The Touristic Video Diary of Surveillance

an Image Acts video
Directed by Fırat Yücel
Text by Fırat Yücel, Aylin Kuryel
Narration by Fırat Yücel, Aylin Kuryel and others
Edited by Fırat Yücel, Aylin Kuryel
Images the touristic camera system of istanbuluseyret.ibb.gov.tr + other desktop screen recordings made between 2020-2022

Two voices reflect on what they see on the screen. A child playing with a red balloon, youngsters dancing on the street, people taking photos, Marina Abramovic’s first exhibition in Istanbul… As the narrative unfolds, images take new meaning: These are screen recordings of Istanbul municipalities’ 7/24 live and open-access ‘Touristic Cameras’ taken on the 8th of March Women’s Day 2020. We are on Taksim Square, watching the aftermath of this last mass demonstration in the city, before the COVID-19 pandemic. Multiple voiceovers revisit their own experiences of that night as we keep looking at the city through the eyes of the touristic cameras. As the pandemic measures are implemented, the streets get emptier, whereas the voices multiply remembering and claiming their history of resistance. Although we live in a surveillance age where we are constantly watched and offered countless images, what we often see is a touristic, depoliticized and filtered variation of things that happened. The Touristic Video Diary of Surveillance (working title) is a multi-voiced desktop essay attempting to find the blind spots of such images, travelling in time via screen recordings.