Video installation with crude oil, bent screen, automated View Master, automated Flipbook and frosted acrylic.
Images by Gelare Khoshgozaran; Sound design by Sepand Shahab; Text translated by the artist from Gholamhossein Sa'edi's Azadaran-e Bayal (The Mourners of Bayal).
From the core of the earth, crude oil bubbles to the surface in a video projection, seeping through the memory of its discovery in Iran, and its subsequent colonial and global impacts. Accompanied by images of oil rigging in a View-Master and a motorized flip book animation, the piece offers a crude reflection of history, while an adaptation of Gholamhossein Saedi's story “Azadaran-e Bayal (The Mourners of Bayal)”—a tale of a mysterious object abandoned on the road that becomes reverent upon encounter, and whose fate leads to unexpected demolishment and violent change—offers itself to be read in reflection. (from the press release of Totenpass, courtesy of Visitor Welcome Center)
Image Credit: Gelare Khoshgozaran, installation view, Totenpass 2018, Visitor Welcome Center, Los Angeles. Photos: Ruben Diaz
IMG_9947 from Gelare Khoshgozaran on Vimeo.
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Crude Intimacies | 2018
Limited edition B&W risograph book made from photograms of everyday objects with biproducts of crude oil. Commissioned by Hostile Books, printed by Tiny Splendor.
