Interstellar Cartography
Installation: Video, Found Objects
HD Video 4′44″, Various Dimensions
2016
Interstellar Cartography is a site-specific installation created for the "DARAĞAÇ | bu arada" exhibition, hosted in an old house on 1519th Street in İzmir’s Umurbey Neighborhood. The project combines a speculative narrative with physical artifacts, situating a video work and curated found objects within the basement of a decaying residential structure. The installation merges science fiction with socio-political metaphor, inviting viewers to navigate themes of isolation, technological failure, and existential confinement through the lens of an extraterrestrial protagonist.
Central to the work is a video piece documenting enigmatic reports authored by an alien stranded on Earth. The narrative follows the being’s efforts to repair a damaged cartography device critical for returning to its home planet. These reports, presented as fragmented texts and visuals, frame the basement as both a workspace and refuge for the alien during its terrestrial exile. The space is reimagined as a psychological microcosm—a private chamber where the alien’s attempts to transcend spatial boundaries unravel alongside its deteriorating mental state.
The basement itself functions as a physical manifestation of Jorge Luis Borges’ concept of “The Aleph,” a point where all dimensions of time and space converge. Here, the claustrophobic environment—dimly lit, crowded with obsolete tools, and permeated by a sense of suspended time—mirrors the alien’s fractured psyche. The walls, lined with maps, scribbled equations, and malfunctioning machinery, evoke a futile quest for control over the unknown. This meticulous staging transforms the room into a liminal zone, blurring the boundaries between the protagonist’s inner turmoil and the viewer’s immersive experience.
Beyond its science-fiction framework, Interstellar Cartography engages with contemporary socio-political tensions. The basement’s oppressive atmosphere allegorizes the psychological weight of modern systemic constraints, from surveillance to geopolitical displacement. By situating the alien’s struggle within a marginalized neighborhood like Darağaç, the work subtly parallels extraterrestrial exile with human experiences of alienation under oppressive structures. The use of “found objects”—discarded materials sourced from the vicinity—grounds the narrative in local reality, bridging speculative fiction with the socio-economic textures of the host community.
The project’s interdisciplinary approach—melding literature, architecture, and media art—reflects a broader critique of humanity’s fraught relationship with progress. Borges’ Aleph, recontextualized here, becomes a metaphor for the paradox of infinite visibility within confinement: the alien, like the contemporary individual, perceives vast networks of connection yet remains immobilized by them. Through its layered narrative and spatial tension, Interstellar Cartography challenges viewers to confront the illusions of agency and freedom in an age of pervasive control.
By intertwining cosmic myth with terrestrial reality, the installation positions failure not as an endpoint, but as a catalyst for reflection—on the limits of technology, the politics of space, and the universal yearning for transcendence.
