THE CASE
INTERACTIVE INSTALLATION, WOOD, STEEL, ACRYLIC, BBS, WOODEN MAZES, 80” diameter by 12 “ height , 2012, Victoria&Albert Museum, 2012.
The Case is an interactive installation commissioned by the Victoria & Albert Museum, the Iran Heritage Foundation, and the Magic of Persia Foundation. This is a site-specific project created during my residency at Delfina Foundation, London, in 2012. It is a 6 feet diameter balance board, filled with 86 wooden mazes and covered with an acrylic disk. There is an upside-down dome beneath the whole structure to make it rock in all directions. The audience can observe different patterns by moving around the piece. The Case is a game in which the audience is invited to stand on the piece. while they are maintaining their balance by not allowing the edges of the board to touch the floor, simultaneously have to try to solve the mazes. It is absolutely an impossible mission to do, in other words, to maintain the balance the audience cannot even start the game. Moreover, by rocking the board, it will touch the ground and the game is over. The reflective surface of the work made it interact with the medieval painting behind it. The idea of balance during the history of different cultures in both social and psychological paradigms is a very old yet contemporary issue however maintaining such balance brings contradictions of certain interests within individuals, societies, states, and ideologies.
