SPOKEN CARPET MACHINE BODY
2019, Performance and audiovisual textile installation, variable dimensions,
I designed a song, costume, and projected images for this work. Then I programmed the visual and auditory works into a website to activate the live performance installation. The piece is an exploration of my identity as an Iranian-American —— which—— subverts the gaze of the military industrial system and its surveillance of my identity and body—— @—— the intersection of art and technology…
Kilim Hut (globalization.bread) U10 art space Belgrade, Serbia (December 2019) 9” 4’ft. x 10” 6’ft. x 3” 6’ft.
Materials: Balkan kilim’s (flat carpets), chip wood, black conte crayon, orange construction rope, 2 large video screens, one projection.
During a research-based residency in Serbia during the winter of 2019 I explored the cross intersection of war in the Balkan’s and war in the Middle East. Thinking through what it means to be a child survivor of war I built a three channel multi-media installation. This work is an abstraction of a bridge that collapsed in Mexico City during the Pueblo Earthquake two years ago. The collapsed bridge has become a Kilim Hut, housing three videos.
The films were made in Brooklyn NY at my mother's home. In them my mother dresses me as an unlikely avatar. I read a poem by Rhumi from a small book my deceased father passed onto me, and one of his paintings comes to life to help w the reading. Then I bake red bread, representing my fathers dead and dying body. My father was a refugee of the Iran Iraq war. An experience I share w him. The work is an exploration of the cross intersection of globalization and the refugee crisis and considers the way that globalization is a modern form of the colonial project rooted in war culture. Despite the potential modes of positive communication and intersectionality embedded for example in the internet. All aspects at once collapse into and beyond the Internet. This work at its core is about the question: What is representation? And how does it dissolve and re-render itself? This installation took place at U10 art space in Belgrade, Serbia. The experimental text which I performed at the gallery is translated into Serbian in the video failedbread.globalization, while an English version scrolls backwards above it.
Below are links to all three films. The directors of Photography are Farideh Sakhaei and Jazmin Jones (BUFU). Costume design and fabrication collaboration between Brett Gui Xin and myself (December 2019)
Made with the generous support of an Emergency Grant from Foundation for Contemporary Arts (NYC) and a residency through HEKLER Collective.
failedbread.globalization
https://vimeo.com/377126990globalization.room
https://vimeo.com/377134191globalization.bread (intro)
https://vimeo.com/377131760
PEPPER JOHNSON FAMILY HOME / LIVE VIDEO INSTALLATION
2015, Interactive video performance installation with 50 public performers, Location: Parsons / The New School
I built a room covered in blue and green screen and filled it with surreal sculptures. The room and the works it housed represented the internal world of a character (Pepper Johnson) I had been performing for one year in a video series. Pepper was the matriarch of a family of characters I played which included her husband/boyfriend Danny, and her child Sammy (a wind up Frankenstein toy). The Johnson family was a way for me to work though my middle eastern heritage and the confusion of passing for a white capitalist American.
In the final instillation, I wrote short scripts (10min each) and invited the public into the space to make “live films or home movies”. In one evening Pepper directed 10 films. The public participants were given the option of playing any member of her family, mom, dad, or baby. They took on these roles no matter their age or gender. They reviewed the script for 10 min before entering but it was taken away when they entered the room. Some examples of scenarios are: giving birth to one another, talking in tongues, and working in the Bush war factories. I edited in appropriated youtube and google search footage in post production. Camera: Zach Spears, Sound:Julie Deffet, Door/Script Review: Sonia Choi & Chang Sun (2015)
See Trailer Here: https://vimeo.com/358499350