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Ben Askerim (I, Soldier)

Köken Ergun

2006 00:07:14 TürkiyeTurkishColorStereo
Tags:
Crime or Violence, Eastern European, Middle East, Music, Performance, Politics, Youth/Childhood

Description

"I, Soldier is the first part of a video series in which I am dealing with the state-controlled ceremonies for the national days of the Turkish Republic. The nationalistic attributes attached to these large-scale ceremonies are underlined in a non-descriptive and almost voyeuristic point of view. I, Soldier was shot at the National Day for Youth and Sports; the day that marks the start of the independence war of the Turkish public under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, against the Allied Forces back in 1919. The annual ceremony held at the biggest stadium of each city consists of figurative dances by high school students, choreographed in a timeless socialist-realist manner. In the last decade, popular songs replaced the usual military marches, which accompanied the choreography. In this video a nationalist hip-hop song is played during the gymnastic demonstrations of the military school students backed by a stern poem from a high-ranking soldier about the virtues of “The Soldier”."

--Köken Ergun

"Köken Ergun makes a very direct but discrete visualisation of an event, an artistic commentary to the specific political context of Turkey which becomes a universal commentary on ultra-nationalism. His visual strategy enables a new reading of the surviving imagery of 20th Century state rituals."

--Videomedeja 2007 website

 Read Ian White's essay Koken Ergun: Personal works of public ceremonies. pdf

This title is also available on Radical Closure.

About Köken Ergun

Köken Ergun is an artist/filmmaker with a background in performing arts. After working with American theater director Robert Wilson, Ergun became involved with video art and film. His films often deal with communities that are not known to a greater public and the importance of ritual in such groups. Ergun usually spends a long time with his subjects before starting to shoot and engages in a long research period for his projects. He also collaborates with ethnographers, historians and sociologists as extensions to his artistic practice. Since 2020, following the Covid pandemic, Ergun has changed his practice by pausing to make films by himself and getting more involved in collaborations with other artists to make installations, fiction and animation films.

His works have been exhibited internationally at institutions including Documenta 14, Paris Triennale, Jakarta Biennial (2015 and 2021), Kathmandu Triennale, Martin Gropius Bau, SALT, Garage Moscow, Para-Site Hong Kong, Artspace Sydney, Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam, KIASMA, Digital Art Lab Tel Aviv, Casino Luxembourg and Kunsthalle Winterthur. His films received several awards at film festivals including the Tiger Award for Best Short Film at the 2007 Rotterdam Film Festival and the Special Mention Prize at the 2013 Berlinale. Ergun’s works are included in public collections of the Centre George Pompidou, Greek National Museum of Contemporary Art, Stadtmuseum Berlin, Australian War Memorial and Kadist Foundation.

Having studied acting at Istanbul University, Ergun completed his postgraduate studies at King's College London (classics) and Bilgi University (art history). He holds a PhD degree from Freie Universität Berlin (performing arts and anthropology).

Ergun is the co-founder of After the Archive?, an Istanbul based initiative that questions the role and function of archives in public memory and KIRIK; a space for people and subjects in the cracks.