İstanbul Street Rhythms: A Field Guide to Short Expressive Ensembles

Abstract

This article presents the field guide as an alternate format to the anthology in documenting short literary expressions. Anthologies often isolate, collect, and remove literary forms from their habitats by representing them in a book, altering the context by which short literary expressions can be interpreted. After the Gezi Park protests in İstanbul in 2013, several print and electronic anthologies documented public expressions, yet these books offer no or only vague mention of location. Through Henri Lefebvre’s Rhythmanalysis: Space Time and Everyday Life, I emphasize the rhythms of the street that are interrupted by public expressions. After a review of Lefebvre’s work on rhythms, I offer digital annotation techniques to map the material and medium of public inscriptions of one neighborhood of Kadıköy, İstanbul called Rasimpaşa, a district historically called “Yeldeğirmeni” or “The Windmill.” The focus on public graffiti, street art, posters, signs, stickers, or other verbal traces in public space allows for an expansion of the concept of “short literature” to include their lived habitats as rhythmic ensembles.