HOUDINI
December 2014
Istanbul, Turkey
intervention on light billboard
materials: chain, lock, two lock’s keys
In collaboration with ELFO
There is a place where the West and the East crash. This place is Istanbul, in Turkey. Together with Elfo, friend and collegue, we have been invited to spend a period of residency at Pasaj. It was a period of social tensions between the turkish government and the people: Gezi park demonstrations are a bloody example. It was also a period in which the foreign corporations secured billionaire agreements with the Turkish Government.
Me and Elfo decided to realize a symbolic intervention using an advertisement light box, which we opened using a specific key, and then we removed the advertisements contained inside. Before to close the glass window that guards the advertisement poster, we have inserted two key inside the advertisement box. Those two keys are the only keys able to open the padlock we have used to tighten the chain around the advertisement box, blocking his opening.
The work, that we called "Houdini", is a clear gesture of rebellion against huge advertising campaingns that tend to homologate the city.