Mona Kasra’s work A Few Loose Strands is on view in the exhibition Critical Mass at the SP/N Gallery, through November 11, 2017.

Q. Unlike many artists in new media, your work has connections to theater and performance, as well as political activism. Can you talk about how you connect and put together all those different aspects of your work: performance, political, digital, not to mention personal?

A. I’m an interdisciplinary artist and scholar. My creative practice encompasses video art, new media installations, experimental and immersive storytelling, and projection design for theater and live performance. These various strands are all interrelated and are informed by my background in fine art, design, technology and media studies. My ongoing research on socio-political impact of emerging media on our culture inspires my creative practice as well.

My life experiences have made me sensitive to social justice issues and have led me to continuously apply the lens of social consciousness and social justice to my creative and scholarly practices.

Ultimately, my work is a combination of personal and political. As an Iranian-American woman, I allude to my lived experiences and hybrid identity, often addressing issues that arise from my personal, political, and cultural history. I grew up in post-revolutionary Iran, I spent my childhood experiencing war firsthand during Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. I then immigrated to the US in my early 20s and since then have been dealing with cultural dislocation and geographical relocation on an ongoing basis. My life experiences have made me sensitive to social justice issues and have led me to continuously apply the lens of social consciousness and social justice to my creative and scholarly practices.

Stills from Mona Kasra, A Few Loose Strands, 2017. Video, five minutes.

Q. I wanted to ask you about the function of institutional platforms or channels in distributing video work (such as yours). For a long time, artists have looked at the role of institutions in shaping discourse, meaning museums or other parts of the art world. Now, in our time, the role of corporate platforms, such as Facebook, is even more important for the broader public. There is also state censorship. How do you think about the function of these different platforms as you share your work with the public?

A. Social media spaces have changed the function of institutions across various industries and communities. But they’ve also imposed some new challenges. Putting the issues of ownership, censorship, noise, and community standards aside (which heavily influence what we could or could not share and view on these platforms), one of the major problems with the duo of art and social media is the uniformity of style and aesthetic they introduce to what’s being shared. For instance, pictures of art are often carefully framed and captured to look best on social feeds. Lately, even museums and exhibitions install and display works of art in a way that makes them more presentable on Instagram or generates more selfies.

I find subjecting art to aesthetic homogeneity and conformity on social media problematic. Another issue is that while these platforms are great for connecting with the public and staying up-to-date with art news and art events, the life of a social media posting is fleeting and short-lived. As a result, it’s hard to engage in a critical, contextual discussion or even acquire deeper knowledge about a work of art other than providing a quick like or a quick comment. So lately, I’ve been mostly only sharing announcements about my work online.

Q. Related to the question about platforms, I was interested in your work with projected video in public spaces, both as the curator of “Expanded Cinema” in Dallas, and in your own work. It seems that this approach can be a way to get past some of those institutional or political constraints, as in the case of Krzysztof Wodiczko. Is it correct to think that public projected video can engage audiences in ways that are otherwise unavailable?

Using architectural surfaces for projection turns the world into a canvas for socially-engaged work and brings attention to various socio political issues in highly trafficked public places.

A. Yes, I am very interested in pushing the boundaries of the traditional video screen. Whether through multiple projections, three-dimensional projection surfaces, or projecting in public areas, I love breaking free from the two-dimensionality of the video surface and creating new viewing experiences. Most importantly I’m interested in expanding the reach of the artistic message and have been teaching and working with projection mapping techniques in the past few years. Using architectural surfaces for projection turns the world into a canvas for socially-engaged work and brings attention to various socio political issues in highly trafficked public places. For instance, Projecting Change was a powerful large-format, public projection project. It illuminated the facades of iconic buildings such as the Empire State or St. Peter’s Basilica, to invite viewers to take action on climate change and protect our planet. Public projections can be both magical and infused with activism.

With “Expanded Cinema” which was displayed on the exterior walls of the Downtown Dallas Omni Hotel, I invited the participating artists to reflect on various perceptions of the city, both in terms of its diversity and wholeness. The works ranged from abstract representations of the constant activities and movements within the city scape, to socially engaged reflections on environment, immigration, nature, sustainable labor practices, to dealing with psychological aspects of human interaction and human relationship within the urban landscape.

Q. You have done academic research on the “digital-networked image” as an important category for aesthetic and socio-political study. Is this concept central to understanding your own artwork as well, or in any case, could you discuss the significance of this concept?

A. As someone who visually communicates with the audience through art and whose work is centered around using media and tech, I believe it’s crucial to understand how others use emerging media to communicate. Digital networked image is a term a I use to discuss online imagery that is captured by non-professionals for online distribution through means of participatory communication methods on social media. These images often serve as evidence, as a site for personal or collective expression, and increasingly as a means to protest, mobilize and organize the public. I use an interdisciplinary frame to approach digital-networked images, using theories of photography, semiotics, visual studies, media and cultural studies. What I especially find intriguing is that global citizens are increasingly using socially-engaged images as a way to collectively respond, in solidarity or in opposition, to various environmental, economic, and sociopolitical affairs around the world. These online visual rallies allow ordinary people to voice their views and to connect with others around the world.

Digital networked image is a term a I use to discuss online imagery that is captured by non-professionals for online distribution through means of participatory communication methods on social media. These images often serve as evidence, as a site for personal or collective expression, and increasingly as a means to protest, mobilize and organize the public.

I often use these concepts in my creative work. For example, my GIF animation piece, It’s Misogyny That Is Humiliating, uses hundreds of selfie images that Kurdish men, dressed as traditional Kurdish women, posted on across social media platforms in response to a judge’s order that sentenced an Iranian/Kurdish male convict to parade through the city in women’s clothing. The work alludes to the fact that while, in isolation, these images seem to follow simple aesthetics and act as individual conduits for self-expression, together they signify a new form of collective action, redefining the concept of social protest in the age of networked media – in addition to shifting the notion of photography.

Q. You stated about A Few Loose Strands, “This piece draws on the most delicate but lasting artifact that survives and holds as a remembrance of a deceased loved one. Captured through a microscopic camera, this video alludes to material and memory, strength and vulnerability, to life and death.” Could you talk more about this piece, both developing the concept, and the technical process of making it?

A. This is a very personal work for me as I search for physical traces of my mom who passed away from cancer in 2017. I recently found a few strands of her hair on her hair brush. For years, her thinning hair was a reminder of her battle with breast cancer and its adverse impact on her feminine identity. Now, long after she’s gone, these tiny loose strands serve as objects of remembrance and mourning, of her lasting memento. I used a microscopic camera to capture this video piece. It deals with issues surrounding material and memory, strength and vulnerability, to life and death, and invites viewers to peek in an intimate and personal spaces which is a recurrent theme in my work.

Q. Totally by coincidence, right now at the Dallas Museum of Art, the 1999 piece Soliloquy by Shirin Neshat is on view as part of its video art survey, “Truth: 24 frames per second.” It struck me that Neshat’s work was rooted in cinema history (being shot on film before being transferred to video). The 1990s were also a time when Iranian film had a strong impact internationally, with Abbas Kiarostami winning prizes in Cannes and Venice. Looking back over film and video history, are there certain periods (such as the 1990s or otherwise) that are significant for your work?

A. The works and the cinematic style of Kiarostami have been immensely influential to my generation. He pushed the envelope of Iranian filmmaking with his minimalist, realist style, poetic storytelling, and unconventional artistic process, while he so beautifully explored mundane but complex concepts. The interesting aspect of Kiarostami’s work that I admired so much was his ability to work across different art forms. He was a painter, photographer, filmmaker, and screenwriter. He directed theater, wrote poetry and made video art. The world lost a great artist in 2016.

Neshat’s work was also pivotal for me. I find her delicate use of symbols and metaphors to explore complexities of exile, diaspora, identity, especially in her earlier work, remarkable. But when it comes to film and video history, I believe experimental and feminist avant-garde of the 1970s have been and continue to be significant in my work.