What is watching? What is watching secretly? What is the limit between the two and who defines this limit? One must watch to be able to see, and one must decompose what is watched to be able to show… If the artist is 'the person who sees and shows', isn't s/he obliged to show what s/he watches? When and how does watching become part a non-artistic realm?

Visiting the exhibit "confessions of the watcher" curated by Vasıf Kortun you first are confronted with four basic parameters, which guide you to the answers of your questions.

A person who watches or records the actions of a third person would seriously be neglecting the law if one of the parameters below were true.

If the person does not have the permission or authority to watch the actions of the third person
If the third person, who is watched or whose actions are recorded is in his own or in other people's house.
If the third person expects a reasonable privacy
If the third person has not agreed to being observed.

The exhibit brings together the works of Vanessa Beecroft, Noritoshi Hirokawa, Donald Moffet, Aydan Murtezaoğlu, Serkan Özkaya, Tadasu Takamine and Maciej Toporowicz. All of the works, whether video, photography or installation, have a common goal to question the nature of the action of watching.

Vanessa Beecroft's work 'Piano Americano' (1996), prepared for the art space with the same name in New York as part of the Deitch Project, shows women in a closed space, bored and waiting, all wearing the same make-up, clothes and wigs. Beecroft watches women who look exactly the same. Just like the women we always see in newspapers, magazines and on television, their bodies are like objects. Yet the spectator who watches these women changes his/her role, just like in the photos of Hirokowa. Watching these women who are meaninglessly waiting with meaningless face expressions, the spectator is no longer at ease.

According to Kortun, this situation is no longer true just for women. "Women becoming objects is a very old concept. For men are also objects now, so it is impossible to say that there is a gender difference about this. Since capital - objectifying men as well, and making them perceive themselves from their images on the mirror - doubled up its market."

The rules, which define whether a person in front of an object is a watcher or an intrusive watcher, 'changes' the name to this very act. "The intrusive watcher becomes perverse when a special instinct, hard to describe, is activated. This drive is different from the sexual drive aroused when one looks at another body or watches pornography" says Kortun. He adds, "This is a fine line, which has also to do with the differentiation of necessity and fantasy. The watcher might him/herself be unaware of this. For example, we can assume that the intrusive watcher Tom was not aware of what he was doing. Didn't this come up in Hitchcock's Back Window?"

….Here, the rules, which define when watching 'becomes a serious crime', become meaningful. Or these rules can turn out to be completely meaningless. "Of course there cannot be such a thing as an intrusive watching of an object, this would only be possible at the very moment of the construction of that object. The consecutive watching of the artist tries to see how s/he pre-defines the point of view of the watcher. I guess this is obvious in the work of Hirokowa."

The state of the object as "watched" and "revealer"

The double photography of Noritoshi Hirokowa was taken from the 'The Meaning of Life' series, realised in various cities in 1998. The first photography shows a woman in a crowded avenue, holding a camera in between her legs and a commander in her hand. The second photo shows the image of this woman's legs, reaching her underwear, a photo taken by the woman herself. This form suggests an up-side-down lecture, thus changing the nature of photography. The object of the photo - the woman, previously in the position of 'being watched' - takes on the position of the 'revealer', 'unveiling' the most personal.

While the roles in front of and behind the camera, change the nature of watching, they also take an opposing meaning. This is particularly clear in Donald Muffet's work called 'I am constantly licking all the wrong holes'. This work reflects the ironic relationship between the artist, who goes beyond a certain limit of space, and the political system, which has the right to watch everything. Before Muffet's work, the first four main rules handed over to us in the beginning make themselves loudly heard. 'If the person does not have the permission or authority to watch the actions of the third person…'

Aydan Murtezaoğlu's work 'Untitled' brings together the photography of a woman trying to straighten her television antenna on a roof, taken without her knowledge, and the image of unsightly urban development in the frame. In Tadasu Takamine's video called 'Immobility' we watch a woman on top of a fast Japanese train, who constantly tries to close her legs, and failing her attempts to fight against the wind. In Maciej Toporowicz's photography 'without permission' taken in the Tokyo metro, we see two girls putting on make-up and facing them, a man who is looking through the pages of a pornographic magazine. Serkan Özkaya's work 'The artist as a fountain' is a reference to Bruce Nauman's work 'The Artist's Self-Portrait as a Fountain'.

All the works have in common to underline the 'watcher of the watcher' state of the art spectator. This is another reminder that the artwork is finally 'what the other is showing'. For as Kortun indicates, it is impossible to speak of a 'natural' state of watching. 'We watch in the limits of what the other wants (consciously, unconsciously, or half-consciously) to show us.'

Cumhuriyet, 16 January 2001
Meltem KERRAR