Exhibition

QAL

From March 13 to April 13, 2019

Exhibit Opening

March 13 2019 at 5:30pm

Curator(s)

Ali Phi

Artist and Designer

Ali Phi

Location

The Gallery at VCUarts Qatar

In Collaboration With

Tasmeem Doha 2019

2019, Artists, Designers, Exhibitions, Technology

Image caption: ©AliPhi

QAL, The anti-carpet, is an interactive, generative, audiovisual installation exploring environmental design in futuristic architecture with roots in Persian motifs. The initial idea of this project was to make a connection between ancient Persian art icons and link them to a new design objective in the form of an installation. The key elements were Persian carpets and Persian gardens which were inspired by the idea of an earthly paradise. It proliferated through Persian literature from the time of the Achaemenid Dynasty. Such gardens would have been enclosed. The garden’s purpose was to provide a protected place to relax and for spiritual, and leisure purposes.

QAL

By Ali Phi

Persian carpets were made for a wide variety of utilitarian and symbolic purposes. They were produced in Iran and the surrounding areas which once belonged to the Persian Empire and were used at home, sold locally, and exported to other parts of the region and further abroad. The tradition and style of Persian gardens has influenced the design of gardens from Andalusia to India and beyond.

In contrast with traditional carpets, QAL is not a single pattern. It is mortal. It dies in one second. QAL’s patterns are created in real time by hands moving through the light. The carpet is created by an accumulation of patterns on a transparent vertical screen. The laptop’s screen projects white light towards the hands of the viewer which starts to generate patterns made by its movements. The result is a new, highly detailed, physical carpet in very high resolution. Over 60 patterns can be generated in one second. Some of them have been captured and are printed on the 1.5 m x 2 m canvases within the exhibition. Because of the countless possibilities of different parameters, such as the amount of light in the gallery, the sizes and the positions of hands and skin colors, the patterns are unique and it is almost impossible to recreate the same one. Some of these patterns was part of the LAND, Ali Phi’s solo show.

In contrast with traditional carpets, QAL is not a single pattern. It is mortal. It dies in one second.

- Artist and Designer Ali Phi

Biography

@ali_phi
aliphi.com
vimeo.com/aliphi

Ali Phi is media artist and interaction designer. His works explore connections between programming, generative audio-visual design, interactive media and immersive environment installations. His explorations in media arts started with the project Elemaun in 2008 as an audio-visual performance. He is the founder of Nullsight, a media lab and art collective in Tehran and freelance festival curator of TADAEX– Tehran Annual Digital Art Exhibition.

Ali Phi’s works depict the relationship between point, line, plane, light and darkness. The digital process and flexibility in his works are an interrelation and a diverse and growing alteration between today’s media and capacities of presentation. The flow of his work is to establish a relationship between video presentations, programming and converting sounds into images, and vice versa. It aims to shift the process of showing movement in images and to interconnect all those elements and how they have been transformed by computer.

Exploring ritual roots in Persian art, culture and architecture has affected his recent experiences and creations as he tries to take elements and motifs from the Achaemenid dynasty, the old Persian empire era and Middle Eastern philosophy and lifestyle to build his futuristic utopia made with conceptual installations.

He has performed and exhibited his work at international festivals including Ars Electronica, Mutek AE, and Patchlab, and had several media art installations in public spaces such as an exhibition for Monson Group and project SHYM in an under-construction building.