Series of Talks:
ABSORBING SURPLUS

SALT Beyoğlu and SALT Galata

Following from the responses to FUTURES AND OPTIONS in March 2012, ABSORBING SURPLUS is the second series of lectures within the context of the ongoing project, “One day, everything will be free…”. This time, an expert on banking, an artist, and an anthropologist have been invited to elaborate, respectively, on the extents of financialization, attempts at representing capital, and the political economy of scarcity.

On the first evening of the program, there will be three short presentations in the Walk-in Cinema at SALT Beyoğlu. On the following evening, İsmail Ertürk will lead an in-depth seminar on the topics from his presentation in the workshop space at SALT Galata.

APRIL 11
SALT Beyoğlu, Walk-in Cinema

18.30 İsmail Ertürk, Vortex of Meta-finance
19.00 Katya Sander, Seeing What Power Sees
19.30 Alexandru Balasescu, Some Things About EVE

APRIL 12
SALT Galata, Workshop I

19.00 Seminar with İsmail Ertürk

The talks and the seminar will be held in English.

İsmail Ertürk
Vortex of Meta-Finance

By way of introduction, İsmail Ertürk asks: “In the wake of the constant innovation of crisis, how do we make sense of and respond to the sound and fury of the financial vortex that feeds its own abyss as a solution?”

Recently, Ertürk has been developing a conceptual framework of “meta-finance” to explain the dilemma of there being “no exit” from the current financial crisis. Increasingly evident are the economic and social implications of the 2008 financial crisis and its continuation as the Eurozone sovereign debt crisis. But epistemological, moral, and political responses to the financial crisis and the problems posed by present-day finance are vague and weak. There seems to be “no exit” from the status quo in both main-stream and radical academic and political thinking. Movements like “Occupy Wall Street,” for example, have found themselves drawn into an analytical cul-de-sac–1% versus 99% is an irrelevant realism in an age of meta-finance. In his presentation, and as a point of departure, Ertürk will examine how self-referential finance occupies a space larger than real economy in present-day capitalism.

İsmail Ertürk studied economics at Middle East Technical University, Ankara and New York University. In 1987, he joined the Manchester Business School as a Fellow in Banking. His recent research and teaching interests are on financialization, cultural economy, financial innovation, and the banking crisis. In 2011, he started collaborating with artists Goldin+Senneby within the framework of a project titled The Nordenskiöld Model - An experiment in theatrical finance.

Katya Sander
Seeing What Power Sees

Drawing from her recent works on capitalism, global financing, monetary systems, and the politics of everyday language, artist Katya Sander will talk about issues and questions that arise from wanting to “represent capital.”

Katya Sander is an artist who investigates and tells stories about how certain notions take shape and circulate in our everyday language–and thereby also our social imaginary, i.e., what we imagine as possible and how we imagine it possible.

Alexandru Balasescu
Some Things About EVE

In a world of plenitude, humans generated a political economy of scarcity powered by a finite form of energy–the fossil fuel. The hyper-mobile subject of this political economy is constantly produced in its interaction with the fetish object of mobility. By reflecting upon the transformation of the car brought on by the electric engine, Balasescu will attempt to optimistically conclude by pointing to the implications of a different type of economy–one based on abundance and cyclicality, not the illusion of scarcity.

Alexandru Balasescu is a researcher and author, currently practicing X-Anthropology (a hybrid approach to perceived reality). He currently lives in İstanbul and works at the Romanian Cultural Institute.

Seminar with İsmail Ertürk

In a casual seminar setting, İsmail Ertürk will lead a discussion on themes from his presentation, The Vortex of Meta-Finance. This event is open to the public but seating is limited. Please RSVP to joseph.r.martinez@gmail.com.