Digital Culture in Turkey [I] *
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* Digital culture in Turkey [I] * Introduction [II] * Turkey has a young population that adopts new communication technologies very rapidly. For this reason for the coming years an increase in cultural output by using communication technologies is expected. There may also be more contemporary artists who employ digital techniques in an interesting way in the near future. The E-culture field as it is understood in the Netherlands, however, is very small in Turkey. There is rarely a feeling of a digital creative scene, nor of a community of digital artists. Critique on communication technologies is mostly given by contemporary artists, civil society activists, and technology experts. If these actors can interact and deepen their knowledge, the e-cultural ecosystem in Turkey can grow stronger, and meaningful digital-physical hybrids will emerge. The current e-culture scene in Turkey is very small and needs to grow to accommodate and adsorb the big wave of students that will leave the many (communication) design departments in the coming five years. * Adoption rates [III] * Turkey has been a thorough consumer of communication technologies, first with the widespread adoption of cell phones in the ‘90s, then with the rapidly increasing use of social network services in the past 5 years. Today, Turkey has a 90% penetration rate in cell phone subscriptions and more than 20 million Facebook users, being the 4th after the US, UK, and Indonesia. The contemporary digital ecosystem is mediated by widespread use of internet-enabled smart phones, web based social network services, blog networks, P2P file sharing networks, and pirate DVD retailers. * E-culture scene [III] * The digital culture producers are contemporary artists, bloggers, DJs, VJs, advertising agencies, art and design studios, and media production boutiques. Such actors often move between industries due to self- thought skills, interdisciplinary positions, and a lack of human resource in the creative industry. There is rarely a feeling of a digital creative scene, nor of a community of digital artists. Actors in digital art and culture scene in Turkey can be divided in two categories. The first group consists of the users of digital tools, who create new narratives or use them for presentation purposes regardless of the critique of its media context. The second group consists of the users of digital media who comment on the techno-social and techno-political environment. For such artists, software and systems are not tools for reworking data such as a digital photo or digital video, but the writing of the concept in text and code is the core of the artwork. The critique of people working in the digital culture scene particularly involves topics such as censorship, copyright, surveillance, remix, virtualization of body, databases, archiving, fragmented identities, participation culture, network mapping, and online communities. Although there are exceptions of digitally literate unique artists, it is hard to talk about consistent local interactions that would flourish a digital milieu in Turkey. In fact, the majority of such artists lack dedicated time for cultural production. Instead, they create new work besides their main jobs by utilizing their surplus energy and intellect. * Production of technologies [III] * Turkey has never been a producer of new technologies. Software, hardware, and technological services were always imported or adapted. Thus no culture of passionate scientists, no innovative lab findings, and no roots of strong digital culture at large exist. However, digital subcultures and individual avant-gardes emerged over the course of the past 15 years. Those rare specialists who were trained abroad created innovative digital work. Some people who tried unexpected uses of technology locally caused the formation of digital subcultures. * Critical initiatives [III] * Critical initiatives in and around art and politics are created mostly by Istanbul based and globally connected digitally literate artists, a few collectives, and small institutions. Because of the lack of financial support from cultural foundations and the government, artists often do day work and utilize their surplus energy and intellect to make art and do research. They participate in the new media- focused group exhibitions, creative programming and networking workshops, multi-disciplinary discussion panels, gatherings and street actions organized through email lists and social network services. * Turkish government [III] * While the Turkish government seems eager to promote e-government services by providing various governmental services online, the juridical system acts schizophrenically and maintains heavy internet censorship, which applies to more than 6,000 local and international websites - including YouTube from 2007 to 2010 - due to so called crude videos of (Ataturk, as well as other icons of) Turkish identity. * E-learning [III] * In terms of e-learning, Anadolu University (city of Eskisehir) may be of interest as it is one of the largest universities in the world by enrollment and the leading university in distance education in Turkey. It uses both old (pre-recorded television and radio broadcasts) and new media (videoconferences and internet) to reach Turkish students all across Turkey and Europe. * Content of critique [III] * While the government‟s internet censorship and copyright acts are concerns for the general public, critique of digital culture particularly deals with authorship, copyright, surveillance, remix, virtualization of body, database / archiving, hybrid identities, network mapping, network building, and online communities. * Short history [II] * The chronological reading below is a summary of 20 year of social and cultural development in relation to the local technological environment in Turkey since 1990: all entries under Pre-Internet cover the period 1990-1995, the ones under Early Internet cover the period 1995-2005 and Pro-Internet covers 2005-2010. * Pre-Internet [III] * The first personal computers (PCs) were introduced to the Turkish market in the mid 1980s. Electronic handheld games and personal computers like Sinclair ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, and Amiga brought the digital games into Turkish households at a time when the only government-operated black & white TV channel TRT was broadcasting in limited hours. The computer art subculture began as copy protected software, and was cracked and distributed via underground channels. The Turkish “demo scene” first appeared during this era. Demos were non-interactive audio-visual presentations that run in real-time on a computer. Coders, musicians, and visual artists formed groups and created intros for cracked software while also trading programs, games, cracks, and demos locally and internationally. The earliest demo group known is Zombie Boys and started in 1988, which then grew into an international group called Bronx in 1991. The underground disk swapping / file sharing activity later continued in early computer networks. * Bulletin board systems [III] * Bulletin board systems (BBSs) started in the early 1990s, enabling a small techno elite to exchange files and send emails in Turkey and abroad. BBS enabled ordinary people to be able to communicate in a way that before had only been possible for governments and big organizations. One of the oldest virtual communities, the San Francisco based WELL, began as a dial-up BBS, and attracted many people around the world. In 1993, the HitNet message network connected BBSs in Turkey, creating a national network of BBSs, just like its international version FidoNet. These early BBS users were the first to engage in networked publications and experienced long-distance collaboration via electronic communication, which then affected the way they worked. The leading Turkish blog network Pilli and the collaborative wiki-like dictionary Eksi Sozluk are some examples, whose founders started network communication in the early days of BBS and later became leading actors of the Internet era. * Early Internet, 1995-2005 [III] * Internet usage in Turkey started at a number of academic institutions including the Middle East Technical University, Bilkent University, Ege University, and was followed by other academic and governmental research institutions. The Internet conference “Inet-tr” started in 1995 with Professor Mustafa Akgül's precious efforts. Various topics, from network democracy to e-government, and from online education to internet governance laws, were discussed in an academic context. Practical workshops on setting up web servers and website development were popular among the participants. * ISP and IRC [III] * As of 1997, as the commercial Internet Service Providers (ISP) began to provide Internet access, more homes were able to join the network. Internet Relay Chat (IRC) became highly popular. In fact, Internet cafes both in urban and rural areas were a cheaper short-term alternative to home subscription. They quickly turned into massively multi-player online game rooms. * New media art [III] * By the mid 1990s, the Ankara based political/artistic Körotonomedya collective was among the forerunners of experimental new media and video art in Turkey. Ulus Baker's work within the collective became a major theoretical resource in these fields. * Institutional growth [III] * By the late 1990s, effects of economic growth were visible in the cultural sphere. Borusan Kultur Sanat, Proje4L, and Platform art institutions opened with corporate support. These were later followed