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I is "the other". "Je est un autre." - Arthur Rimbuad

I was born and grew up in Istanbul. During my middle school years I was obsessed with drawing. At the same time, haunted by thoughts of death. I went after the unknown...

As a young man, multitudes of questions came to me about death, immortality, and the meaning of life. At times, I thought I found the answers but was disappointed each time. Only the power of the "line" (that I could draw) connected me to life and drew life closer. I faced many disappointments every day. And so, I drew everyday...

The dialectic materialism of Karl Marx, the cynicism of Antisthenes and Socrates, the Existentialism of Jean Paul Sartre, nihilism of Friedrich Nietzsche, and the psychoanalysis of Sigmund Freud... I was reading and learning. Everything was connected. The questions were endless and their answers were only a part of the truth. I began to understand infinity. Count from zero. Forward or backward...

I was getting angry about the fact that people were doing harm to each other, to people I knew or to me and that I wasn't able to find a solution for that. My anger grew to the point where I wanted to die. At the same time, thinking of death, I was afraid.

As I was choking on my nothingness, suddenly a string was hurled to me and I caught it. I was being pulled to the paper. I was on the paper and the string was under my feet. I was pulling the string and it was transforming itself into many different forms. I relaxed when I played with it. In the end it was transformed to a meaningful form on the paper. I looked and saw it was "I". An "I" that was filtered and emerged from the people and concepts and images that I had encountered during my search for answers. The answer that I had tried to find was in my own hands. As I understood it, I felt at first happiness and then sadness. I was Simurg from Persian mythology, King of the Birds. And I was 30 birds... 30 birds they reach the mountain of Kaf expecting to find their king, the Simurg, awaiting them, but when they alight they realize that they themselves, having undergone their quest for enlightenment, are their own collective king, Simurg, in Persian, also meaning thirty birds (si: thirty, morgh: birds). And the answer was "me".

I now look upon my childhood with an acrid smile but don't feel regret... I was Peter Pan of J.M. Barrie. I was the Little Prince of Antoine de Saint-Exupery, Zeze of José Mauro de Vasconselos. I was the Little Black Fish of Behrengi. I was Nemo of Jules Vernes, Asterix of René Goscinny. Ken Parker of Ivo Milazzo, Tim of Georges Remi, yes I was. I was a member of the bands of Enid Blyton. I was Lucky Luke of Morris, Conan of Robert Erwin Howard.

I am an explorer. I'm always on a quest. I try new things. Life is an adventure and the end is evident...

The works that I have shown up to this point were samples from this process, from my late teens and early 20s. As you see, these works have been influenced by the Expressionism of Wassily Kandinsky, Edward Munch, the Surrealism of Joan Miro, Rene Magritte and Max Ernst, the effect of Mehmet Siyahkalem, (who was a miniature artist from Middle Asia and made shamanic works in the 15th century), the effect of the Turkish artist Yuksel Arslan, who painted the book Kapital of Karl Marx and lives in France.

This is "Day 100: Me. It." Çizgi Günlüðü means Line Diary.

I started the "Line Diary" (currently on display in the Drawing Quarters gallery here) with a Moleskine notebook that was given to me as a gift in February of 2005. I liked this notebook so much and I didn't want to use it as a sketch book. I decided to use this notebook as a diary.

But what kind of diary would it be? I could draw the events that I lived or the objects that I liked or the people or the animals that I met in a day. Or I could draw something impromtu and express my thoughts and feelings. They were all possible for the line. This could be a diary too.

I decided that there would be no dates in it, the diary would create its own time and history. This situation was like the T.A.Z. (The Temporary Autonomous Zone) that is described by Hakim Bey (Peter Lamborn Wilson). The diary would live its own carnival, in a time out of time.

This is "Day 1: It's so."

During the first two days. I drew some things and wrote the day and the situation at the moment.. And then I stopped and waited. I knew this was not how I wanted to proceed.

As I thought, I realized that I didn't want either the line or myself to be the explicit narrator. The line was getting its own personality day by day. It was now a second "I" that I created in my mind. Two different "I's" whose voices mix together and complete each other. Thus began a dialog between the line and myself. I and "it" or I and "I." Thus came out this story.

This is "Day 29: I was admixed. We were admixed."

I draw with numerous small spirals and circles. For me the spiral symbolizes the "vicious circle" and infinity. I first fill the surface with the lightest toned spirals and then begin drawing with the darkest tones appropriate to the subject matter. And then I continue with spirals getting lighter towards mid-range tones. I draw with a pencil because of the soft and floating effect it has and because of the texture created by the intersecting circles. I use 0,5 mechanical pencil and B lead. It takes about 1 to 7 days for me to finish a work and sometimes longer. If the story I want isn't formed in drawing or words, I wait until I can form it, in the way that feels right.

Sometimes an object, a figure or an incident comes into my mind and I draw it. If I begin with an object or a figure, I then start to build the story. When the story ends, I say its words and finish the work.

For example "Day 326, 328 and 329: I'm looking at the eyes. They're looking at the paper."

I went outside to go shopping after the rain stopped. There were lots of snails on the pavement. They had escaped from the lawn because of the rain. And now as the rain stopped they were trying to return to the lawn. I was walking on the road to avoid stepping on them. But many people were acting like they didn't exist and stepped on them carelessly. There were smashed snails everywhere. My eyes caught a snail. It was touching a smashed snail and wasn't leaving it. From its trail on the pavement, it had gone 2-3 cm away and then returned to the smashed snail. The others were going on their way. I stayed there for a while.

One day this story found a place in my life and I decided to draw it. In my own language... And then I wanted to add words. The words came from my cat. One of my cat's kittens liked to play with balls that I made from corrugated paper. I was throwing the ball and he was bringing it back to me and waiting for the ball to be thrown again. I was trying to make eye contact with him but in this process he never looked at my eyes, just at the paper. The snail that nobody cared about was on a paper now. Someone was watching it and it knew this

Sometimes I draw impromptu.

For example "Day 275, 276, 277 and 278: What's happening?"

I drew a wavy line looked like the letter "v". I drew out small circles between the waves. It formed a border that divides the surface. I wanted to draw a person to one side of the border. When I began to draw the portrait, I decided to abstract the body. It was a person who stays on one side of the border if looked at from above. I began toning to emphasize the border and the silhouette. This calm look disturbed me and I broke the calmness with ruptures that resemble lightning.

When I drew this work, my life was very complicated and I wasn't able to understand what was happening.

And this work agitated the diary. In previous drawings, I was trying to explain something, tell about myself and clarify the story. But this work was abruptly breaking the course, just as I was explaining "me" to myself and trying to settle my life, the work was silencing me. What was happening?

When I start a new work, I always think about it in connection with the last one. I know it has a connection with the last one somehow.

It can be seen in these works.

"Day 300: Border?"

"Day 302, 303, 304 and 305: Intelligence?"

Sometimes I have a sentence on my mind and think about how I can express it with drawing. But I don't want the drawing to depict this sentence exactly. I want it to tell a different story that modifies the story of the sentence. I begin to draw after I find this story and its image.

This is "History finished here."

When I came to the last page of the diary, I knew what it would say. Walter Banjamin tells in his work "Passagenwerk", "There is no document of civilization which is not at the same time a document of barbarism." This notebook had written its own history and it was time for it to deny itself and finish. My intention in finishing this history is not the destruction of the human being or anything else. My thought was to observe the human being existing peacefully within himself and with nature. I cannot see beyond this last page and cannot imagine how it would look or what I would find there if I could. But, this unknown beyond can be perceived as existing, at least in relation to this notebook.

The stories in "The Line Diary" are responses to my life in words and lines... I show what I have lived, my responses, thoughts, and feelings. Actually I share myself, but in an indirect way. At first it was hard for me to change my approach to drawing and adapt to this new vision and plan to form a collective language. But this approach and vision is an implicit part of my life and my art today. This is a sample from my new series.

"What is "I"? Let's dance!"

I also create animated videos, installations and use different materials such as oil and acrylic. I do traditional and digital prints as well. Some of these works, influenced by Dada and Contemporary Art, have been published and/or exhibited.

This is one of my installations "Art and History"

I choose material that is compatible with that which I want to show or explain. If I don't know the material well enough, I get information and experience and then I begin to work. I have made installations and videos since 2000. If I draw or paint, I often create a series with a common theme revealing my reactions and thoughts.

This is the storyboard of my animation video "Tangram"

I liked the idea of arranging an exhibition and showing RL works hanging on the 3D walls in the virtual reality of Second Life. The process of hanging the works on the walls was so much like a RL gallery. Locate, align, try to find the best position to show the work. In the Drawing Quarters Gallery here in Cetus, I tried to show the chronological order of the works with the arrows on the floor.

The most significant specialities of Secondlife Art are 3D sculptures. 3D works like these are only modeled on original sculpters in real life. But in Second Life, they and their viewers share a common reality platform... no other situation parallels this one.

Second Life isn't a platform only for the digital artist but at the same time for traditional artists who can transfer their works to this digital platform and share with amateur and professional viewers all around the world. Here people can change their RL role and be a real artist in this virtual reality or reality. This diffuses the distinction between artist and non-artist and realigns the "status" of art, thus bringing us to the point where, as Joseph Beuys has said, "Jeder Mensch ist ein Künstler.", "Everyone is an artist."

PS: This text is edited by Elektra Spark. Thank you Elektra :)