The Female Minister by Takin Aghdashloo

The Female Minister is a 10'w x 4'l x 8'h kinetic art installation, replicating the aesthetic and physical experience of bi-lateral heads of state press conference rooms, using two podiums customized with robotic arms and special props and decorations.

The overall intended experience for the audience is to imagine themselves present in a two-party press conference room where a meeting is supposed to take place between the United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the Iranian Foreign Minister Ali-Akbar Salehi, getting the hints from the decorations and two letters written by the artist and directed to the two parties.

I am interested in global social and political issues and try to address my obsession with the structure of power, ideologies and media through art. Also I want to create the necessary debate and raise awareness about these topics using the power and reach of new media. Conceptually, The Female Minister is a piece within the same lines, pointing out the cultural differences that has strayed the Western and Muslim civilizations apart for many decades, particularly the bigoted and backwards view of fundamentalist Islam towards women which embodies itself in the forbiddance of physical touch between men and women; in this piece they can use robotic arms attached to the podium in political meetings between a Muslim man and an unrelated woman to shake hands as a sign of agreement.

In a historical context The Female Minister proposes a new method of conveying a political statement about the interconnected yet culturally detached new world using the technologies and media relevant to the contemporary world which is obsessed with interaction, distraction and entertainment. In today's society where the boundaries of art and entertainment are constantly getting dimmer, The Female Minister creates a spectacle, a replication of the familiar political "stage" for the audiences to interact with, while addressing a very important and possibly decisive global cultural issue.

April 2011

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• new media art
• installation
• press conference
• handshake islam
• political meeting
• interviews
• iran
• usa
• hillary clinton
• ali-akbar salehi

[TheDudar]

Takin this is great! it works on so many levels! Where is this installed?