I think edges of life are filled with prophecies that the upper classes consume aesthetically, while the lower classes place at the center of their lives to make living bearable. I remember I used to do things much better when the moon appeared. Among friends, the moon was given to me. Maybe it was like the case with Haydar Abi, who gave me the nickname ‘flying goalkeeper.’ Until then, I wasn’t a good goalkeeper, but after getting that nickname, I had no choice but to become a good goalkeeper. Similarly, from the moment my friends said that my skills leveled up when the moon was out, I was the prophesied child of the moon.

When things weren’t going well, I must have done something that interfered with my connection to the moon, my definite counterpart, preventing the prophecy from working. As children, I expected more creative things from us, but we had become accustomed to establishing our entire relationship based on the dynamic between a slave and a borrowed power. The real story isn’t about our skills or prophecies. What truly needs to be conveyed is that, in the places where I was born and raised, even as children, we always had to develop the ability to overcome challenges. It was like the streets described in the opening of ‘A Tale of Two Cities.’ One of the most vivid childhood memories someone from the neighborhood had years later was my father finding and bringing them a stove when they were on the verge of freezing. That’s the kind of place it was. It wasn’t about living but about trying to sustain life, and it was filled with obstacles that had to be overcome.

The moon and similar power centers did not openly extend a helping hand to people like us. The strength to overcome these challenges was hidden within us, and it was up to us to uncover it. This is why we had to discover our abilities to overcome difficulties. Perhaps this is why the poor always expect miracles and are so devoted to prophets, leaders, and single figures. Ah, more subjective interpretations. This whole world of imagination was actually very necessary for one reason: because we couldn’t make future plans in our daily lives. It was a daily survival issue. For instance, the mere prospect of seeing summer became a miracle; we couldn’t plan for a vacation every year. I would learn these things from the children of the Republic when we moved to Istanbul. But in Antep, we only had potential miracles, and these were the things that kept us alive.

Our way of being with the children resembled what Spinoza tried to describe as an affect, similar to being part of an animal herd. I think there was an analogy like this: imagine two horses. One is a racehorse, and the other is a milkman’s cart horse, used by a peasant to transport the milk he collects from his cows. Here, Spinoza says that, yes, both existences are horses, but in terms of affect, the cart horse is closer to an ox plowing a field.

I always think that we were like packs of dogs roaming these streets. We would wander around in groups, and in other neighborhoods, children had their own packs. We explored the surroundings and gathered things. When we encountered each other, we would fight and try to defend our territory. We kept our internal conflicts hidden within the neighborhood. Our communication was always action-oriented. Language didn’t seem to be a useful tool for us. Even if we could feel something, using language to generate thoughts about it and communicate was more like an artistic endeavor. It was more akin to the work of a sculptor. Fighting was always easier and the quickest solution. When we were in love, singing beneath windows like birds was the most meaningful way to flirt.

It’s strange for six-year-olds to listen to and sing such heavy Arabesque music. I still keep and listen to these Arabesque songs under the guise of sad-happy tunes. But here is a break, one of the first breaks I can remember. A family from outside came to our neighborhood, and they had a daughter around our age. We all started to circle around the girl’s house. Hunger, poverty, and even love become collective in such communities. I suppose we were all infatuated. However, I did something interesting. Now that I think about it, it seems like an attempt to create a distinction. It could also be considered a betrayal to a class. I noticed something. I heard that the woman spoke the same language, German, as my mother. Then I thought the girl might speak it too. Later, I went to my mother, who spoke that language. I learned to say ‘I love you’ from my mother.

I say, language is a tough world. What comes at you isn’t just a punch. You either take the punch, fall down, or you swat it away and give a punch back. Understanding a language means grasping the world it contains. You have to provide an answer or take a stance against it. That’s why I probably couldn’t express what I had learned for a long time. Or simply, let’s say I was scared. On the last day of school, I went up to her and said ‘ich liebe dich,’ and then I ran away. Afterwards, we left Antep and moved to Istanbul. Because it seemed that the United States didn’t really understand the people from our region. They chose the easiest method. Let’s fight. They handled their affairs as barbarically as we did. We had to migrate because we ended up in a worse situation due to hunger. I never saw Aysegül again. What if she had loved me too? Being loved is a huge burden.

“In reality, we prefer the sweet memories, filled with dreams and completed at our leisure, of those who do not truly love us but, when alone with us, declare their love for us, over a real meeting by a factor of a hundred. We would much rather face a being that exposes us to new coldness and unexpected violence, and with which we can no longer converse in the sweet words of our choosing, than face a delayed meeting.”

Perhaps this is why I ran away.

When I look back now, what is intriguing to me is the desire to take knowledge from another world and use it to realize something I wanted. Essentially, our world had very simple actions: displays of power. Ah, I even remember. One day, a wedding party had come to our neighborhood to celebrate a woman’s dowry. Drums and horns were playing in front of the house. There were a lot of people around, neighbors at the windows. In the center, there was a stage. Boys would come out and dance. One day, I had seen a peacock in a documentary. The documentary said the peacock was trying to attract the female to mate. The first image that came to my mind while watching that documentary was the image of those boys. Our life there was that simple. We fought. We displayed anger. If living conditions were impossible, we roamed in groups. Aesthetic things like language were not a significant part of our lives. Songs and poems were just as simple. They didn’t have much deep meaning. ‘Go away like a stranger for me.’ ‘The world will be burned by the subaltern’. Everything was very simple.”

However, these simple things always seemed to require a great deal of power to me. Because this simplicity seemed to demand belief. It didn’t seem to harbor much of what is called curiosity. Perhaps I think so now. My friend Çağlar said, referring to Dostoevsky, ‘One should love life rather than understand it.’ I always find such words very cool. These are the kinds of things I refer to as aesthetically consumed. Perhaps it is suffering from the wrath of a bad translation. I don’t know. If this idea is correct, I fear that I have never loved anything in my life and will never be able to.

I mean, why did I do this, I ask myself. I could have simply gone and sung songs under the window, followed from afar, or fought with other boys. I could have shown my skills. But I engaged in a kind of cunning. I tried to change the field of play. I tried to borrow knowledge from another world from my mother to create a reason for her to love me. With this action, I was also trying to create a distinction between myself and the other competing candidates. This always feels like my first memory of a person’s idea of leaving their class boundaries and creating a distinction. How strange that I attempted to do this with language, which I thought I had little control over. But I think it was really a stunt.

I can’t exactly determine when these tricks create small advantages or when they create a distinction. One day, while sitting in the university cafeteria, I saw a mother cat. She had caught a mouse and stunned it. She seemed to want her kittens to come over and catch the stunned mouse. They were crouching on the ground, moving their hind legs slightly, and then pouncing to catch the mouse. We had a similar ritual. After all, we were also a part of this nature. Creating a distinction and becoming part of the upper class was often a dream, so we all had to learn a trade. I remember that around the age of 5 or 6, we had set up Gaziantep’s first flea market in front of our house. My mother had given us items to sell, saying that we used to do it in Germany when we were kids. I don’t know, maybe we needed money, and it also became a fun activity for us. Anyway, let’s leave that part of the labyrinth aside. However, we needed to learn a way to survive, and at that time, traditionally, one had to work as an apprentice. I also worked in various jobs from around the age of 9 or 10.

Carpentry, water selling, truck spring repair in the industrial sector, computer workshops—various places… Some of them seemed unfair to me. In such situations, tricks were perhaps a means of achieving some sense of justice or controlling a bit of the resentment we felt against the harm we were given. In the mornings, the bosses in the industrial sector would have breakfast. They would send me to get the breakfast. I still crave that butter and honey combination. Anyway, the money they gave me seemed very little compared to the hard work. In fact, I don’t even remember if they paid me. After all, they were teaching me a trade. With that resentment, I always inflated the breakfast fee. I would pocket the difference and probably double my salary. This trick seemed to provide a sense of justice and controlled my anger. Because I would look at them with the secret pleasure of causing them some harm. Rich bastard bosses… Ugh. What can I say, I was a kid and I was angry.

I guess the things we did with our neighbourhood pack were like this. One of the first things I was taught in Istanbul was to whistle during our night walks. It was important for communication. I learned that. During these walks, gradually, we moved from what we used to call a rich neighborhood to what today I would describe as a lower-middle-class area. Ah, Necmi Hoca’s question just came to mind. In those “states of poverty”, Necmi Hoca would ask who the rich are. The person being interviewed would say, “Our grocer.” Even they can’t step outside their own habitus. For us, those people were the closest we had to the rich. We would steal car parts from that neighborhood. Then we would watch the buildings. When we saw empty places, we would go in, completely dismantle the electrical installations, steal them, and sell them. That neighborhood, now that I remember, was a way to suppress the feelings created by our cramped class position. There was a rap song called “The Dead Will Steal from the Living.” It was just like that. There was also a girl I was in love with from school who lived there. We would take these electric cables, burn them in our neighborhood, and then sell them. We would either split the money we got or buy necessities for the neighborhood. We were kids, and materials to play with were important. For example, we would buy a football. It was important for our protein development, so we would buy meat and throw feasts for all the kids in the neighborhood. We would buy ice cream for everyone. We would go out for hamburgers. I even remember setting up a baseball field with that money. We probably admired it on TV. The feeling I have when I go out with my dad’s dogs always reminds me of the times I spent with those friends. We were all children from different cultures and families, but we had become part of one chain.

One of the fundamental things about democracy that has stuck with me since childhood is the issue of participation. However, it is difficult to find a clear manual on the nature of this participation in democracy. When we first moved to Istanbul, I was enrolled in a local school there. Although the school I came from was also an urban school, I can clearly say that the schools in Istanbul were truly Republican schools. Before explaining this, I need to describe what had the most impact on me. There was something called a canteen. And this canteen was like a public version of my grandfather’s room. Except that this was an open space with a sort of enclosure. I still couldn’t access the fruits of this paradise because I had to bring food from home. But seeing this thing called a hamburger and not being able to reach it was perhaps more painful than the dreams of my grandfather’s glass room. I remember saving money for a while. When I had enough money, I rushed to the canteen. Even ordering a hamburger was a torment because I didn’t know how to interact. I bought a hamburger. I even went around the school to find a hidden spot so my friends wouldn’t see me. I hid. I took a bite of the hamburger. My teeth hurt. The hamburger was still frozen. It was as if it had come straight from the freezer. At that time, rather than going to complain, I thought of it as a punishment for not sharing this with my friends.

Let’s get back to this issue of participation. I couldn’t engage with this school’s activities like some of the other children could. The canteen, the classes, the relationships with teachers—I was excluded from all of it. There was an allure of a whole new world for me. I even developed a crush on a girl. It was inevitable because she kept looking at me, coming over to talk to me, and always smiling. She would point me out to her friends and smile. Every day, I would daydream about her on the way home. When the moon came out, I would carry out my moves and score beautiful goals, wishing she could be watching me from the sidelines, imagining doing these things during physical education classes at school. I would wake up early in the mornings, fussing over my hair. I eagerly went to school, hoping to catch her gaze and wishing for that encounter to end with a smile. One day, another girl from my hometown came up to me and said, “They are making fun of your accent!”

That evening, I went back to the neighborhood. Until then, there was a boy in the neighborhood I was always angry with. His name was Sait. I was angry because he would always correct my speech. He would constantly tell me, “It’s not said like that, it’s said like this.” I was speaking Turkish, but that night, I took Sait with me. We sat on a hill by the roadside. On the hill, we could see the islands across. I said to Sait, “Teach me how to speak Turkish.” From then on, Sait continued to correct me whenever I made mistakes. Instead of feeling anger, I started to feel gratitude. But this was what school was like. We were always the ‘other.’ What was expected of me was to be like everyone else coming from the East in Turkey at that time, a folk singer. Every evening at school, I was called to the board. The teacher would ask me to sing folk songs. I felt like they didn’t see any future for us other than that. Our role seemed to be just a garnish next to the children from privileged families, who were seen as the real children of the Republic. I was supposed to be friends with children like myself. But it was now quite clear. Even if we were in the same room, we were from completely different worlds. Even if we spoke the same language, it had different meanings. Even the same word, “education,” meant completely different things and shaped different futures even among people in the same room, the same classroom, breathing the same air. For this reason, I considered applying to a vocational high school when my primary education ended. I had learned a lot about electrical work from stealing electrical cables. But I had realized a truth. Parallel universes did not need a different space-time fabric. We were already living within parallel universes. As a child, the real question was whether it was possible to transition between these universes, like the proposal of love. The question now was not whether we could enter the lives of these privileged people and steal something from them, but whether we could develop the tricks to live that life. And could we do it without having the same opportunities they had?

Years later, in a university department where I learned that the cafeteria could be more instructive than the classrooms, a friend of mine kept talking about Bourdieu’s concepts. I hadn’t read them yet. Azim was trying to explain everything happening in the cafeteria with the concept of habitus. He talked about why he drank his tea in a certain way, what he chose to eat, his ways of forming relationships with women, and how all his choices and preferences were influenced by the habitus in which he grew up, and how he could never quite escape it, often lamenting this fact. However, one day he said in class, Necmi Hoca mentioned a group of children and referred to them with a term I don’t quite remember, but it stayed in my mind as “miracle children.” Perhaps this was related to my childhood relationship with the moon. Azim explained that these children were able to break through their own habitus.

Years later, I found that Bourdieu referred to these children as “cultural intermediaries.” Despite all his lamenting, Azim was also a cultural intermediary himself. For Bourdieu, education and diplomas were tools for transitioning between different habituses. We had also transformed into a middle-class group, beginning to work as research assistants at the university. We were no longer merely sustaining life; we were doctoral students trying to aesthetically consume and define life. Perhaps it would be more accurate to call us travelers. I could go to Gaziantep, work in the industry, participate in cultural events, and then, in Ankara, discuss Spinoza on Ayrancı streets while sipping my wine. These transitions between places and “cloaks” are essentially what I want to define in this thesis as the phenomenon of the researcher. While we might be examples within academia and the arts, I saw that this was not unique to us but rather a broader phenomenon. Many fields were filled with such people.

After reading the story of the Minotaur, I wondered what would change if we researched and described a place through the authentic experience of someone living there. Instead of having an external researcher come and study the spaces, what if we considered the Minotaur learning the language and world of science and art and using those tools to study his own space? Could this contribute to science in an academic sense? First and foremost, could such a researcher be defined?

While working on the texts for this thesis, I had a meeting with my thesis advisor, Prof. Dr. Hans Neubauer. This meeting was very valuable to me because it seemed that he finally had a clearer understanding of what I wanted to achieve. Prof. Ulus used to say, “We don’t have to understand each other. Even two scientists may not understand each other…” (Did I just call myself a scientist? Oh, these foolish thoughts). That’s why I was very excited when Hans read the text I had written and listened to me, and then gave his advice. It was because the things I needed were coming out in his language. It seemed to me that this at least indicated that we resonated with each other. He suggested that I might want to look into the concept of the Trickster. He advised me to research it. When he described it a bit, and mentioned several characters defined as Tricksters, my childhood nickname also came out of his mouth. I was even more excited.

nitially, when Hans was describing this character and I started reading Lewis Hyde’s book, I was preoccupied with the idea that these are very powerful mythological heroes, while I wanted to talk about ordinary people and simple experiences. As I pondered how we can think about this character today, I realized that what makes Prometheus a Trickster among these myths is not merely being a Trickster, but actually performing certain actions and possessing certain characteristics. Still, it’s worth mentioning that the Prometheus many of us know is defined as a Trickster. The reason for this is that he went to the realm of the gods, stole fire from there, and brought it to the human world, making it useful for them. Of course, because of this, he had to endure suffering.

In this context, the most important feature of the Trickster is their ability to transgress boundaries and navigate between different times and spaces. Hyde mentioned that this state of being on the edge or crossing boundaries also describes a form of homelessness. This was perhaps the most striking part for me. Recently, a director I greatly admire said in a talk, “No matter how much I desire some things, I don’t want them,” and this statement hit me like Barthes’s punctum. Hyde’s comment did the same for me. In my work, which began with the question “Where is my home?” I found that my home became undefined, ambiguous, and fluid. I realized, perhaps for the first time upon seeing this text, that I could not fully encompass any of the areas I visited. I found the strength to admit this to myself.

In an anime I love, ninjas had special jutsus they used very effectively, and it was described that each jutsu had a weak point. The side effect of the Trickster’s ability to navigate and shape-shift between these realms was, I suppose, a form of homelessness. However, this characteristic would turn out to be precisely what I was looking for in my thesis.

The Trickster, in this context, represents a state that encompasses both an insider and an outsider position. However, this doesn’t mean a complete state of homelessness. The Trickster is known for making certain moves to facilitate transitions between different roles or realms. In many stories, they are characterized by clever deceptions, costume or cloak changes, playing tricks, and, when necessary, deceiving and manipulating other characters. The name “Trickster” itself derives from this trait.

When I was a child, things would go missing or change at home, and the family would suspect me, but they could never figure out how it happened, so they couldn’t provide any evidence. My nickname was given by my grandparents for this reason. At some point, even though they had no concrete proof, they were certain that I was the one responsible.

These actions can actually introduce different viewing practices and challenge established norms. Tricksters are able to play with what is visible to us, and these games can lead us to rediscover and reinterpret those norms. At the same time, the changes in these established norms and the ways they are enacted can raise ethical questions and provoke certain reactions. Ultimately, even though fire was discovered, the Trickster must still pay the price for these changes.

For me, the concept of artistic research called for exactly this kind of engagement. It involves shaking up the comfort zones of art and science, using each other’s seemingly immovable experiences as data carriers. It should lead to a different practice of seeing and uncover new kinds of knowledge. Otherwise, we would just continue to produce documentaries and write theses and research texts about them, without pushing boundaries.

I primarily wanted to navigate both the realms of science and art. I wanted the knowledge produced from their different ways of knowing to be a subject of research. In other words, I wanted to have the privilege of being an integral part of the culture of the research space, rather than maintaining an objective distance. I wanted to be like the Minotaur, who, after receiving training, returns from the labyrinth. In fact, everything I had done over the years provided me with the means to make this thesis possible in this way. I aimed to return and study my own culture, spaces, meaning systems, emotions, fantasies, and dreams through my experiences as someone who had ventured out of my home, explored other spaces, and attempted to learn the language of science and art. So, let’s modify the question a bit: Can there be a researcher who goes beyond the boundaries of the idea of maintaining an ethical distance from the research subject and works with the spaces and subjective emotions and affects of which they are a part?

When I set out to explore this, I discovered that there is indeed such a desire in academia. Various definitions were being made. There were discussions about situations where researchers, through certain tricks, became part of the research field. The idea of a researcher who can navigate borders. And even the figure of the trickster as a researcher. In general, these definitions included the concept of a researcher infiltrating a field, much like a wise scholar. In my case, however, it’s more like the Minotaur. A figure who, as an uneducated part of a culture, steps outside their environment, grows in another field, learns the language, and eventually navigates the spaces of both where they came from and where they grew. Perhaps they belong fully to none of these areas but can conduct research and carry knowledge across them. This, I argue, is the exact academic counterpart of a trickster figure.

“A person who lays their head on a stone knows the stone’s stoniness!” Dede – Siya Siyabend