Momentary Lapse of speech | un-formula.com

The Momentary Lapse of Speech

Tehran, Iranian Artist Forum 2019

Directing and Concept: Nazanin Bahram and Omid Mashhadi

Performers: Hamed Hosseini, Samareh Joharchi, Nilofar

Shayani, Mohamad Asad, Amir Hosseini, Reza Heydari

Photo and Teaser: Mostafa Qaheri

Sculpture and Mask: Nima Jahanbin

The Momentary Lapse of Speech is a performance by Nazanin Bahram and Omid Mashhadi

Just as the early images were not created to testify to the existing reality but to transgress it, language is not created to commence communication but to disturb it. Human beings struggle with language and his attempt to establish communication by eliminating the system of language was one of the objectives of the “The Momentary Lapse of Speech.” Sisyphus-like endeavor to reach collective communication, and collective manners, without the intervention of language. But hasn’t Language as a symbol of human civilization, lost its function and meaning these days? Or isn’t it serving another purpose? We as civilized human beings continually look for creating metaphors and symbols. We are so drowned in constructing meanings and interpretations that we have forgotten where these metaphors have derived from. We are so busy adding extra meaning to everything we see, hear and experience that our attention to the simplicity of things, relations, and whatever that is repetitive and day-to-day, has been lost.

Hence through emphasizing these concepts in our performance, we look to discover and revive the lost nature of things. Representing the human endeavor to avoid and depart from his self-built meanings and metaphors was among the concept of the performance of “The Momentary Lapse of Speech.
Learning a language equals the end of childhood and the beginning of inexplicable tensions. It provokes speech on subjects that suffer from misunderstanding and violence. The performance of “The Momentary Lapse of Speech,” protesting against the termination of the childhood period, attacks language that has ended childhood experience and now has become a prelude to conflict, war, and of course believing in myths.
Learning a language equals the end of childhood and the beginning of inexplicable tensions. It provokes speech on subjects that suffer from misunderstanding and violence. The performance of “The Momentary Lapse of Speech,” protesting against the termination of the childhood period, attacks language that has ended childhood experience and now has become a prelude to conflict, war, and of course believing in myths.
Being inspired by “Monogram”, a combined artwork by Robert Rauschenberg, in the second part of “The Momentary Lapse of Speech” was the result of exploring the visual arts.

Apart from all the interpretations and analyses of the work, it was solely its form that drew my attention. I attempted to give a scenic embodiment to a visual artwork and create a type of composition fusing different art mediums. In the course of rehearsals and upon combining with other elements of the performance, it was transformed, leading to presenting a form testifying the deformation of tradition and transgression of the entire communication etiquettes and conventions, a design displaying the stage of transition to the era of civilization and speech through a ceremony evoking the sacrifice ritual.