Beyza: One of my fondest childhood memories is of spending weekend evenings with my grandmother, watching the weekend program on Turkey’s public television, TRT. The evening slot would usually include a weekend variety show, a live television concert or a compilation of music videos.
It was when Zeki Müren’s music videos appeared on the screen, my grandmother’s face would light up. Each time, she would repeat what an elegant man Zeki Müren was, and that his singing voice was like velvet and his pronunciation of the Turkish language was impeccable. To my five-year-old self, Müren seemed otherworldly. He wore flamboyant and ornamented outfits: His manicured fingers were always covered with several rings; he had just the right amount of makeup that would have been considered modest on a woman’s face.
At that time, it didn’t occur to me to question his gender-bending image but I sensed that there was something uniquely different about him and I loved it.
Zeki Müren, fondly nicknamed “The Sun of Art” or “The General” by his fans, is considered the greatest Turkish vocalist of all time. In 1951, Müren emerged as a state-sponsored radio star and quickly became the young Republic’s golden boy. He recorded hundreds of Turkish Art Music albums, turning his voice into a national institution. In his movies, he played a sentimental musician — also named Zeki Müren — solidifying his myth through the magic of cinema.
In 1955, he began performing in “gazino” nightclubs, a venue that would soon become synonymous with his name. In these shows, Müren transitioned from a conservative classical vocalist into a crossdressing performer. He executed his “coming out” so well that by the time he wore a minidress and 12-inch boots, Turkey’s conservative public had long been in love with him, and he had already established indispensable relationships with the state and the industry.
Anyone from Turkey, who was alive in 1996 would remember Müren’s death during a live television show(!) and the national mourning that followed. When it was made public that he had left his wealth to a military veterans organization (alongside a non-profit that supports underprivileged students), he was praised further as a proud nationalist and a model citizen.
When I decided to develop a documentary about Zeki Müren, my aim was to explore why people like my grandmother admired Müren. I found it curious that my grandmother, a conservative woman who prayed five times a day, fasted during the whole month of Ramadan, and did not leave home without a headscarf, was a fan of this gender-bending and rumored-to-be gay singer. Even when she was battling dementia in her final years and sometimes found it hard to remember my name, she never forgot Müren and jokingly kept calling him “my fiance!”.
How was it possible that she simply ignored the aspects of the pop star that did not comply with her vision of the world and just adored him?
She was definitely not an outlier as this was a nation-wide phenomenon; nationalists, conservative Muslims, secular liberals, LGBTQI+ community, young artists and musicians, ethnic minorities… people from all walks of life adored Müren, probably for very different reasons. As a storyteller, I thought, if I could unpack how Müren managed to appeal to all these subcultures of Turkey’s society, I would be able to make a profound discovery about the country’s polarized society. That’s when I came up with the idea of setting up a hotline for Müren.
In the summer of 2015, I started Zeki Müren Hotline as a simple voicemail system that can collect everyday people’s thoughts and memories about the pop star. The interface was as simple as calling a landline number and leaving a message; the prompt was open-ended. To spread the word, I set up a Facebook group and placed postcards all around Istanbul that mysteriously asked: “Will Zeki Müren hear us?”.
To my surprise, the project immediately became viral and I started receiving dozens of messages everyday. Anonymous voices were recalling memories of seeing Müren on stage, singing his songs, but more interestingly pouring their hearts out about their most intimate personal problems.
I set up a Facebook group and placed postcards all around Istanbul that mysteriously asked: “Will Zeki Müren hear us?”
After a while it became clear that the Zeki Müren Hotline had embarked upon an alternative mission: it turned into a support line for those who were disillusioned with their personal lives as well as the state of their country. They saw Müren as a symbol of Turkey’s bygone “golden” days as a secular and democratic country. Some of the voices specifically spoke to the political events of that summer – the now infamous June elections which resulted in Erdogan’s AK Party losing the majority in the parliament for the first time, terrorism attacks in various cities, a new war in the Kurdish-majority region, followed by November’s snap elections. It was a summer of hope and devastation; Zeki Müren Hotline surprisingly turned into an auditory archive of this tumultuous period.
In the fall of 2015, I returned back to Cambridge, MA where I was working on a graduate degree at MIT’s Comparative Media Studies department. With me, I brought a hard drive full of these hotline messages. Inspired by the work of MIT’s Open Documentary Lab (ODL) – a wonderful research lab and incubator of immersive, interactive and collaborative non-fiction storytelling projects – I decided to create an interactive documentary using the hotline messages. ODL is where I met the media artist Jeff Soyk whose work on award-winning interactive documentaries (Elaine McMillion Sheldon’s Hollow, PBS Frontline’s Inheritance) I had already admired.
When I invited Jeff to co-direct a Zeki Müren Hotline web documentary with me, I was nervous to hear his answer since Müren was an obscure Turkish singer to most outsiders. To my surprise, Jeff was immediately taken by the heartfelt voices on the hotline and saw a universal spark in the messages, pertaining to pop culture and fandom.
Jeff: When Beyza shared her project with all of us at ODL, I was instantly drawn to the intimacy of the hotline messages and the magnetism of Müren. I had no prior knowledge of Zeki and his music, yet I could tell he had an amazing ability to reach through the microphone (or TV screen) and engage his audiences in a personal and profound way.
I was also fascinated by his ability to reach a broad mainstream public, while simultaneously challenging that very same mainstream and its cultural norms. He seemed to represent an incredible dichotomy and an essential bridge between communities who may have had different ideals, yet shared in many universal human experiences.
Some hotline messages addressed political tensions and disruptions in Turkey, expressing people’s distress and confiding in Müren, all while news of Turkey was appearing consistently throughout the U.S. media. This content was clearly layered and complex, but on a very authentic and emotional level. The messages appeared to provide a kind of access that existed both on the lines and between them. And as someone who appreciates stories that offer a non-traditional and alternative lens, I was very interested in getting involved in the project.
He seemed to represent an incredible dichotomy and an essential bridge between communities who may have had different ideals, yet shared in many universal human experiences
What also fascinated me, regarding the project itself, was the oh-so-common challenge of converting a large archive of “data” into an engaging (and cohesive) web-based experience. There are many projects that have been able to crowdsource stories and media in the interest of gaining a greater understanding of a particular event or issue, yet they have often struggled to present the abundance of material in a meaningful and digestible way.
For Zeki Müren Hotline, the challenge of converting a large set of data into an interactive story resulted in a thoughtful curation of selected messages and an emphasis on the audio messages themselves, without allowing the complimentary visuals to compete or take away from the significance of the messages.
It also seemed obvious that this project needed to be a mobile phone experience, given the hotline that inspired it (even though our premiere at IDFA DocLab was fit for desktops). More importantly, the mobile web provided a space for that one-to-one connection we experience when speaking with someone over the phone. Such intimacy can be heard in the voices of the callers — the messages sound like a voicemail left by a close friend or loved one. And the analog lofi nature of the recordings only contributes to this effect further, allowing for a raw honesty and warmth to envelop the listener. We wanted to respect and maintain this essential quality.
When brainstorming and considering different approaches, we wanted to be mindful of slower WiFi connection speeds in order to be inclusive to all audiences. With accessibility in mind, we kept the project somewhat lean and minimal, yet we were very intentional with our choices.
Initially we had considered including interactions with the visuals, but it became clear that the interactivity was a distraction and that the user’s participation needed to be more of a “lean back” experience where they could immerse themselves in the audio while passively consuming visuals that augmented the stories and emotions being expressed. Such an approach also worked in tandem with the biographical text written by Beyza, providing some additional insight into Zeki’s life, work and legacy, which was helpful to audiences who were being introduced to Zeki for the first time. We wanted to be sure Zeki Müren Hotline could reach international audiences, and we knew we couldn’t frontload the experience with a mini biography about Zeki. Instead, users learn about Zeki one message at a time, through the audio messages as well as the supporting images and text.
Overall, we felt it was important to share a range of thoughts and emotions, as inspired by the messages left to the hotline. Some messages are fun and humorous while others are much more serious or somber. We channeled their emotional quality into the visual treatments — some allowing the images to speak for themselves in a timed montage or infinitely looping GIF, such as a woman dancing on stage with Zeki as if they were long-time friends carousing at a party. Or Zeki appearing in a film where he jumps from a plane with his love interest and they float past clouds with parachutes in a loving exchange. Others combine images to be a bit more playful or suggestive, such as Zeki in half tuxedo, half minidress. Or a fading polaroid providing a glimpse of Zeki’s parents as they dissolve into an image of Zeki himself. Although the animations seemed relatively simple, they required a careful selection of archival imagery and thoughtful decision making in complementing and not overshadowing the audio.
Beyza: After the launch of the mobile Zeki Müren Hotline web documentary, we received wonderful comments from audiences around the world – even the distinction of Webby Award Honoree in the category of NetArt. Perhaps the most precious praise came from a writer who grew up in Turkey as a gay man. In his review for the Turkish arts journal Sanat Dünyamız, İlker Hepkaner wrote that the Zeki Müren Hotline is a cathartic experience beyond its subject, and that it made him feel understood as a Turkish queer man, all the while offering a multidimensional lens on Müren, a pop icon to whom he had never felt close before.
We believe such an effect is the result of a multilayered story that utilizes technology only to spotlight and uplift ineffable human emotions, without overshadowing them. Participatory and interactive tools provided us with a space that was open-ended and flexible enough to create a shape-shifting and subliminal experience – just like Müren himself.
Check out the documentary by visiting zekimurenhotline.com on your mobile phone, using headphones.
Images: Gogolplex and Gargarapalvin
