Performistanbul, searches for traces of performance in “Memory Conversion”

 
The memory that carries and connects the past with the future, is becoming altered and converted while being transferred. In order for the memory to emerge as collective and perpetual so that it leaves a mark on history, we need a recording of the process and an archival preservation/conservation.
Thus, how can we preserve the memory of performance art, which is as connected to the body as much as the time? What does its memory turn into when the performance comes to an end? How does the preserved memory go through the process of change and conversion, reaching the present time and the future?
In 2008, This is not a Performance exhibition, which took place in 2018, has brought together the remainings of performances with the audience while drawing attention to the duration as well as the process of conversion, therefore revealed the “traces” of the intangible performance art with its objects that turned into a piece of artwork at the end of the process. “How is the absent displayed? How is the memory of a performance transferred?” Performistanbul, seeking for new answers to their questions, continues to examine in which form(s) a performance that occured in a different time period and in a different place can meet with the audience in accordance with its nature.
As in Pierre Nora’s “places of memory”, Memory Conversion focuses on the remembrance of the performance rather than its memory; it tries to transfer it once again by transforming the pure memory, based on the experience of both of the artist and the viewer.
Memory Conversion, hosted by Performistanbul Live Art Research Area (PCSAA) which is a “place of memory”, displays video documentations of three performances actualised during the pandemic accompanied by a multisensory installation inspired by the materials of the performance. It explores the transmission of the performance’s sensation on the artist and / or the audience beyond the senses of sight and hearing, through senses such as touch and smell that we were deprived of during the pandemic. In a period when we live with the screens as if they were an extension of our bodies; Memory Conversion invites the audience to go back to a three-dimensional life, to experience / feel the remainings of performance with different senses of the body and reflect on what the artist wants to leave behind.
As part of SENKRON ‘Synchronized Video Exhibitions’, Memory Conversion will actualise between April 15 – May 12, 2021. It consists of a series that includes the performance documentation and installation of three artists: Gülhatun Yıldırım’s You Are Half Water (15-22 April 2021), Mk Yurttaş’s Dark organic soil formed by the decay of plants over a very long time (April 26 – May 3, 2021) and Leman Sevda Darıcıoğlu’s White Roses, Pink Glitter (5-12 May 2021).
Visitors to the Performistanbul Live Art Research Area (PCSAA) can view over 100 performance documentation videos from the DVDs in the library, transferred from the London-based Live Art Library LADA, in the PCSAA archives. Appointment required: info@performistanbul.org