Invisible Present Tense 3.0

2019
Curated by: Amirali Ghasemi, Parking Video Library

The previous versions of the "Invisible Present Tense" Project

Atousa Bandeh | Aliyar Rasti | Shilan Borhani | Mojtaba Saranjampour | Bahar Samadi | Mehdi Shiri | Nima Bahrehmand | Nebras Hoveizavi
The “Invisible Present (Tense)” is an ongoing screening program selected from Parking Video Library. Several variations of the program toured in Canada, United States & Brazil in 2011 and 2012. In 2013, it became part of the “Focus Iran” program at both the Rotterdam and Göteborg Film Festivals.
The 2nd edition was shown in the screening programs at Potsdam, Germany and Eindhoven, Netherlands. “The Invisible Present Tense 3.0” is curated and run as a one-day screening event for “Yard Video Festival” at Ag Galerie and intends to broaden the scope of moving images to go beyond the geographical borders.
The current edition of the program highlights how the different disciplines might meet together. The program might be outlined through keywords like landscape, the mundane, the yearning and the medium of photography itself.
The participating artists live and work in Iran and across the monde. “The Invisible Present” tries to shed light on a generation that is difficult to define, thus often harshly targeted internationally; A generation who seeks to present and execute their independence to experiment in significant ways, while preserving the right to be invisible.
Parking Video Library is a Tehran-based video archive initiated in 2004 by Parkingallery Projects and includes Moving Image and Multimedia works by emerging artists from Iran and elsewhere. The series is devised and curated by Amirali Ghasemi independent curator based in Tehran. PVL introduced the vibrant new wave video art scene through several events, screenings, workshops and the Limited Access Festival for Moving Images, Sound and Performance.

Phantom Zone | Atousa Bandeh | 06:10 | 2016
Phantom Zone is an imaginary prison in Superman’s comic. The inmates often Phantom Zone reside in a ghost-like state of existence from which they can observe, but cannot interact with, the regular universe. Inmates do not age or require sustenance in the Phantom Zone; furthermore, they are telepathic and mutually insubstantial.

Similar | Mehdi Shiri |14:42 | 2018
My friends came to me on a Thursday night. We packed our stuff and went on a trip to Porkan (a small village in the Chalous road, Chenarestan Mountain). We had food and supplies for four days. I began making videos as always. I didn’t mean to narrate a certain story. I was merely recording the sceneries: the ponds, the rivers, the plants which were dependent on the water and the other living species in the surrounding. I made videos whenever I had the battery on my cell phone. I spent a little time with my friends. They complained that I have come to nature to make videos and I’d better enjoy the natural sceneries directly. But I particularly enjoyed the distance caused by the medium. The medium was giving me something more, something not visible to the naked eyes. I shed light on a plant and made a video of its movement in the slow wind. The plant was overexposed. I have recently noticed my habit of making videos unceasingly. I edited some of them and added the videos of the ponds. Each recorded element has an equal value to me.

Fixed Frame | Aliyar Rasti | 03:13 | 2017
Aliyar Rasti’s contemplative landscape has no intention to surprise. Only if one looks patiently, the reward will be imminent; though it’s hard to grasp.

Photohoney | Shilan Borhani | 06:00 | 2013
I reproduced a sequence of “Qandil Mountain” directed by Taha Karimi, Kurdish director. It is similar to the sequence in the movie in formal terms, but these two express their feelings and thoughts of the war in two different ways.
The visage of the wars is alike throughout the world. The massive machinery of war devours the existence of humankind. The conquerors have found ways, more beauteous than ever, to expand wars and the civilians, those who are not warriors and there is no role considered for them in war, go round in circles incapable of doing what they want. They are in quest of small signs to discover ways to unchain themselves from their internal bewilderment.

Today | Bahar Samadi | 03:05 | 2011
Stray birds by Rabindranath Tagore — ‘I sit at my window this morning where the world like a passer-by stops for a moment, nods to me and goes.’

Conversation | Nima Bahrehmand | 02:02 | 2012
“Mid of Up & Down” project is mainly focused on magic and impossible actions as a challenge for an artist with whatever which can find around. The conversation is video installations as a part of this ongoing project which thematically focuses on gravity and objects. Composition of the objects in the frame is obviously weird and unfamiliar. In this work chairs as part of an official meeting, play the role of men who try to convince the opponent and win the conversation with the sounds that rise from hit the table and crawling their seat bases.

Does the Road Offer a Clue? | Nebras Hoveizavi | 17:17 | 2018
Having passed a dry desert, the fox reached an untouched plain. Walking along the plain, the fox came across a road. She was neither fatigue nor thirsty. Navigating by instinct was giving her infinite pleasure. She saw the cars passing by the road and asked: “I was wondering which road to take the right lane? or the left one?” Just then, the beam of a car on the left lane elegantly passed through her body and said: “Go to the north, walk along the left lane.” Aimlessly wandering the route, she enjoyed the lights illuminating her body. All of a sudden, she heard a horrible sound. Two cars smashed together before her eyes. She escaped and said: “If I had taken the direction toward the right lane, I wouldn’t have witnessed such a collision.” The road, under her feet, laughed and said: “I had been waiting for you for a long time.” The fox responded, “But I had made a choice…” The road said: “…and I had foreseen.” The fox asked: “Where am I going next?” the road replied: “You are the one in charge!” The fox said: “But you know it!” the road said: “I know … But the illusion of making a decision is a pleasant one!”

Contradictory Scene | Mojtaba Saranjampour | 0258 | 2015
It snows, I step on the white ground, I turn my face to the sky and experience the fear and joy of snowfall simultaneously, a dual sensation that drew me to this project, the simultaneous sensations between two desires met together; mediated by expired black and white negatives.
Here you see the rocks that have lost their original form over time. There has been a change in the white snow; time has left its mark on the mechanical tools.
It is a kind of change inevitably, whether it is in the body or in the soul; whether it is in color or in light. In a word, one may be the truth, and the other to test the truth.