Bahareh Khoshooee: Exploring Digital Self
Bahareh Khoshooee is an artist who explores themes of identity and how technology affects the way we see ourselves. Bahareh shares her experiences as an Iranian immigrant by using videos, performance, and installations to express the feeling of being disconnected or fragmented.
One of her key works, Thoughts and Prayers from a Glowing Rectangle, is a VR-based project that explores how the internet shapes how we experience grief. The piece has four parts that use visuals, sounds, 3D models, and short stories to discuss how people witness violence. It especially focuses on technology and the experiences of people living away from their home countries. The project questions whether technology can help with healing and bring people together in a time when so much suffering is seen through screens. The VR-based autobiographical project examines cyberspace's role in shaping personal grief experiences. It incorporates visual media, auditory media, and 3D models that explore the lens of technology. The project questions how technology can be repurposed for healing and liberation of the digital connection.
Khoshooee’s other works also explore themes like surveillance, self-image, and digital culture. Many of her video pieces use glitches, broken images, and shifting perspectives to show how identity is always changing, especially in today’s digital world. Her art plays with the idea of real or fake, present or absent.
Her work also captures the emotions of being an outsider. She blends personal stories with more prominent social issues, showing how identity is constantly changing in digital spaces. She challenges traditional ideas about migration, womanhood, and online identity, making her work feel deeply personal to people.
Similar Artists and Themes
Khoshooee’s work is similar to that of Hito Steyerl, who explores surveillance and technology’s impact on our lives. In How Not to Be Seen: A Fucking Didactic Educational .MOV File (2013), Steyerl looks at how people are always being watched. Similarly, Khoshooee plays with the idea of digital visibility, using technology to change the way we see the human body and identity online. Khoshooee, though using digital media, also explores what it feels like to be caught between different cultures and identities.
How Digital Culture Affects Identity
Khoshooee’s work also looks at how the digital world changes how we see ourselves. Today, social media, virtual reality, and surveillance influence how we look at ourselves and how others see us. Her art explores how identity always shifts between the real and digital worlds.
Using glitches and distortions in her work suggests that technology doesn’t just show identity; it changes it. The way digital spaces work affects how people express themselves. Khoshooee makes viewers think about technology as a new way to explore identity.
This also connects to the experience of people who move between places. She shows how technology can bring people together but also make them feel isolated, reflecting the contradictions of identity today.
Conclusion
Bahareh Khoshooee’s work shows how identity is constantly changing, especially in the digital age. Through her VR project Thoughts and Prayers from a Glowing Rectangle, she explores how technology shapes grief and connection and how people experience violence from afar. Her other works use glitches and distortions to reflect how identity is affected by social media, surveillance, and digital spaces.
Her art also highlights the struggles of people who feel caught between different cultures, just like she does as an Iranian immigrant. By mixing personal stories with bigger issues like migration and online visibility, she helps us see how technology can both connect and separate us.
Khoshooee’s work makes us question how we present ourselves online and in real life. She challenges us to think about whether technology helps us express who we are or changes us into something different. Bahareh Khoshooee’s work explores how identity is shaped by technology and digital culture and how relevant it is to the world.
Her art makes us think about who we are in a world where the real and digital are always blending together. By looking at her work, we can better understand how digital culture is changing how we see and define ourselves. Through her creative and thought-provoking art, Khoshooee challenges us to think differently about technology and identity in today’s world.



Comments
Post a Comment