C.A.R.A. MULTISENSORY INSTALLATIONS
The following two project descriptions provide exemplary illustrations of the conceptual depth and scope of his multisensory installations
Selcuk Cara is known for his multisensory installations that make historical and societal themes experientially tangible through space, sound, and movement. Projects such as Ai Weiwei as a Dead Man on the Beach, a critical engagement with media representations and political activism, as well as his concept for the monumental installation on the former Nazi Party Rally Grounds in Nuremberg – developed as part of the city’s bid for the European Capital of Culture 2025 – demonstrate his ability to use art as a tool for ethical and emotional reflection. These works embody Selcuk Cara’s theoretical framework, the Contextual Authenticity Research Analysis (C.A.R.A.), a theory Selcuk Cara has developed over 15 years, which views historical sites not as passive relics, but as active matrices of experience, in which emotional, moral, and ethical layers of history are sedimented. Selcuk Cara’s installations capture the affective and cognitive responses of participants, creating a new form of historical evidence that bridges the past and the present. His works have been internationally recognized, presented at prestigious festivals, and have sparked profound discourse around memory, history, and societal responsibility.
Currently, Selcuk Cara is developing interdisciplinary projects that explore the intersections of technology, AI, collective memory, and perception. These new works aim to expand his theoretical approach by integrating empirical data with emotional and ethical resonance. At the same time, he is working on an arthouse film that has qualified for the 98th Academy Awards (Oscars 2026). His artistic practice combines innovation with deep philosophical inquiry, creating multisensory pathways to engage with historical and societal discourses, while offering new ways of perceiving the world through an ethically resonant lens
Selcuk Cara - Multisensory Installations of Interdisciplinary Cultural Convergence and Ethical Reflection
Summer 2020, installation of an edited abridged version by Selcuk Cara as part of the application for the title of European Capital of Culture 2025
Background: Richard Wagner's opera “Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg” was performed ceremoniously from 1935, the year of the “Nuremberg Race Laws,” on the occasion of the 7th Reich Party Congress of the NSDAP (so-called “Reich Party Congress of Freedom”) as part of a ceremony. Until 1938, all Reich Party Congresses were opened with the Meistersinger von Nürnberg; the “Reich Party Congress of Peace” (1939) was appropriately canceled at short notice due to the outbreak of war.
The stage area:
An installation modeled on the prisoner-of-war and forced labor camp on the Reich Party Congress grounds in Nuremberg (1939-1945);
a large, fenced-in, square field with four tall watchtowers in each corner.
Below each watchtower is another square field (stages 1-4);
between the four stages, within the fenced-in square field, are the audience stands (the audience is part of the installation, thus inmates of the prisoner-of-war and forced labor camp).
Instead of (barbed wire) fences, the two rear sides of stages 1-4 are enclosed at right angles by two (partly original) freight cars from the deportation trains that once left the Reich Party Congress grounds from Nuremberg-Märzfeld station.
(Stage 1 = train number Da 32, stage 2 = train number Da 36, stage 3 = train number Da 512, stage 4 = not yet determinable for dramaturgical reasons, explanation to follow).
Note:
Neither the prisoner-of-war and forced labor camp nor the freight cars of the deportation trains will not play a prominent role in the further course of my installation, but they will form an indispensable, valuable framework that will place the entire production in completely unexpected contexts and conscious/unconscious chains of association for the audience, especially in this place, the place of great symbols.
Past Forward:
In keeping with Nuremberg's application motto, “Past Forward,”
I will use the four stages mentioned above as follows:
Stage 1 (Past): “City of the Middle Ages”– The world of the historical Hans Sachs
Stage 2 (Nazi dictatorship): “City of the Reich Party Rallies”– The world of the organizer of the Reich Party Rallies in Nuremberg and the publisher of the “German weekly newspaper for the fight for truth "Der Stürmer” Julius Streicher (alias town clerk Sixtus Beckmesser)
Stage 3 (Present): “Center of knowledge and research, city of human rights”
– The world of the apprentice David
Stage 4 (Future): “Nuremberg in the future”
– The world of Walther von Stolzing
At the center of my installation is the historical Hans Sachs, whom I send on a journey through the centuries. He is to learn what will become of art, artistic freedom, and human dignity. Is there still hope that young, empathetic people will be able to shape their lives in a philanthropic way in the future?
Will art remain free and human dignity inviolable?
(Idea, adaptation, installation, direction © Selcuk Cara)
Selcuk Cara's installation takes place on a site of 85,000 m², including two factory halls, and should be understood in the tradition of Joseph Beuys' social art.
The installation begins already in the parking lots under oak and lime trees, which are illuminated with green-blue and red light. The spectators are lined up in front of a tent, waiting – hundreds of people in the rain. This tent is modeled after the tents where African and Syrian refugees, after their life-threatening journey across the Mediterranean in inflatable boats, had to register.
The spectators are intentionally processed by too few people at the ticket counter. They have to wait for a long time before it's their turn. The beginning of the performance was designed by Selcuk Cara so that the guests now all must believe that they are late. However, the guests do not know that by driving onto the vast forecourt of the factory halls, they are already part of the installation. They were greeted with torches on both sides and guided to their parking spaces under the trees.
The first guests receive their tickets, which show images of refugees taken in the Mediterranean. These are always different images, always heartbreaking pictures of suffering and distress. Underneath are quotes from Bertolt Brecht: “Are you a human?” or “Change the world, it needs it” or “Make room, don’t push the person behind you.”
Now the guests are allowed into the tent, where they are sheltered from the rain. The last ones have to stand in the rain for over an hour – however, they will later be given umbrellas by the “Red Cross” and the “Red Crescent” within the installation. But there are deliberately too few umbrellas to stir envy and resentment among the guests.
It is also deliberate that the tickets are cards showing pictures of refugees – children who have drowned, with Brecht’s texts. Each guest receives a different card, with various combinations of images and texts. Thus, the viewer is confronted with the refugee crisis right from the start.
Once all the guests are finally under the tent, they are guided through a very narrow corridor that leads further into the factory halls. There, two young Black women are waiting, acting as doormen and ticket inspectors. They let the guests in using a special system – not all at once. Some have to wait, and the tension grows. It gets cramped. The first ones are not always the first to be let in. It seems as if there is an invisible system at play, which not everyone understands. The Black women let the darker-skinned guests through first, causing dissatisfaction among those who are not let in immediately. Racism and power dynamics are palpable here – but it remains a question of what the entry control system really means.
Now, the guests are led into the first factory hall. Everything is very dark, and the space is almost eerie. There is no orientation, the space is opaque and threatening. Again and again, the guests are guided through ribbons that lead them through the hall like on an assembly line. They walk in snake-like movements, as if they themselves are part of a great machinery. Every second guest is given a flashlight that they must wind up themselves. This winding process echoes through the hall, and as they do, small points of light start to appear throughout the space. Each guest sees the world in their own unique way, even though they are part of the mass, experiencing the hall individually while still being surrounded by others.
Slowly, a faint green light becomes visible on the left side of the hall – a “green sun” appears. A construction fence divides the hall in two. Behind it, a beach becomes visible, with inflatable boats that look torn and broken. A scene connected to the images of refugees and the still-present drowning deaths in the Mediterranean.
Now, ghostly figures in white robes appear – children in death shrouds, resembling ghostly apparitions. These figures stand motionless behind a fence. The guests continue walking, each one being led past these figures. It gets tighter, denser. Finally, one of the figures whispers from nowhere. The words are initially incomprehensible, but gradually they become clearer and more understandable: “Are you a human? Are you a human?? Are you a human???”
It gets louder, and the guests begin to complain: “It’s cramped! I have no more space!” But the ghostly figures drown out the guests’ complaints, repeating over and over again: “Are you a human?” The tension continues to rise, and the gate that seems to open the way out of this space remains closed at first. It is dark, cramped, and the space smells of fish and algae. The smell in the air intensifies the feeling of suffocation and confrontation.
In the darkness, suddenly a child appears on the floor – it is the Syrian child, also seen in Ai Weiwei’s installation. It lies there, dead and abandoned. At this moment, Selcuk Cara recalls the media and artistic treatment of the child’s death.
Then, suddenly, there is a flash of light, and Ai Weiwei’s photographer scene is staged: The artist takes on the pose of Jesus Christ while photographers capture him from all angles. Behind the fence lies the dead Syrian child, becoming increasingly invisible to the guests. They perceive Ai Weiwei’s pose and the cult of the artist, but not the true, heart-wrenching suffering of the child.
With the green light of the installation, a second factory hall is entered. There is a shift in the space – the smell of incense rises. It is fine incense, which Selcuk Cara specifically obtained from the Vatican. An elderly woman can be seen, reciting Dostoevsky’s “Grand Inquisitor”: The scene from this work becomes another central point of the installation. It is about power, responsibility, and faith. Jesus is accused of disturbing society.
The visitors take a seat on church pews, arranged so that those who fought for the best seats with expensive tickets can only see part of the installation. Those who sit behind them on cheaper tickets can see more – and this increasingly becomes a question of responsibility and moral judgment.