I’M SORRY, BECAUSE I DANCE

2011

“I’M SORRY, BECAUSE I DANCE”* focuses on the internet and the culture that takes shape around it. The project investigates “society’s and individuals’ reflection on internet via “talent/idol/popstar” audition videos distributed by video sharing websites such as Youtube and Dailymotion. Originally broadcasted on TV, these audition programmes such as Popstar, X Factor, Starmania, American Idol etc. undergo a quite different way of response by the viewers on the internet since they can participate with their thoughts through having a debate on them or broadcasting their own selections as we see in these videoclips. And this project aims to achieve an objective observation point on what is going on in that phenomenal environment. But instead of success stories, it chooses the stories of so-called “talentless wannabes who’d do anything for their 5 minutes of fame” where the main debates take place. Because the conflict between the so-called talentless contestants and the juries who keep their destiny brings with it some questions that worth to be mentioned. First of all, while these contestants can’t be successful in the audition programmes, how come do their videos get a million hits on the internet? Is it just for that we like watching their humiliations? Could it be also true that they show a courage we can’t run the risk of? While the jury represents the rational mind which keeps us from doing what we want to do, these irrational ones go on their own way despite the possibility of disgrace…Through that point of view, do we laugh at our own cowardice not to be able to make a difference in this indifference? But also, the gap between how we see ourselves and how the others see us is another question that comes to our minds in such videos. Then, is it possible there to be another truth out of what we take for granted? So, in our lives we might be one of those people sometimes though we can’t even realize it happens.

This project, in accordance with its contextual environment, evaluates these questions in terms of contemporary web and ‘popstar wannabe’ videos aesthetics as scattered pop-ups. While screening some of the videos from those TV programmes throughout the world that are distributed on the internet, the quotes from comments on the videos and the conversations between the contestans and juries (including their mimics and gestures) also take place within this aesthetical stance. “Immediately Fading Star” Tweedy falls into the same destiny with his career just like his video-still shows. After the laughters for her “very own English”, made everyone accept that there’s a way of singing without the right words but with heart, Valentina Hassan meets with her audience in a public internet cafe. And the box which pays tribute to ‘Popstar Fatih’, who is one of the most well-known of such stars in Turkey and passed away a few months ago, refers to the remembrance ceremonies for deceased idols and gives him a suitable one for how he sees himself.

After all of these extraordinary instances, maybe everthing is as clear as what Samuel Beckett says:

“All of old. Nothing else ever. Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”

*Quoted from Popstar Fatih’s speech on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8o_oxazK-cs, 30.11.2011.