All the works that are claimed to be mine belong to the public domain.

All derivatives of my works can be used both for commercial and non-commercial purposes by real, legal and yet undefined persons, including myself, without the need for a reference to the original work.

All the coding, planning, documents, and dialogues created during the process of making these art works are included in the above-mentioned scope.

The notion of the derivative in this text is an extended version of the traditional notion of the derivative. It is assumed that the moment an art work has interacted either physically or cerebrally with anything in any way, a derivative has been formed.

The essence is the only thing necessary—it moves but its story does not disappear. The essence of the work is what stays with me and what stays with you.

To create, my mind has to set me free.

Through this will, I am letting you know that I have taken this cost from you vulgarly, forcefully.

Translated from Turkish by Merve Ünsal

For the original text, click here. 

Born in 1976 in Istanbul, Bager Akbay studied Visual Communication Design at Yildiz Technical University and Interface Cultures at Linz University of Arts. He was an actor and a puppeteer in Dark Theatre, Istanbul, has worked as a lecturer for 10 years in his field, and is eager to live his life between art and science as an experimentalist. Akbay is currently teaching Interactive Media at different universities, and working on his art projects in a shared atelier called iskele47.

Vasiyetimdir* is a publication project that aims to explore how art works will subsist over long periods of time. Art works live in artist studios, private collections, museums, storage spaces, or simply in memories. But how far do the artists want to control what happens to their works when they are no longer? How do they want to exert their control? We directed these questions to the artists we are in dialogue with. We are accumulating their answers through m-est.org.

*Vasiyetimdir is a Turkish phrase that can roughly be translated into English as “It is my will that…” The phrase holds a tint of the melodramatic, mixed with a sentimental flair.

Vasiyetimdir was conceived by Aslı Çavuşoğlu, Özge Ersoy, and Merve Ünsal.