as a participant of the course "multipli-city: representation of urban experiences" lectured by berke baş at istanbul bilgi univeristy in 2013, i was expected to work on a documentary project which somehow represented a social, an economical, a political or a cultural group of people and their relationship and contact with the city.
while most of the participants of the course were working on istanbul, i chose to work on ankara. besides being the capital of turkey, ankara has always been seen as a dull place, which is full of civil servants and state bureaucracy. city's geographical location away from sea and forests and existence of many concrete state buildings, gave its nickname "the grey city". additionally, compared to istanbul, ankara claimed to lack art events, music festivals, cultural diversity and a colorful nightlife, and associated with loneliness and boredom. even, yahya kemal beyatlı, a turkish poet, author, politician and diplomat, once said "the best part of ankara is returning back to istanbul". while to some extend these comparisons are jokes, they also contain criticism, insults and humiliation.
another reason for people to make fun of ankara was melih gökçek, who served as ankara's city manager between 1994 and 2017. melih gökçek was famous for his unplanned, problematic, surreal and absurd municipal projects from dinosaur and robot statues to never ending metro constructions and a terrible public transport system. during early 2010's a facebook page named "ankara'nın bugları" (bugs of ankara) popularised many images of the failed urban life in the capital.
finally, early 2010's cult television series named behzat ç., that takes place in ankara, placed the city in the center of the turkish television pop culture, which was mainly dominated by istanbul and its culture. the main character of the show was an anti-hero police officer, who was from time to time abusing his power for the greater good of the society and for punishing the criminals who would normally be left unpunished. many of the characters in the show were lonely and sorrowful with failing love affairs and with their refusal of the society's normative way of life. although behzat ç.'s characters were in pain, instead of being rebellious, they were preferring to transform their pain into a form of acceptance and humour. suffering and acceptance of pain has always been an important part of the turkish culture, and in popular culture behzat ç. and ankara somehow became a representation of this pain combined with humour.
"ankara'nın bağları" became a hit during the peak of ankara's popularisation process; when the city was started to be associated with pride instead of humiliation. the song's musical genre is "ankara havası" which is characterised by electronic bağlama, wah and reverb pedals, repetitive rhythms and a folkloric dance named "misket". while the song can be considered as having a joyful music, the lyrics are about an unhappy love story, where a boy loves a girl, but she marries another man. as the song combined the joyful sound with sad feelings, it turned into a cult. a lot of different versions of the song were recorded and shared on the internet.
in this found footage collage, i combined fifty different videos that I found on youtube, and turned them into a single song. with this single song, i tried to mark ankara's new emphasise how popular culture exploits every cultural phenomenon and people try to interact with the popular.