Cantos and fragments – cantos in fragments – constitute the on-going multilingual scriptural epic concerning one year of the Iranian Revolution (1978-79). They unfold over time on multiple platforms, in multiple arenas and spaces (private and public), and through various scriptural strategies – from the traditional (handwritten sheets and books) to the new (electronic, web). Narrative conventions are challenged, and poetic, stylistic and performative operations exploit possibilities unique to each language and medium. The overall experience is orchestrated through the creation of lasting artifacts as well as ephemeral events and monumental constructs. A theoretical apparatus and a critical enterprise engaged with the history and forms of literature and the reading phenomenon, the work also challenges traditional modalities of exhibition, commodification, dissemination and interaction. Ultimately, it is an epic in shards, a treatise on the writing of history, memory and obsession, a universe of ruptures and metamorphoses that intertwines various forms, objects and materials in order to usher in a new species of literary creation.

Dusk’s Ether with Ashes (CantoXIV) was created specifically for the Engendered Festival 09. It recounts an episode in which a young counter-revolutionary is abducted, sentenced to death, surprisingly released, and, again, arrested. Multiple parafrags (parallel fragments) unfolding on various platforms – and with staggered timelines – create an overall experience that, among other things, touches on the very un-tellability of a tragic story, as well as its un-readability. The process and the struggles associated with grasping the thrust of the narratives, whether in the confines of the gallery or as they unfurl over multiples domains, transform the reader’s habits, challenge conventions related to literary experiences, and affect the reader/watcher at emotional, psychological, and intellectual levels. The following make up the canto:

1. One fragment unfolds inside the physical space of Halvai gallery. A number of tools and surfaces are used, and various objects, constructs and mini-fragments (sheethangs, wallwrites, takeatext) relate the story of the mother and daughter going into hiding. Details concerning specific episodes, including a conversation (and its translation) with the mother of the young woman thirty years later, are provided.
2. A narraflow takes place on the website of the Engendered festival at www.engendered.org.
3. Another fragment is an ambiguous narratweet unfolding on Twitter. The reader remains uncertain as to what event is taking place or which players the text is alluding to. Over time, the reader comes to realize that the section is relating exchanges, states of mind, and the actual trek of four men going back to arrest, again, the previously abducted and released young woman who is at the center of Canto XIV. The ambiguity and the flow allow the narratweet to be read as if its content were related to more sympathetic figures or even to events going on contemporaneously in Iran in June 2009. (It was launched before the Iranian elections of 2009 and subsequent responses.)
4. A fourth fragment takes place on the night of the bassadiga, where a reading and performative interactions provide yet more detail on the specific story, as well as delve into the theoretical foundations of the work.

In addition, other fragments might be conceived, generated and integrated within Canto XIV as it unfolds.

Canto XIV – Dusk’s Ether with Ashes
the bassadiga
(oralities and readation)

Amir Parsa

Engendered Festival 09
July 10, 2009
Halvai Gallery

7 Prelude
7:30 Fragments
8:30 Party
10:30-? Lullaby
7 Morning

Canto XIV – Dusk’s Ether with Ashes

Parafrags (parallel fragments) to Canto XIV at Halvai Gallery unfolding on:
1. Engendered.org: Canto XIV Narraflow
2. Twitter (amparsa): Canto XIV Narratweet
3. Bassadiga: Canto XIV Oralities/Readation, July 10, 2009 at Halvai Gallery
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