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 a series of related artworks. Today, we are delighted to present Ahteshamipour’s latest project, Click Esc to Exit the Data Based Molecular Prison called Existence.
In their collaboratively produced 3D animation, visual artist Aggeliki Germakopoulou joins forces with Babak Ahteshamipour to construct a visually arresting world that probes notions of belonging, empathy, and transcendence through the lens of online gaming using playful environments ranging from abandoned castles to mysterious caves to probe the promise and limitations of virtual spaces. Inspired by gaming spaces, virtuality, and multispecies worldbuilding, the artists construct dreamlike, malleable and extravagant scenarios that juxtapose real-world frictions against fictional alternatives.
Their dynamic, frisky entities reflect on repulsive realities like war, climate disaster, emotional abuse and polarization. Yet the digital agents displayed on the screen — some organic-like, some more inorganic-looking, a faceless neon Sasquatch and poisonous spikes, disembodied eyeballs and teeth, flower monsters and bizarre totems — concentrate equally on relations between species and the intricate interplay of villains, heroes, and NPCs with their surrounding ecosystems.
Matteo Bittanti
Work cited
Click Esc to Exit the Data Based Molecular Prison called Existence
digital video, color, sound, 14’ 51”, 2023, Iran/Greece
3D and animation: Babak Ahteshamipour and Aggeliki Germakopolou
Direction, music and text: Babak Ahteshamipour
Images and video excerpt courtesy of the Artist
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