Between Politics and Aesthetics: Sharon Hayes and Histories of Experimental Cinema

Yıl 2024, Sayı: 31, 85 - 95, 29.01.2024

Ekin Pınar

https://doi.org/10.17484/yedi.1282494

Öz

This article focuses on the relationship Sharon Hayes, in her artwork titled Gay Power 1971/2007/2012, establishes with seventies experimental cinema both as a historical document as well as aesthetic material vis-à-vis the theme and form of protest. Even though the scholarship on Hayes have analyzed, from both political and formal perspectives, her interventions to historical documents and traces, they have overlooked the formal aspects of the historical material the artist recycles due to an exclusive focus on the political meaning and potential of such material. Through a formal and thematic analysis of the historical layers of Gay Power, the study aims to reassess, the political and aesthetic stakes of the intersections between contemporary art and the histories of experimental cinema and better understand the previously neglected or overlooked network of vexed yet strong relations between the two. Indexing the issues of visibility and witnessing, performance and the aesthetics of assembly that define the acts of protest, Gay Power deals with both the protest movement’s articulation of self-expression as well as its own organizational articulations. The formal and organizational strategies of the representational techniques that Hayes uses in her cinematic and performative narrative of the act of protest knowingly references and parallels the formal stakes of the preoccupations concerning the protest acts’ self-expression. Accordingly, Gay Power makes visible the productive tensions between on-site recording, retrospective consideration, and creative invention of political events while underlining the need for experimental film and art historiographies that take into account the fluid and complex relations between form and content, art and politics, as well as fact and fiction.

Anahtar Kelimeler

experimental cinema history, performance art, protest and aesthetics, Sharon Hayes, Women’s Liberation Cinema

Politika ve Estetik Arasında: Sharon Hayes ve Deneysel Sinema Tarihleri

Öz

Bu makale, Sharon Hayes’in Gay Power 1971/2007/2012 isimli çalışmasında hem tarihsel bir belge hem de estetik bir malzeme olarak yetmişlerin deneysel sinemasıyla protesto teması ve biçimselliği ekseninde kurduğu ilişkiye odaklanmaktadır. Her ne kadar Hayes üstüne yapılmış çalışmalar sanatçının tarihsel belge ve izlere yaptığı kendi müdahalelerini hem politik hem de biçimsel açılardan ele almış olsa da, Hayes’in el koyup sahip çıktığı tarihsel malzemenin kendisinin biçimsel analizi malzemenin sadece politik anlam ve potansiyeline yoğunlaşma sonucu ihmal edilmiştir. Bu ihmali göz önünde bulundurarak, makale Gay Power’ın bu tarihsel katmanlarının hem tematik hem de daha önceki çalışmalarda yer bulmamış biçimsel bir analizini sunar. Bu analiz ekseninde çalışmanın amacı altmışlardan beri çağdaş sanat ve deneysel film tarihlerinin kesişimindeki politik ve estetik kaygıların aralarında ortaya çıkan ancak gözden kaçmış sancılı ama güçlü ilişkilere dikkat çekmektir. Görünebilirlik ve tanıklık, performans ve toplanma estetiğini ele alışıyla, Gay Power, protesto eyleminin hem kendini ifade ediş şekillerini hem de kendi içinde biçimleniş yollarını vurgular. Hayes’in protesto eylemini sinema ve performans teknikleriyle anlatısında kullandığı biçimsel ve organizasyonel temsil stratejileri bilinçli olarak protesto eyleminin kendi biçimsel temsil kaygılarına gönderme yapar ve bunlarla paralellik gösterir. Öte taraftan da benzer kaygıların, temel olarak aldığı Women’s Liberation Cinema’nın ham görüntülerini de şekillendirmiş olduğuna dikkat çeker. Bu bakımdan Gay Power, bir taraftan yerinde kayıt, geçmişe dönük değerlendirme ve siyasi olayların yaratıcı icatları arasındaki üretken gerilimleri gözler önüne serer. Öte taraftan da biçim ve içerik, sanat ve politika ve gerçek ve kurgu arasındaki akışkan ve karmaşık ilişkileri dikkate alan alternatif bir deneysel film ve sanat tarihi yazımının gerekliliğine işaret eder.

Anahtar Kelimeler

deneysel sinema tarihi, performans sanatı, protesto ve estetik, Sharon Hayes, Women’s Liberation Cinema

Kaynakça

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