who would normally not get in direct contact with contemporary art.
With ideally 59 screenings - one every night for the whole duration of the Biennial - throughout the city on different locations, Nightcomers continuously appeared and disappeared.
During the nights, the program, under the title of 'Nightcomers', were projected in public spaces in different parts of the city, from the centre to the periphery.
Every night a small team equipped with car, projector, sound system, paper, brush and paste, moved into the city to one of the locations, and paste white paper posters onto the wall, which formed the screen for the video program of Nightcomers. After every screening, the white paper walls leave a phantom-like trace in the city, and these white spots slowly sink, in time, back in the urban tissue of the city.
For their research, Bik Van der Pol explored different neighbourhoods of the city, searching for walls of inhabited, run-down or empty buildings, factories and houses, fences, car park walls.
Some of the locations are in urban transformation, in an uncertain state, on the verge of new developments, or not always without (political) conflict. Other locations are the result of (sometimes conscious) neglect by the city authorities or the result of a powerplay between local and national government. And others are the result of illegal developments (large works such as tunnels, hotels, roads or whole housing areas), sanctioned by the authorities.
Together with students, urban sociologists, residents, and others, Bik Van der Pol mapped, described, recorded and photographed every location. Together these locations create the facts and fictions that form the underlying structure of the city.
The small guidebook with the title 'Istanbul. 59 Locations, A Format For Nightcomers', designed by David Bennewith and Sandra Kassenaar functions as a map and guidebook. It gives an overview of all locations, thus creating access and allowing a glimpse in the wide variety of Istanbul's daily dynamics, and invites the public to embark on a trip.
