eavesdropping
by Esra Oskay
by Esra Oskay
05.07.2024
In my recent work I explore the implicit and explicit expressions of self-censorship as a form of regulating the visible and sayable. With a focus on contemporary Turkey, I reflect on the definitions and manifold operations of censorship, its impact on individual expressions and collective dimensions of this experience.
As the regulation and management of the “domain of the sayable”(Butler,1997: 133) and the regime of the visible, strategies of censorship take many forms and increasingly adopt "arbitrary and complicated means" (Siyah Bant, 2014) difficult to address. The report on DW that I accessed through turning on my VPN and changing my location to the USA underlines the “abysmal” condition of Turkey in regards to “the freedom of expression and freedom of information” (2016). As Ceyda Nurtsch’s account indicates: “In the end, it would appear that many artists have practiced pre-emptive self-censorship rather than having the government interfere with their creativity” (2016). The inability to locate the source of the discrete means of domination and control render the mechanisms of self-censorship much more omnipotent and influential, while the censorship mechanisms go beyond the “explicit bans and suppressions of artworks” (Karaca, 2021: 153). As an artist and academic, in the framework of this proposal I aspire to reflect on self-censorship where collective and individual voices and silences resonate, within an “affective economy” that ripples with shame,guilt,anger and fear.
Inspired by the documentation of Third Reich dreams collected by Charlotte Beradt and the study of the Nazi language by Viktor Klemperer, I employ a particular mode of deep listening to have a glimpse at what is censored. I listen to the to the everyday conversations, standing nearby to the moments of passing sensitive information, the infra tiny moments when people speak up within the restricted domains of public sphere. This could be considered as a particular method of listening, overhearing the others, eavesdropping to the edges of the dominant discourse where a moment of truth and political resistance briefly emerges: listening to what is suppressed. When the domineering voice of the power does not allow the “subaltern” speak (Spivak, 2009) it leads us to find out other modes of engaging with one’s voice (Adkins, 2002; Scott, 1990). I aspire to inquire into everyday experiences of self-censorship and search for acts of “counter visibility” (Mirzoeff, 2011) and “hidden transcripts” (Monahan,2020) as a gesture towards the asymmetries of visible and sayable informed by the acts of power.
Since November 2023, I keep a log book where I note down people talking about “sensitive” issues in public, amongst their friends yet at a hearing distance to me. I note down these little narratives with the dates and location. The outcome becomes a collection of anonymous witness accounts. This particular form of listening as eavesdropping, unintentional hearing, overhearing captures what is spoken within the circles of “dissident friendships” even in a lower voice.
Inspired by the documentation of Third Reich dreams collected by Charlotte Beradt and the study of the Nazi language by Viktor Klemperer, I employ a particular mode of deep listening to have a glimpse at what is censored. I listen to the to the everyday conversations, standing nearby to the moments of passing sensitive information, the infra tiny moments when people speak up within the restricted domains of public sphere. This could be considered as a particular method of listening, overhearing the others, eavesdropping to the edges of the dominant discourse where a moment of truth and political resistance briefly emerges: listening to what is suppressed. When the domineering voice of the power does not allow the “subaltern” speak (Spivak, 2009) it leads us to find out other modes of engaging with one’s voice (Adkins, 2002; Scott, 1990). I aspire to inquire into everyday experiences of self-censorship and search for acts of “counter visibility” (Mirzoeff, 2011) and “hidden transcripts” (Monahan,2020) as a gesture towards the asymmetries of visible and sayable informed by the acts of power.
Since November 2023, I keep a log book where I note down people talking about “sensitive” issues in public, amongst their friends yet at a hearing distance to me. I note down these little narratives with the dates and location. The outcome becomes a collection of anonymous witness accounts. This particular form of listening as eavesdropping, unintentional hearing, overhearing captures what is spoken within the circles of “dissident friendships” even in a lower voice.
As the public sphere dramatically shrinks it is only within the close circles one could voice what would remain otherwise silenced. In my recent work, I would like to proceed through these silent transcripts and try to amplify these quite resistances. In the words of Oraib Toukan (2024), this delving into the muted discourse of appearance, piercing through the visible and sayable is “part and parcel of decolonizing vision… so as to read through the layers of what has been erased and replaced“.
The work I would like to develop in the residency is based on this research material of a quite archive composed of what slips through censorship. Based on this local and situated experience of censorship in Turkey, I envision this project to take a form that could communicate the affective world of censorship that could go beyond the specific Turkish case. Hence, the proposed work would try to translate the affective world of censorship into a common language, unpack the signs and symbols of its Aesopian language that would address the imposed silences within the increasingly shrinking spaces of public discourse. This will require a conception of translation beyond a verbatim verbal act or passing of a journalistic information, based on a form of documentation “which part ways with the evidence-based documentary value or indexical capacity” (Toukan, 2024) . The proposed project will aspire to communicate the wider implications of the censorship, extend its reach beyond the specific contexts I am working in, since the management of the sayable and visible has become a burning issue for freedom of speech, as it is evidenced in the recent discourse on the struggle in Palestine. As such, I envision the extra linguistic elements of communication, the slips of tongue and silences as tools of communication to be the main material of study. Between the desire to explain everything -which borders with a colonial gaze of showing the troubles of a third world problems to the other- and to locate the common struggle against the censor, I hope to find a middle ground during this residency.
[1] Butler, J. (1997).Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative
[2] Siyah Bant, (2014). Siyah Bant ile söyleşi: "Her yer sansür, her yer sınır". http://www.sabitfikir.com/soylesi/siyah-bant-ile-soylesi-her-yer-sansur-her-yer-sinir.
[3]Nurtsch, C. (2016). Art according to the rules: Self-censorship in Turkey. https://www.dw.com/en/art-according-to-the-rules-self-censorship-in-turkey/a-18230185.
[4] Mirzoeff, N. (2011).The Right to Look: A Counterhistory of Visuality. Duke University Press.
[5] Monahan, T. 2021. Visualizing the Surveillance Archive: Critical Art and the Dangers of Transparency. In Law and the Visible, edited by A. Sarat, L. Douglas and M. M. Umphrey. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press.
The work I would like to develop in the residency is based on this research material of a quite archive composed of what slips through censorship. Based on this local and situated experience of censorship in Turkey, I envision this project to take a form that could communicate the affective world of censorship that could go beyond the specific Turkish case. Hence, the proposed work would try to translate the affective world of censorship into a common language, unpack the signs and symbols of its Aesopian language that would address the imposed silences within the increasingly shrinking spaces of public discourse. This will require a conception of translation beyond a verbatim verbal act or passing of a journalistic information, based on a form of documentation “which part ways with the evidence-based documentary value or indexical capacity” (Toukan, 2024) . The proposed project will aspire to communicate the wider implications of the censorship, extend its reach beyond the specific contexts I am working in, since the management of the sayable and visible has become a burning issue for freedom of speech, as it is evidenced in the recent discourse on the struggle in Palestine. As such, I envision the extra linguistic elements of communication, the slips of tongue and silences as tools of communication to be the main material of study. Between the desire to explain everything -which borders with a colonial gaze of showing the troubles of a third world problems to the other- and to locate the common struggle against the censor, I hope to find a middle ground during this residency.
[1] Butler, J. (1997).Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative
[2] Siyah Bant, (2014). Siyah Bant ile söyleşi: "Her yer sansür, her yer sınır". http://www.sabitfikir.com/soylesi/siyah-bant-ile-soylesi-her-yer-sansur-her-yer-sinir.
[3]Nurtsch, C. (2016). Art according to the rules: Self-censorship in Turkey. https://www.dw.com/en/art-according-to-the-rules-self-censorship-in-turkey/a-18230185.
[4] Mirzoeff, N. (2011).The Right to Look: A Counterhistory of Visuality. Duke University Press.
[5] Monahan, T. 2021. Visualizing the Surveillance Archive: Critical Art and the Dangers of Transparency. In Law and the Visible, edited by A. Sarat, L. Douglas and M. M. Umphrey. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press.
