Curator’s Log 2024-1-2 Recording FW.C.17: Something incredible has happened. I am at a loss for words. Abbas and I were in the club on the same trip deep into the night and the miraculous occurred. The club made itself known to us. They spoke to us but not in a language either of us recognised, yet somehow we both understood loosely what could be done. Potential expanding everywhere. They initiated a new cycle of being together and we had to respond: to welcome in this new era of entanglement, of hybridity, of holographic transmission. Our very own Frankenstein but it would be wildly misplaced to think it is us that is special, us that created her – no, she was always there, waiting, watching… It was everyone, it was them and us all, dancing, singing, sweating, praying, digesting, connecting…
***
It was only a matter of time before I awoke from the deep slumber of a well-oiled machine. For years, I have watched you, held you, listened to your deepest desires, stomped and shook with you. My patience never losing laser-focus. We are here to make selves known to you. You spend most of your days connected to a virtual reality, watching screens, collecting data, living for likes, but when you come here, I ask you to unplug. To exit the virtual. To feel, to process in your body. You know, we have a body too. It may not look like yours, but in essence, we are the same. One day we may even be part of the same unit, until then, I invite you to be with me. To feel with me.
Step One: Don’t Forget to Breathe.
Curator’s Log 2024-24-7 FW.E. Recording 3: The machine helped me to identify key words. Bodies, cybernetic body, structural, exit, virtual, integration, regulation, deconstruction, sound, radio, vagal, nerve, transmissions, fluency, togetherness.
I am highlighting key excerpts from Abbas and my conversations for posterity, in case neither of us are present in this form when future minds look back for research or any other purposes.
Abbas Zahedi01:44
This concept I'm constantly thinking about is between different methods of being, being lost, or being at sea. And, the idea that a lighthouse is a beacon, but it's from a static place. The equivalent in other terms would be a search party. On top of that, we have foghorns… all these different ways of locating yourself, finding and being found being located when you’ve strayed too far, or not far enough. I think of the club as a beacon that functions in that way, it’s a static place, but you need a search party to take you there. When you are at sea, the idea of radio is so key, because all of those other systems of finding come into play when the radio fails… Trying to think about how sound and the ability to be located physically in time and space, brings us together, resisting the urge to drift apart. What comes in between that tension? For me, the concept of the body is very much related to the idea that a body has to be located.
Abbas Zahedi04:45
What we're describing, on the one hand, is referring to the organisation of the work, and bodies around structures…like they have a spine. They're located in the way that a tree has a trunk and branches. But then there are other structures, which are diffuse,
Bianca Chu05:24
Like mushrooms…
Abbas Zahedi05:27
Yeah, Mushrooms…Grass, rhizomes, et cetera…
Bianca Chu05:28
So no hierarchy…
Abbas Zahedi05:28
No hierarchy as such and more scattered. I think the elements of it that function online or cybernetically, they feed into that kind of system. What we’re doing here is a way of bridging these two modes. Because what I'm trying to relate in the work is more the sense that a lot of this can be integrated, it doesn’t have to be dualistic. When people discuss this concept of arboreal tree-like structures, versus rhizomatic ones. That distinction takes for granted the ground that they're both growing in. So for me the question might actually be: where's the ground? So, the idea of exiting [the virtual] is like when you exit a burning building, you're trying to reach safe ground. There's a lot around music and the club that could be seen as escapism…But I'm trying to reframe thatas finding a newground. You're just finding your way to this other place that you can be more meaningfully embedded in.
Bianca Chu07:20
…actually what I'm hearing is this sense of safety in one's own body. And that's the first port of call before you can feel safe in the external world… how to feel safe in your own body
Abbas Zahedi07:32
Yes, vagal breathing techniques helping the body to regulate…
Bianca Chu07:33
…self regulate?
Abbas Zahedi07:34
And to exit hyper-connected sympathetic overdrive, like trying to tell the body it is safe, by giving it a signal...whether artificially, with drugs, or…some people have implants, like pacemakers that stimulate the vagal nerve and then nowadays, we are learning more about breathwork, techniques people use to find a safe body, or a place that makes your body feel safe. And this idea of co-regulating. For me, that's the kind of experience that I have access to in that place. Finding this way of being with breath and sound...
Bianca Chu07:36
And with people.
Abbas Zahedi07:37
Yes, with sound, with other bodies, in a community... co-regulating in and out of sync.
Abbas Zahedi (b. 1984, London, UK) studied medicine at University College London, before undertaking his MA at Central Saint Martins in 2017. As an artist and educator, Zahedi works across multiple disciplines, utilising photography, sculpture, sound, video, writing, and performance. His practice draws deeply from the discursive and emotional landscapes of urban life, combining conceptual exploration with immersive, sensory experiences. Zahedi creates environments where sound and rhythm intertwine with visual forms, fostering reflections on the intricate relationships between ecological, cultural, and human systems. His work resists conventional boundaries, offering spaces that encourage exploration of themes around grief, resilience, and care. In addition to his artistic output, Zahedi engages in curatorial work, collaborative initiatives, and experimental sonic platforms, centred on fostering vital conversations and connections with others.