Articulations of the Self 8 2015

Amir Baradaran made "Articulations of the Self 8" without any fixed date, and you can see it here. It looks like a digital collage, a grid of windows onto different moments or aspects of selfhood. There’s a flatness to the image, a screen-like quality, but the content within each frame is what grabs me. Each little scene hints at a story, a gesture, a fragment of lived experience. Look at the way the colors shift from one square to the next - some are muted, almost monochromatic, while others pop with vibrant hues. I think about how the artist pieced all these elements together. It makes me think of David Hockney’s photo collages, how he used multiple images to capture the fullness of a scene or a person. Here, Baradaran seems to be doing something similar, but with a more introspective bent. It’s like he’s saying that the self isn’t one thing, but a collection of moments, memories, and experiences, all bumping up against each other in this crazy grid we call life.