"LIFE ETC."

Virtual Virtues

When I was watching the discussion about global warming on Okan Bayülgen's Makina show, it hit me with all its seriousness. A few moments later, Özgü Namal, Ceza and Zakkum started to sing their songs. All of my concerns about global warming melted into air slowly.
There is Ceza to get angry about serious stuff, so why should I care? If Özgü Namal can sing, nothing is impossible. Why would I be afraid of global warming?

When the show was over, global warming was just a little detail.

This wasn't something particular to that night's show. To understand it better, we need to look behind the machine Okan Bayülgen appears on (or, the machine that creates Okan Bayülgen).

The screen has two basic functions:
1) The outer world can be absorbed by a camera, and those absorbed images can be reflected on the screen partially. This, I will call with all my terminological ignorance: the reflective function.

2) Some things do not exist unless they are shown on the screen. Most of the images used in computer games, animation videos and two-dimensional designs (i.e. posters and websites) owe their existence to the screen. I will dub this the performative function of the screen.

Everything we see on the screen is partly reflective and partly performative. Even when all you do is record your birthday party and play it on the computer, the performance of the tools you use (the camera, cassette, hard disk, monitor, etc.) will have an effect on whatever you record and shape it in a particular way.

The things you see on the news are not independent from the performative effect. Moreover, the news is even less innocent than your birthday video.*

With all those filters, lighting, zoom tricks, stage design and make up, every television show is largely performative. Though it uses reality as the main material, a television show doesn't exist outside the screen. Even though the showman creates the show in his own image, the show goes through its real genesis between the lens of the camera and the screen of your television set.

This deprives entertainment productions (talk shows, movies, TV series, etc. which accept the performative aspect) of creating an intentional long lasting effect. When Okan Bayülgen tries to emphasize the importance of global warming, it might look convincing. But in the context of the program, global warming cannot look more serious than the little parodies of Gürgen Öz and Murat Akkoyunlu.

When you hit the button of the remote control, global warming is gone. All of the extensive data Ömer Madra spoke of during the program do not sound more meaningful than Tugba Ekinci's delirium once you change the channel.
Okan Bayülgen, Beyazıt Öztürk, Seda Sayan or others can make people send a SMS to a particular telephone number in order to participate in a virtuous campaign.
But that's all. Those people won't remember for what purpose they've sent those text messages.

The way it functions makes the screen unable to have a long-term influence on people's lives. But it imposes its instantaneous input on us. Good things are considered as long as they are in. This makes good and evil indistinguishable.

Paul Virilio notes that this is a culture without memory. Is it that surprising to see political tendencies and humanistic virtues become a part of daily fashion?

* Life etc. "Based on a True Story," Bilkent News, 15 November 2005.