Talk by Özgür Uçkan
"Man Is Only Serious With
The Agreeable, The Good, The Perfect; But With Beauty He Plays"
Friedrich Schiller
Salt Beyoğlu
May 18, 2011 18.30 – 20.00
Turkish
“It would have been really funny if Hüseyin was alive. I am writing these lines on April 29, 2011, at 22.44 local time. I guess in Turkey it’s 00.44, therefore it is April 30, 2011. I’m sure we would be having fun if Hüseyin were here… After all, I am in ‘the country of the last revolution’ (if we don’t count Egypt).
I will structure my talk around an article I wrote with Hüseyin that was published in Kitap-lık:
Rimbaud Burcunda Bir ‘Büyük Oyun’ [A ‘Grand Game’ in the Sign of Rimbaud] (Kitap-lık, 26, March-April 1997, Yapı Kredi Publications, p. 26-30). So, the story I will tell you is not that of ‘game theory’, but of homo ludens… I will tell you the story of the ‘essential’… I am writing from a country that made the last revolution of the 21st century. It’s not for nothing. Appreciate the irony.”
Dr. Özgur Uçkan teaches at İstanbul Bilgi University and Yeditepe University. A consultant for the Turkish Exporters Assembly and Senior Advisor for the Turkish Informatics Foundation, Uçkan has published several books, articles and reports on economics, politics, human sciences, ICT, culture and art. He is a columnist at BThaber, a nation-wide information technology magazine.