01 May 2011

'Virtual Places' By Ali Alisir at Art ON the Gallery, Istanbul

Art ON the Gallery which is opened at Akaretler/Istanbul last month with a group show of worldwide masters as Damien Hirst, Terry Frost, Paul Morrison, Gary Hume and emerging Turkish photography artist Sencer Vardarman, is hosting Ali Alisir's 'Virtual Places' between April 28th-May 28th.

Started in 2004 with digital photo work, Ali Alisir aims to bring a new breath to contemporary art. Ali Alışır's 'Virtual Places' project includes the photographs of historical places around the world which are considered to be important. He is re-interpreting the places where people live, work, share the same environment, trade or worship from the Middle Ages and Renaissance Era to the present day by means of modern photography. He is shaping this interpretation by considering the functioning of network system and network interfaces which provide today's fast flow of information and communication. While applying this, he benefits from the electronic circuits form.

According to Ali Alisir, while the period of all revolutions and mechanisms of reanimation is ending, the virtual world where people connect each other with closed circuits and digital processors is day making our distance to the physical reality more transparent each day. Photography, while taking its share of this great revolution, turns out to be a simultaneous image tool to the masses. It's only function was capturing images until now but today it takes the role of an image transfer tool.

The electrical circuits and places that Ali Alisir pictured together in his work remove the sense of depth of field in photography. The point Ali Alisir wants to make is that photography is not a part of a perception game but integrity of information. Another point that Alisir emphasizes is that the conventional concepts of time and space are no longer being used to go 'somewhere' or to communicate with 'someone.' Alisir, in this context, is transforming the gloomy architectural structures of the Middle Age built by physical factors to an interactive world with today's perspective regardless of gravity, size and measurement rules.

'Virtual Places' project is a critique of art created with digital technology which allows making an infinite number of copies and replications of the impact of the constantly shifting information and images on individuals who mentally go away from their physical space.