Acâibü’l-mahlûkāt is a Persian cosmology book from the 13th century, later translated into Ottoman and later in Turkish with a foreword of the current President. It includes mythological and made-up characters to explain the world. The book mentions humans, djinnis, creatures in the sky; precious stones, mountains, oceans; plants, and trees. Its images depict elephant-humans with wings, cow-reptiles and many other idiosyncratic beings. Inspired by this world, Göksu Kunak tackles the notions of camouflage and self–censorship in relation to the politics and dictator(s) of an imaginary (!) region.
For this piece, the concept of Taqiyya in Islam is at the center of a deeper understanding of camouflage: a hypercamouflage in the sense of merging with a character; of gender as camouflage; hiding in niches and camouflage as protection. In this text-based performance, the images and movement patterns of the creatures from the book Acayip Mahlukatemerge in a sci-fi imaginary realm and are complemented by motifs from the speculative non-fiction "Cyclonopedia" by Reza Negarestani. From a speculative perspective on the Middle East, Göksu Kunak thereby makes references to Southwest Asian politics, (in)visibility and (un)veiling, pornography, time and decay.
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Reels by Synthtati
Photos by Spyros Rennt
Concept, Text, Installation Göksu Kunak PERFORMANCE Göksu Kunak with FRZNTE (on May 11), Andrés Sanjuan (on May 13) and Tischa “THE TIGRESS” (on May 14) Dramaturgy Isabel Gatzke Sound LABOUR Costume Nagi Gianni Light Design Annegret Schalke Producer Florian Greß
A production by Göksu Kunak in co-production with SOPHIENSÆLE. Funded by the Hauptstadtkulturfonds. The research phase was supported by FREISCHWIMMEN as part of the program "Verbindungen fördern", funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media through the program of the Bundesverband Freie Darstellende Künste e.V. Media partner: King Kong Magazine, taz. die tageszeitung.
