"Call for Artists: Digital Art Workshops in the Ancient City of Myndos"
2002-08-11 until 2002-08-21
Istanbul Contemporary Art Museum
Istanbul, , TR Turkey

Contemporary Artists from New York and Istanbul will be gathering in the ancient city of Myndos for a series of Digital art workshops between the 11th and 21st of August. Myndos, located near Bodrum in the southwest region of Turkey, is a unique ancient city as parts of the city including its port have sunk just below the sea level. The imagery of an ancient city just below the sea level conbined with today's technology, the cameras and performers, constitutes the perfect surreal scene for the artists.

Gumusluk Academy, an independent arts foundation, located near the ruins of ancient Myndos, is organizing this series of Digital Art workshops in collaboration with istanbulmuseum.org/. The aim of the workshops is to combine new technology with ancient cultures in order to reach to a new conceptual level. The categories in this workshop are Digital Design, Net Art, Video Art, Interactive Art and Electronic Music. The instructers are Tina La Porta, Genco Gulan, John Plenge, Tim Hailey and Murat Egi.

Artist Instructers

The instructers taking part in this workshop are also praticing artists. Tina La Porta, one of the first artists to be accepted into the Whitney Museum of American Art collection as a net-artist, is a faculty at the NY Institute of Technology and School of Visual Arts. She recently opened a solo exhibition "voyeur_web " at Universal Concepts Unlimited in NY.

Genco Gulan has participated in the Net-art project, Chaos in Action, exhibited in 'Centre Pompidou et du Musee National d'Art Moderne', Paris. Gulan has given seminars on the subjects of Internet and New Technology, at the New York Institute of Technology and New School University. He recently participated to Kanonmedia's "New Media Line" net art exhibition on the web and the IV.th Digital Salon Exhibition at Habana, Cuba.

Interactive works of Tim Hailey, have been exhibited in major museums including the New Orleans Museum of Contemporary Art. He recentyly curated "Ironclads" an interactive performance at Here Art NYC. John Plenge is an ASCAP, NYSCA and OBIE award winning songwriter, composer and sound designer. Past highlights include performances at The Kitchen Theater, NYC, 450 Broadway Gallery , NYC, Wonton Destruction, 3 Legged Dog/ Wooster Group, NYC, (2002) HERE Center for the Arts NYC, Teatro Carignano, Torrino, Italy (Obie Award for Best Production 2000) New School University, NYC, Music Composition Award "Symphony East-West" (1999) ASCAP SongWriting Award Recipient (1995).

Dr. Murat Egi is the head of the Istanbul University Underwater Technologies Program. His underwater studies have been published in National Geographic and international Medical and Biomedical magazines. He recently made an underwater survey of the Van Lake and produced a documentary film based on his survey.

History of Myndos

In history, Myndos, or as it is called today Gumuluk, was an important port of the ancient Carian Kingdom which dates back to the 5th century B.C. and even to prehistory. Caria, along with Ionia to its north was a cradle of culture, home to noted philosophers, historians, architects, and physicians of antiquity-including Herodotus of Bodrum/ Halikarnassos, Hippocrates of ›stankoy, Herakleitos of Ephesus, Thales and Anaximenes of Miletus, and Eudoxos of Knidos.

Moreover Halikarnassos is the original site of the Mousoleion, the tomb of Carian King Mousolus, one of the seven wonders of the world. It is currently on display at the British Museum. The spectacular Bodrum Castle, built by the Knights of St. John, currently houses the internationally known Museum of Underwater Archeology. It is in this museum where the participants will gain the archeological references of the remains.

The digital workshops at Gumusluk Academy aim to bring a new approach to digital arts in the context of process art and site specific workshop. The workshop will include theoretical and practical levels while diffusing the difference between the observer and the producer. During the workshop period, participants will develop projects together, working with each other, switching between different roles and positions. Works will be exhibited in Bodrum, Istanbul, New York and on the Internet. We believe that a carefull but a spontaneous meeting of the ancient and the new technology might carry us to a new conceptual level.

Related Links:

Indepth Arts Resources for Turkey

Other Important Exhibitions in Turkey