“Hive” by Duygu Nazli Akova
Title:
- Hive
Artist(s) and People Involved:
Exhibiting Artist(s):
Symposium:
Venue(s):
Creation Year:
- 2014
Medium:
- Single-channel video
Duration:
- 4:00
Artist Statement:
The experimental video Hive takes a look at the unplanned urbanization, which has been paraded under the guise of “urban renewal”, Istanbul has been undergoing for many years. This unplanned urbanization creates mega cities made out of concrete, by destroying the existing historical and cultural legacy. Today, Istanbul has become a giant construction site where the terrifying reflections of the applied urban politics can be seen through the disappearance of ethnic identities, and the gap in the living conditions of individuals.
This situation is conveyed through the visualization of Marx’s bee and machine metaphor. This metaphor exemplifies how, due to the heavy work load, the workers become mechanical; how they are not only exposed to the adverse effects of this workload but even pay for it with their lives. The workers forced to work at such a speed and yet this speed leads to the creation of both abundance, but also nothingness. At the same time, the metaphor represents the impossibility for the workers to own the very building they help produce.
This video collage is a surreal visual representation of a skyscraper which consists of 160 videos containing eight horizontal and twenty vertical. It has an experimental language, leaving the traditional horizontal video format behind for a vertical design. The framing and point of view aim to create an illusion. Reality is broken in this new form created through documentary footage, where micro human figures move at a rapid pace, reflecting the speed of the world in which we live in and creating a façade of time. The momentary black pieces shows up to symbolize the death of each worker because of the security gap which is a huge social problem encountered in Turkey. And then they appear so fast with a worker again which is too easy to replace with. In this sense, Hive focuses on the workers’ working conditions, contract labor, human rights and urban renewal.
