Massence (As Curator and Artist) 2017-2019
A contemporary art project realised by Ahmet Yiğider as curator and artist with the works of 29 artists from 15 countries… One aspect of ‘Massence’ philosophy is defined by the idea of “Mass”, which will reflect “plus infinity” and is thoroughly challenged and abstracted in the pattern of meaning within the project. The other aspect is defined by “Essence”, which will be interpreted through a “micro” perspective. With a stylised approach, the representation of ‘mass’ references all our external boundaries and the plus infinity, which is almost inaccessible to the human mind and imagination. On the other hand, the representation of ‘essence’ leads us to liveliness, to nature, to the minor building blocks of life and matter, to the depths of thought and consciousness, and occasionally, to self-questioning.
Artists: Zora Palová, Bratislava / Yıldız Doyran, Ankara / Ümit Türk, Trabzon / Tansel Türkdoğan, Ankara / Taha Ghobashy, Domiatt-Mansoura / Siddiqa Juma, Zanzibar-London / Ragini Dewan, Delhi / Özge Gökbulut Özdemir, Ankara / Omar Shahwan, Amman / Naser Nassan Agha, Halep-Bremen / Kemal Tufan, Istanbul / Julia Volkonskaya, Moscow / İbrahim Akgüney, Erzurum / Hsu Tung Lung, Taipei / Hoorad Gorji, Tehran / Helen Teede, Zimbabwe / Hava Küçüköner, Erzurum / Hanife Sevim, Çanakkale-Istanbul / Günay Aral, Istanbul / Emet Egemen Işık Aslan, Konya / Eman Barakat, Giza-Cairo / Belkıs Balpınar, Bodrum / Barış Sarıbaş, Izmir-Istanbul / Azimet Karaman, Erzincan-Ankara / Aydın Sarıoğlu, Izmir-Istanbul / Alireza Adambakan, Tehran / Ali Herischi, Baku / Alexander Milovzorov, Kiev / Ahmet Yiğider, Istanbul
Upon Mass & Essence…
Ahmet Yiğider
The ‘big bang’, which science regarded as its starting point, could have been the most extraordinary thing humanity would ever witness. Concerning this theory, even though we are already ageing within this phenomenon and seeing it at any moment with the expanding universe, what I mean is beyond that; watching and experiencing this fantastic starting scene, which covers almost everything the human mind can imagine, and sets the limits of science (for today), in other words, to watch and experience the ‘void’ spot and its aftermath with the privilege of a lodge that is beyond time and space…
When the above idea appeared in my mind for the first time, I was experiencing a rather usual but perhaps the most exciting thing a person could witness. It was the first time I’d seen my newborn son in the elevator cabin of a hospital.
Despite its reasonable probability, every moment of life and the entire cycle of the universe harbours a lot of provocative arguments and depth for intellectual production (primarily science and art) in proportion to the impossible ‘big bang’ experience we have formed above. There are only a few elements of representation that we can bring together here, free from scale and context: First and foremost, the motion of all micro-building blocks in the universe, beginning with the transformation of water and minerals into a living body, then the laughter of a baby, then its conversion to the ‘word’, then ‘will’ and then the ‘idea’; time itself as well as the entire forward motion of the universe that is creating ‘time’; all information hidden in the seed; moth; life and death; light; colour; physics itself and beyond; cocoon; eye; breath; the taste of coriander representing all sensorial diversities; the number π; cosmic space or just clear blue sky; snowflake; tourmaline crystal; pebble; actino bacteria, geosmin or the smell of earth after the rain (petrichor)…
Even though ‘olfaction (the action of smelling, or the ability to smell)’ is within our limits of vitality embraced by a human being, if we were to look for an olfactive character to represent the universe with all its infinity and encompassment (in the simplest discourse, ‘how does the universe smell?’), what kind of abstraction could be practised to support this extremely marginal claim? Could the smell of finely spun tiny trichomes on the neck of a newly blooming tomato seedling -presented by the millions of different molecules revelling between our fingers while we are stroking- be an inference to the claim of a unique smell that is yet to be discovered? The purpose of the claim, which I believe offers an extraordinary olfactive experience that would carry such a great representation, should never be perceived as a weird effort to attribute a scent to the universe. It is more of a quest for the universe within the sensorial description of a highly unusual smell. It can also be regarded as an inciting reference for anyone who touches the ‘Massence’ project to live through this extraordinary olfactive experience …
“Despite its reasonable probability, every moment of life and the entire cycle of the universe harbours a lot of provocative arguments and depth for intellectual production (primarily science and art), in proportion to the impossible ‘big bang’ experience we have formed above. There are only a few elements of representation that we can bring together here, free from scale and context: First and foremost, the motion of all micro-building blocks in the universe, beginning with the transformation of water and minerals into a living body, then the laughter of a baby, then its transformation to the ‘word’, then ‘will’ and then the ‘idea’; time itself as well as the entire forward motion of the universe that is creating ‘time’; all information hidden in the seed; moth; life and death; light; colour; physics itself and beyond; cocoon; eye; breath; the taste of coriander representing all sensorial diversities; the number π; cosmic space or just clear blue sky; snowflake; tourmaline crystal; pebble; actino bacteria, geosmin or the smell of earth after the rain (petrichor)….”
We defined an aspect of ‘Massence’ fiction, with an ‘essence’ to be interpreted over the ‘micro’, while the other aspect is defined as an idea of ‘mass’ with new installations of meaning and abstractions in some cases. With a stylised approach, the ‘mass’ representation refers to all our external boundaries and the positively infinite that the human mind and imagination cannot fully touch. The ‘essence’ representation directs us to the surrounding life and nature, to the smallest building blocks of life and matter, as well as to the depths of thought and consciousness, and sometimes to an inner inquiry. The ‘Massence’ coding aimed to form a language in which the ‘mass’ and the ‘essence’ were melted and filtered together.
When the interval of perception that determines man’s relationship with the universe is taken as a linear line, considering the micro and macro infinity to represent the two ends of this line, we can define a minimal interval that we can touch. So much so that this interval – which we place in infinity – is not merely a linear cross-section in the mathematical sense but merely becomes a point between the two ends of infinity. Simply put, human life takes place in a very minimal dimension of the universal scale. One way to overcome this constriction is to make inquiries outside the comfort area of routine life. Science, by its nature, is trying to push this interval of perception by understanding the universe more day by day. However, this interval of human perception, which we regard as the cross-section of a linear infinity in terms of mathematical meaning, reveals a paradox in which it will be swallowed up by eternity and turned into a point, despite all the expansion effort on the two-side infinity.
On the other hand, art thought may push the boundaries of the human perception interval in the multidimensional and infinitely extreme space depth that will replace the linear assumption in this theory. This is only possible by jumping with creativity and the power of dreams and touching beyond the horizon. The search for precisely these exercises that brought out the ‘Massence’ project… I hope that this search -with never coming to an end which we grasp through the ‘mass’ and ‘essence’ for the two ends of the universal scale, will open up horizons for everyone who will touch the project.