I’m An Eye, A Mechanical Eye

May 14, 2019 – July 5, 2019

Zilberman Gallery and Project Space, Mısır Apt, İstiklâl Cad 163, Floors 2 & 3, D5 & 10, Galatasaray, Beyoğlu, 34433 İstanbul

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‘I’m an Eye, A Mechanical Eye’ at the Zilberman Gallery–Istanbul’s main gallery space in Mısır Apartment, curated by Naz Beşcan, brings together works by Heba Y. Amin, Janet Bellotto, Burçak Bingöl, Antonio Cosentino, Elmas Deniz, Sophie Dupont, Ahmet Elhan, Pedro Gómez-Egaña and Begüm Yamanlar.

‘I’m an Eye, A Mechanical Eye’ takes its title from the avant-garde filmmaker Dziga Vertov’s writings. For the director of ‘Man with the Movie Camera’ (1929), the camera is an extension of the human eye yet at times excels it. One who holds the camera then becomes a cyborg, reminiscent of our contemporary relationship with the mobile phone cameras. Whatever the eye of the cameraman chooses to see, the machine documents. The selection and montage that the camera allows for helping create new narratives and even realities.

Through these lenses, the exhibition looks into various ways in which the artists use the camera, either as an apparatus both for photography and film or as the subject. Due to the embedded ocularcentrism in the hegemonic culture, the eye still remains integral in the production and the experience of contemporary art as well as of the everyday. ‘I’m an Eye, A Mechanical Eye’ aims to highlight the unresolved questions related to vision and the politics of seeing through an investigation of the issues of gaze, surveillance, and documentation.

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Antonio Cosentino, Marmara'dan Kaçış

Burçak Bingöl, Broken City