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Pas de deux
by Baha Görkem Yalim
2015, 5′
Presented at VISIO – European Programme on Artists’ Moving Images – 4th edition
Courtesy the artist
This video is the result of a research conducted by the artist on old medical footage showing the symptoms of “shell shock syndrome” in veterans of the First World War. Instead of working directly on the frames of the archival footage, Yalim enacts a performance based on an essential and distressing choreography that reproduces the mobility problems and spasms of those patients. The work is a research focused on the aestethicisation and consumption of violence represented by the artist through the use of gestures from silent films and precise formal references to performance art. The video was presented at the EYE Film Institute Netherlands where some of the original footage is preserved.
Baha Görkem Yalim lives and works in Amsterdam. After a long education in applied sciences in which he also had the chance to be involved in art in public spaces and art history lessons, he worked as an engineer in various locations such as energy companies and military material production factories in Turkey. In 2015 he obtained a BA in fine arts at the VAV (Audiovisual) department at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Currently he is working on a new research on political factions, their systems of violence and radical action stemming specifically from fanatic acts towards cultural heritage, and on the causality of this radical behaviour. He is looking at the linguistic turn in concepts such as radicalism, construction and destruction and their mutability; an interest that was triggered by the recent acts of Islamic State and the current government of Turkey. Recent exhibitions: “Hesitant Autonomy”, Graduation Show Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam, 2015; “About it”, Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam (SMBA), Amsterdam, 2014; “Amphibious Fish that have the Ability to Locomote on Land”, Hotel Marie Kapel (HMK), 2014; “Rietveld Uncut, Voice: The Creature of Transition”, De Brakke Grond, Amsterdam, 2014; “Constant Companion”, De Oude Kerk, Amsterdam, 2014.