Miru Kim’s photography and video installation in the ruins of the city

With a generous sponsorship of Samsung Turkey, Miru Kim was able to spend five weeks in Istanbul in March and April 2010, to create a photography and video installation at SODA gallery. She photographed some rarely visited ruins in and around Istanbul, and printed eleven new images as a part of the larger Naked City Spleen series. “The wanderings in the city were mapped out in an unconventional way, and I created a large window display of the neighborhoods, in the spirit of Situationist maps.”

The Artist with No Eyes: Esref Armagan

Esref Armagan was born both unsighted and to an impoverished family. As a child and young adult he never received any formal schooling or training; however, he has taught himself to write and print. He draws and paints by using his hands and primarily oil paints. In this manner, Mr. Armagan has been perfecting his art for the past thirty-five years.

He needs absolute quite when working. First, using a Braille stylus, he etches an outline of his drawing. He needs to feel that he is “inside” his painting– in fact, when he is drawing a picture of the sea, he often wonders if he should wear a life jacket so as not drown! When he is satisfied with his drawing, he starts to apply the oils with his fingers. Because he applies only one color at a time (the colors would smear otherwise), he must wait two or three days for the color to dry before applying the next color. This method of painting is entirely unique to Mr. Armagan. He receives no assistance or training from any individual. He also learned to draw perspective.

He has also developed his own methods of doing portraits. He asks a sighted person to draw around a photograph, then he turns the paper over and feeling it with his left hand, he transfer what he feels onto another sheet of paper, later adding color. He has done portraits of the former first lady of Turkey, the current president and current prime minister.

Mr. Armagan is currently forty-one years old, married with two children. He has displayed his work at more than 20 exhibition in Turkey and in Holland and the Czech Republic. He has appeared several times on television and in the press in Turkey and has been on programs of the BBC and ZDF.

Swarovski – Diamonds are forever!

In 2010, Swarovski enlisted multimedia artist, photographer, and director Bruno Aveillan to make a cinema spot with them that would conjure Swarovski’s more than one-hundred-year heritage on the big screen. Propelled by the vision of using film as a medium for conveying Swarovski’s charisma and grace and mastery of light, as well as a portrait of the spirit of crystal and beyond, the team ventured to Turkey, traveling from Istanbul to a salt lake outside of Ankara. There, they began filming what was to become a tale of brilliance and movement. The result is a beautiful, powerful, and unique cinematic work that will amaze and delight cinema audiences. It is an experience you should not miss out on…

Long version:

Short version:

Making of:

12,000 Years Old Unexplained Structure

Göbekli Tepe, is a hilltop sanctuary erected on the highest point of an elongated mountain ridge some 15 km northeast of the town of Şanlıurfa, in southeastern Turkey and 500 miles away from Istanbul, Turkey. It is the most astonishing archaeological discovery in modern times and also thought to be the oldest advanced civilization on Earth.

From Ancient Aliens Season – 02, Episode – 08 (Unexplained Structures)

The Dark Knight Rises

Doğan Can Gündoğdu, a Turkish student from the Communication Design department in Bahcesehir University, has his latest project going around a number of blogs these days. As a university project, he imagined the opening credits of the upcoming “The Dark Knight Rises” from Christopher Nolan. Even if we can locate which track it is, apparently Doğan used Massive Attack to complement this beautiful work. Hopefully he received some good grades…

Free diving with Şahika Ercümen

People find their own way to break free, relax, live in their bubble. Well, some go diving, and the more they seem to do it, the more addicted they get to the open water. Today’s post is about an inspiring local figure: Şahika Ercümen, a free dive athlete and world record holder in various disciplines (the 110 meter under water swim, the 70 meter vertical dive with fins and 60 meter without fins are only some of her achievements) Şahika Ercümen not only set benchmarks for women’s diving but also broke the men’s record as well. And then she repeatedly broke her own records and is now listed in the Guinness Book of World Records in the category of under ice free diving.

Here are a couple of shorts about her underwater world:

Barış Manço & Les Mistigris

Barış Manço was one of the most influential Turkish musicians. In his early career he and his bands contributed to the Turkish rock movement by combining traditional Turkish music with rock influences, which is still one of the main trends of Turkish popular music. He wrote, composed and performed more than 200 songs. A large number of these songs were translated into Greek, Bulgarian, Romanian, Arabic, Persian, Kurdish and re-recorded by local artists. 12 of his albums were crowned gold and 1 platinum.

Now the less known aspect of his career is his collaboration with “Les Mistigris”, a Belgian rock band he met while studying at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Liege, Belgium in 1969.

Here are three tracks we enjoy a lot…

“Assassin Creed: Revelations” takes you to the Ottoman times

Assassin’s Creed is a historical fiction action-adventure video game series that as of 2012 consists of four main games.

Assassin’s Creed: Revelations is the official fourth installment in the Assassin’s Creed franchise developed and published by Ubisoft. Throughout the course of the game, the three protagonists from the previous games are featured: Altaïr, Ezio and Desmond.

The game leads Ezio to make his way to Ottoman-era Constantinople, where the Assassin Guild there, led by Master Assassin Yusuf Tazim, takes him in as a legendary Mentor. After mistakenly killing a man sent to stop the Templars, Ezio travels to Cappodocia to free his men and kill the man responsible for arming the Templars.

1929, a new born country in National Geographic!

National Geographic covers in this article 17 illustrations from Turkey in 1929. Themed “Turkey goes to school”, it describes how an entire country country had to re learn their own A-B-C.. with the newly adopted alphabet! Over just a season, everything and everyone was compelled to appear in the 29 letters latin alphabet compared to the 482-letter combinations of the Arabic script used in the past. School books had to be printed out, newspapers and street signs changed.

The full report is attached here below in PDF

National Geographic Magazine 1929

Eartha Kitt “Uskudar”

Eartha Kitt (January 1927 – December 2008) was an American singer, actress, and cabaret star. She was perhaps best known for her highly distinctive singing style and her 1953 hit recordings of “C’est Si Bon” and the enduring Christmas novelty smash “Santa Baby”. Orson Welles once called her the “most exciting woman in the world.” She took over the role of Catwoman for the third and final season of the 1960s Batman television series, replacing Julie Newmar, who was unavailable due to other commitments.

Kitt began her career as a member of the Katherine Dunham Company in 1943 and remained a member of the troupe until 1948. A talented singer with a distinctive voice, she recorded the hits “Let’s Do It”; “Champagne Taste”; “C’est si bon” (which Stan Freberg famously burlesqued); “Just an Old Fashioned Girl”; “Monotonous”; “Je cherche un homme”; “Love for Sale”; “I’d Rather Be Burned as a Witch”; “Uskudar’a Gideriken (aka Katibim)”; “Mink, Schmink”; “Under the Bridges of Paris”; and her most recognizable hit, “Santa Baby”, which was released in 1953. Kitt’s unique style was enhanced as she became fluent in the French language during her years performing in Europe. Her English-speaking performances always seemed to be enriched by a soft French feel. She spoke four languages and sang in seven, which she effortlessly demonstrated in many of the live recordings of her cabaret performances..

Here is a video of her unfamous “Uskudar” live performance.
With the original english lyrics below…

Uskadara is a little town in Turkey
And in the old days, many women had male secretaries
Oh, well, that’s Turkey!

Üsküdar’a gider iken bir mendil buldum 2x
Mendilimin içine lokum doldurdum 2x

They take a trip from Uskudara in the rain
And on the way they fall in love
He’s wearing a stiff collar
In a full dress suit
She looks at him longingly through her veil
And casually feeds him candy
Oh, those Turks !