I was thinking... Body Worlds

Yesterday I went to Body Worlds Exhibition at Antrepo 3 in Istanbul. As impressive as the whole process of plastination is, to me the exhibition felt like an advanced biology course in a single walk-around than a work of art. By saying this, I do not mean to underestimate the effort put into getting this exhibition together; however, I would assume the information that was given would already be known by people who have taken advanced biology and related courses in college (such as myself, therefore I'm being a prick about it). I would also assume that people who have studied such subjects in college would already have known the main idea of the exhibition: We are only temporarily present in this world; therefore, we should maximize our physical and mental potential by living healthy, exposing ourselves to limited stress and enjoying life as much as possible by making meaningful individuals of ourselves. However, most of the time test-taking is much easier than taking another step and applying our knowledge to practical life. Therefore, we eventually make stress-driven individuals of ourselves who live fast, feed fast, work long and sleep little (Refer to post "I was thinking... Jobs).


Although I just criticized the exhibition for being too much like an advanced bio course, I still enjoyed it. I especially liked the video at the end that explained how the plastination process worked and what Gunther von Hagens' motto in creation of this exhibition is. It simply said: "People push death to the backs of their minds in their daily life, thinking it won't happen to them." When I heard these words I let out a little "Yay!" inside (yes, I did, as morbid as that sounds.) Having just watched Mar Adentro by Alejandro Amenábar, I was thinking of life and existence (no, I'm not an emo.) and hearing these words by a respectable scientist felt as if it validated my assumptions about people's attitudes towards life and death. 


With the constant feed from religion and media in our daily lives, many of us are tricked into believing that there is in fact an afterlife, which gives us another chance to achieve and own all the great things we couldn't in our current lives (In most religions, it is not even a chance, you're directly given all the great things without a bargain.) But coming to terms with death shows us that in actuality, just like Javier Bardem's character in Mar Adentro bluntly states, there is nothing after death. We didn't know anything before we were born, we will know nothing after we die. So the title of the exhibition speaks for the life itself: This world is just Body Worlds. When your veins can no longer pump blood to your brain, and your heart stops beating, you are back to that state when you never were and never knew, which we ominously call 'death'. 

So the concept of spirit is just a remedy for your current soul; actually, it's more like a placebo.

I was thinking... Clothes

Recently I read an interview with Tom Ford, the ambitious and successful former designer of the fashion house Gucci and YSL creative director. One statement that he made in the interview really caught my attention. When the interviewer brought up the topic of sex, he said (translated by me, I read the interview in Turkish): "I hate talking about sex. The thing is: People look so much better when they are naked. They are all the same color, and there is almost no fault in how they are built. You see somebody at the gym [changing room] and he looks amazing. But then he puts some clothes on..." (trailing off to disappointment, I guess?). I thought it was very ironic that such an influential fashion designer actually thinks and asserts that nudity is more sensual than being clothed.  When I first read Ford's words, I thought to myself, "If he is the one to say this, then hell with clothes. Why do we even bother?" And many other skeptic and insubordinate thoughts on how we are forced to behave a certain way by the society, the nudity of undeveloped and obscure societies, and so on rushed to my head. But when you ask most people, they would prefer some coverage over to being fully naked (and thus the money flow to brands like Agent Provocateur, Victoria's Secret and Calvin Klein). Some would even argue that complete nudity is quite unattractive. I'd argue that there is perhaps something carnal about being butt-naked, but then it hit me that our lives are structured so that we do not behave like animals. We wear clothes because we love the tease. All the paths to arousal and the satisfied cessation of arousal are structured into fun little social games (but I'd say in most cases, dramatic and unnecessary). So although Mr. Ford's words seem to denote that clothes are an impediment against what's natural and what we all secretly want to happen eventually, they also miss the point: Clothes are essential to the mating game of humans. Otherwise we'd be no different from rabbits.

But what do I know? When I was reading the wiki excerpt on Tom Ford, I came across the link of his long-time boyfriend Richard Buckley, and I have to say, I was utterly disappointed. Maybe Tom and I look for different things when we see somebody naked...

Everybody Loves Brighton

The title is the feeling I had when I lived in England for the short duration of 6 months. Everybody in England, at least the people I met, loved Brighton. They called it "sunny Brighton" or just "the beach". Wikipedia calls it the "gay capital of Europe", and it is also very well-known for its edgy population, most of which knows no boundaries in clothing, hair and make-up. I personally think Brighton is a heaven for hedonist, music-loving bohemians, and elderly people who are happy to live with younger, colorful personalities. I came to love this small city located in southern England by the English Channel as I was doing my photography project, from which I posted photos before. But I found another bunch that I liked and had edited. So here they are:

some pub at the North Laines

some street art in the North Laines

some street

Street musicians are abundant in Brighton, especially in the North Laines. And they are very friendly performers, interacting with the passers-by and maybe having a beer or two along the way.

Sometimes people noticed my semi-voyeuristic scrutiny and asked me with their eyes what the hell I was doing as I stood there directing the camera at them.

The best thing about Brighton is that on a cold spring night you can walk down the street beside a musician who is playing his guitar as the stores roll down their shutters. And whoever is left on the streets either hurry home or to the nearest pub.

And he said to him: "Let's loot this place."

I was thinking... Jobs

After struggling for weeks trying to write my thesis, once I was done with it, I lapsed into thinking nothing. My brain was free; no worries for the next day, no deadlines, no meetings, no more running participants and adjusting your schedule for the day according to them. And I enjoyed my new-found liberation by doing mundane things, such as riding the bus, doing my laundry, packing my suitcases (although I should say that was still a 4/10 on the stressful scale), watching shows online and reading. Nevertheless, I relapsed into thinking again at some point, but this time it was borderline philosophical: It wasn't about what I had to do in the next few hours, but in general what my life would be or could be like in the future.

Estimating from my performance and stress level scale in the past 2 months, the future is nowhere near a fun party, but rather a life-long performance that mostly asks you to sit on your ass and stare at pixels on something-inch rectangular frames. When you're in standing position, you mostly have to walk in anxious, hurried steps to wherever you have to make it, on time. Or stand in desperation in public transportation. Or if you've sat on your ass enough to afford the luxury, then ride in a fancy car, stuck in terrible traffic.

Well it's no wonder why we work our asses off: money. The strongest secondary reinforcer of our lives that enables us to buy all the other reinforcers that we want and need. I am in no position to cast doubt on the importance of money, but my wanderings were more about what usually is associated with money: jobs.

When you're born, your parents give you a name, and everybody usually calls you that. Or you might have a nickname, same thing. Basically, you are just a name. When people describe you, they say your name and they might also say something about how you look and your character. Perhaps these times when you're just a name (usually between the ages of 0-7) is when you're a person in your purest form, physically, mentally, emotionally (as we know and assume), (but) even occupationally. Because once you turn 7 and you are sent to primary school, perhaps the first innocent step towards a lifelong (literally) working, or even maybe for some, suffering is taken. Because once after you turn 7, you cannot just be a name; you will always strive to be something else, other than just your simple name. (Of course, for some this might start a little earlier or later, but it starts for everyone at some point.)

This fight for an occupation, status or position, whatever you call it is so fierce and demanding that the society even has a title for those who do not care to have a title. You could be an "unemployed Alfie", "homeless Harry" or "stay-home Stan". But you can never simply feel proud of all the good adjectives that meant so much as you were growing up. Being just (the good-old) "good Gaby" does not earn you applause anymore, you'd rather be the "good housewife Gaby" or  maybe "sweet stewardess Sally". It is also incredible to me that we are pulled into this competition, which underestimates our simple name and identity, so discreetly; we never question its necessity, and for those that do we do have a not-so-coveted -ist title: anarchist.

And many a times, having as many of these new shiny titles as possible is associated with money and fame. Think of the times you wikied a person and they were: a singer, recording artist, designer, writer, entrepreneur and an actress (i.e. Madonna) and you let out a little "Wow!" at how that person manages to do it all. There is a reason you wiki that person, they are probably rich and/or famous. But I also wonder if these people actually do have a life, a time when they are free to do anything with no worry about the next day. Of course in the case of some very famous people, it is those people around them who do all the planning and the menial stuff. But for most of us, our work is simply our life and even a significant part of our identity.

I came to think about all this after having read the wikipedia excerpt on Mila Kunis. In explaining why she quit That '70s Show, she mentioned: "[I had] and epiphany. I decided I wasn't going to take my career so seriously and make my job who I am. I just want to be happy with my life." The majority of us let work take over our lives and define who we are. And we accept sleep-depriving, hair-whitening stress as a normal factor of work life. Some of us are even so consumed by work that when given free time for a quite a long stretch of period, we do not know what to do with ourselves.

Should the shiny occupational label be as core to our identity as we make it and take it to be?