The common feature in Burcu Aksoy’s latest series is her choice of not using photography as a representation tool of existence and states of existence, based on objective reality. The aesthetic deconstruction she set forth in her works can be defined as Aksoy’s emancipation in her own unique language by the involvement of the unconscious in the mind’s last step of realization which starts with the intuition.
The photographs; as the objects of significance in their own universe come across with the perception and interpretation of the literate viewer. Through facing this object of significance - just as it is in objective world - the viewer will realize his/her perception. These works become objects in the existence of the unique language formed by the artist.
The traces of raw images rubbed into reality does not hold any other meaning than being material, as multiple layers under a brand new root for the photograph’s language. This is because Burcu Aksoy never works with a production mentality that is narrative. On the contrary, she creates a subjective space as oppose to objective reality and deconstructs the modernism’s hegemonic understanding that aims and produce the equalization of perception in viewer.
In these photographs we witness a space – time relation that directly forms their own roof in “combined timing” construct rather than the traditional mentality which reduce this relation to a “moment”. Therefore the literate viewer will create his/her own perception and interpretation from the photograph that combines multiple layers of different moments with their subjective time’s “now”.
Since the main objective is not to represent the real, we can suggest that the main characteristic of the works is the embodiment of possibilities
of the visual language by the artist in a certain fashion within their own originality.
We can discuss the artist’s work within the context; deriving from the approach that art is not a view towards objects but the production of a specific view aimed at the world that we are living in. When we address photography as a tool for expression, we shouldn’t find it odd to see that human being is directly confronted with perception problems and consequently problems concerning existence in objective world in the face of photography. Because of the illusion of reality in the representation principle of photography, modern photographers also questioned the approach to take the fact that the object we see in the photograph also existed in past as an undeniable ontology. Aksoy used the multi-layer method to execute this objection. Her photographs are not after creating the illusion of objective world. On the contrary, in her independent dynamism, by making objective world her material, she formed her photograph’s own reality. Moreover, rather than seeking answers to questions that are encountered in objective world, these photographs causes new questions to emerge regarding this topic. But these questions completely belong to their own uniqueness, constant change, transformation and motion. The artist shares these with us unwarily.
The graphic arrangement of familiar urban objects that are of objective world is not by chance, on the contrary it’s designed in a specific way to reveal the perception problems related to “object of significance”. It reminds us that human perception is not instantaneous, that as a being with a body; it occurs as a result of body and eye movements within a process. Thus we come across large prints that are selected according to the dimensions of the exhibition space. The viewer correlates with piece – whole relation that builds the base for perception by constantly moving in the space. In other words, photographic object of significance imposes itself to receiver literate viewer as a subject. And this ever changing subject – object relationship enables different readings...
Orhan Alptürk
