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Story highlights
Turkish artist Erdil Inci clones himself on GIFs to make surreal patterns
He stages public performances in Istanbul when no one is around
He views his work at the video equivalent of music
To Erdal Inci, GIFs are a form of visual music.
“When I started to look at the physics of music, I saw something that is unchanging. It’s like you have a unique moment, and it repeats endlessly in the form of musical notes. I realized that I could do the same thing in video.”
The Turkish digital artist has made a name for himself – both online and in the gallery circuit – for his surreal, looping works. In keeping with the demands of the art form, Inci’s videos consist of short, one- to two-second clips looped in an endless run. Istanbul features prominently in the backdrop of his work, as does Inci himself.
“The city has really nice scenery and a beautiful light scene. I’ve decided to use this beautiful scenery as a decoration of some show. I’ve decided to use it as a set,” he says.
Inci seems to favor theater terms. Though his audience tends to view his work from their living rooms, he still sees what he does as a public performance, albeit it one in which he plays all the roles.
He is the cast. Though there may be only one of him, he is able to use cloning tools to make more. He is also the crew; he is at once choreographer, director, editor and distributor.
“You can’t put on a show in a public space without permission from the municipality. If you want a crowd scene, you need too many people. With this technique, I have a chance to show choreography to people in any possible place, like Taksim Square. And I just need one person. That’s why I use myself – it’s the easiest way to do it. When you clone yourself, you can create an army that will move as you want. You don’t need any production or special cameras,” he says.
His looping selfie army can be slightly comical, but it can also be eerie and haunting, which is precisely the effect he’s going for.
“Sometimes people tell me they find my work spooky or scary. To hear that the work makes people feel something is the best comment for me,” he says.
Though his GIFs, once looped, contain a mere second or two of footage, it can take Inci as much as ten days to film and edit a single piece. To make sure he is alone with his city when filming, he usually sets up his camera on a fixed tripod between 3am and 5am.
“Some people are out that time of day,” he concedes.
“Sometimes they won’t see the camera, because it’s far away, and they’ll just see me streaming nonsense, or running on a spiral path, like a crazy man.”
Inci says he finds comfort in the patterns he’s able to create using just himself, a light source and the background.
“I create a human pattern. I can fill a space with those patterns. I have a chance to draw a line with people. The repetition makes me personally relaxed,” he says.