CEVDET EREK

Cevdet Erek, having completed his studies in architecture and furthered his education in sound engineering as ‘Tonmeister', has participated in various architecture and music projects. He combined these two fields for the first time in a site-specific video installation, “In the Courtyard” (2002) in which he articulated the relations between the sounds and spatial characteristics of the courtyard of the university where he currently studies.

“In the Courtyard” was composed of four projections installed in a hidden, almost haunted space at the university, which was used in the past as a chemistry laboratory. The walls and floors have different textures, and the playful spatial organization of the abondoned space was facilitated to intervene with the images and sound of the work.

Erek audio-visually recorded the building and its immediate surroundings as his raw material to create a live-perspective of the sound of the architecture. ‘Every view from the 228 windows into the courtyard, the aluminum window wings banged by the wind's cross currents and their echoes, the signals of the security turnstiles at the entrance of the building, the 57 loudspeakers used for classroom bells, and the courtyard itself were given the leading roles for “In the Courtyard” !*

Erek's reading of the space, architecture and the city unfolds on binary circular oppositions. The courtyard, for instance, the open area, an outdoor space of the building is actually an urban interior space. He elaborates this relationship between the outside and the inside throughout his audio-visual ‘symphony', blending the images and sounds of the inside and the outside of the courtyard in the rhythm of the sound. Animation of the architecture in the rhythm of its sound creates a primordial angst as if we were witnessing an apocalyptic moment.

Second audio-visual work Erek has ‘composed' for the present exhibition, “The Second-Bridge”, deals primarily with such oppositions. The second bridge, built by a Japanese construction company in 1987, crosses over the Bosphorous, which is a passage way between the North and the South, and connects the two sides of the Bosphorous; East and West, Asia and Europe. While the first bridge is located at the more historic part of the city and envelopes the view of the old palaces and historical edifices, the second one frames the contemporary façade of the city. Having been constructed as a part of the large-scale urban projects of the 80's zeal to prepare the city for global integration, the view of the bridge reflects this phenomenon; it stands together with the office towers on the background and new settlements created by immigrants mainly from Anatolia at its outskirts.

Erek is fascinated with this huge monument's relationship with movement. Being a static mass, it allows a constant movement on it an under it. Buses, cars, and trucks run between the two continents, while fishing boats, ships, gigantic trans-liners and the blue waters of the Bosphorus flow both ways under it. With this project, Erek takes the challenge of searching for the possibilities of new configurations of sounds and forms, articulating the sounds of movement and the movement of sounds in a rhythmical arrangement. (by Fulya Erdemci)

* Cevdet Erek, “In the Courtyard” in the exhibition catalogue of Istanbul Pedestrian Exhibitions I: Nisantasi, Istanbul, 2002.