In Between Two Screens: Trauma, Memory, and Subjectivity in Gulsun Karamustafa's Work

Abstract

Informed by psychoanalytic theory, this essay analyses two major video installations, namely The Settler (2003) and Memory of a Square (2005) by Gulsun Karamustafa, who is one of the best-known artists from Turkey. These two works are concerned with similar themes, such as trauma, memory, subjectivity, and spatiality, through certain stylistic choices which allow them to be evaluated and studied from a Lacanian perspective. Elaborating on Lacan's topology of the Real in relation to trauma as well as his notion of extimacy, this paper argues that in both works, the questions of exterior/interior, reality/imaginary, and public/private are repeatedly posed and subverted, thereby creating spatio-temporal and epistemological ambiguity for the spectators. Both works include double-projection video installations, and the presence of the two screens with the simultaneous flow of images in each work not only mobilizes the viewer's memory and facilitates their unconscious, but also invites them to contemplate their own history, subjectivity, and experiences.