The project I'm working on is called: "The Reveal". It's a total of 4-5 minute long work that consists of two parts. The major media being used is a theatre-play, supported with sound on one part, and video on the other. It has a proper narrative that's partly told by a 4 year old, partly seen through the dialogues of 2 adults.
Like I've mentioned, I plan to have 2 parts of this work. A more colorful, simpler bit, and an opposing darker bit, closed up with curtains, and a hard to reach door. By doing so I hope to test if people are willing to take the next step to get proper information. Since lately, we are spoon-fed a lot of information and news on social media, without any sort of effort on our side. I will do this by achieving empathy through the voice of a child, and leading their curiosities through the sound design of the parents' argument. If they try and open the door partially, I want to reward them with the experience as close to the reality of the child, as possible, to people.
For the mediums, it's theatre and video combined. When someone is telling something to a child, they always think through a child filter: "is it ok for me to tell a kid this?", or they make things sound "more understandable". It becomes like a theatre play of its own. That's what I literally make it into. Not to mention, imagine being a kid, trying to understand what people meant by saying "birds and bees", it's extra work. By making the visuals and sounds, extra-non-conventional, I hope to replicate that feeling of learning things as a kid. By using this theatre medium to explain something so serious and sad, I hope to give the dilemma of reality/fake similar to how it was in Dogville(2003).
The story of my work is the sickness of a child, and how she has 2 months to live. She doesn't know it yet, but she certainly sees the impact of this, on her parents, and expresses her concern in the audio logs. The mother is having great difficulty staying strong, so she drinks at night, to help relax a bit. Before this event she also had slight paranoia. The father is distant due to his work, and is only able to spare a single day for his family. Since there is nothing they can do, the mother ends up wanting to get angry and scream at things, with the feeling of helplessness. So she screams and blames the father. Their arguments have gotten into this loop like nature now, and that's what will be in my work. A loop of one of their arguments. The room which we can observe this will not be accessible though. The door opens only enough to peek through.
My work will be tackling the problem of "boundaries" in our society, directly related to the concept of "ote-beri". Especially for us Turks, we sometimes just turn our heads to a big event unfolding before our eyes, like a man and woman arguing in the street, and the man hits the woman. "It doesn't concern us.", "Don't get caught with other people's business.", "What if I end up getting hurt?". So much so that, we abandon whatever feeling or empathy that we're supposed to have for those people. We just keep walking. And the subject of my work, as well as the environment does give that feeling of overstepping your boundaries. It's another family's life, quite literally opening the door to the room would be like unlocking the main door to their house.
For the materials, I have a big advantage. My mother and aunt have a little company called "Ortasofa" where they paint woodwork and decorate it and sell it on the internet. Within their storage there are tables that I can get, which are big enough for this project, as well as big pieces of cardboard which they craft into boxes for deliveries. I can use those to craft the walls of my room. We've started storing the egg cardboards for the sound proofing of the room. I will need to paint them though. For the voice recording of the kid, I've got my cousin as the actress. She has worked in another school project, so she is familiar with the process of recording and acting. Her cute manner of speech will definitely help people get invested with the story.