ABSTRACT
The article looks at the processes by which the images of contemporary Istanbul are curated and presented to the viewer, with the aim of providing a homogeneous image of the city impervious to heterogenous readings, purposes, and pursuits. What we witness is thus a screening, understood in multiple ways: (1) the city is screened by being reduced to a particular image meant to encapsulate and reflect the projection of its political leaders; (2) the city screens and protects itself from poor images; building off of what Hito Steyerl had defended in her famous essay; and (3) the particular image of the city screens its visitors and viewers, deflecting what its architects and artificers see as inappropriate or poor desires and heterogeneous projections. Via an analysis of Istanbul as a case study, alongside the use of surveillance technologies, this article sketches the contours and antagonisms between the screened and curated Ideal image, on the one hand, and the rebellious possibilities of multiple, exiled, and nomadic poor images, on the other. The architects and guardians of (the image of) the city are thus, in their very pursuit to provide a singular homogenous vision (the univocal, harmonious city), haunted by the poor image (atonal projections), poor projections (and desires deemed to be “poor”), and the rebelliousness of co-existing heterogeneous images.
