Installation view, ZHdK, Zurich, 2012

The most problematic part of any kind of outer censorship is that after a while, it generates self-censorship. It’s a repressive subconscious mechanism therefore after a period of time no external authority is needed. Sometimes the external surveillance becomes internal policing. Electro shaman, through a rather campy approach and aesthetic, opening up a transversal journey to this segment of the psyche. The perfromativity of the body as painter of the self and the observer at the same time, two monitors on the left and right, two juxtapositions of both narrators in the back ground who are reading a same text—one as a robotic male, the other a classical operatic female—are all portraying a dualistic experience. This duality even continues from the video piece into the installation itself, and through a surveillance camera mirroring the audience itself and representing a schizophrenic setting which somehow associated with shamanic rituals and psychedelia. Electro shaman mimics this ritual experience, drawing on the schizophrenia paradox which implies that there is a beneficial aspect to schizophrenia as a natural phenomena. In this way, the transversal journey becomes a means of protesting and breaking free of the loop of self censorship.

Singer: Bahare Fattahi

Written and Narration: Kamran Behrouz

Sound edited by Hadi Bastani