15 Mart 2011 Salı

fantastic - uncanny - marvelous

http://www.unc.edu/~bardsley/ghosts/todorov.html

The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre (1975)

Tzvetan Todorov

"In a world which is indeed our world, the one we know....there occurs an event which cannot be explained by the laws of this same familiar world. The person who experiences the event must opt for one of two possible solutions: either he is the victim of an illusion of the senses, of a product of the imagination-- and the laws of the world then remain what they are; or else the event has indeed taken place, it is an integral part of reality--but then this reality is controlled by laws unknown to us (p. 25)."

"The fantastic occupies the duration of this uncertainty....The fantastic is that hesitation experienced by a person who knows only the laws of nature, confronting an apparently supernatural event (p. 25)."

Todorov later comments:

"The fantastic requires the fulfillment of three conditions. First, the text must oblige the reader to consider the world of the characters as a world of living persons and to hesitate between a natural or supernatural explanation of the events described. Second, this hesitation may also be experienced by a character; thus the reader's role is so to speak entrusted to a character, and at the same time the hesitation is represented, it becomes one of the themes of the work--in the case of naive reading, the actual reader identifies himself with the character. Third, the reader must adopt a certain attitude with regard to the text: he will reject allegorical as well as "poetic" interpretations (p. 33)."

Todorov distinguishes the fantastic from two other modes, the uncanny and the marvelous. While these modes have some of the ambiguity of the fantastic, they ultimately offer a resolution governed by natural laws (the uncanny) or the supernatural (the marvelous).

"[In the uncanny], events are related which may be readily accounted for by the laws of reason, but which are, in one way or another, incredible, extraordinary, shocking, singular, disturbing or unexpected, and which thereby provoke in the character and in the reader a reaction similar to that which works of the fantastic have made familiar (p. 46)." Todorov's definition of the uncanny might be applied to stories in which the character realizes s/he is mad or has just awakened from a dream. Thus, the uncanny is an "experience of limits."

"If we move to the other side of that median line which we have called the fantastic, we find ourselves in the fantastic-marvelous, the class of narratives that are presented as fantastic and that end with an acceptance of the supernatural (p. 52)."

the shop for distant realities / ismi tuhafiyeci olmayan tuhafiye

koşuyolu Porsan (the shop where irrelevant things exist side by side / a secret tuhaf-iyeci; a tuhafiyeci which is not called a tuhafiyeci...); probably 1996... my niece hugging the almost scary weird sculpture who is hugging the air...

"My most important problem was destroying the lines of demarcation that separate what seems real from what seems fantastic."
Gabriel García Márquez

back to writing and producing along with the bizarre waves of the fantastic, the weird, the ironic. and still craving for the better words. travelling between "tuhaf " and "fantastik" in TUrkish. but "ironic" does not serve the same purpose... "how ironic" - ironic is somehow more tangible. but "tuhaf" is more ambiguous. it is the summary of a particular way of perception and particular way of existence. tuhafiye. my parents for years have been running a shop where unrelated - far realities - exist side by side. this is actually called a "tuhafiye": the place who sells the weird. the weirdest of it all is their place was never called a "tuhafiye." but it got weirder each year... tuhafiye is the palace of shortcurcuits and of metaphors. where distant realities clash to create ghosts that go deep in one's psyche.

i guess my first attempt for an outdoor sculpture was in response to the weirdness of my families absurd shop. we placed it in front of the shop. as rain slowly washed it away; the figure got thinner... a pregnant lady was afraid of it. some loved it. some started to leave their books below it as if it were a tree. not to scare the pregnant lady anymore, we put it away...

all that remains of it is an absurd photograph...




13 Mart 2011 Pazar

"kafadan kontak" / a shot circuit in the head

"kafadan kontak" is an excellent expression. "kontak" is the slang for electrical shortcircuit. "kafa" is head. "kafadan kontak" is when the nerves in the brain make shortcurcuit. czz dzzz czzz. an electical shortcircuit in the head. messes up the system.

short circuit
n
(Electronics) a faulty or accidental connection between two points of different potential in an electric circuit, bypassing the load and establishing a path of low resistance through which an excessive current can flow. It can cause damage to the components if the circuit is not protected by a fuse
vb short-circuit
1. (Electronics) to develop or cause to develop a short circuit
2. (tr) to bypass (a procedure, regulation, etc.)
3. (tr) to hinder or frustrate (plans, etc.) Sometimes (for senses 1, 2) shortened to short

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003

çatlak / crack (or turkish slang for crazy)

there are countless cracks in Istanbul. some cracks leak. some cracks sing. some cracks are like threats. they startle you in the dark. cracks crack up to swallow you in. and then cracks vomit you out onto busy streets. the streets are so busy that people do not notice a newly vomitted person like you are. cracks are alive. crick crack. "çatlak" is the Turkish word for crack. you also call a person "çatlak." "ÇAtlak" is a person who acts her own way, not bothering about social codes, formalities and such... "çatlak" is home to all street fluids. All fluids find a crack to rach down deep in the ground...
in Vienna, on the streets of asphalt, cracks were made visible by snow. Those cracks are the bases for space ships. spacecrafts are made of snow and live in cracks. if they donot return to space, they melt into waters and leak underground and become the fresh air in the summer. we are breathing in spacecrafts to come closer to stars.