Simulating “CerModern” Via Photograph: An Experiment on the Virtual Space “chronicle707”

Abstract

This study will be an inquiry into the interactions between [architectural] space and photography, which gets its inspiration from the authors’ personal blog “chronicle707”, by introducing an experiment via photographs to simulate exhibitions. This paper will be derived from the shared posts on the blog about the exhibitions realized specifically at CerModern, which is the modern art center of Ankara –the capital city of Turkey. With an architectural perspective, photograph is not only an instrument of documentation or recording, but also a creative tool which produce alternative narratives of architectural space. Considering the theme exhibitions; “photographs” of a painting, photograph, sculpture etc. –as an artwork installed in– tries to recreate the physical / experienced exhibition space in the virtual medium / space of the blog. The photographic representations of the exhibition become a “simulation” (in Jean Baudrillard’ terms) of both the artwork and the space as an entity. Therefore, the blog itself becomes a visual simulation. Since the potential of the temporary exhibitions serve for the blog to create multiple simulations, “CerModern” (the physical space) and “chronicle707” (the virtual space) are considered as experimental spaces. This paper will use a comparative approach addressing the published photographs on the virtual spaces of the blog and CerModern’s official website. Referring to Walter Benjamin, an artwork loses its aura when it is transformed into a photographic image (reproduced) by disregarding its context. Rather than capturing only the artworks, the blog seeks to recreate the aura by (re)presenting the artworks together with the space they “exist”. The possibilities of recreating the aura will be discussed in this paper by analyzing the virtual space of chronicle707, which is itself a simulation.