Suffice it to say, Persepolis is quite a work. It’s a testament to the power of the graphic novel. The art’s simple linework helps the story feel unpretentious and direct. Persepolis was adapted as a 2007 French animated film, written and directed by Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud. Among other honors, it was nominated for an Academy Award. Why would someone want to ban such a book?
posted by Artw
on Mar 16, 2013 -
33 comments
"Things didn’t happen as I imagined. On the one hand, with the situation in Tehran, I expected the police to arrest me. I also thought that the resulting dress wouldn’t be aesthetically pleasing to the eye. But it turned out to be more homogenous than I envisaged. Most of the passengers wanted to communicate with me and participate in the project. And I enjoyed this attention and collaboration. The point wasn’t their understanding of the project. I didn’t want anything to be imposed on the audience or participants. I wanted ordinary people to encounter their own personalities without any preconceptions about contemporary art. More than anything, I wanted something to emerge that is shared — between me and everyday metro passengers."
The story of fashion student Shirin Abedinirad who conceived and carried out an unusual (and unusually bold) performance art experiment by asking Tehran metro passengers to donate their rubbish to pin on her dress.
[more inside]
posted by taz
on Nov 16, 2011 -
10 comments
Iran has a conflicting relationship with the internet. On one side,
a large portion of the population are online, and even
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had a well-publicized blog in 2006 (though it now seems to be offline). Then there was
Iran's internet revolution in 2009, when there were country-wide internet censorship that was countered
by use of web proxies. Later that same year, a company affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps
purchased a majority share in the nation's telecommunications monopoly. The fact that IRGC was involved with a for-profit company was not news, as
IRGC has long been involved in Iran's economy, but their role in communications was more troubling. The latest news causing a stir is
a "halal" internet for Iran, "
an internet that conforms to Islamic principles, to improve its communication and trade links with the world," according to a quote from head of economic affairs with the Iranian presidency, Ali Aqamohammadi.
[more inside]
posted by filthy light thief
on May 31, 2011 -
32 comments
The
Haystack application aims to use
steganography to hide
samizdat-type data within a larger stream of innocuous network traffic. Thus, civilians in Iran, for example, could more easily evade Iranian censors and provide the world with an
unfiltered report on events within the country. Haystack earned its creator
Austin Heap a great deal of positive coverage from the media during the 2009 Iranian election protests. The BBC described Heap as
"on the front lines" of the protesters' "Twitter revolution", while The Guardian called him an
Innovator of the Year. Despite the laudatory coverage, however, the media were never given a copy of the software to examine. Indeed, not much is known about the software or its inner workings. Specialists in network encryption security were not allowed to perform an independent evaluation of Haystack, despite its distribution to and use by a small number of Iranians, possibly at some risk. As interest in the project
widens and criticisms of the media coverage and software continue to
mount, Heap has currently asked users to
cease using Haystack until a security review can be performed.
posted by Blazecock Pileon
on Sep 13, 2010 -
31 comments
"Ramin and Rokni Haerizadeh on
making art about sex and politics in the Middle East..." and how they fled and what they're up to now.
More images
here.
posted by artof.mulata
on Sep 8, 2010 -
1 comment
Blogs contribute to political reform in Iran (New York Times): Former vice-president of Iran,
Mohammad Ali Abtahi, said that he learned through the Internet about the huge gap between government officials and the younger generation.
"We do not understand each other and cannot have a dialogue," he said. "As government officials, we receive a lot of confidential reports about what goes on in society. But I have felt that I learned a lot more about people and the younger generation by reading their Web logs and receiving about 40 to 50 e-mails every day. This is so different than reading about society in those bulletins from behind our desks."
posted by hoder
on Jan 16, 2005 -
7 comments
Iran systematically filters political websites: In contrast with what the
Iranaian President had said in the UN summit on Information Technology last year, the
OpenNet Initiative, in its latest bulletin, concludes that "Iran is indeed engaged in extensive Internet content filtering beyond just pornography, including many political, religious, social, and blogging websites.
"Most of these censored websites are Iran-specific; very little non-pornographic, "global" content is filtered from Iranian users. "
posted by hoder
on Aug 19, 2004 -
8 comments
"Sick Nick" is a cartoon blog by Nikahang Kowsar, the Iranian cartoonist. He drew a cartoon that could be interpreted as an insult to a top cleric, therefore he was arrested and the paper was closed down. He now lives in Toronto, fearing of going back to Iran.
posted by hoder
on Sep 27, 2003 -
5 comments
Further Iranian Oppression. The "government" of Iran has evidently teamed up with Cuba in efforts to further suppress the growing democratic movement in Iran by jamming pro-democracy satellite broadcasts. Two un-elected governments combining forces to make sure that
their will is enforced, not that of their citizens.
posted by jsonic
on Jul 12, 2003 -
62 comments
Iran Online. Can the opening of a countires 'cyber-borders' contribute to the liberalisation (small 'l') of the society?
Iran has a rapidly
increasing population, as well as a rapidly increasing online percentage, they have
sports sites (they seem to like soccer),
portals and the
'IranMania' search engine.
Can un-censored access to the internet help build
tolerance?
posted by asok
on Feb 22, 2002 -
5 comments
