MAK Center for Art and Architecture at the Schindler House

Nasrin Tabatabai and Babak Afrassiabi will give a public presentation about their current video project–in–development entitled Satellite Geography: as long as it is aiming at the sky. A survey about Los Angeles-based Iranian satellite television stations, this project addresses aspects of the tele-visual mediation and production of geographical and communal identity and politics.

Today, there are more than 20 satellite TV stations broadcasting internationally in the Farsi language from Los Angeles, with the majority of their audience living inside Iran. What is retained through these TV programs is their twofold geographical, political and cultural identity: an ambivalence of here/there, now/then, and now and the eventual future, identified and elaborated by both the audiences living in and outside of Iran. These programs have come to produce a surplus geography with a political and cultural identity that is indecisive and liminal in nature, while fostering a community of hosts and audiences. This has given these television programs the character of an enclosed tele-visual micro universe that constantly refers to and comments on its own production and reception structures.

During the evening’s discussion, Tabatabai and Afrassiabi will present video footage gathered during two month of research in Los Angeles.