Let Her Sing
Shirin Neshat is an Iranian visual artist, who is known for her work in photography, video and film. Neshat shines a light on religious, cultural and social problems in her work by visually and conceptually focusing on oppositions such as men and women, rebellion and conformism, black and white… She frequently does that by juxtaposing two films next to each other such as in her work “Turbulent”. “Turbulent” is a 9 minute two-screen video installation that features two singers: Shoja Azari and Sussan Deyhim, made in 1998. The two singers create a melodic metaphor in this piece reflecting gender differences from a religious and a cultural point of view.
Turbulent consists of a split screen divided into two videos playing simultaneously, which places the watcher in the center, adding to the duality of the video. As the video starts, we can see a crowd of male men, all dressed in white, sitting in an auditorium in the video on the left. A man also dressed in white walks in and the crowd is cheers for him. He stands in front of the microphone and we can clearly see his face. He is turning his back away from the audience …show more content…
His male audience applauses and cheers for him throughout the song while the camera is still. As the song ends and he turns around to take a bow, the woman starts singing. The male singer is then in shock. He ignored the audience and turned around to listen, giving his full attention to the voice coming from near. The camera twirls around the female singer, revealing her face and her expressions. She is not singing a song; rather making musical sounds and deep cries full of emotion and passion. The contrast between the love lyrics of the male and the abstract turbulent noises made by the female become more visible as she continues singing, enough for the female singer to hypnotize the male audience even though the auditorium she is facing is
Shirin Neshat is an Iranian visual artist, who is known for her work in photography, video and film. Neshat shines a light on religious, cultural and social problems in her work by visually and conceptually focusing on oppositions such as men and women, rebellion and conformism, black and white… She frequently does that by juxtaposing two films next to each other such as in her work “Turbulent”. “Turbulent” is a 9 minute two-screen video installation that features two singers: Shoja Azari and Sussan Deyhim, made in 1998. The two singers create a melodic metaphor in this piece reflecting gender differences from a religious and a cultural point of view.
Turbulent consists of a split screen divided into two videos playing simultaneously, which places the watcher in the center, adding to the duality of the video. As the video starts, we can see a crowd of male men, all dressed in white, sitting in an auditorium in the video on the left. A man also dressed in white walks in and the crowd is cheers for him. He stands in front of the microphone and we can clearly see his face. He is turning his back away from the audience …show more content…
His male audience applauses and cheers for him throughout the song while the camera is still. As the song ends and he turns around to take a bow, the woman starts singing. The male singer is then in shock. He ignored the audience and turned around to listen, giving his full attention to the voice coming from near. The camera twirls around the female singer, revealing her face and her expressions. She is not singing a song; rather making musical sounds and deep cries full of emotion and passion. The contrast between the love lyrics of the male and the abstract turbulent noises made by the female become more visible as she continues singing, enough for the female singer to hypnotize the male audience even though the auditorium she is facing is