Past
Morehshin Allahyari – Material Speculation
February 11 – March 19, 2016
Opening Reception: Thursday, February 11 @ 6:00 – 9 PM
Panel Discussion: Saturday, February 13 @ 2:00 – 5 PM
Exhibition Brochure with an essay by Alexis Anais and Anna Khachiyan.
Trinity Square Video is pleased to present Material Speculation, Morehshin Allahyari’s first solo exhibition in Canada. The exhibition is titled after her ambitious and widely anticipated series Material Speculation: ISIS, which we will be showing for the first time in its completed form. Also on view is Allahyari’s collaborative video with Daniel Rourke, The 3D Additivist Manifesto.
Material Speculation presents radical propositions for 3D Printing that inspect petropolitical and poetic relationships between 3D Printing, Plastic, Oil, Terrorism, and Technocapitalism. Allahyari addresses complex contemporary cultural and political dynamics with the sophistication and nuance it deserves, weaving multiple dynamics together for a holistic image of contemporary relations with objecthood and ideology. The exhibition addresses the precarity of material and digital artifacts, the location of authenticity, the transformative potential of additive production, the malleability of cultural icons, the geo-politics of oil producing nations and religious statehood, collective trauma from the loss of non-human bodies, emotional investment in abstract and specific objects, the ethical and political dimensions of new technologies, and archival practices in both historical and contemporary contexts.
Information on the public panel accompanying the exhibition can be found here: www.trinitysquarevideo.com/panel-material-speculation
More information on Material Speculation: ISIS
Material Speculation: ISIS is a digital fabrication and 3D printing project focused on the reconstruction of selected (original) artifacts (statues from the Roman period city of Hatra and Assyrian artifacts from Nineveh) that were destroyed by ISIS in 2015. Material Speculation: ISIS presents a practical and theoretical proposition for the preservation of artifacts while also proposing 3D printing technology as a tool for resistance and documentation, and the repairing of history and memory.
Material Speculation: ISIS, goes beyond metaphoric gestures and digital and material forms of the artifacts by including a flash drive and a memory card inside the body of each 3D printed objects which contains information, maps, and images gathered about the artifacts. Like Time Capsules, each object is sealed and kept for future civilizations.
More information on The 3D Additivist Manifesto
The 3D Additivist Manifesto, by Morehshin Allahyari and Daniel Rourke, is a video, text, website, and movement that blurs the boundaries between art, engineering, science fiction, and digital aesthetics. It calls on artists, activists, designers, and critical engineers to accelerate the 3D printer and other Additivist technologies to their absolute limits and beyond into the realm of the speculative, the provocative, and the weird.
The 3D Additivist Manifesto was created by Morehshin Allahyari and Daniel Rourke, with sound design by Andrea Young. #Additivism is essential for accelerating the emergence and encounter with The Radical Outside.
The full text and bibliography can be read & downloaded from: additivism.org/manifesto.
Artist Bio:
Morehshin Allahyari uses artistic production to investigate the complicated intersection between technology and politics. Born and raised in Iran, she has been living in the United States since 2007. Her practice examines the gendered, cultural, ethical, and political dimensions of digital spaces and materiality, using technology as both a philosophical and poetic toolset to think through objecthood, and to document the personal and collective struggles of contemporary human experiences. Allahyari has been widely exhibited internationally and has been an artist in residence at CMU STUDIO for Creative Inquiry (2015), Autodesk Pier9 Workshop in San Francisco (2015), and The Banff Centre (2013), among others. Her work has been featured in Rhizome, Hyperallergic, Animal New York, Art F City, Creators Project, Dazed Digital, Huffington Post, NPR, VICE, Parkett Art Magazine, Neural Magazine, Global Voices Online, Al Jazeera, and BBC among others.
Artist’s Acknowledgements
*Special thanks to Pamela Karimi, Christopher Jones, Negin Tabatabaei, Wathiq Al-Salihi, Lamia Al Gailani Werr, and former staff of Mosul Museum for their help with research.
*Special Thanks to Shane O’Shea, Shannon Walsh, Patrick Delory, and Mariah Hettel for their help with 3D modeling.
Exhibition Documentation
