CEVDET EREK AT THE PAVILION OF TURKEY IN VENICE

At the Pavilion of Turkey, Cevdet Erek presents ‘ÇIN’, a site-specific installation which uses architecture and sound to explore poetic and political imaginings.

Cevdet Erek, ÇIN, Pavilion of Turkey at the 57th Venice Biennale, Installation View. Photo: RMphotostudio

Its title has been imagined as a sound signal that foretells the work. An onomatopoeic word in Turkish, ‘ÇIN’ imitates a specific percussive sound, and is also a root from which the words reverberation and tinnitus are derived. With ÇIN, Erek continues the experimentation of themes and methods which he has investigated in his previous series ‘Room of Rhythms’, ‘Rulers and Rhythms Studies’ and ‘Sound Ornamentations’. In these works, rhythms of history, every day and nature are formalised in the coming together of sound, architecture and performance; visual and sonic timelines are constructed; and architectural ornamentation is created through the use of sound patterns and speech.

Cevdet Erek, Portrait, Courtesy IKSV

Pre-conceptualisation, experimentation and improvisation each play a part in ÇIN’s creation. The basis of Erek’s work for the Pavilion of Turkey consists of a spatial programme concretised by an architectural construction and a multichannel sound installation that were conceived in tandem. Sounds – all produced in the space after its physical construction was completed – guide the one’s passage and are confronted both sequentially and as an infinite variety of combinations. Their complex configurations are at times immersive and at other moments are obscured due to the position and direction of the visitor, generating unseen boundaries and articulating transitivity. Over the course of the Biennale Arte 2017 ÇIN will also be open to interventions: in enabling artists to perform in the space, for instance, with the original sounds varied or switched off. Its form is never final.