The market mentality in the culture world sometimes creates such an economy of power and speed that it implies that magazines are the most negligible elements of what’s going on. It is not the cosmos that matters, it is the stars: cash desks, platforms, best-seller lists, ceremonies, mega-events, billboards, advertisements – the shining media that also cast their light on culture and envelope everything in a sheltering aura. This is naturally a mechanism that can bypass the varied universes of magazines to sell values without having to first create them. It is the force that is putting excessive agendas on the market with its rashness and its tumultuous style. Consequently, it is getting more and more difficult for many to hear the rhythm of the world of magazines, which are meanwhile themselves having trouble making out the sound of their own voices.

Nevertheless, various mentalities in a cultural environment can still be found with all their intensities and diversities especially in magazines. Obviously, if you are interested in familiarizing yourself with the currents, gathering places and different viewpoints within a given culture, one of the best ways to achieve this is still to establish contact with that culture and track its development through magazines. Of course, following the work of scholars at the universities and keeping an eye on book publishing would tell you a great deal, too. But compared with the world of magazines, they lack something. They are much more likely to be misleading. It is quite possible to obtain an idea of the cultural environment by looking at the books published or by chasing research studies at universities; but these won\\\'t close the door on potential prejudices or prevent you from becoming exhausted trying to pursue broken links. If you want to keep prejudices at arm\\\'s length and hold a flexible but useful tool in your hands that will provide you with an ongoing awareness of what is really going on, if you want to know which reactions are shown to what by whom and what agendas and discussions people are actually dealing with, then you have to keep an eye on the vivacious vision of the magazines in Turkey. Check them out, from the most central to the most peripheral, and you will be traveling in the map of mentalities …

Magazines are the forces that come closest to creating an independent stance and an uncontrolled zone. They have a tendency to give birth to desires, to perpetuate desires and to make desires collide. They throw grassroots potentials right into the streets where they can be realized – or discussed first. They can inhabit in-between positions. You can find knowledge in magazines that has not been filtered by mediators or cultural representatives. What is true for Turkey is naturally true for other places as well; if you can imagine the map of all the magazines in any country then you can imagine the map of mentalities there. You will obtain the most explicit picture of the various mindsets in this way. There are always some magazines that only mirror, that merely record the cultural environment as it is; they show only what they see and thus affirm what is being staged. They are the ones that actually do canonize, and we can thus call them »canonizing« journals. At the other extreme, we have »talking« journals: journals that open up new channels for people who have no other means of expression. Many novel fields of ideas you wouldn\\\'t encounter on other public platforms find a voice in magazines, and are even sometimes formed by magazines. Both »canonizing« and »talking« magazines are crucial for the map of mentalities – »canonizing« ones showing the limits and norms, and the »talking« ones showing the movements, liveliness and transgressions.

The significant role cultural magazines play in this map is apparent. Connections, dialogues and discussions between cultural magazines are of special value from this perspective.

[b]Turkish Contemporary Art and »art-ist« Magazine[/b]
We can take the Turkish contemporary art scene as an example. Turkish contemporary art has been exhibited for nearly 20 years. We just published a book on the subject: »User’s Manual, Contemporary Art in Turkey, 1986-2006,«¹ which focuses on this relatively short history. This publication demonstrates that the main phase of Turkish contemporary art began in the late 1990s. At that time, contemporary art acted as a kind of stimulant for the dominant painting scene. The first issues of »art-ist« already show this new dynamic in Turkish art: New contemporary art in Turkey was anti-taboo, avant-gardist in a sense, radical mostly, non-nationalist, universalist and young. The young artists who were putting on solo shows were the same ones running »art-ist.« The adventure of »art-ist« clearly reflects the dynamism coming from developments in radical contemporary arts in Turkey.
There were already strong art magazines in Turkey when »art-ist« first came out. And they were mostly on the side against contemporary art. They were much stronger financially and had more human and material resources to draw on, good printing quality, etc. And they were the ones who are against the »West,« who were nationalist in one way or another, who rejected contemporary art categorically and who hated to see young Turkish contemporary artists flirting with Western art societies without first asking their consent. Canonizing art magazines definitely had an institutional character in Turkey. They were and still are published by a bank, a big newspaper corporation or a strong gallery.

From its beginning, »art-ist« has always been crucial for the Turkish contemporary art scene. It started out as an »avant-garde« publication, in touch with the latest art happenings, performance art events, etc. And it understood contemporary art as a struggle. After 2005, »art-ist« decided that avant-gardism was not needed anymore. Interest in contemporary art is growing in Turkey – but not in the imagined way where critical approaches become the dominant perspective. So after 2005, in the last three issues, »art-ist« decided to come out in Turkish only – to focus the entire effect on the Turkish scene and to intervene there more.

As an interesting aside, there is another magazine in Turkey that is also called »Artist« but without the hyphen between »art« and »ist.« It can be classified as a »canonizing« magazine, one decidedly tailored to fit popular taste, as witnessed by the reduction of the price to 1 YTL (less than 1 Euro). After some months, it split into two magazines: »Artist Modern« and »Artist Contemporary.« A newspaper published a story about the two different magazines with names that are so confusingly similar – »art-ist contemporary art magazine« and »Artist Contemporary« – and approaches that are so different...
This example already shows how the currents are changing: In 1999, people were trying to either ignore or denounce »art-ist« and contemporary art, and in 2007 they are imitating it instead.

In the art field, Istanbulism rules at the moment – big companies are starting to spend more money on contemporary art instead of putting money into traditional, locally based galleries and are shaping a current situation in which they are sheltered under the umbrella of a brand they all invest in: Istanbul. It is a commonly held idea that contemporary art would do great things for this brand.
Therefore, major canonizing art magazines are celebrating Istanbulism while independent magazines like »art-ist« are trying to knock it off track with their critical discourse.

[b]The Leftist Tradition of Academic Research outside the Academy[/b]

There is a tradition of left-wing critical culture journals in Turkey that see themselves as being non-academic. They have opened the door for high-quality theoretical debates in leftist magazines without the necessity of an existing academic base.

High-impact cultural magazines located outside academic institutions somehow »civilize« the academic debates and create strong connections with the intelligentsia and scholars. These magazines are distinct from closed-circuit academic journals, and they actually have the power to affect the ongoing political and cultural situation directly through their interventions. They do not have high circulations, but they do reach many different people from different kinds of backgrounds and positions, so they have a direct influence on life. This comes from a leftist tradition where intellectual production was what drove critical thinking, while universities were completely in the grip of right-wing despotic regimes – especially after the coup d\\\'etat of 1980. Today, universities are thought to be freer, at least on paper, and we are witnessing a greater number of critical works written by university scholars. But magazines nonetheless open up completely different channels. Take the issue of nationalism, for example. Many strong theoretical works analyzing Turkish nationalism and many important field studies are done by leftist independent researchers and first published in left-wing cultural magazines.

[b]Hidden / Public Transcripts[/b]
Knowing that they will be circulated among professional academicians only and won\\\'t reach the general public, one could expect academic journals to create more tools for resistance while talking in »hidden transcript.«² But they do not necessarily make use of this field to establish a platform for resistance for the oppressed; instead, they take advantage of their guaranteed shelter from public visibility while remaining under the control of the academic authorities. On the other hand, independent theoretical magazines coming from a leftist background usually aim to intervene in the »public transcript« – they are much more inclined to perform parrhesiatic acts.³

[b]Poetry Magazines - Outsiders[/b]
Poetry magazines in Turkey should be mentioned if we are talking about capital in the culture market and forms of cultural resistance to it. There are a great many poetry magazines in Turkey, which are not only published in big cities but also in smaller towns.

Visual poetry is also becoming popular among young Turkish poets. This is the result of today\\\'s avant-garde attitude. And there are also ironic groups calling themselves Surrealists that are making wall paintings and xerox zines. All of this is closely related to visual culture.
After 2000, there was a greater accumulation of capital in the field of literature as well as in art. More and more novels are being published every year. Only 20-30 new titles were being published annually in the 1990s, but now hundreds of new Turkish novels come onto the market every year with more than 100 first novels, which means enormous numbers of new writers for Turkey. This is mostly because some novels have really brought money and fame to their authors. There is more media coverage and interest in novels. Newspapers and companies are getting in on the deal. This is even making things difficult for literary magazines, for it is no longer that easy to compile their own programs.

But poetry is free. Poems do not sell anyway, so whatever you do for promotion, it simply does not make sense. The work of poets is therefore not marketed and they thus have no share in the new capital flows. That makes poetry free in some sense. There is a very vivid poetry scene with many poetry magazines. Although the poets are a bit self-referential, always discussing themselves, Turkish poetry and its history as well as the latest movements, they are still full of ideas and have sparked many debates. This is not a genuine »resistance« area itself, for the administrators of cultural capital are not interested, and the poets therefore don\\\'t have to put up much resistance as a rule. For all the powers-that-be and the institutions in the cultural arena, poetry is ignorable. This creates a nice void and potential for poets. As visual poetry and experimental poetry are becoming popular among young poets, new manifestos are being declared one after another.

But here we see the difference between critical contemporary art magazines and the critical poetry magazines: It is a bit easier to continue an alternative approach in poetry for there is no seduction coming from »capital.« Poetry is market-free and at the same time has no value for Istanbulist tendencies. In the contemporary art field, however, critical approaches have to deal with the market trends and Istanbulist cultural projects. Thus, contemporary art discussions create a political conflict zone.

[b]Alternative Publishing in Istanbul[/b]
As final words, I would like to give some details of our alternative publishing adventures in Istanbul. Different forms of publication can be used by one and the same group to communicate more or less similar ideas. When we talk about alternative »talking« magazines and alternative publishing, there is one other very important thing to consider: the form – because that is what determines the end result.

In short, we have been actively working on a research and publication project in Istanbul from a post-structuralist anarchist perspective. This is an anarchy that goes beyond the limits of politics to include post-Eurocentric, non-modernist elements, contemporary theoretical developments and culture in a broad sense, which leads to a conception of anarchy that annexes diverse fields as well as areas of everyday life.

Working as a group of like-minded people during the last eight years on similar subjects, theoretical and political stances, we have gathered a variety of alternative publication experiences. We went through three main phases.

[b]The First Period: The Karasin Anarchist Collective[/b]
Between 1996-1998, we named ourselves the »KARASIN Anarchist Collective.« As part of this project, we published a photocopy (xerox) magazine, a monthly photocopied newspaper and pamphlets. We did two issues of the magazine, three issues of the newspaper and 11 pamphlets.

The Karasin Anarchist Collective (in some places we used the name Karasin Working Group) was composed of a small core of a few people. The members took on the tasks of translating, writing, reading and discussing. It was active with its web site, photocopy magazine, photocopy newspaper and pamphlets.

How we worked:

We once even bought a second-hand photocopy machine and used it at home, but that was not efficient at all. It was not good for an amateur group like us –and not as cheap as we imagined. So we bought an all-in-one printer. That machine became the mother of Karasin publications till the end.

Karasin made sure it remained an independent medium, stayed »outside.« We wrote, translated, prepared and published at home and distributed our publications ourselves. And parallel to photocopy publishing we prepared a website for our Karasin collective in a free space. Actually, these simply structured web pages achieved a great deal. They allowed our texts to reach so many places and stay alive for a long time. And Internet publication was much, much easier.

With photocopy publishing we had serious distribution problems. We found shelf space in rock- and punk-oriented music shops and yet everyday more and more bookshops started to demand invoices or directly stopped selling unregistered photocopied magazines. We were having real difficulty distributing our material in other cities. Actually, besides Istanbul, we were only distributing small amounts in Ankara and Bursa. We were receiving much more feedback through our website. We found out that people even made pamphlets themselves after downloading the stuff. Photocopy was limiting our dialogue with people outside the anarchist and subculture circles. We wanted to spread our ideas to a larger readership, to different people with different interests. As our aim was to affect all aspects of life and to strengthen heterodoxies, we wanted to diffuse into various fields. We therefore shifted towards the Second Period in which our ideas reached not only anarchist and punk communities, but also many people with diverse concerns in different parts of Turkey.

[b]The Second Period: A Period of »Détournement - Working inside Other Publications and Media[/b]
In this period we mainly worked inside the oldest Turkish literature magazine, »Varlik.« Gradually, we found ourselves getting closer to the »Varlik« approach. Beginning with a special dossier on hypertext, we started to prepare a series of dossiers focusing on various theoretical topics that we view as linked to our post-anarchist agenda.

Between 2000 and 2002, we worked inside various media platforms, sometimes trying to transform them, sometimes trying to change their direction a bit, and sometimes just trying to live and function inside them without changing them. In this two-year period, we developed a radical post-structuralist anarchist approach through the articles we wrote for the literature magazine. I also worked as a co-editor of the magazine, preparing special dossiers on theoretically charged concepts such as hypertext, post-feminism, potlatch economies, metageography, everyday life, rhizomatic thinking, cyberfeminism, etc. Besides »Varlik,« we also wrote for another popular Turkish monthly called »Okuz,« which was widely circulated – because it was a comic magazine as well. And while we were writing for »Okuz« we tried to find writing forms to embrace everyday life and current political issues for non-professional readers. We used dialogues, photographs, jokes, etc.

During this period we also worked for »Acik Radyo« (a radio station) and »Studyo Imge« (a publisher). The advantages of so many different platforms included the possibility of reaching a much greater audience in different forms, developing our ideas thanks to many intersections, meeting new people interested in the subject or having new contributions from different angles. But this period also had its disadvantages. This style of »working everywhere« was making it more difficult to understand our position for many people because not everyone follows every type of media with the same degree of attention. The other contributors to the media we shared and the political and cultural differences in their stances had influenced the way our project was conceived by the general audience. Our neighbors, i.e. other materials used in these media, in these different bodies, were affecting our remarks somehow. And as we were affecting them they were affecting us as well, and although this opened up many positive new areas, it was also limiting our expression. We were again in need of a new medium where we could initiate our own context and at the same time retain our relations with a wider audience.

[b]The Third Period: Separation between Publishing Activities and a Legal Magazine of Our Own – »Siyahî«[/b]

In 2003 we started thinking about adding another alternative to our approach: a separate publication. But we did not want to do a photocopy magazine this time; we wanted printed material. With a xerox magazine, you have a feeling of independence, you stay clean, but it also means that you are making everything much more complicated for your potential readers. It is the fantasy of being outside the machine. A website is always the best, most accessible solution. And you are everywhere at the same time when you are online. But you cannot smell what you do, nor touch it. This may be considered a problem when dealing with emotional issues and ideas. Since we began publishing our magazine, we have always enjoyed the privilege of the exciting smell of a new issue.
But of course we didn’t have the means at first so we started with a website on www.postanarki.net. We published many articles in Turkish there and also collected related English articles in one website.
In the end we also managed to bring out an independent magazine. We worked independently and started to publish our magazine »Siyahî« in November 2004, with the aim of making a »talking« magazine. We have published nine issues so far. Although »Siyahî« is positioned within the global anarchist scene, it is also conceived of as a critical and political culture magazine. Dedicated to analyzing the history, theory and actuality of anarchism, current developments in political theory and philosophy, the journal also focuses on the current social and cultural agenda of radical politics in Turkey. We are interested in anarchism as an unorthodox mode for culture in general – to put it simply, in supporting non-representational, anti-hierarchical, non-pyramidal, horizontal elements of life. For this purpose we are rethinking anarchism together with poststructuralist thought. (And »Siyahî« is the world\\\'s only post-anarchist magazine up until now.) We dedicate each issue to a specific subject. »Libertarian education« was the title of one of our recent dossiers, and another one looked at relations between anarchism and Nietzsche. We have published special issues on queer theory, experimental poetry, leftist identity, the EU and Turkey, politics of contemporary art, etc.

I believe the three periods I have described here offer suitable material for discussing alternative media approaches and publication forms. »Siyahî« marks the period we are in now, and we are planning to continue publishing it. Of course, only for as long as we still have »something to say«.

 

 

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