Produced under the auspices of the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Neighbourhood and Enlargement Negotiations, “So similar, so different, so European” is a campaign that addresses the enlargement of the European Union. Designed to appeal to art lovers, it’s currently touring Europe. In conjunction with it, Ars Electronica is presenting audiovisual art projects from Turkey and the western Balkans by Robert Pravda (RS), Kokrra.tv (KO) and Şirin Bahar Demirel (TR) that provide accounts of the realities of life on the EU’s borders.
Monoid by Robert Pravda is a kinetic speaker installation. The relationship between the sound source—in this case a moving speaker as the sound object—and the space is explored in a form of a dialog. Noise bursts, rising and falling pitched sound, and text fragments taken from a poem by Brion Gysin are projected in all possible directions in the space.
Kokrra.tv’s video Momentum portrays the journey of Albanian women in society, or rather, in the heart of the “organism” of the Albanian people.
Living with Leviathan finally is Şirin Bahar Demirel’s personal story about a nationwide uprising, the Occupy Gezi movement in Turkey, in the summer of 2013. More of an open letter than a documentary, this movie tries to show how Turkish youth say “No!” to the despotic regime and police brutality.