Impasse (2003)

Single channel PAL video, sound, 2’15”
Music: Sedyankata e na Razvala, Bulgarian Folk Ensemble Philip Koutev, composed by Georgi Genov.

Ergin Cavusoglu exposes the regions of urban life that lie between the private and the public. He explores how personal and cultural identities are negotiated in both spheres, yet frames these images of ordinariness so that they become ambiguous. The videos employ an elicit voyeurism as they follow the exploits of individuals, unaware of the artist’s presence, who believe themselves to be out of sight, buried in the crowd or undercover of darkness. City dwellers, stray dogs, adolescents searching for their place in society all slip almost unnoticed over the boundary between inclusion and exclusion. Dramatic scenes unfold as people perform enigmatic activities at twilight: they play in wastelands, argue on the street or create mischief as well as an inadvertent Duchampian sculpture with a bicycle perched on top of a road sign. The video installation ‘Entanglement’ represents the point at which the divide between public and private, night and day is transgressed, as helicopter searchlights sinisterly sweep the night skies. Yet in the artificial, idealised gallery space the imagery is an abstracted drama of light and sound; urban reality becomes a formal, plastic medium. 
Sally O’Reilly
Poetic Justice, 8th International Istanbul Biennial catalogue text (2003)