September 9th saw the “soft opening” of NOMAD’s 3rd edition of their ctrl_alt_del sound art festival. As a digital art collective, with Istanbul as their base, NOMAD has been at the forefront of a series of pioneering projects in Turkey (and abroad). NOMAD's co-founder, curator and university professor Basak Senova gives me her mustard.

NM: This is the 3rd time the ctrl-alt-del festival is taking place. What is the position of a sound festival like yours in a city like Istanbul, and how has the festival in format and content evolved since 2003?
BS: ctrl_alt_del was the first sound art festival realized in Turkey, in September 2003. It was a collaboration of NOMAD with two Dutch institutions along with Istanbul Technical University Center for Advanced Musical Studies (MIAM). Since the first festival, NOMAD has sought to establish a recognition platform for sound art in Turkey. From the beginning, accumulating and creating content has always been the first and foremost aim of the project.
In 2003, the festival was realized in two cities: Istanbul and Maastricht. The Istanbul phase of the festival was an introduction to sound art via pioneering names along with panels and workshops, whereas in Maastricht the format was more experimental. We tried to question whether the dynamics of the performance defines the audience either as “the participant who interacts” or “the witness who observes”. Hence, the logic of a performance or a performative action operates by assuming the fact that there is always a “watching eye” in front of the action. Within the same line of thought, in Maastricht, we designed a reversed situation by taking the artists off the stage and having the audience on the stage. A heightened surface was covered with soft material to absorb the sound, and also enable the audience to sit on it and watch the minimal gestures of hands on laptops. So, the audience was sharing the same ground with the equipment, mixers and the laptops, watching the artists using their tools from every angle. In 2003, more than 30 people from 16 different countries contributed to the project. In 2005, NOMAD achieved its goal to create a local sound art scene, as well as presenting international production in Turkey. As a result of the numerous submissions to our open call, workshops and presentations, NOMAD had the privilege to host more than 50 participants from a wide range of geographies and present the selected works of artist in the compilation DVD. In the meantime, we continued to challenge spatial limitations: we experimented with various formats in and during a boat tour on the Bosporus and Golden Horn. The 2007 edition comprises a large number of local and international artists who will present their work over an 8-month period. We have received an enormous number of submissions and a wide international interest. Naturally, this fact also brings the risk of under-doing every project within a crazy "cover-everything" festival with very limited funding. While trying to find a solution to the situation, we took our previous experiences into consideration and decided to expand the duration of the project over 8 months. We have experienced a continuous level of productivity through monthly events (for instance: in Upgrade! Istanbul gatherings.) Thus, it would be wise to set up a sustained flow of events throughout a longer time-span. Plus, for the sake of the participation of local artists and audience, we believe that the consecutive performances would allow for a better reciprocity.
Accordingly, we started with an opening party at garajistanbul and radio programs during the 10th International Istanbul Biennial opening. In the meanwhile, we announced the results of the open call. The online newsletter series, printed newsletter, the website and the blog accompany the entire process. Starting from October till April, we will have monthly performances at Babylon, workshops and presentations at Istanbul Technical University, MIAM and santralistanbul/Bilgi University, outdoor field studies and workshops in Istanbul and finally the exhibition as the closing event. The projected publication will be printed and distributed along with an audio CD at the end of this period. We believe this format will bring out newly emerging productions, while keeping the sound art scene alert.

NM: The theme of the 2007/2008 iteration of the festival is "Remote Orienteering", and examines the navigating tactics of locality. What are NOMAD's vision and strategies to navigate between the local, regional and deal with the pressures of an increasingly internationalising art world?
BS: As has been much theorized, cultural imagination today has now shifted from a static value-based model to a dynamic model. Forms, types and tokens of value are given and taken away in local and temporary conditions, creating a terrain, implying a geographical turn. Furthermore, the inhabitants of this geography have to learn to master the art of navigation. In this cultural milieu, ctrl_alt_del 2007-2008 is focused on this new model of cultural imagination, with two scopes in mind: (i) The art of navigation with its possibilities for unlocking technical, social and cultural imagination; (ii) The notions and realities of distance, a quality that is both diminishing and expanding today.
Therefore, the theme of the festival “remote orienteering” denotes this juxtaposition, or a switch in current geographical realities. Orienteering as ‘the art of navigating a given terrain’ using a set of rules and tools might be a starting point for our relationship with technology: more and more, we find ourselves relying on abstract methodologies, instead of our own senses when we want to find our way in the maze of complex technical and social realities. And secondly, the notion “remote”, signifies the potential of navigational arts at a given distance. Apart from its connection with navigational systems, “remote orienteering” also involves positioning oneself within interconnected social and political realities along with issues of control. In this given geographical model of cultural imagination, the position of sound and hearing is also challenged. Consequently, “remote orienteering” is about tactics of locality that have to be played out at a distance, a possibly remedy for the current challenge.

NM: NOMAD is one of the few - if not the only collective in Turkey - with a specific focus on new media. How does new media practice resonate within the Turkish art scenes and in art academies and universities? Is there an audience or is there still an audience to be cultivated?
BS: Both actors/producers in Turkish digital culture and their conceptions, display a similar picture to that of many European countries. And as it is expected, the producers are mostly the audience as well. Nevertheless, the production mode of the local actors/producers, (re)sources, and the way they define themselves and interact with each other are quite exceptional.
First and foremost, these actors do not define themselves as “artists”. Due to their various educational backgrounds and proficiencies, they portray interdisciplinary approaches within their production modes. Stemming from the open source mode of thinking and sharing (by giving priority to develop and produce autonomously, rather than authorship), most protest the mainstream contemporary art production methodologies. Within the contemporary art scene, local digital art production distinguishes itself with a unique self-sustained mode of production. The lack of regular subsidies and technical infrastructure drive the local artists into inventing alternative solutions and ways of producing. Due to the increasing accessibility of digital tools, productions in - or around the digital realm -have grown in number. However, this mode of production has not brought out a collaborative spirit, while spreading amongst a comparably younger generation. Although digital media is natively habitant in networks and carries its culture and know-how online, it is quite astonishing to discover that the local actors of digital art are extremely introvert. It is obviously due to the lack of social networks in the overall art scene in Turkey, which has accumulated hostility rather than solidarity for many decades. This self-oriented artistic culture motivates individuals in breaking through the local bottleneck situation, and reaching out to rather well established art networks abroad. While this attitude seems to be an effective remedy for artists seeking for wider audiences and global visibility, it hampers the emergence of a local digital milieu, thus the global recognition of an art scene.
However, another disadvantage in the Turkish digital art realm, has led to development. Since an institution or faculty dedicated to digital art education still does not exist, the local artists have emerged from various other disciplines, mostly design and engineering. This has developed digital art, as the other educational backgrounds provide the artists with a much more organized approach towards research, information gathering, analytical thinking and good handling of the tools that aid them in production. Compared to the graduates of art schools, digital artists with other backgrounds show up with their own special techniques.
As NOMAD, we aim to create a public presence for digital culture in Turkey, and since 2002 we managed to gather a noticeable amount of audience for various projects. In the meantime with Upgrade! Istanbul, as monthly gatherings for new media artists, academicians, practitioners, curators and other actors of digital culture, we also link local producers with the active international network groups related to art, technology and culture through 23 nodes all over the globe. In a significantly short period of time, Upgrade! Istanbul has managed to kick-start an archive for the newly emerging digital art scene in Turkey. This will maintain the lacking referential information and form a memory for the local actors of digital culture.

NM: What's your opinion on this year's biennial, and what is the effect of the Istanbul biennial on the long-term for the local arts scene?
BS: Since the beginning, the International Istanbul Biennial has been an important school for the young generation of artists and curators of contemporary art. The Turkish contemporary art scene, or maybe I should rephrase it as “The Istanbul contemporary art scene” has developed and enriched rapidly over the last 20 years. And the Biennial has been a substitute for contemporary art museums and centers for a long time. My own art venture started with the 4th International Istanbul Biennial that was curated by Rene Block. In the course of this time, I published “the Biennial Bulletin” consisting of 3 issues for the 4th Biennial; worked as the official writer and editor of the press bulletins for the 6th Biennial; contributed to the 7th Biennial Catalogue with an introductory article; worked as the official writer and editor of the press bulletins for the 8th Biennial; developed “ctrl-alt-del” as one of the side projects of the 8th International Istanbul Biennial; developed the second “ctrl-alt-del” festival within the “positionings” section of the 9th Biennial. Furthermore, I was partially supported by the Biennial for the Curatorial Training Program of De Appel (Amsterdam) in 2002. So, for me, the Biennial has been the most important contemporary art activity happening in Istanbul, which functioned as the real school with its exhibitions, facilities, venues, publications, parallel projects, artists, curators, directors and the team.
Nevertheless, for the first time, my first impressions are quite negative regardless of the potent concept and the very good artists and projects, among the others. My negative criticism is indeed, based in the curatorial decisions and spatial applications which underestimate the works (I mostly refer to their presentation modes) and the spatial dynamics of the venues. Especially, in Antrepo, the works are neither overlapped nor isolated from each other (both form-wise and conceptually). Instead of creating dialogues and links, they weaken each other’s existence. Maybe I expected too much, but it is a big disappointment, as for me, Hou Hanrou has been one of the significant figures of contemporary art, who processed “space” as a powerful element in his curatorial praxis, and who influenced my way of thinking through “space”. Yet, it is another mode of learning and I will also benefit a lot from this experience together with my students -as the Biennial is one the main sources in my classes as a case study.