The Fantasy of Struggle

Photo: Oğuz Alp Dedeoğlu

The last time I took photos was back in 2007, using a Pentax MX for an elective course I took in college. Nearly 20 years later, I started taking photos again with the Fujifilm X-M5 I recently purchased. One of the moments I captured with it sparked the thoughts below. Of course, this short text is less an iconographic explanation of the photograph and more a sequence of words emerging from my subconscious. Enjoy the read.

Struggle is a part of every phase of our lives; it is a part of human enculturation and survival. So much so that we know prehistoric humans, spear in hand, drew themselves around other species. They drew themselves together with their enemies in caves, on a common ground. Their enemies had taught them a great deal. No, not the knapping of metal, but line and color. The tools they invented for hunting were also used to score lines on rock. The tattoos they inked onto themselves for totemic purposes brought to life the lines they etched onto the stone. Perhaps even the sounds uttered by their enemies became a part of the cadence of their rituals. They did not create art; they opened up a space where they could see themselves and their enemies together. This was not independent of them; it was a piece of themselves — a piece torn from the bodies of those who struggle. Nature, too, was a part of this body; the enemy, too, was a part of this body. Colors prepared with iron oxide-bearing stone and the fat of hunted animals were smeared onto walls illuminated by fire. Man continued to see himself in this picture. He battled the dragon, defied underworld creatures, and fought the monster rising from the depths of the sea. The subconscious became the setting for this reality. Sometimes, man treated reality as if it were a fairy tale. He pitted his own enemies against one another, yet he always sided with one. Animal struggle motifs are frequently encountered on the items of prehistoric humans. For the sake of the animal he championed, he included the enemy in that motif as well. He forged metal and made a belt buckle; he carved marble and placed it over the doorway; he wove it as a motif into the carpet. These materials always bore witness to struggle. Man, perpetually at war, drew war while hoping for peace. Peace never remained a mere detail; war and peace were the harmony of the composition. However, the ultimate outcome of the struggle lost its significance; only the struggle itself remained. It transformed into a fantasy of never-ending desires. Struggle turned into the playground of obsessive gazes, longing for battle scenes. For what purpose, it matters not; whether the cause is real or fake, it matters not; whether the outcome is bearable or not, it matters not… A struggle that simply drags on, at the cost of awakening the unknown monsters of the unconscious.