THE GATE

Melike Altınışık Architects – MAA, took part with the “THE GATE” interactive installation at Tersane Istanbul (Golden Horn Port) in the 21st Brand Conference curated by In-Between Design Platform and led by Yapı Kredi World.

“Where, how and what do we live? What kind of universe do we turn into to live?''

Melike Altınışık Architects - MAA designed “THE GATE” with these questions that do not have a single answer and are still in pursuit of answers. MAA presents an interactive spatial interface between “present” and “future” in “THE GATE” installation. At the same time, MAA aims to give new perspective that is sustainable awareness to heal the wounds we left to nature and humanity for the lives of the future. “THE GATE” was appeared at the intersection of 550 years of mossy and stratified history like the Tersane and exist at the intersection of nature and humanity. 

“THE GATE” exist in a fuzzy “moment” and “space” that includes movement, social encounter, perceptual existence with with the observer.  People are in an ongoing questioning throughout it life. “Present and Future” that is a general expression in nature and the universe expresses the principle of duality and complementarity. It is in an opposite duality such as natural-humane, beautiful-ugly, good-evil, chaos-order, but cannot define itself without the other. Actually, all spatial and functional transformations in the historical process of the Tersane, are a duality of continuity in its natural environment, reflecting discontinuity. 

It finds its place in all these contrasts, dilemmas, balances, complementarities. It keeps a new frame on the place that it physically owns in its current location. People experience thresholds and are not aware of before from this frame. People dream of the land when they see the sea, the sky when they touch the earth, the day when they know the night, and the "future" when they live in the “present”.“THE GATE” refers to the historical process that surrounds it in the physical layer with the corten material, which takes the lead in its location.

“THE GATE” keeps a new frame with a corten gate without corners to the city, which contains contradictions, dualities and the definition of limitlessness. At the same time, it blurs all dualities thanks to the perforated reftective surface in its center. People face to the city in this special area where the land and the sea are the threshold. People have the opportunity to observe themself and what they leave behind while experiening “THE GATE”. 

“I am in the center of a city where I am stuck between people, buildings and vehicles. My journey continues, minutes pass. My moments are accompanied by stops, roads, vehicles, concrete piled on top of each other… I get off. I'm walking, starting to follow the smell of the water. I hear clattering voices. On my left, interlocking concretes behind which complexity becomes characterize… On one side, I hear bird sounds, on my right, there is an autumn scent that belongs to me. As the wind touches my skin through the walls, I am both far away and at the bottom of the city I have always known. 

I am walking. My eyes touch the historical mossy walls while walking. At that moment, I witness the change and transformation of time. Really, what was time? I am walking. There is an Istanbul that I have always known. Inside and outside… I am obviously at a threshold where the border between inside and outside melts… I close my eyes, all borders enter my frame. Sea and land, sea and sky, old and new, movement and stasis… I am neither fully congested in the concrete city,  nor breathing completely in nature. Where exactly is this blurry place?”

“THE GATE” conveys the story of the present and the future with a digital layer that dialogues with a reflective perforated metal surface at the intersection. “THE GATE” confront the observer with the world of “Present” and “Future” at the intersection of time thanks to the digital layer AR (Augmented Reality Technology). The “Present” interface creates scenarios in the AR world to make visible the climate problems that are shaking our world and lives more and more every day and to raise awareness. 

“THE GATE” enables the experience of today's destruction of nature in an ever-changing world, the surreal destruction of the urban landscape. In the “future” interface, people begin to understand the return of the wild nature (re-wilding nature) with the changing and developing technological tectonics. In the “future” the wild nature will be revived and human, nature and technology will mingle in harmonic balance. Revived nature will tell the story of a struggle to cope with today's climate crisis.

“THE GATE” creates a sustainable bridge between the present and the future and says what they want to say from the AR Interface. It brings people face to face with different scenarios apart from their own morphology. 

 

“THE GATE” does not transform, “THE GATE” is metamorphosis itself. This journey, which “THE GATE” has established in time, is the questioning of one's self in nature. “THE GATE” is the experience of the balance of human, nature and technology.

MAA’s design “THE GATE” interactive installation continued its journey at Bomontiada in Istanbul.