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On 20 July 1973, a path was trodden on Sivra Island. It’s not clear who did it because the prisoners left on the beach had their legs and arms tied up carefully. They were able to crawl like worms but not walk. The dogs didn’t do it, that’s for sure.
Sivra isn’t a place for strolling. No one comes here, even the fishermen were afraid that the wind would push their boats towards the island. They told stories of packs of starving dogs – beasts that only wait for human prey. The mystery remained unsolved. The path leads across the whole island, through brush and thicket. It is carefully trodden, the stalks and branches trampled down to the ground. Someone must have stubbornly walked to and fro. Interesting, so many years have passed and no vegetation has ever grown on the path.
Line on the island, R. L., 1973
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INSTRUCTIONS/Dog Dream, mixed media, courtesy of Koyunoglu Museum
Choose a secluded place – a shed, garage, or basement. It has to be dry, relatively clean, without musty junk. Make sure there are no rats or cockroaches. Make sure no homeless people squat there.
Watch the place for a couple of days.
You can live in a car parked nearby. Try not to be conspicuous. Discretion is vital. You are not doing anything illegal but what will happen can still be misunderstood.
Once you are sure you’ve found the right place, start preparing it for the experiment. Remove all unnecessary objects. Sweep the floor clean. Remove cobwebs. Remember not to use any aromatic substances, no detergents, perfume, tobacco.
The room should be completely empty.
Once you’ve cleaned the room, spread a large thick blanket on the floor. At least two metres long. Draw its outline with a piece of chalk.
Install a lamp, the light should be soft, diffuse.
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There is one attraction on our street, Arakiyeci, and it’s been here for years. Everyone will tell you where it is. I recently saw some tourists asking, ‘Where is your famous dog?’ They take pictures there, pointing at it. It’s not a big thing but still it’s our pride, there’s no greater attraction on the whole street. A stuffed dog stands in the window of a tailor’s shop. It’s a small shop, haberdashery – buttons, textiles, ribbons. Not many customers, sometimes someone comes to buy this or that, mostly old people, locals. If you want, you can have your trousers shortened there, but only if you know the owner, Aysa.
A dog like a dog. Nothing special, no pure-bred, just an ordinary street mutt. It’s stuffed, with glass beads for eyes, looks as if it was about to bite you – fangs bared, ears flat, it’s all kind of tense. The dog stands on its hind legs, a piece of wire stuck up its ass to support it. But the most important thing is that it’s dressed like a soldier! A soldier’s cap, a neatly ironed uniform, even boots made of leather, decent ones. All of it tiny, of course, like for a midget. I think what people like about it the most is that it looks as if prepared for the drill, and angry, as if it was ready for war. Kids laugh when they see it. The uniform was tailor-made by Aysa, probably to advertise her shop. She probably doesn’t even remember it now, she’s old, doesn’t recognise her own children, has to keep record of everything in her notebook. The dog is a bit dusty, its head is balding, probably some worms have eaten the fur away. But it still stands there and it’ll probably remain so. Kids running past the shop call, ‘General, general, tell us who your death is!’
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It was the last dog that starved to death on Sivra Island. It had a plaque with the name ‘General,’ so it’s no joke, you know.
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INSTRUCTIONS/Dog Dream, mixed media, courtesy of Koyunoglu Museum
Choose a dog. Win its confidence. Feed it for a couple of weeks. Come to the same place every day at the same time. It will surely be there. Istanbul’s stray dogs are lazy and attached to their territory. Sit a few metres from it and watch it. At first, the dog will not pay any attention to you but be patient, its behaviour will change after some days. Find a name for it, speak to it, make it get used to you. You will see, it will be waiting for you. Stroke it on the head. After some time it will learn to eat from your hand.
(Eggs of various bird species arranged in a square).
The dog will start following you home. Before parting with it, give it something to eat in reward for keeping you company. Always keep something in your pocket for such occasions, possibly a piece of raw meat in a plastic bag. You can wrap up a piece of hashish in the meat.
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In 1973, the authorities of Bakirköy district decided to catch all stray dogs, count them, examine them, weigh them, and then identify them. However improbable that may sound, each of the dogs was given its own, unique name. During the four-month action, a total of 24,347 name plaques were engraved. The name-granting procedure was simple but slow. First, a random word was selected from a current Turkish language dictionary (rumour has it a blind boy was used for the purpose: he would open the dictionary and pick a random word with his finger). The word was then crossed out with a pencil so that it would not be used again. A name plaque was then engraved and hung on a chain on the dog’s neck.
The dogs received the weirdest names imaginable. Documents kept in the district archive tell us that from then on, Bakirköy had stray dogs named Precipice, Judge, Delirium, Ectoplasm, Substitute, Simultaneous, Weir, Rash, Departure, Reverse, Manuscript, and so on.
Soon an amazing phenomenon started to be noticed – the dogs tended to arrange themselves into clumsy, but still comprehensible, sentences. One could read sentences created by the words engraved in the name plaques in the sequence in which the dogs lay on the sidewalk. They seemed to be consciously sending a message to the humans. Often, for instance, a pack of dogs was observed that formed the phrase ‘Love America Forever.’
The district authorities thought that rumours about dogs communicating sentences in Turkish might cause an unwholesome sensation. Most of the dogs were, therefore, caught and the plaques removed. As it later turned out, most of the dogs were put to sleep on the occasion.
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One of the Bakirköy officials came up with the idea of dumping all the name plaques in one place, in a square at Ihlamurdere Street. It is not clear why. Perhaps it was supposed to be a joke, perhaps a warning. The plaques were dumped into the basin of a long-defunct fountain, forming a sort of mini-monument. The locals nicknamed it ‘dog name hill.’ It survived for a couple of months, until all the plaques were stolen away. People said carrying a plaque in your pocket guaranteed truly animal fertility.
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A prisoner would be brought in a boat, always before dawn. He would have been naked, wrapped up in a woollen blanket. The blanket would have been tied up with a strong rope – it looked like a parcel with a man inside. The prisoner couldn’t move at all. He didn’t know where they were taking him and why. It was such a cruel idea. That the dogs wouldn’t starve to death but would instead hunt for emaciated prisoners straitjacketed in a woollen blanket. After all, the prisoners wouldn’t run, they would only wriggle, crawl into the water, at best, but then they would quickly go to the bottom, pulled down by the soaked blanket. There was really no escape. The dogs would fill themselves with meat and all their anger at people for not letting them lie on the sun-warmed sidewalks would disappear. It was supposed to be a dog paradise – easy prey, a lot of meat, the swoosh of the water, no sticks, no dog catchers, no gas. Just advantages. The city would get rid of corpses, the streets would become safer, no one would stumble over parasite-infested dogs with bloody wounds on their heads any more, plus the stray creatures, gathered on the island, wouldn’t starve to death. So there’d be no crime at all, and certainly no one would have to have pangs of conscience that they had sentenced a living creature to death by starvation. And getting rid of the human scum, the murderers and rapists, all those depraved, bloody criminals we would all have to pay to keep in jail, was another matter altogether.
The initial plan was that it’d be a bullet in the head for the criminals, on the island, right on the shore, without even untying them. And that would be it – the body would be left on the shore, the dogs would sniff blood and come to feed. Soon, however, a decision was made among the military top brass (perhaps out of simple frugality) to leave the prisoners alive and only return from time to time to pick up the blankets.
I guess the blankets were supposed to be a sort of act of mercy: the naked prisoners waiting for their death in the pale down would not freeze.
The problem was that the dogs simply refused to eat human flesh.
Did the bitch think about Kassel then?
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INSTRUCTIONS/Dog Dream, mixed media, courtesy of Koyunoglu Museum
Take the dog to the place you have prepared. It is used to you now so it will not hesitate. Prepare food bowls and fresh water beforehand. Leave the light on. When the dog is inside, lock the door and go away.
Return on the next day. Do not be afraid, nothing wrong is happening.
(Line made of bones, eight metres, oil, headless rooster)
Take a strong sleeping pill, two perhaps, or more, what matters is for you to be fast asleep. Take your shoes off. Lie down on the blanket. Form it into a cocoon. It is simple, just roll over and wrap yourself up in it. Do you feel trapped? Take it easy, close your eyes. Count to one hundred, try to fall asleep. If you do not at once, continue counting until you do. You will fall asleep eventually. I know, you are nervous. The dog is going around you, sniffing, licking your face. Part growling, part whimpering, pacing up and down the room. It senses it when you are nervous so try to fall asleep as quickly as you can.
When you wake up in the morning, probably with a headache from the pills, write down your dream.
Let the dog out. It will certainly return to its place, obediently. Never approach it again. Do not call or touch it, ever.
(Line trodden on the island. Re-enactment. No witnesses. Dog costume, shovel, a bunch of flowers. A. H. S., no date).
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