International Forum on Artistic Research
17th Conference of the Society for Artistic Research (SAR)
Submission Number: 151
Submission ID: 202
Submission UUID: 1c0c35ba-5ab8-4e3c-9681-d810438c604b

Created: Tue, 24 Feb 2026 - 12:55
Completed: Fri, 27 Feb 2026 - 14:18
Changed: Wed, 13 May 2026 - 08:33

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Submitted by: Anonymous
Language: English

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Given name Savas
Surname Boyraz
Email savasboyraz@gmail.com
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Title BLOCK LETTERS and Cursive Mountains: State-Writing, Sonic Mimesis, and the Virtual Topographies of the Dengbêj
Format Project presentation
Main language English
Abstract “If we call freedom not only the capacity to escape power but also and especially the capacity to subjugate no one, then freedom can exist only outside language.”
Roland Barthes

Abstract:
This artistic research project investigates the relationship between landscape, language, and power in Northern Kurdistan through a practice-based inquiry into what I term state-writing—the convergence of sovereign law and spatial inscription. Beginning with the colossal nationalist slogans carved into Kurdish mountains after the 1980 military coup, the research examines how writing operates as a territorial technology that fixes language onto land. In contrast, the Kurdish Dengbêj tradition offers a sonic mode of inhabiting territory that resists inscription. Working with archival recordings of Dengbêj performances, I focus on non-verbal vocal ornamentations that echo avian calls and landscape acoustics. Through spectrographic analysis and 3D modelling, these sonic traces are translated into virtual terrains, generating topographies sculpted by frequency, amplitude, and duration. This process—conceived as a deliberate act of mistranslation—proposes an alternative epistemological pathway for territorialization beyond writing and statehood. Rather than overwriting the mountain slogans, the project explores how mountains can be reimagined through resonance. The resulting virtual landscapes articulate a fluid, non-cartographic territory: a moving sphere of sound that cannot be occupied, fixed, or policed.

Keywords: Sonic Visualization, State-Writing, Dengbêj, Virtual Topography, Orality, Counter-Territorialization, Sonic Mimesis, Acoustic Archaeology, Rancière, Epistemic Violence.
Link to the Exposition https://www.researchcatalogue.net/shared/fde231a4eaf15c690bf3d5017193c845
Image virtuaLterrains_.jpg
Short biographies of the presenter(s)
  • Savaş Boyraz (born in 1980, Istanbul) based in Stockholm. He was part of Mezopotamya Cinema Collective between 1998 and 2006 in Istanbul. He graduated from the Photography Department of Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University, Istanbul in 2009. Got his degree in Fine Arts in Art in Public Realm Master Program at Konstfack, Stockholm, in 2012.
    With his Master graduation work “Invisible Landscapes” he was awarded with Victor Fellowship by Hasselblad Foundation, and took part in New Nordic Photography exhibition in 2013.
    Since 2021, he is pursuing a PhD in artistic research, at the Department of Film and Media at Stockholm University of Arts.
Previous presentations or iterations of the research https://carrier-bag.net/verbal-bombs-and-sonic-memory-of-the-mountains/
https://generativemedia.net/event/dronomation/
https://events.ceu.edu/2023-05-30/cems-graduate-conference-humans-and-nature-mediterranean-landscape
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