[WIP] Archiving Propaganda War Media (2021)

Installation Concept

Propaganda has always been the main weapon in every war. In particular in the '80s Iran-Iraq war which lasted for 8 years, propaganda played an important role in mobilizing soldiers, with many of them being teenagers to war. One of the main propaganda tools for this war was media and TV, and the most important documentary which was called "Ravayat-e Fath" (Chronicles of Triumph). 

This documentary played a prominent role in legitimizing the Islamic Republic's unreasonable imprisonments and executions of dissidents, creating the "Martyr" rhetoric, and devaluing the surviving and disabled veterans. 

This oppressive rhetoric of Martyrdom being the end of suffering and start of a journey towards unity with god, silenced the real stories, horrors and devastations brought to people at war. In this project I wish to work with the archives of Ravayat-e Fath and war propaganda media in general, to create a film-essay and using tactics like the Situationist's détournement, I will explore propaganda through re-appropriation of the existing archives with subtitles and my own narration. 

I will stack 3 CRT monitors and play this détournement film in those TVs. I will then have LED lights installed around the TVs and will program them to fade in and out in Red colour (colour of violence, blood and martyrs), as if they are breathing around the TVs.