DJ, VJ, Club scene / Electro-pop

With the examples of successful artists such as Beduk, Portecho and Pamela Spence, there is now no inhibition to write English lyrics for electronic music. There is a great potential in this genre as talented Turkish musicians are waiting to be discovered and reach global audiences.

Burcu: "Dutch events in Turkey should be open air". The DJ scene is young and lively but DJs have trouble to earn enough money with their art. Turkish DJs pay the clubs, not the other way around. The best clubs have foreign DJs (look for professional club-owners, 1500 lira per month, 700 liras per month in Ghetto); Turkish DJs also go to other countries. Beer is expensive that is why the clubs are expensive. Clubs may also be closed down because of mafia, class struggle, drugs in the clubs, political clamp down and the recent economic crises.

A few years ago there were relatively more electronic parties. Now there are electronic festivals in Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir and at some coastal cities where the same audiences have their summerhouses.

VJs do a lot of projections on buildings right now. Mobile battery powered projectors have enables this trend. People send things through the internet, for example via twitter, and these can be projected immediately. Motion capture/tracking, video-mapping (projection) on 3D objects, LED sculptures, and interactive lighting are also recent developments. What is missing, are collaborations between VJ and graphic designers, architecture, design, new media and theater light and dancers, cinema students, video artists and poets. The VJ scene, just like the electronic arts scene, is small in Turkey.

Most Dutch musicians are trance-acts (Junkie XL, Kraak & smaak, van Buren, Giovanca). One interviewee working for a magazine said that if he were the Dutch he would not spend money on electronic artists except for huge events like Tiesto (the Istanbul based American All Stars has organized performances by Tiesto), whereas another interviewee from the field said that Turkish electronic music was getting better, more experimental. So there are mixed messages about electronic music.