> Atlas of Some Kinetic Constellations in a Forest of Signs
Panel & Pop-Up Exhibition
organized by Bahar Avanoğlu, Bilge Bal, Gizem Albayrak
hosted by Versus Art Project
May 2019
Drawing Atlas
Atlas, a volume bearing on its shoulders, all the weight of the projective translation of the universe, transforming eventually into ‘a forest of signs’... A playful realm where we seek refuge whenever we feel bored or stuck... As in Sait Faik’s short story ‘A Point in the Map’, the atlas is a playful realm indeed, revived each time we turn the pages, making us feel excited and make up numerous adventurous journeys abroad, forcing us to imagine and write various stories. There was more to it: Dymaxion Airocean World Map (1954), Inverted Map
of South Africa (1943), Naked City (1957) etc. Each one of them reminds us not only of the physical
layers but also the narrative patterns and the possibilities of other projective languages. And not to forget that the journey is a personal experience and that it depends on the each one of the travelers’ personal routes.
We took a journey in the realm of Lines of/for/among/around Architecture with the first year students taking the course ARCH103/104 Architectural Drawing I-I at Istanbul Bilgi University, Faculty of Architecture, Department of Architecture. In the studio, the motivation has been to include what has been excluded by the hierarchies, rules and norms of the endemic knowledge of architectural drawing. By drawing we wanted to open up a place for the flaws, gaps, splits, fragments and other possible projective line-languages. Within this context, the line is not regarded as a rational, linear and perfect tool of the standard order, but as a realm where other unexpected superpositions revive along with new and uninspected meanings. A universe, a world, a city, an imaginary drawing geography where one can get lost and find its own paths inside... Thus, for almost a year, we aimed for the productive journey oscillating between the universal graphic language and knowledge accompanied by the flawless and clear geometric vision and the more porous, ambiguous and imaginary meanings. Adjusting foundations through playful encounters between the real and the phantom... It reminds of getting lost in a forest,
a narrative where one lingers and pauses, leaning her/his back on a tree and contemplates on the vast realm of opportunities. Uncanny, full of surprises, dark, and full of light...
We wanted to share with you the journey we have been on for almost a year now as a narrative of a forest of drawing ... Not a guide nor a reference book of the universe’ most real visions nor formulas... The Drawing Atlas is a beginning to discuss and share the line. In it, you will encounter foundations, inconsistencies, incompletenesses, dreams, disorientations, re-orientations, successful experiments or failures, coincidences, subjectivities, objectivities, excitements and disappointments, discussions and objections, oppositions, collaborations, but perhaps most importantly, a geography of lines we dare to know.
Participants
Abdal Karim Rabi, Aea Bezzeh, Alara Emengen, Alhamza Alabdoun, Ali Hayder Ali Al Obaidi, Aliekber Türkoğlu, Arij Ismaiel, Begüm Gönan, Berfin Tan, Berkay Can, Berkay Kadakal, Berke Tunçer, Bertuğ Vural, Beyza Nur Öncel, Burak Kaan Kocadağ, Damla Dinçer, Dana Ali Husseino, Defne Sabahyıldızı, Deren Eren, Dilara Koca, Ece Oduncu, Eren Ermin, Eren Öcalan, Esra Eyüboğlu, Esra Vanlı, Esraa Hazem Shawki Atia Mahmoud Rehan, Fem Zeynep Ay, Fikret Aytolun Alkan, Habiba Galal Alsayed Diab Deib, Halit Sinan Yumak, Hazar Abdik, İlayda Birsen Topan, Lara Çınaroğlu, Mehmet Coşkun, Mohammad Al Sharabi, Mouhamad Amr Khabbaz, Muhasseen Mohammed Abdullahi, Mustafa Mutlu, Nazlı Selçuk, Nihan Ugan, Nisa Çavuşoğlu, Oğuz Can Oğuz, Okan Taşğın, Rasha Ayman H Alassali, Razan Abdulrahman Wajeeh Zainulabdeen, Rotaj Jamal Imhimmed Alsahli, Selena Alay, Sude Uzun, Sundus Adel Ali Al-Nakhif, Tolga Kaya, Yasmeen Tabbakh, Yusuf Emin Kaplan, Zeynep Derin Balıkçı, Zinah Ihab Shihab Al-Kaabi.
Special thanks to Ahmet Doğu İpek, Ayça Alangoya, Ertuğ Uçar, Hakan Tüzün Şengün, İpek Avanoğlu, Özkan Karababa, SALT, Şebnem Yalınay Çinici & Versus Art Project
Content: Architectural Drawing Studio l-ll instructed by Bahar Avanoğlu, Bilge Bal, Gizem Albayrak
Exhibition Design & Application + Leaflet Design: Bahar Avanoğlu, Bilge Bal, Gizem Albayrak
Technical Assistance: Rahman Çelebi, Okan Taşğın
Vestigium of Things and Thoughts & Notational Alphabets and Translations (left): A sort of a beginning to architectural drawing: Leaving ‘footprints’ and collecting traces of things, perhaps one of the intrinsic archaic intuition behind architectural drawing... The ‘footprints’ of things on paper become the footprints of thoughts and vice-versa... The traces on paper transform into textual realms to be discovered; notation, notational alphabets and their numerous playful projective translations accompany. Materials of Discussion: Daniel Libeskind’s Micromegas, Bernard Tschumi, Lebbeus Woods, Gordon Matta-Clark... Works: Reading Leaves - Frottage, Alphabet of Stones, Anatomy of Peppers.
A Space of Disorientation: Discovering A Labyrinth of Other Three Dimensionalities in the Realm of Parallel Projections (right): Axonometric projection, when regarded as a break from the objective and the representational, transforms into the act of parallel projection itself rather than a representational tool to depict an object. The labyrinthine act of drawing through axonometric projection builds a space of disorientation, thus discovering and creating the uncanny realm of ‘other’ three dimensionalit’ies’ as opposed to a single prescriptive description of the three dimensional. It is a disorienting space in other languages, the typographies of which one has to discover as well. Visit: Sakıp Sabancı Museum – The Russian Avant-Garde: Dreaming the Future Through Art and Design. Materials of Discussion: Kazimir Malevich, El Lissitzky, İlla Chasnik, Gustav Klucis, Ivan Kliun, Alexander Rodchenko, Wassily Kandinsky, Nadezhda Udaltsova... Works: Sketching in Museum, Tale of Other Three Dimensionalities, A Space of Disorientation.
detail from Vestigium of Things and Thoughts & Notational Alphabets and Translations
A Consolation in Fragments and Variations: In the intention of non-prescriptive drawings, one could enter into an oscillation between the physical and the textual. Non-prescriptive drawings also, in simultaneity with its subject-object, opens up a fragmented perception, where the whole might not be perceived as a finished object, interpreted in numerous variations and possibilities. Breaking apart, building the fragments, montaging, collaging are some of the acts of this non-prescriptive drawing realm. Materials of Discussion: Peter Eisenman, Daniel Libeskind, Juan Gris, John Hejduk, Luis Barragan, Ricardo Bofill, Giovanni Battista Piranesi... Works: Oscillating between the Fragments and the Whole, reading Barragan and Bofill, Diagrams: Between the Physical and the Textual, Collage Rebus, The Question of Unsafe Drawings - workshop by İpek Avanoğlu.
[>click to see ‘The Question of Unsafe Drawings’, workshop by İpek Avanoğlu, hosted by SALT Galata]
Orthographic Standards and Phantoms, Geometry-Memory: Orthographic projection on one hand as an extension o standardized drawing set and of descriptive geometry and on the other as possible phantoms awakened in memory. Translating the evidences into optic and haptic notations. A realm integrated with questions of rendering as well. Materials of Discussion: Alvaro Siza, Carlo Scarpa, Italo Calvino, John Hedjuk, Giorgio De Chirico, Aldo Rossi, Archizoom, Superstudio... Works: First Orthographic Sketches, Orthographic Phantoms of the Campus, Guest Lecturers (Ertuğ Uçar, Ahmet Doğu İpek & Hakan Tüzün Şengün), Oscillating Between Fragments and the Whole.II, reading Scarpa in Plan and Section, Oscillating Between Fragments and the Whole.III, reading Scarpa, Seeing Through The Paper: Perspective (Visit: IMÇ, Süleymaniye Complex with Guest Lecturer Özkan Karababa.)