Fireworks in Istanbul
I was born and lived for ten years in a small city in Turkey. When we moved to İstanbul, I was ten. I was terrified because of the crowd in the streets and I was very influenced by the fears of my parents: Their memories of the 70s where they were university students in İstanbul University were very alive.
About the sounds of İstanbul, I remember very well the opening celebrations of one of the first shopping malls in İstanbul: Pyramid. Our apartment was in Fenerbahçe, and the shopping mall was built on the Fenerbahçe coast. One evening, when all the family was at home, suddenly we heard some terrible sounds: they were like explosions. My mother thought they were gun shots and that there was happening some battle nearby. She led us to the windowless room in our apartment and we waited there until the sounds stopped. The next day we learned that the sounds were caused by fireworks used in the opening of Pyramid shopping mall. Then, my mother explained to me and to my sister that when she was a university student, people were killed everyday and she was used to hear gun shots and bombs on the streets. That’s why the last night she was so afraid. It took a while for her to understand that this was a different İstanbul now, and that the dangers –though still existing- were not the same any more. Now the sounds of fireworks is very familiar to even the youngest children, and the gun shots are mostly heard after “important” football games and when soldiers are send off: even the common meaning of the gun shots has changed.
As the cities – and the world- change, so do the sounds and their meanings. As İstanbul becomes a more and more chaotic city, its sounds reflect –and also cause- its existence.
Chaotic in what sense? It is a totality formed by different systems and small changes within this totality cause big changes. May be the most apparent example is the traffic of İstanbul. According to İlya Prigogine, when a system moves from equilibrium to non-equilibrium, it becomes more and more unique and les and less universal, because the laws of equilibrium are universal. (Prigogine 46).
About the sounds of İstanbul, I remember very well the opening celebrations of one of the first shopping malls in İstanbul: Pyramid. Our apartment was in Fenerbahçe, and the shopping mall was built on the Fenerbahçe coast. One evening, when all the family was at home, suddenly we heard some terrible sounds: they were like explosions. My mother thought they were gun shots and that there was happening some battle nearby. She led us to the windowless room in our apartment and we waited there until the sounds stopped. The next day we learned that the sounds were caused by fireworks used in the opening of Pyramid shopping mall. Then, my mother explained to me and to my sister that when she was a university student, people were killed everyday and she was used to hear gun shots and bombs on the streets. That’s why the last night she was so afraid. It took a while for her to understand that this was a different İstanbul now, and that the dangers –though still existing- were not the same any more. Now the sounds of fireworks is very familiar to even the youngest children, and the gun shots are mostly heard after “important” football games and when soldiers are send off: even the common meaning of the gun shots has changed.
As the cities – and the world- change, so do the sounds and their meanings. As İstanbul becomes a more and more chaotic city, its sounds reflect –and also cause- its existence.
Chaotic in what sense? It is a totality formed by different systems and small changes within this totality cause big changes. May be the most apparent example is the traffic of İstanbul. According to İlya Prigogine, when a system moves from equilibrium to non-equilibrium, it becomes more and more unique and les and less universal, because the laws of equilibrium are universal. (Prigogine 46).
