Machine 855

Ghost Player

Material: Paper mache clay video projection, video 2019, SOMArts, San Francisco

Machine 855 is a recreation of a “looking box” the Persian King brought back from France. In Persian, it’s called “Shahr Farang” which means “Foreign Cities.”

This is not just a machine to entertain you. It's a trap. it will record your memory and play it back to you over and

over again.

Shahr Farang is here, come and watch, yield the old showman in the street, calling all the neighborhood’s kids to come and watch over and over again the same pictures of the Raree-Show. He was standing in the middle of the neighborhood with his Peep-Box. The traditional colorful dress of his and that wool hat made him look very different, strange and interesting. “He has come from the magical world and sells pictures of the places that are not here, pictures of hope”, I thought at that time.

Recration of the persian peep box, playing snippets of artist's childhood memories.