Scramble for the past with Salt video program

ISTANBUL - Hürriyet Daily News

A number of the videos in the video program refer to sites referred to in the exhibition and examine how different communities and cultures respond to historical finds.

A number of the videos in the video program refer to sites referred to in the exhibition and examine how different communities and cultures respond to historical finds.

A program of video works has been selected to expand on the ideas and content of the exhibition, “Scramble for the Past: A Story of Archaeology in the Ottoman Empire, 1753-1914,” at SALT Galata, in Istanbul. The program started Jan. 29 and continues until March 4.

A number of the videos refer to sites referred to in the exhibition - such as Troy and the Acropolis - or to unknown artifacts, and examine how different communities and cultures respond to historical finds.

They also explore the issues of nation-building and tourism through the ownership or excavation of famous archaeological sites, as well as the representation of historically renowned locations in film and the exploitation of these sites by global commercial industries.

Utilizing scenes from Egyptian films that use the pyramids as backdrop, “Domestic Tourism II” explores the ways in which iconic historical monuments are reappropriated from the “timelessness” of the tourist postcard and reinscribed into the complex and dynamic political and social narratives of the city.

The documentary and realistic nature of Eva Stefani’s videos on the every day reality of modern-day Greece is combined with found footage of different origin.

Produced entirely by cutting and pasting together old X-rated and amateur films found in flea markets, “Acropolis” questions collective memory and national identity. Using surreal humor, the video compares the monumental body of the Acropolis with the woman’s body, referencing cultural pillage, moral expropriation, pornography and history.

“Battles of Troy” studies the internal economy of today’s globalized cinema production, through the eyes of the lowest unit in the hierarchy: the extras. The video focuses on the making of the Warner Bros. 

2004 motion picture “Troy” and, more specifically, the secret lives of film extras and the distancing of such a project from its original location and historical detail.