Digital Realities #1

Digital Realities is a work begun in 2017 in collaboration between Iranian artist Ali Honarvar (sculptor and designer) and French artist Antonin Jousse (digital artist), curation and project management by Shabnam Rahimian. This project led to the creation of two installations bearing the names Digital Realities #1 and Digital Realities #2 respectively, which were exhibited during the TADAEX festival in Tehran in autumn 2018 and then at the Espace Croisé in Roubaix during the Franco-Iranian group exhibition Back / Forward #2 in autumn 2019.

This collaboration is the starting point of La ligne ouverte and reflects its working methodology. The objective from the outset was to collaborate on a common work between two artists from different countries who did not know each other beforehand. Having different specialties, the two artists had to learn to develop common themes and agreed on the question of digital media. The latter are both the means of meeting and communicating between the two artists, the only viewpoint through which they had access to each other's culture (the two artists traveled to Iran and then to France after choosing the theme of collaboration) and above all a socially and politically important element in the relations between the two countries.

This work questions Eastern and Western perspectives on our respective cultures and especially the media and digital reinterpretations that are given. Ali Honarvar then develops a sculpture inspired by traditional Iranian architecture, its motifs and its use of geometry. Antonin Jousse develops a work of 3D scans and machine gaze, wishing to show only the automated gaze of the device, supposedly devoid of any cultural influence. The forms thus scanned are diffused on four screens that surround the sculpture and modulate its visibility. They are the only source of light to see the central sculpture and if the public approaches, cameras detect their presence and interfere with the diffusion, making it impossible to see the physical object and its translation into image. The digital device pushes the public outside the system and encourages them to look only at the media translation of the forms through the screens.

Digital realities #1 is produced by the TADAEX festival and the Mohsen Gallery and curated by Shabnam Rahimian, who develops numerous projects for international artistic exchanges, particularly between France and Iran.

• Calendar:
• 09 November 2018 :
  Opening of the Festival, Mohsen Gallery and Nabshi Center, TTehran, free entry
• 10 November 2018 :
  Conference by Ali Honarvar, Antonin Jousse and Shabnam Rahimian, AVA Center, free entry
• 11 November 2018 :
  Conference by Antonin Jousse, AVA Center, free entry