İLKEЯ ORTAÇ

İlker Ortaç / Work

Bok: short story

Bok is part of İlker Ortaç’s online short-story archive. The short excerpt below is in the original Turkish; the full text opens on the story page.

A short excerpt in Turkish

kontrol edilemeyen ve sürekli tekrarlanan, mantıksız alışkan- lıktan öte bir şey değil bu. bunu biliyorsun, bunun üstesinden gelebileceğin anlamına gelmiyor ama bu. bunu da biliyorsun üstelik. bu da beyhude. kısaca her boku biliyorsun. bir vakit, bir başka şey takıntın haline gelecek, şu anki hafifleyecek, olmadık vakitlerde hortluyor olacak, soğukta sızlayacak. sevmekle ye - tinmiyorsun, kafana saplamakla…

From life to creative practice

İlker Ortaç entered public service in 1995 and spent years writing code. After fifteen years, he retired and chose novels, stories and screenplays. This transition locates the writing in his biography without treating fictional narrators’ experiences as events in the author’s life.

Read the artist’s biography

From making to presentation

  1. Source work: this record retains its own title and available publication information.
  2. Portfolio context: biography and the work’s form are read together without confusing fiction with biography.
  3. Access: the relevant link opens the reading, viewing or publication record for this work.

Creative approach

From the studio: a creative reconstruction

A first-person creative reconstruction drawing on the biography and artworks.

I imagine that coding asks me to locate an error, while writing sometimes asks me to stay inside it a little longer. I hear the sentence in my own voice first. Where it reads too comfortably, I stop and try unsettling that confidence in the words.

Working around Bok: short story, my attention returns to this detail: Bok is part of İlker Ortaç’s online short-story archive. The short excerpt below is in the original Turkish; the full text opens on the story page. In the next passage, I imagine pulling back anything that weakens that encounter and leaving the areas holding its tension open for longer.

In the final passage, I imagine returning the work to its own context. I leave room for reading a page, looking at a frame or watching the film beyond the narrative assembled here.

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