Mohamed Chamas
سايبر تصوف (cyber tasawwuf)
17
July 2019
17
Jul
2019
9
Aug 2019
Gallery 2
سايبر تصوف (cyber tasawwuf)
Mohamed Chamas
17
July 2019
17
July
2019
9
August 2019
Gallery 2
سايبر تصوف (cyber tasawwuf) is a Virtual Reality (VR) experience that explores an Islamic Sufi meditation that uses the Lataif E’sitta (the six subtleties). These are marked in the chest where they draw in spiritual ‘energy’ and correspond simultaneously to psychological and celestial space.The meditation, or dhikr (worship), resembles Prophet Muhammad’s (pbuh) single night ascent into the heavens (Mi’raj). The semi-autobiographical piece crosses aesthetics of the modern technological - namely ‘cyborgian’ methodologies - with the Islamic cosmological - specifically the folk religious mystic practice known as Sufism. The mystical becomes digital, problematizing our conceptions of each. The oriental other - as a prosthetic in public space - ensouls this cyberspace questioning disenchantment, conceptions of the Muslim body and the nature of digital space. سايبر تصوف (cyber tasawwuf) investigates how Muslim subjectivity might interface with new and emerging technologies to agitate the demystified, white ‘cyborg’ body.
سايبر تصوف (cyber tasawwuf) is a Virtual Reality (VR) experience that explores an Islamic Sufi meditation that uses the Lataif E’sitta (the six subtleties). These are marked in the chest where they draw in spiritual ‘energy’ and correspond simultaneously to psychological and celestial space.The meditation, or dhikr (worship), resembles Prophet Muhammad’s (pbuh) single night ascent into the heavens (Mi’raj). The semi-autobiographical piece crosses aesthetics of the modern technological - namely ‘cyborgian’ methodologies - with the Islamic cosmological - specifically the folk religious mystic practice known as Sufism. The mystical becomes digital, problematizing our conceptions of each. The oriental other - as a prosthetic in public space - ensouls this cyberspace questioning disenchantment, conceptions of the Muslim body and the nature of digital space. سايبر تصوف (cyber tasawwuf) investigates how Muslim subjectivity might interface with new and emerging technologies to agitate the demystified, white ‘cyborg’ body.
Mohamed Chamas
Mohamed Chamas is an artist, game developer and poet based in Naarm (melbourne) who channels the ‘dijital djinni’; a rewiring agent for practice-based research. Chamas’ work evokes ancient mysticism to fuse and synergize with emerging technologies. This diffractively interfaces with religious studies, ludology, and critical theory. Chamas’ Virtual Reality works exist as unsurveilled sites of healing for orientalized bodies; namely سايبر تصوف (cyber tasawwuf) 2018. Chamas has exhibited at Testing Grounds, Seventh Gallery, Trocadero Arts Space and Incinerator Gallery. . Chamas has been published in Co-, The Lifted Brow, and the Writing & Concepts Lecture series.