Abstract
This paper explores the video installation Glass House (HD, 6’22”, Color, Sound) as a meditation on displacement, collective memory, and the quiet endurance of uprooted life forms. Rooted in the symbolic language Aby Warburg described as the “afterlife of images,” the project draws on personal and societal narratives to trace the shifting meaning of a single visual motif: the tree. Set against the backdrop of the 2013 Gezi Park protests in Turkey and the subsequent waves of political unrest, migration, and institutional dislocation, Glass House positions a potted lemon tree—confined within a glass structure under artificial light—as a living image of exile. This work examines how an image, when dislodged from its natural context, gathers new layers of meaning through social trauma, memory, and imagination. Drawing from Warburg’s concept of the Pathosformel, the project interrogates how ordinary objects — trees, spaces, bodies — embody profound collective behaviors and emotional residues in times of crisis. It also engages with questions around how visual metaphors operate within democratic aesthetics and digital culture, addressing how imagery persists and mutates as part of our species-being. This paper reflects on the making of Glass House in dialogue with broader contemporary questions: How does a living form survive symbolic exile? How do images of forced displacement, both human and botanical, resonate within the frameworks of contemporary image-making and collective consciousness?
Presenters
Ozgul KılınçarslanAssociate Professor, Faculty of Fine Arts and Design / Visual Communication Design, Izmir University of Economics, Turkey
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
2025 Special Focus—From Democratic Aesthetics to Digital Culture
KEYWORDS
COLLECTIVE MEMORY, IMAGE AFTERLIFE, NACHLEBEN, DISPLACEMENT, SPECIES-BEING
