Karamustafa’s Pencil Vending Machines—machines that spit out unpainted wooden pencils for 50 cents apiece—can be found in some of the corridors and lounges at Lakeside Park and the university. The artist brings a historicizing aspect to the contemporary future-oriented working world with her anachronistic-seeming devices and the simple, traditional writing utensils they produce. In a subtle way, Karamustafa’s work for Lakeside Park also poses questions about values, regarding for example the relationship between durability and innovation but also the role of tools, techniques, and technology in communication between people and the world around them.
Gülsün Karamustafa (b. Turkey, 1946) lives and works in Istanbul.
Permanent project, 2005–ongoing