What is ‘seeing’? No one must be able to explain everything that is happening in the face of the uncertainties of today’s world, including extremism, polarization, isolation, and mixed true and false information. Discoveries will vary greatly from viewer to viewer, depending on their social, cultural, racial, religious, linguistic, and gendered backgrounds and experiences, as well as their frame of mind, emotions, and beliefs in that instant. A person seeks out symbols and meaning in things to recognize, comprehend, and make them visible before things invade the person’s comfort zone. In other words, a person unconsciously tries to interpret various things according to a person’s stereotypes. So what does a person need when confronted with something that is not understandable, hard to accept, and unable to reflect knowledge? What is needed to recognize and judge the various possibilities without twisting the facts or interpreting them to suit oneself in such discoveries? It should be imagination.
Using time-based media -film, video, photography, and sound- I temporarily disrupted the viewer’s cognition in order not to interpret with their stereotype of mindset but with the imagination that leads to diverse viewpoints and perspectives. My works attempt to make viewers blind and urge them to ‘see’ in this state with imagination. To do this, works don’t necessarily have to be seen, maybe don’t even need to be present in front. A work is not always complete on its own but must be open to any possible interpretation. ‘Seeing’ is an attitude situated on the ambiguous border between the representation of things and an act of giving meaning to them. In other words, ‘seeing’ is an act of reinterpreting over and over again, of imagining and constantly offering different perspectives on what we are confronted with.
In my works, things and seeing are the same.