Turbulent is presented for the first time by Noire Gallery on the occasion of ARCO 1999 at Madrid. The video installation wins the Prize for Best Project, Arco.
Turbulent is a 9-minute, two-screen video installation demonstrating the binaries in Iran’s musical history, featuring performances by vocalist Shoja Azari and composer Sussan Deyhim.
A man (Shoja Azari) and a woman (Sussan Deyhim) are seen on opposite sides of the gallery space. First, the man sings a song, to the delight of an all-male audience. When his song has ended, the woman performs a complex vocal piece. She has no audience and sings no lyrics, but her voice and delivery are evocative and powerful, so powerful that the man on the opposite side of the gallery seems as mesmerized by her as we are.
Neshat’s 1998 video installation Turbulent is the first of a composing trilogy, evoking ongoing conflicts and tensions of human identity inflicted by differences of gender in Muslim culture. She addresses historical, cultural and socio-political masculine and feminine issues in relation to the social structure in Iran. This installation is constructed using a double screen format, projecting images of a male and female performer on separate screens. The male begins to sing passionately in an auditorium to a large male audience, as the female singer silently stares into a room of empty seats. Once the male has completed his song and is heavily applauded, the woman begins to sing in a very different and electronically modified voice as the camera pans around her back and forth. This installation expresses the juxtapositioning of the sexual hierarchy between men and women in Iranian society and culture. Neshat’s depiction of opposites, visually and conceptually, signifies how the male singer represents society’s ideal man, while the woman portrays the extreme pressure women are under, therefore they are ultimately more likely to resist and break free. The female singer becomes rebellious and manipulates a traditional song, improvising the lyrics while performing in a public space, which is actually prohibited for women to do in Iran. The combination of image and music are important elements is Neshat’s work. This mix intensifies the emotional quality, generating an intuitive involvement for the viewer who stands in the middle of the work. The viewer engages in the visual conversation, removing the traditional cinematic experience.
In film, Neshat’s two-screen video installation Turbulent earned the Golden Lion at the Venice Art Biennale in 1999.
