Digging the (new) media art scene of İstanbul: Towards Media Art Historical Re-discovery

Abstract

This study is an attempt to excavate and analyze (new) media art scene of İstanbul in order to explore the particularities in the field and local histories of media art. There is still ambiguity about what (new) media art is and when the notion of “new” comes along with media art piece. Thus, it is important to trace back to histories of media art in the context of Turkey and investigate the notion of the “new”. One of the argument of this study is that there is no randomness in status of “new” in media art case; instead, there are certain common characteristics, maybe a kind of pattern in the experience of the works/media. What embedded in the notion of the “new” and what potentials and possibilities it enables in the case of new media art scene of İstanbul are thus guiding questions in this paper. The paper aims to rediscover cultural and institutional continuities/discontinuities/(re)formations in new media art scene of İstanbul in its state of flux relations/relationings.