Babak Ahteshamipour
I Sometimes Cover my eyes (since I can’t control them in order to shut them) and dream the Occasions where We drop our Smiles (since I haven’t been getting that lately, it’s as if we’ve accepted believing fate, UFOs, time-travel and stuff)
digital video, color, sound, 5’ 12”, 2021, Iran/Greece
VRAL is currently exhibiting Babak Ahteshamipour’s Hey Plastic God, please don’t save the Robotic King, Let him drown in Acidic Anesthetic. To contextualize his practice, we are discussing key related artworks. Today, we focus on the hysterically titled I Sometimes Cover my Eyes and think of the Occasions where We Drop our Smiles...
In his 2021 video art piece I Sometimes Cover My Eyes (since I can’t control them in order to shut them) and dream the Occasions where We drop our Smiles (since I haven’t been getting that lately, it’s as if we’ve accepted believing fate, UFOs, time-travel and stuff) [sic], Babak Ahteshamipour creates a mesmerizing anti-materialist and anti-consumerist dreamscape.
He collects digital detritus — ceramic pots, houseplants, sneakers, Lidl bags, furniture, electronics, Pepsi cans, FedEx boxes, ice cream cones — as if sorting through the leftovers of modern material culture. He then resurrects these forgotten items in surreal scenes resisting commodification. The video toggles between this constructed digital realm and close-ups of the source materials themselves, the actual objects behind the rediscovered digital ephemera. The camera zooms in and out. A sense of dizziness pervades the screen. Whimsical yet solemn captions provide commentary.
The elaborate title nods to branding strategies emotionally elevating basic items into manufactured icons. We live in an era of overwhelming information denying critical thought outside consumerism’s framework…
Matteo Bittanti
Works cited
Babak Ahteshamipour
I Sometimes Cover my eyes (since I can’t control them in order to shut them) and dream the Occasions where We drop our Smiles (since I haven’t been getting that lately, it’s as if we’ve accepted believing fate, UFOs, time-travel and stuff)
digital video, color, sound, 5’ 27”, 2021, Iran/Greece
All images courtesy of the Artist
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