The immersive VR installation was born from the socio-political turmoil in Iran, where people's eyes were deliberately targeted by rubber bullets in the main protest hubs of Tehran in September 2022. The project is an immersive recreation of the blindness experience which portrays protestors not as victims but as active political changers. Over the course of a year, the idea has been meticulously crafted, mirroring the societal journey that initially sparked hope and illuminated the path toward emancipation from dictatorship. However, after a year of harsh repression, particularly targeting the daily resistance of women in Iran, the entire society is now experiencing a dark era in the aftermath of that hope.
Initially, this work comprised a collection of films and audio that was recorded during the demonstrations in Ekbatan neighborhood in Tehran. Months later, we integrated these visual elements into a documentary theatre showcased in Mohrvilla in Munich and later at Angewandte.
Building upon a written script, we introduced new elements, including audio-visual animation parts and 360 footage captured in the same locations. Our aim was to bring all the pieces together and make a VR interactive installation.
It is a singular experience, where one individual at a time is invited to step into a room. Inside, they are guided by a female voice that takes them through a narrative. The room is divided by a semi-transparent curtain, creating two distinct spaces: a tunnel adorned with erased slogans and a private room of the female character, who appears in the VR experience of the audience later.
Guided by the female voice, the audience member is then invited to cross the semi-transparent curtain and enter the private room of the main character. The room includes a table, with a hot tea on it a piece of cloth that appears later in the VR part, and some paintings that are faded or erased. Next, the female voice in the room tells the audience to sit on her bed and take the goggles.
The virtual experience begins with the tunnel resembling the tunnel staged in the room. The sound for the VR film is designed using the recorded voices during the protests in the same places mostly in Ekbatan district. 360-documentary footages were merged with a poem narration by the same female voice they heard before in the room. The narration was inspired by T.S. Elliot’s “The Waste Land”.
The immersive part recreated the atmosphere at the moment of getting shot in the eye based on a written piece by a woman who lost her left eye during the demonstrations in Ekbatan.
Following the VR part, the voice instructs the audience to extinguish the only light in the room. This experience plunges them into a temporary state of actual blindness again after what they experienced in the goggles. In the darkness, the person can see the faded parts of the woman’s paintings illuminating in the darkness of the room.
The woman’s voice tells the audience to exit the room in the final stage. As the audience member departs, the performance reaches its end.
In collaboration with Kyoto Art Center and working with Koji Shiroshia and Mifuku Design as VR painters and 3D model designers, we further developed the transitions and created an animation part with Unreal Engine for the opening scene.
