Semper Vigilo  

6.30 min., Hi-8/VHS, May 1992
Directed and Produced by Aras Özgün and Erman Munis

Semper Vigilo is my first film. It is produced by the lowest possible technical equipment; the shootings were done in Hi-8 and edited through a camera with built in digital effects and an ordinary VHS recorder, without extra any editing devices.

Semper Vigilo is a Vertovian video production. The images from daily life has been captured by the artificial eye of the video and reconstructed in an aesthetical realm. The film can be taken as an attempt to transform the daily life. It is not an attempt to aestheticise daily life but to create a work of art which is derived from the life itself. The digital effects in the film become functional in this sense; digital effects (which belong to the medium, a part of the apparatus) distorts the images of daily life, tear them apart from their context, and aestheticise them in a new realm.

Soundtrack is an important element of the film. Patti Smith's music not only gives the emotional tension but also provides a main dialogic framework for the film. The "waves", which is presented by the music, is a metaphor that enframes not only the camera movements but the whole visuality of the film. The film is about the sensation of our living environment; a mass-housing zone located in the steps, at the border of the capital city. Huge grey waves coming out of the steps, hitting on ones face, falling down, crushing, pounding, suppressing. Humanless constructions in the gorgeous emptiness.