David & Goliath

In my most recent collection of large scale digital paintings and animations, I explore the theme of revolution as a personal and global uprising through which we are transformed and transmuted. Using my own experiences of living through the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran, mixed with the political chaos and upheaval of our world, I set out to reveal multiple and simultaneous dimensions to the shifting power dynamics of our time. These high-fidelity, spectacular and expressionistic digital scenes evoke the work of the old masters, while using the New Aesthetics of digital media and innovative, cutting-edge technologies. Inspired in part by the Red Book of Carl Jung, the panels appear as a Post Millennial, cinematic, illuminated manuscript, combining text and images as digital ontologies with miniature detail, in which I recount multiple stories from personal trauma, to global narratives and Occupy Wall Street ideologies. The same characters and scenes also appear as mesmerizing, beautiful and powerful animations in 1080 HD, using dazzling special effects set to various experimental electronic music scores by different composers.
I employ 3d Computer Graphics figures of my own design and making which are abstracted renditions of contemporary video game style characters. I model these employing a "gestural" 3d sculptural technique that relies on generative computation. I then pose and animate them using motion capture of dance and martial arts, re-enacting epic and cinematic moments of transformation in personal and global political narratives. The environments blend computer-generated and traditional abstract painting, photos, Hollywood style special effects, graffiti, guerilla art, natural patterns, and data-driven textures modified to resemble graphic elements in a digital design space. Both the figures and their environments are additionally audio-triggered with sound and improvised music as a "shamanic" element that I bring into my work through technological synesthesia.
The panels employ poetic and dramatic narratives, literally and figuratively, telling multiple stories simultaneously, allowing the viewer to follow separate threads or all. Each piece has many embedded worlds within it, and can be experienced like Google maps. Transformation and transmutation are the basic premise for each piece, as intense and at times shocking personal and political content touches the viewers with a sublime depth and meaning reminiscent of Sufi poetry. Viewers at numerous shows spend hours at times reading and exploring each piece, as they take in the profound experiences contained within these panels.