Ambiguous Standards Institute
Information
Exhibitions
Farmlands . 2025
NOW . JDW . 2022A Travelling Institute . 2022
An Institute Within An Institute . 2021
EAST. JDW . 2019
A School of Schools . IDW . 2018
Crate Studies . ASI 2014-2024
#1 Ambiguous Standards of Serving: Teaglasses
#2 Ambiguous Standards of Food: Eggs
#3 Ambiguous Standards of Over-Specification: Kitchen Utensils
#4 Ambiguous Standards of Tune: Airs & Orders
#5 Ambiguous Standards of Unicodification: Hands
#6 Ambiguous Standards of Experience: Duration
#7 Ambiguous Standards of Electricity: Plugs and Outlets
#8 Ambiguous Standards of Protest
#9 Ambiguous Standards of Diagnosis
#10 Ambiguous Standards of Travel
The Fundamental Interconnectedness of Everything
Influences
Art Institute of Chicago Collection Images Projection
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The Vision
The cryptic, fluid and fragmented structure of everyday life requires certain ambiguous1 descriptions, instructions and standards. Definitions of ambiguous standards are made using ingredients, spatial data, anatomic references, thus ‘loaded’ categories2. Given standards enounce proximity not certainty related to the dimensions of the notions they signify. Most of them are qualitative instead of quantitative, thus difficult to investigate solely through physico-mathematical methods and analysis.
Ambiguous Standards Institute traces the roots of ambiguous standards in a given context. It aims for the accumulation information and the local, national and global dissemination of thereof. The institute pursues a delicate investigation of textual and visual representations of various exo-standard measurements and takes them into the record: Some of these standards refer to physico-social, and some to physico-mathematical practices. Some are ambiguous by nature, some are absolute by self-proclamation, meaning that they are defined by the social and cultural environment they are situated in. Some are frequently used, and some are long out of circulation. Compilation of information will be distributed the mission through various channels of mass media.
This institute traces ambiguous standards implicit in everyday life through measurements, social etudes, data visualisations, static and dynamic imaging techniques and design research. It collects data, analyses it, produces information, documentation and physical manifestations from within3. It compiles the outcomes and shares them with society similar to national[4]or supranational[5]institutions for standards and quality.
1A happy oxymoronic coincidence.
2We have overturned the notion of empty categories Tanyeli (2017) defines, which he derives from Giddens’ concepts of emptying space and time.
3These works could be self-designed/manufactured or commissioned to other designers, artists, scholars. Similarly, opinions of experts and collaborations with people and institutions will be highly sought.
4’Turkish Standards Institution (TSE) is a public institution founded with the Law no: 132 which was adopted on 18 November 1960 and having legal entity with exclusive competence, managed according to special law provisions. For execution of the duties given it by the law, a structuring exists between all units in a way so as to ensure financial and administrative independence.
TSE, the sole authorized body for standardization in Turkey, operates in diverse fields of the quality infrastructure that includes certification, testing, training as well as surveillance and inspection activities. TSE is an active member of the world standardization community; with its full membership of International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) since 1956, Standards and Metrology Institute for the Islamic Countries (SMIIC) since 2010, European Committee for Standardization (CEN) and European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization (CENELEC) since 2012.
TSE, as a standardization body, provides the standards aimed at enabling industrialists to produce goods and services in compliance with rules, laws, codes and standards applicable in global markets, as well as being a notified body, enables clients to gain access into the European and Gulf market by ensuring their products meets all CE mark requirements according to European Directives/Regulations and G mark requirements according to GSO regulations.
As a leader and respectable Conformity Assessment Body and also with the responsibility of seeking public interest always as a priority, TSE focuses its efforts on providing all kinds of services that industrialists/exporters need in their relations of trade with other countries.
TSE, with its capabilities, is ready to share its experiences and to cooperate with other standardization and conformity assessment bodies in the world’ (TSE, 2017).
5‘The ISO story began in 1946 when delegates from 25 countries met at the Institute of Civil Engineers in London and decided to create a new international organization ‘to facilitate the international coordination and unification of industrial standards’. On 23 February 1947 the new organization, ISO, officially began operations.
ISO is an independent, non-governmental international organization with a membership of 162 national standards bodies.
Through its members, it brings together experts to share knowledge and develop voluntary, consensus-based, market relevant International Standards that support innovation and provide solutions to global challenges.
International Standards make things work. They give world-class specifications for products, services and systems, to ensure quality, safety and efficiency. They are instrumental in facilitating international trade.
ISO has published 21962 International Standards and related documents, covering almost every industry, from technology, to food safety, to agriculture and healthcare. ISO International Standards impact everyone, everywhere’ (ISO, 2017).
The Mission
The Institute authenticates, archives and registers the ambiguities; however, adopting a role as an educational platform, it equally places an emphasis on the recruitment and placement processes of new institutians, thus it aims to register uncharted standards to their greatest extent possible. The main purpose of this institute is not to absolutize ambiguities. Benefitting from the previous institutional and intellectual accumulation of knowledge by social institutions of research, the institute aims to portray a conversion table in written and illustrated formats. Through the acquisition of everyday objects, institute collects and archives the fragments from our material culture and registers them according to their discursive potentials of setting/validating the ambiguous standards.
The History
Our archival research has revealed that an Institute for Ambiguous Standards was established in 1965 by Hikmet, Hayri and Turgut Beyler and Mefküre Hanım.
After five years of the establishment of TSE in 1960 (Turkish Standards Institute) for the definition of ‘standards of procedures and services related to any kind of material and product’, with the liberalist approach of the 1961 constitution, their motivation was to indulge in the realm of ambiguous standards in a world where absolute measurements and exact standards were in the dawn. Their main inspiration was The Law of the Municipality of Bursa, issued in 1502 under the request of Sultan II. Bayezid Han.
The original ASI operated between 1965 and 1976, issuing reports, leaflets, and PSA’s (public service announcements on radio and, later, television), sharing the information with state institutes and organisations through textual, audial and visual means. Their main aim was to establish the missing connection between the physico-social standards and measurements of the ‘old’ world with the physico-mathematical ones of the ‘new’ one in the 20th century. We could only reach this photograph from the opening celebration held in Istanbul, but the research continues.
Method
This institute traces ambiguous standards implicit in everyday life through measurements, social etudes, data visualisations, static and dynamic imaging techniques and design research. It collects data, analyses it, produces information, documentation and physical manifestations from within. It compiles the outcomes and shares them with society, similar to national or supranational institutions for standards and quality. It might not always be easy to understand why we do what we do. At certain times, there might be reasoning and justifications on secondary or tertiary levels. At other times, there might be none at all. But institutians do what they do with utmost seriousness. The ways and methods with which the research and development will be conducted could diverge from their hard-scientific counterparts, for the research about ambiguous concepts requires obscure and sophisticated practices.