THERAPEUTIC EFFECT AND EXPERIMENTAL REACTION
There are two distinctive features in Neda Razavipor’s Self Service and Amir Mobed’s Come and shoot me: “Therapeutic effect” and “experimental interactions”.
Both artists choose performance/happening and are unaware of the exact outcome of the work. Their works interacts with the spectators and take into consideration an array of features, including political, social and cultural. A repressed surge of violence was released in both works. Also, the time and social conditions within which Self Service and Come and shoot me was performed were certainly a key element of the idea embodied in the works.
Self Service (2009) was a happening. The performers of which were the audiences.The artist covered the Azad Gallery’s floor in Tehran with hand-made carpets.You can see the images of this happening here:
As you see there were a number of pairs of scissors and blades by which visitors were to cut a piece of carpet and take it with them. They could take a piece only if they themselves had cut it out. Then the artist will take the torn piece of the carpet and put it in envelop on which part of the fourth book of Plato’s republic, where Lantheus has a struggle within himself where to see the bodies of executed people in Piracus port, had been printed. Once the visitors, performers managed with considerable difficulty to cut a piece of the carpet and received it in an envelope and as soon as they read what was printed on envelope, the therapeutic effect of the work was triggered. In two days what was left at the gallery floor was only dust the dust that was part of the most famous hand made Iranian carpets. Such a process and mechanism deals with the second feature -experimental interaction without the least knowledge of the impact of this work on audience, Razavipour put it on display, thus experiencing a fresh cycle of unexpected reactions.
Having the two features in mind lets take a look at the Mobde’s Come and shoot me.
You can watch the videos here:( the videos are in Farsi language but the concept and process is clear to watch)
As you see in videos these two features happened through the situation that Mobed instructed for audiences. Come and shoot me creates questions and discussions about violence as well. In this work the artist body is involved .Mobed’s performance is based on the most well-known act from the time 1971 performance piece Shoot, in which Chris Burden was shot in his left arm by an assistant from a distance of about five meters.Mobed is doing this performance with difference. Chris Burden somewhere asks his friend to shoot him and Mobed on another part of the world imitates him. Mobed asks people to shoot him but he covers his head.His issue is more colorful, happening in a different social context. His performance also takes place at Azad gallery and public had a permission to shoot in the gallery. They have to follow the instructions. Most of the people resist shooting but small group of people shoot a lot. The performance will continue till one audience shows unpredictable reaction and breaks the gun. Mobed plays the role of victim and the impact of this performance for audiences turn into an experience that evokes the pain and violence. Giving the disguising nature of the experience, the therapeutic is temporary and can only act as a painkiller, for the imposed social structure is still firmly in place.
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