Istanbul-O-Matic, the project of Cem Kozar and Işıl Ünal (PATTU Architecture) at Musibet Exhibition, internally criticizes the recent tendencies toward the transformation of Istanbul, which we can define as a city of layers, pluralities and coexistences. In the “city building game” they have designed, they hint that the city is actually a collective production where many actors function in a coexisting, interactive manner, and that the city could face the danger of losing its plural identity if the balances of power were to accumulate on one of these actors’ sides.

The game works like this: on the floor of the room are the signs of different actors/dynamics, such as tokİ, investors, urban dwellers, star architect, mayor, tourists, history, ngos and environmentalists. Projected in front, there is an imaginary piece of Istanbul. When someone step into the shoes of any actor, that role will begin to affect the city. A solitary actor tends to have crazy, almost cartoonish ideas for “ideal cities”. If there is only one visitor, standing on only one actor, this actor’s crazy idea begins to change the city projection. For example, if one lone person is standing on tokİ, the entire city is filled with identical high-rise apartment blocks. If there is another visitor in the room, standing on another actor, these two actors will start to interact, creating a new scenario for the city. If there is another visitor, then three actors interact, and so on. The more actors involved, the more diverse it becomes. The installation does not aim to create an ideal prescription to build cities, but rather to criticize the top-down decision making processes in which everything is determined behind closed doors. The contemporary city needs to be shaped by a broad participation that includes many different actors. All the visuals in the installation were created by processing thousands of images, videos, projects, promises and crazy ideas. Just like the model city mentioned by Marco Polo and Kublai in Invisible Cities: the installation creates many different cities that fluctuate between absurdity and idealism, that are all versions of the same city—Istanbul.