Antinomy is currently one of the few art groups in Turkey creating a critical, accurate response to its ongoing ecosocial disasters, which are generating a wave of fascism physically endangering its Turkey-based non-binary member, Ozan Atalan.
Antinomy produces critical public ecosocial culture using both traditional and new media. Antinomy is comprised of a non-binary duo of Ozan Atalan and Chongha Peter Lee with an extended global network straddling both the traditional and media art communities. The primary art medium that it utilizes is “Hyperobject Sculpture”, based on Timothy Norton’s notion of objects as networks of material flows. Finally, Antinomy utilize an approach of “Affective Epistomology” and "Health Gamification" to rapidly engage with both art and non-art audiences and communicate complex new ideas and systems in an inclusive manner.
Art as Ecosocial Crisis Response
THE DEMOCRASEUM
5/5/2023 - Ongoing
Artworks and Exhibition
Antinomy's main project is a direct response to Turkey’s collapsed social democratic process and its recent disastrous earthquake. This work re-frames the exhibition itself as a “Hyperobject Sculpture” spanning traditional and digital media, focusing on three themes: academic transmediation, transorganizational practices and transregional solidarity. This exhibition is collaboratively being produced and installed in Izmir, Turkey, Washington D.C., New York, Amsterdam with a global network of artists, organizers, intellectuals and applying new paradigm shifts towards ecosocial crises. There are 3 main objectives:
- 1. Individual Scale: Produce anti-hate, anti-fascism and anti-racist physical and digital happenings, participatory actions, workshops and discussions based on a speculative perspective of a Neo-Pangea in formation.
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2. Regional Scale: Synthesize new intellectual and technological innovations towards conflict resolution for aid, education and health in the "Neganthropocene Summit".
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3. International Scale: Create organizational interfaces intersecting democracy, art, research, technology and games in the "We Have a Transnational Dream" project.
The "Democraseum" is an open, fluid and goal oriented space for connecting disparate domains, organizations and cultures.
Art as Affective Knowledge
THE AFFECTIVE POSTHUMANISM
PERFORMANCE LECTURES
2022 - Ongoing
Merging the forms of lecture & performance, Ozan Atalan and Chongha Peter Lee presented recently in the "Posthumanisms" conference in Ankara, Turkey on 9/16/2023.
Ozan Atalan dressed as a mouse and spoke of the regenerative properties of a mouse's heart in relation to Posthumanism and New Materialism. Chongha Peter Lee made a bet that he had a model based on a new statistical law that could change how we see reality, save the planet and save real love.
In a previous performance lecture, Ozan and Chongha married a physical star that was appropriated as an artwork while writing and announcing vows according to the philosophical principle of antinomy, which is a principle preserving multiple contradictory logics - very much like quantum computing.
In prior forms of performance lectures, Chongha utilized the pop cultural form of wrestling to demonstrate a new social contract model based on quantum computing.
Art as Hyperobject
THE NEGANTHROPOCENE SUMMIT
Istanbul-Syracuse, NY, Mixer Arts, 2022
“The Neganthropocene Summit”, focuses conversation on post-Anthropocene discourses, both speculative and practical.
Bernard Stiegler constructed the term Neganthropocene, which fuses concept of negentropy, a universal law of both physical and informational systems co-evolving into more complexity over time, with an era in which humans and non-humans renegotiate relations and material conditions.
The Neganthropocene Summit uses new knowledge multimedia systems to open the range of expressivity, imagination and intuition in conversations. Additionally, the Neganthropocene Summit recognizes and recombines past aesthetics, mythos and knowledges, articulating resonances between alchemy and quantum computing, Zoroastrianism and Gnosticism, Buddhism and statistics, animation and cave art, 3D printing and plaster casts.
The installation draws inspiration from Bernard Stiegler's theory of the Neganthropocene. It immediately captures the audience's attention through a 'facade' that showcases the Pentacle symbol, representing the world's new materialist transformation, while revealing the unfiltered concept map behind the metaphorical wall, referred to as the "backstreet." The objective was to create an interactive forum in front of a kiosk wall.
The video is divided into three parts: In the upper section, Ozan Atalan and Chong-ha Peter Lee propose to a fictional art star, using an engagement ring made of antimony—a material abundant in Turkey that is often overlooked for its dangers, similar to asbestos. The lower part provides information about antimony itself, while the middle part reenacts a specific scene from Richard Linklater's film "Waking Life" in the exact location where it was originally shot in New York City.
The Antinomy wall serves as a platform for comprehending, documenting, and critiquing complex system structures. It takes a non-binary approach, combining interfaces with command lines, ideals with materials, and bridging transcendent concepts with the everyday aspects of private life.
