ABSHER/REJOICE!

Absher/Rejoice! is an immersive escape room and multimedia installation. This conceptual work-in progress explores the intersections of technology, gender rights and cyber utopias in Middle-Eastern Gulf states. This installation took place at the Museum of Contemporary Arts in Tucson, Arizona.

In these states, revolutionary queers and women exist in hyper-surveilled livelihoods to camouflage through a state fabricated ‘moral citizenship’. Navigation through ministries, prisons, medical systems or state-funded institutions becomes incredibly dangerous. As militarized culture continues to encourage heterogenous nationalism in citizens, this installation asks: what are the ways in which the state and citizens obscure from each other? 

Inspired by the new government backed application created for the Saudi population in collaboration with Google called ‘Absher’ (which translates to ‘rejoice’). While this app makes   state services more accessible for citizens, it also actuates the guardianship laws that restrict the movement of women in the country (written permission to drive, go to school, exit or enter the country, etc from a male guardian). Among the app’s features is that gives male guardians options to track and stop their dependents from being able to make decisions for themselves. 

‘an ideal good (eu) yet nonexistent (ou) place (topos)’ -Federico Cugurullo 

Written, Directed and Designed by Spike Bahermez. 

Actor: Jude Jehad Asadi

Projection Artists: Nassem Navab, Jude Jehad Asadi

Lighting and Sound Designer: Adam Cooper-Télan

Documentation Photography: Sara Tran Luu