“City life, urban life, living in big cities, in fact, is living in a galaxy of unimportant, random, stupid, absurd images. But your look gives a strange, mysterious meaning to these little details of streets, asphalt or cobblestone roads, advertisements, letters, all the little details of bus stops, or chimneys, windows. All these things constitute a texture of a city, and each city in that fashion is very different.

So many people came, but some of them missed the whole point. Some of them got some of it, but most of the foreigners saw and paid attention to the exotic rather than the random. They missed the texture. They paid attention to monuments and, in fact, added a colour of their own, which sometimes is not there.”       Orhan Pamuk

A group of around 100 design students from the Gerrit Rietveld Academy a Dutch art school came to Istanbul for a work week.  Students were asked to look into the district Şişhane. Asli and I explained the production systems to them and we talked with the students about how pre-capitalist and capitalist cultures mix in the district: Why do shopkeepers tell customers that they should go to another shop where the item they want is cheaper, or give unasked negative advice about items they themselves have on sale? It is usual that, when a customer comes into a shop and requires about an item that the shop does not have in stock or on sale, a person from the shop goes out and takes the item from another shop in the district. In the meanwhile the customer is seated and served free tea or coffee. Sometimes the owner of the shop even closes his shop and walks with the customer to another shop where the item is for sale. Upon return of the shop-keeper who ‘borrowed’ the requested item from the other shop, sells the item to the customer. Later in the day an apprentice of the other shop visits all the shops that ‘borrowed’ products for clients and either retrieves the money or the product. Whole streets are lined with similar looking shops and the shops are not only on street level but all the way up to the 10th floor of buildings.

The students then were asked to:
- Map the different companies per block;
- Research how producers use each other’s qualities;
- Find out what are their respective borders;
- Ask for instance whether there is a main tenant in each building or do tenants have separate contracts;
- Create a thesis about what is the mechanism behind the big system;
- Note what goes in and what goes out? [place];
- Give account on which transactions take place;
- Observe what’s the rhythm of this system, when is it in use and when is it switched off? [time]

One of the outcomes of the work week was a video: at http://vimeo.com/2453345

Program
Friday Oct 3 Full-day excursion through the district of Shishane with Teike and Asli as guides, giving us insight in the historical development and actual state of the area. Focus of the day: understanding how the Shishane guild system works and how it came to be that way.

“In Shishane more than 10,000 workshops for lighting elements and electricity function according to very specific organizational principles. More than 100 years ago, the area of Shishane and the Galata harbour was the first one to have electrical lighting and streetlanterns were first installed in Shishane as well.”      Teike & Asli

Saturday Oct 4, am Re-visiting Shishane but this time focussing on one specific street / area. Defining positions inside and outside, from which to observe the dynamics of the area.

Saturday Oct 4, pm Visiting Bas’ [one of the students’ professors] favourite shoppingmalls

Sunday Oct 5 Early morning boat trip down the Bosphorus, lunch at fish restaurant
 16.00-20.00 Preparing presentation for Monday
 
Monday Oct 6 09.00 departure for Istanbul Technical University (ITU), symposium.
10.30-12.30 ITU & Rietveld presentations
 12.30-13.30 Lunch
 13.30-14.30 Mental Clinic Lecture
 14.30-16.00 20 min project presentations by the 4 groups
 20.00 Bedtime for morning shift group ( !!! )

Tuesday Oct 7 24 hour Shishane observation shift.
 05.00-12.00  group 1 (in/out & on/off logistics)
 12.00-13.00  passing on the findings to group 2
 13.00-20.00  group 2 (in/out & on/off logistics) 
20.00-21.00  passing on the findings to group 3
 21.00-05.00  group 3 (in/out & on/off logistics)
 
Wednesday Oct 8 09.00 group 1 & 2 prepare the studio
 12.00 group 3 joins ; matching the findings and making proposals for interventions in the rhythm, logistics, functions etc

Thursday Oct 9, am Preparing a collective presentation;
 11.00-12.00 Presentation to Teike, Cathelijne, Sophie
 12.00-13.00 Short lunch , evaluating what’s missing

Thursday Oct 9, pm 14.00 Collective reviews at ITU, 1 hour per group.
 20.00 Collective dinner in Refik

Friday Oct 10, am Free program / Gathering last images etc for our report
 15.00 gather at the hostel for transfer back to airport.