Description

Paperback. 4to. (29 x 25 cm). In English and Turkish. 129, [5] p., color ills. Kutlug Ataman's video and film works document the lives of marginalized individuals who explicitly give voice to their own obsessions, their relations with micro and macro power structures and verbalize straightforwardly their subliminal issues or sexuality. "I am not interested in exposing these people and turning them into a show," says Ataman, about his preference of these characters, "I only work with people that I see myself in." Ataman chooses narratives that dangle between reality and fiction in his work, which chiefly retains the documentary style. He questions how individuals manifest their identities through storytelling and how narratives are used to re-fabricate another 'self'. While offering an alternative to the categorizing structure of identity politics by putting the individual at the core, Ataman also interconnects significant issues of contemporary art today, such as historiography, social/individual identity, memory, plurality, myth, game and power. Individuals at the centre of Ataman's works narrate not over an academic, institutionalized and fixed representation of history, but over flexible performances such as personal myth-making, masking and shielding. While verbalizing personal stories, individuals expose the ease of verbal expression and persuasiveness of language. Ataman also shapes the screen layout of his video works into installation / sculpture like forms.