Of Dice and Men
2016 - Film & Video (Film & Video)
19:06 minutes
Didem Pekün
Of Dice and Men is a video diary-essay: in it, Didem Pekün’s daily life and political events are intertwined, just as they are in our individual realities. Displayed on two screens, the video brings us back and forth between London and Istanbul from 2011 to 2016, the two cities the artist inhabited at the time. Dice are thrown repeatedly throughout the video, each time triggering the occurrence of fleeting moments – sometimes very common, sometimes very violent. What will happen next, we wonder? Will we witness a beautiful sunset above Istanbul’s roofs, admire the green vegetation of an English park, or participate in one of the many protests that occurred during that time? Of Dice and Men is a testimony to the hope and optimism that the Occupy movement and Gezi protests brought to an entire generation. Among them, Pekün not only takes notes on history in the making, but also contributes to writing it. Primarily a documentarist, the artist emphasizes the use of a first-person lens, affirming the significance of subjectivity in reporting on public and collective events as a way to give them meaning and consistency. But Of Dice and Men is also a reminder of the value of small things: by putting images of her daily life on the same level as major political issues, Pekün asserts that this is what we fight for, as it is both proof and witness to our individual existences. As the film progresses, it intensifies, moments of rupture multiply and daily life is caught in a spiral of violence. Then, it ends, leaving us, almost ten years later, with the memory of what did not occur and wondering if this wave of history has passed or if we are riding its lowest point.
Didem Pekün is a media artist, whose work is reminiscent of the American video maker, poet, and gay rights activist Marlon Riggs (1957–1994). His deeply personal and emotional videos tested the conventions of the media essay, a form that attempts to unravel the complexities of current political events. Pekün, like Riggs, has blurred the line between narrative essay and fact-based documentary. In her case, she has crafted something that is both temporal and primordial. For nearly two decades Pekün has managed to stitch together a peripatetic life, much like other international artists of our time. Born in Istanbul, where she attended a French high school, she was an avid music enthusiast and record collector from an early age. Starting in her teens, she worked as a DJ in Istanbul’s underground music-dance club scene. Her early music experience had an impact on her video editing style, echoing her early DJ practice. Her research-based practice is concerned with the production of subjectivities, violent geographies and displacement.
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