Black Hole

Safaeddin Emami
April 19  —  May 10, 2019
Pasio

Future(s) are essentially uncertain. There is no evidence to prove possible pasts. How can you look for something or worry about not achieving it when there is no evidence for its existence?
“Black Hole” is a multimedia installation from Safaeddin Emami’s “Decomposition” series. Its atmosphere is reminiscent of a simulated world of a possible reality from the past and the future of existence, in which illusion and suspense dominate the audiovisual perception. In its so called real and tangible phase, the installation consists of countless ears hung on the wall; they are mediations for hearing, reacting, perceiving, and understanding the surroundings. Later on, as the narrative goes on and through “virtual reality,” the signs from the real replaces reality itself, giving the world up to representations that are presented as “reality.”
“Black Hole” goes beyond man and his clichés. By combining mechanical and organic parts, it gets a glimpse of the dream of man and machine, making the audience face the traditions of “production and reproduction” and “authenticity and proliferation.” In the real world, reproduction is represented by the ears hung on the wall, and in the world of fantasy, it is the simultaneity and the fusion of the real space of Pasio into the virtual space that is generated there. In fact, virtual reality becomes a gate, through which one can break free from the boundaries of reality. It is also a means that produces a spaceless space, details with no detail, and suspension in the timelessness of time. The limited reality of Pasio collapses as soon as one steps inside, while it is being reproduced at the same time. In the visual part of this project, Safaeddin Emami and Kiyan Forootan animate, simulate, and process the video and sound three-dimensionally, thus making an extensive illusion that replaces reality by electronic media and technological facilities, in order to reproduce inauthentic elements.
The fantastic and the visual space do not play the role of an empty, unreal surface; rather, it aids reality, leaving the audience somewhere between the past and the future of the world where there is nothing but bewilderment and suspension. Here, virtual reality is a possibility, not vacuum and emptiness. “Black Hole” removes the difference between reality and dream, manipulating individual memories and experiences: Have I been here before?

Installation
Series