In the first floor of MOMA in New York visitors can watch Runa Islam's installation “Emergence”(2011, red, b&w, 3:40 min) that is part of her research focused “on the exploration of the central role of historical archives in capturing historical facts and narratives”. [1]
While researching in various archives, Ms. Islam found a damaged glass negative of a photo taken by Antoin Sevruguin (1830-1933), son of a Russian diplomats in Persia and a well known photographer of the Imperial Court of Iran during the Qajar dynasty (1785-1925). [2] This glass negative registered a group of dogs picking over what seems to be the carcasses of three horses in the middle of a military training square in Tehran, during the Constitutional Revolution (1905-1907).
Runa Islam "Emergence" 2011. 35mm film (color, silent), 2:54 min. Commissioned by The Museum of Modern Art, New York, Courtesy the artist and White Cube, London
Ms. Islam used this damaged negative to print a picture and record, under the darkroom red light, the developing process of the image: from the first appearance of black traces on the photographic paper until the complete burning of it. She also recorded under the red light the trace-effect of the two main cracks of the glass, as well as the water moving in the developing container. All these images appear in a continuous screening that is part of an installation that allows the public not only to sit down and watch the film, but also to sit and see the projector and listen to the drowsy sound of the reproduction of the film. In this sense, and in spite of seeming a mere technical process, the film not only shows a technical and temporal process, but also, within a red atmosphere, a poetical reproduction and emergence of a trace of violence.
Both trace and reproduction can hardly be understood without regarding the origin and history of the glass negative as well as the historical context in which this artwork takes place.
On the one hand, it is important to indicate not only that the revolution erupted in 1905 due to protests against the collection of tariff to pay back the Russian loan for the old Shah Mozzafar-al-Din's royal tour in Europe [3], but also that the revolution reached its highest point when thousand of protesters camped outside of the British Embassy, discussed about constitutionalism, and started to demand a parliament in order to limit Shah's powers. Both indications are neither casual nor meaningless if considered in relation to what was the economic confrontation between the Britain and Russian Empires at the time (the so called “The Great Game”). In fact, the adoption of a parliament was welcomed and supported by Britain (the very first European country that opted for a Constitutional Monarchy) as a way of countering Russia's strong presence and influence in the Shah's government. In this sense, the revolution was not only an effort for transforming government in Persia, but also for entering into modernity, as it was considered from an European history and point of view: the modern times of Western economy and politics history, and the Western modern times adopted by the reformists who wanted the parliament to sit down on European-style chairs instead of Persian rugs. [3]
The constitutional revolution lasted few years. In fact, in 1907, the new Shah Muhammad-Ali exploited the divisions within reformers, and took advantage of the Anglo-Russian agreement that divided Iran into a Russian zone in the North and a British zone in the South – agreement that meant the end of British support to reformers. The parliament did not disappear but became a kind of rubber stamp organization. In this sense, the revolution against the Shahs (or 'King', in European terms) let a trace, but it was one almost unrecognizable; the death horses (which for an European public could evoke the fall of the symbol of the kings) disappeared by overexposure. The revelation (revelatio) means not only the possibility of revolution (revolutio), but also its silencing as well as its fragility. The very fragility of revolution is metaphorically that of the glass negative, which was inadvertently damaged by bombings directed by the Cossacks of the Shah during the suppression of the reformist movement.
On the other hand, the reproduction of a trace of violence does not only refers to a past event, but also to the events of what has been called “The Arab Spring” in the Westernized media. In relation to these events of 2011, It is worth underlying that there is a double reproduction. Firstly, a reproduction of a Western history due to the willingness to understand reformist movements in Middle East in terms of Prague's Spring Revolution (1968) against the URRS (the old enemy and evil of Western democracy during most of the 20th century). Secondly, a reproduction of reformist movement in the Middle East, and particularly in countries where Islam, the feared and 'devilish' religion, plays an important role in daily life and politics.
In this sense, Ms. Islam invites us to watch a film of the revelation of an image of the revolution, and to consider and perhaps revel, in the drowsy reproduction itself, the fragility of contemporary 'sound' revolutions. Any revolution in the Middle East is in risk of cracking due not only to external and internal powers and interests, but also due to the very possibility of understanding them again, particularly by means of the Westernized media, in terms of either entering into or exiting from Western modernity. As public of “Emergence” we are subtly invited to watch out on the contemporary revolutions in the Middle East, not as if we were contemporaries to Sevruguins and wanted to record revolutions in a still glass, but to carefully consider the way we record, register, and 'soundly' reproduce this revolution in and with our times.
References
[2] L.A. Ferydoun Barjesteh van Waalwijk van Doorn, Gillian M.Vogelsang-Eastwood (eds.), Sevruguin's Iran : Late nineteenth century photographs of Iran from the National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden, the Netherlands, Teheran/Rotterdam 1378/1999.
[3] Mackey, Sandra. The Iranians : Persia, Islam and the Soul of a Nation, New York : Dutton, c1996.
