Light-Meter
Videos from Parking Video Library
curated by Amirali Ghasemi
with works by Mohammad Abbasi, Rasoul Ashtary, Hadi Fallahpisheh, Mani Mazinani, Shirin Mohammad, Allahyar Najafi, Hamed Sahihi, Neda Zarfsaz & Mo H Zarei
There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.
Edith Wharton
About two year ago, I met Marlies Poshl in Tehran, an enthusiastic Film/video maker who came for a one month Residency at the Austrian Embassy. the encounter caused a series of conversations which lead to further collaborations, next year during the 5th edition of Limited Access Festival we had the pleasure to invite 2 members from Golden Pixel (Marlies Poshl and Nathalie Koger) to curate a screening program from vienna. Vanishing point was a response to that invitation, and Now LIGHT-METER is a counter program curated from Parkingallery’s Video archive, from Iranian artists question the notion of «Light» in parallel to their various concerns and perspectives using from everyday objects to music and from performance, found footage & Animation to music.
Momayez Art Gallery, Iranian Artist Forum
Sep 8-13, 2015
Mo H. Zareei | Rasping Music | 4’50”| 2014
Rasping Music is an audiovisual installation aiming to highlight potential aesthetics of some mundane aural/visual phenomena surrounding our daily lives. The work involves four mechatronic sound-sculptures, entitled Rasper, that employ some basic objects of the urban technological life, shift the medium in which they normally exist and formalize them through patterns of a rhythmic grid. In these instruments, DC motors and actuators are detached from the realm in which they are tools to help run our machines, and turned into a medium for sonic expression. In contrast to their everyday location, here, their bodily existence is fully exposed in clear enclosures, flaunting the physicality of their noise. This physicality is further highlighted in accompanying arrays of fluorescent light, tightening the audiovisual connection. Inspired by Steve Reich’s Clapping Music, simple phasing rhythms are used as a framework in which the extra-musical noises of the machine, as well as the insipid florescent lighting, gain accessibility and are forced back to the domain of aural/visual attention.
Hadi Fallahpisheh | Wind | 35” | 2013
When I was making this video I was trying to exprience the power of contradiction and breaking your predictable thoughts and defaults. Some kind of walking through the feeling of fear , feeling of calmness and happiness.
Hamed Sahihi | Luminous Ball | 3’50” | 2007
A mysterious ball of light appears in the room, in protagonist›s cigarette break. It seems at the reach of his hand at first but ….
Allahyar Najafi | Full Moons | 6’02” | 2014
Full moons is the action of repeating something that has been already said or written or happened. Something which has made a different action out of it that are simply put together and unlike in the Nature, form or quality, it is not the same as each other or anything else.
The term came into its modern philosophical usage through Immanuel Kant – who contrasted it with the Neumann. In contrast to a phenomenon, a Neumann is not directly accessible to observation. Kant was heavily influenced by Leibniz in this part of his philosophy, in which phenomenon and Neumann serve as interrelated technical terms.
Shirin Mohammad | Rainbow | 2’51” | 2015
Etude for A Five channel video – digital video installation – In theory every rainbow is a circle, but from the ground only its upper half can been seen, where’s the other side of these light paths?
When a rainbow appears above a body of rain drops, rays of lights reflected on mirrors in some anonymous hands conjoining these two individuals; merging , masking and fading them into each other’s thoughts.
Rasoul Ashtary | Balance No.1 | 3’17”| 2015
“Balance” is the name of a video series that have been created to investigate the concept of “dialectic of nature“. These series discover objects feature and phenomena in order to find themselves in balanced situation. For example in the first part Balance No.1 : we observe three phases of one specific article under various basic infrastructure conditions. In this video after an hour three phases of an article combine together and reach balance.
Neda Zarfsaz | Muse Series | 03’00” | 2014
Channel video Performance
This series of works are inspired by Plato’s quote, «The sun’s body is seen by everyone, its soul by no one». Also, mirror is the symbol of illumination and honesty in Iranian culture, deeming this concept it is utilized in traditional architecture. The artist attempts to reflect the sun with a mirror in the scope of camera: her attempt to materialize the light by reflection asserts a metaphor of being and nonexistence. Her movement zooms out and gets further from the camera while she carries a 50×50 cm mirror. She reflects the light in various distances until a tiny star-like light becomes visible. The function is remarkable as it is done by intention: a tiny reflection leads to reflection and brings up various purports in layers of meanings. Mirror is an industrial element and it is rare to find it in the na-ture however there are lots of phenomenon that cause a reflection of light in the nature. At the same time, obvi-ously there are lots of light reflections in new modern living spaces, reflection of light from glass windows of sky-scrapers; metal objects, signs, and even the glass cover of your watch or cellphone for instance that seizing the attention unexpectedly.
Mani Mazinani | Screen Seen |12’50” | 2011
The action of Screen Scene occurs at (and on) the two dimensional plane that mediates recorded light and ob-served light. The reaction of Screen Scene is bridging the physical with the metaphysical. A film projector shoots its beam directly into the camera. In a cinematic environment, the process is mirrored by the presenting projector. So, eventually the light falls onto an audience. In recreating the recorded event, viewers are subjected to new sights, extending the trail of observation. As such, perception is explored both within and without the video.