Merve Ertufan
Merve Ertufan works with installations, videos, sounds and texts. Her practice engages with what might be called the microphysics of the mind, observing inconsistencies, gaps and dead-ends in language and habit. Minor autobiographical fictions are made in the process, entangled in riddles and impossible stories.
Her recent solo exhibitions have taken place at Bilsart (2022), and Depo (2020). Her works have been featured in museums and institutions such as Bahar, the Istanbul off-site project of Sharjah Biennial 13, Arter, Tanas, Zilberman Gallery, Wilhelm-Hack-Museum, CNAC, SPOT Production Fund, Corridor Project Space, and Verkstad. She was awarded a residency at Youkobo Art Space, Tokyo (2010) and a production grant from Bstart Production Fund, Istanbul (2016).
She was a fellow at the Home Workspace Program, Ashkal Alwan, Beirut (2016) and received her BA from Sabancı University (2007), and MFA from Konstfack (2010). She is currently based in Istanbul and Delhi.
8 and Blinded by the same fog
This, we already know. At times the dicey-ness of life just hits us in the face. Water shortage that morning when you gotta shower. Demonetization two days before your flight rendering you cashless at the visa counter. Medical emergency on the day of a coup attempt. Endless combinations and stimuli: a web of possibilities so great that it appears to us as pure chance; unpredictable and inconsistent - or ironic like in that old Alanis Morissette song.
And what we are left with is to stare at whatever is visible, to try and make out patterns. Foregrounds, backgrounds, and subjects in between. An apple in your hand, the world as a whole. All placed within a set: take one, turn and twist, and fit it in a place. That is now its place. There, we are safe. This, we already know.
But right at that click, where things fall into place, when we have actually made sense, what do we lose? At that moment when we made meaning, had we ignored other interpretations? What kind of possibilities were harbored in the moments prior to the click? And if we are -and we are- forced into situations where patterns don’t readily emerge, where things don’t easily make sense, how do we endure when those moments stretch? How do we deal?
The two projects, namely, 8 and Blinded by the same fog aim to set up conditions for a “new” to emerge, arranged within the confines of language. Both intend to be picked up and played with. Inspired by finger fidgeters, 8 is made out of a set of 8 toys, in which new words can be made with a random selection of letters. Combining Turkish and English alphabets, the project uses 32 letters to make up 3-lettered words. A vowel is constant in the middle, and two disks on either side are spun to make up a new word. Blinded by the same fog on the other hand, is based on a newly developed einstein tile, a single geometric shape that can be tiled to infinity aperiodically. It is an elusive shape that mathematicians have been seeking since at least the 1980’s, and they found it just this year. Interestingly, the name of the tile itself is a pun on the German phrase “ein stein,” which means “one piece.” Using this tile pattern, Blinded by the same fog starts off with texts on coincidences. The words are divided among the tiles, and copies of these tiles are set on a nearby table. Using a metal base and magnetic foils, the audience is invited to play with those words, making their own combinations.
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