ADA United Species ADVERTISING
collaborative video, 2021
ADA
(the grAsslAnds, the youngest country in the world)
“Well done ADA, Blessed is the grassy A, In the Name of the Others
Your Grasslands are Our Grasses, Our Grasslands are Your Grasses, Grasslands are Your Grasslands.
Signed: BahCivAn”
“We greet you on behalf of the ADA Compound Species;
ADA located on 40°53'23'N 29°22'42'E are the chosen blessed Grasslands that declared their Independence with the 13th April Events.
These lands belong to the people of ADA, ADA members are only grassland creatures.
In this Autonomous Grassland, humans, bipedal creatures can only be Collaborators, Visitors, Supporters, Workers, or Visitors.
Collaborations mean recognizing us, enriching our existence, and transmitting our name to other generations.
ADA is on the side of all kinds of others, every oppressed ditch protects the Grasslands, it is ready for any struggle for territorial integrity if necessary.
ADA, which left its 1st foundation period behind with the 1st JUNE week, continued on its way with the new citizens who joined it in the surrounding land after the 2nd grass cutting, and the existence of those who did not know themselves was ended.
Having a circumference of 41 steps, our soils are 165 steps in accordance with the 13 Steps of the WORLDWIDE LAW.
Adimlik has the right to speak over the surrounding Grasslands. Our fully independent grasslands, by taking their own decisions, Collaborative bipedal Intelligent people these are; It notifies with notifications, orders, announcements, announcements, projects whose specifications are prepared in advance, ultimatum and quarterly activity reports. We invite you to cooperate with us as well.”
a borderless existence
film installation, 2021
a borderless existence is the dematerialized offspring of Altınöz’s anti-portraiture practice. Emphasizing the relationship of a confused mind and a confused body, an uncanniness on a cellular level, the video displays an autoimmune selfhood’s endeavor to define itself through the images it creates.
a borderless existence is the result of Altınöz’s fascination with contamination and his personal interest in the concept of autoimmunity.
In the installation Altınöz investigates the old theories of medical autoimmunity which consider the body’s immune system to be making a distinction between ‘self-cells’ and ‘non self-cells’, defining the latter as dangerous.
In this understanding, being ‘immune to oneself’ translates as a self-destructive act where the self cannot identify itself and consequently destroys its own parts: cells ravage other cells as a result of a misidentification, a symbiotic relationship turns into a blitz on tissues and organs.
This understanding of autoimmunity was challenged by many scientists in the contemporary scene, who contemplated on the fact that the lived body already consists of many different organisms that exist together to sustain life.
Altınöz appropriates the problematic self/non-self theory, and showcases the exemplary situation of erasing of borders between the self and its other through an autobiographical and poetic approach, and crafts it into an impure, genre-less moving image.
böcekli alegori
short film, 2021
A familiar, desperately exhausting scene
behind the window and behind the screen.
bocekli alegori is a short film by Altinoz, shot and edited through the first year of the pandemic in his home setting, following an all very familiar protagonist.
The film was Altinoz’s response to the ‘My Pandemic Year’ open call that came from WORM Rotterdam, which aimed to commemorate one year of lockdown with an online screening dedicated to storytelling in video format.
Altinoz approached this open call with an humble recording of a rent-free living roomate, a clumsy mosquito, stuck between the stacked books&medications and the glass window, together with him.
bocekli alegori (which can translate as ‘allegory with bug’) indicates to a common suffering in the times of Covid lockdown: the time spent in front of the window glass watching the life outside, and the time spent in front of the computer screens, trying to extend our physically limited existence.
transgross
photobook, 2020
“I consider transgross itself as an organic being, composed of images of organic beings; the viewer can directly go into a haptic communication with the book while turning its pages."
transgross is a photobook project that consists of Altınöz’s personal photographic archive of life and death which he had encountered throughout his everyday life in the past years. The collection of images at times evoke an uneasiness, and often plain, core disgust; yet they also captivate the viewer and create a paradoxical situation of a simultaneous attraction and repulsion.
The pages of the transgross is made out of recycled materials; each page contains residues of its past life in an obscenely contingent manner. The tactility is amplified throughout the book; the photographic images of the residues of the city life imprinted on them, organic subjects are reproduced.
