Weird and Speculative Interval

Sazlıdere as unscprited ground

Abstract

This work redefines the ground upon which architecture stands, shifting it from a passive backdrop to a “weird” agent that responds over time and contains multiplicity. Topography is not merely a physical form; it is a recording space that, like the unconscious, holds memory, trauma, and repressed layers. The study centers on the “uncanny” atmosphere created by ecological disturbance and capitalist domination, discussing how humans transform into an unexpected geophysical force on a planetary scale.

Sazlıdere Reservoir and its surroundings are examined as a section where this speculative interval materializes, through the Canal Istanbul project, quarries, and changes in water levels. Methodologically, the active agency of the ground was experienced through walking, autotopographic recordings, and video; the “dirty representation” methods that emerged during this process were defended. Accompanied by Donna Haraway's concept of “staying with the trouble” and Timothy Morton's concept of “dark ecology,” Sazlıdere's degraded landscape is represented through humorous montages and radical geoportraits. Ultimately, rather than legitimizing the crisis of representation, the work proposes a creative grounding that reveals the present through the ground's own records and makes visible the entangled relationships between human and non-human actors.