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Payam
Mofidi
All animals do
things for
reasons, but
those reasons
are not
represented in
the modes they
behave. They do
an action driven
by a will and/or
a need, but do
not represent
that will in the
action itself.
The human-animal
is the first
reason-representing
creature that
represents the
reasons of his
behaviour in the
very same
behaviour. He
thinks, without
yet knowing, “what”
thinking
“is”. The
mechanism that
is involved in
human body,
while thinking,
eludes his
epistemological
abilities as
well as his
cognitive
faculties. Yet
Man is a
language-using
animal capable
to speak, of
what he thinks
and of the
behaviours that
are in
accordance with
his thinking
processes, so as
to construct
some meanings
for his
behaviour, for
indeed he is a
meaning-making
animal. This is
whilst the
nature as his
container, does
not give any
heed to this
very
construction.
The Nature does
not control Man,
but embraces him
and makes him
evolve and go
ahead, for the
human-animal is
an entity
composed of
infinite
components of
the Nature.
Meaning-construction
is an essential
characteristic
of this rational
creature. Hence
this creature
becomes human,
once the
accumulation of
these meanings
over each other
and their
subsequent
transcendence
constitutes,
first, the
semantic-disciplinary
institutions and
then the
semantic-controlling
ones dominating
him.
These semantic
institutions
reproduce
themselves in
any field and
domain –all the
way from the
“Dasein”
to groups of
community and
family, and from
the institution
of God to that
of the state.
They sometimes
caress him and
in other times
retain him under
control, so as
to prevent his
docile body from
conflicting with
his transcended
meanings; and
eventually
discipline him
in those
singular moments
in which he
encounters, and
thus becomes
aware of, the
alienation of
the truth of his
self-constructed
meanings in
regard to his
embracing
container, the
nature. This
procedure goes
on until the
place and the
moment that Man
revolts against
these self-made
semantic-institutions
and replaces
them with the
newer ones;
meanwhile this
wheel revolves
to get Man
much more
melancholic and
his history much
more obese.
In mid-eighties,
in his
Postscript on
the Societies of
Control,
Gilles Deleuze
explicitly
states that the
era of
disciplinary
societies - that
themselves were
in the
post-stage of
societies of
sovereignty -
has come to an
end. The
contemporary man
proceeds in
social
conditions in
which the
domination no
longer exerts
itself through
means of
discipline, but
through
apparatuses of
controlling
bodies;
mechanisms of
altering them,
and ultimately
making them both
subjects and
compatible with
the will and
practices of
power: the
societies of
control.
Looking at Payam
Mofidi’s
Cohesive
Disorder, a
visitor is
confronted with
an inhuman
narration of a
fundamentally
human condition.
By inhuman, I
mean a truly
epistemological
perspective, in
which the
veneration of
Man has been set
apart from its
biological
“significance”.
The former is
thrown off to a
corner, while
the latter is
kept in centre
of focus.
Although it does
not seem that
Mofidi is
individually
making an
attempt for
creation of a
meaning and its
transmission to
the visitor, but
his
video-installation
offers some
possibilities
for meanings to
be constructed
exactly at the
point that the
world of visitor
intersects with
the existing
world of the
screen, which is
itself extremely
detached, and
functions
autonomously,
from the
singular world
of the artist.
Thus, by
creating a
unique form both
in the
production of
the work and in
its material
display, the
artist only
creates a
situation alive
with
contingencies
that gets
supplemented by
the engagement
of the visitor,
and as the
result it either
may cause the
occurrence of
new meanings, or
no occurrence at
all. This is
precisely the
very moment that
art can happen.
Art, in this
treatment of the
word, is not the
mere product of
a singular
relationship
between the
artist and his
working
materials.
Rather, it is
something that
can be provided
with the
possibility of
happening, as
the result of
the
interrelations
between the
product of
that
relationship
(the object of
the exhibition)
and the
situation of the
visitor (the
world of the
visitor). This
way, Art is not
something
transferable
from a place to
place, from
artist to
visitor or
anything that
can be
transmitted in
any unilateral
relationship. It
is an Event, the
manifestation of
“the new” and
“the sensible”
which transpires
as a consequence
of two vectors
crossing one
another: the
object of
spectacle on the
one hand and the
visitor’s
situation on the
other.
In each of
Mofidi’s videos,
a Man is
struggling
against
something
essential
oozing out from
him, himself.
Sometimes he is
conscious of it,
every now and
then feels
restless, and
sometimes he
accepts it
unconsciously as
an existential
constituent
element of
himself. On the
other side we
see a hand
wringing a
towel, which in
contrast to the
above-mentioned
essence, once in
a while
caresses,
seduces, cures,
or blindfolds.
But by all means
it is a
controlling
hand. In the
trilogy of
“Cohesive
Disorder”, a
situation is in
the making. It
is as if a trait
is either
evolving, or
going toward a
complete
obliteration.
Something
essentially
inhuman becomes
human, or vice
versa.
In the preface
to “Thus Spoke
Zarathustra”,
Nietzsche
designates three
metamorphoses of
the spirit: ‘how
the spirit
becomes the
camel, the camel
a lion, and the
lion at last a
child’. Mofidi’s
video
installation
situates me in
this procedure
of becoming, yet
in reverse: how
the spirit was a
child, the child
became a lion,
equipped with
language, and
the lion became
camel carrying
burdens.
Ali Ahadi –
Summer 2014
Translation by:
Mostafa Shahed
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