texts

:mentalKLINIK 2004 

:mentalKLINIK was conceived by Yasemin Baydar and Birol Demir in 1998 and it was brought to life in an apartment floor in Istanbul/Topağacı in 2000.

:mentalKLINIK has been founded with the aim of redefining and recreating the processes of artistic creation, design, production and consumption, on the basis of a form particular to itself. Given :mentalKLINIK’s interest towards concepts, it always constructs its projects on the basis of a concept and goes on by reframing this concept by means of individual and collective efforts. In :mentalKLINIK’s projects action and knowledge, practice and theory, the amateur and the professional, the naive and the constructed are all equally important and valuable.

:mentalKLINIK is not a space. But it does have physical space of its own. It carries out some of its projects in this space. It perceives the space as a shell that can be filled and emptied. :mentalKLINIK itself is also a shell. Within the time and space that it defines, it creates relationship forms with people it invites. In each space that it positions itself, it adds new dimensions to the space and aims to open the space to all senses. :mentalKLINIK is not a space but it opens and alters spaces.

:mentalKLINIK positions itself in the thin line emerging where borders start to dissolve and create its projects. :mentalKLINIK posits its critical view in the relationships between the consumer and the consumed product, similarly between the production and the producer, between the viewer and the exhibition, in forms of presentation but can at the same time incorporate some of the existing forms without altering them. It constructs the distances in its relationships; with institutions, with firms, with artists, with participants and with audience/consumers and between all these, it specifically arranges the distances.

:mentalKLINIK orients its projects towards processes rather than results. The result takes on their form when they encounter the audience/consumer in the spaces that :mentalKLINIK positions itself in.

:mentalKLINIK deliberates and produces on time and space, human and object, object and time relations; it labels objects as interfaces. It evaluates and discusses technologies with underlying intentions in mind. :mentalKLINIK is open to the five senses; it is willing to open the way to the sixth, seventh, eighth senses. Opening new layers in the world of objects, moving inward, making the hidden knowledge there visible. Multiplying the meaning of objects, rendering them meaningless, attributing new meanings to them, selling, bartering, gifting, copy-left distributions, copyright limited productions, limited productions, numbered products, software programs, games, beverages, undefined smells, tastes, fictional stories, virtual initiatives, relationships suffering accidents are all present within :mentalKLINIK.

:mentalKLINIK endeavors to alter and dislodge existing relations, to devise new types of relationships and possibilities, It tags the fragments of the 21st century through its own point of view. It designs undefined areas, undecided regions, frozen times, and records relations with materials as we approach an immaterial world.

Nonetheless, these actions are not that deliberate.

In order to multiply its identity and its outlook from its current position,:mentalKLINIK created subtitles such as semi:mentalKLINIK, docu:mentalKLINIK, and :mK. Thus it invented forms for the acts of taking, giving, distributing, disseminating, busying, combining, mixing, archiving, and accommodating.