Kamran Assadi (FLOOD)

Kamran Assadi migrated to U.S from Iran in 1984. He attended CSULB from 1985-1990 studying painting and drawing. From 1990-1999, he produced several bodies of work in mixed media, painting, sculpture and photography. In 1999, co-founded Utopia good food & fine art as a hybrid restaurant and gallery, exhibited over 100 solo and group shows featuring emerging and established local and international artists.

In 2001, Kamran co-founded Long Beach FLOOD Inc. with the desire to raise awareness as well as engender appreciation for new and emergent art, exposing aesthetic sensibilities that exist outside those of the mainstream. As one of FLOOD’s productions, SoundWalk, an international indoor/outdoor sound installations event in downtown Long Beach, was inaugurated in 2004 and continued for 10 years.

Kamran joined the Arts Council for Long Beach Board of directors from 2005-2013, during which he chaired Advisory Committee for Public Art (ACPA) from 2006-2009. He also served as the president of the ACLB from 2009-2011 focusing on art administration and policies as it relates to public and private funding, arts education, public arts and creating more opportunities and financial assistance for Long Beach artists. Because of his passion for the arts and the vital role that Arts Council plays as the city’s lead agency for the arts, Kamran has continued his support with the Arts Council in various capacities.

In 2014, after almost 20 years of hiatus, Kamran began producing numerous works in variety of disciplines such as painting, photo montage, mixed media and assemblage.

Artist Location: Yucca Valley, CA

Social Media:

PARTICIPATION

soundplay <=> southbay

Gallery Show, April 27 – June 1, 2024:
Bluetooth’s Castle(s) (2009/2024) video

Part 1. With fairytale and technology acting as juxta-poseurs, fixed meanings and their architectures are decentered through muted lip riffs & punceptual wordplay.

The video’s muted characters evoked an air of mystery.  Lip play hinted at a dialable number. 

Calling the number revealed an operatic soundtrack, and its sonification, that either answered  or reinforced the unfolding enigma, with fixed meanings decentered through punceptual wordplay,  and poetized etymology.  

(Bluebeard, King Harald Bluetooth, & bluetooth technology were unifiers by  enmangling wives,  by uniting  countries , and by integrating technologies (telecommunications and computing) respectively.

Fairytales oft explore curiosity, the drive that motivates us toward wonder, inspiration, and creativity. Curiosity lies at the root of scientific discovery, technological development, and artistic expression.  

Curiosity’s most powerful catalyst is mystery. While scientific and technological curiosity seek to uncover and harness the secrets and forces of mystery, artistic curiosity strives towards its exploration, evocation and/or expression.

Part 2. Kamran Assadi, the architect behind SoundWalk Long Beach, has departed from the urban hardscape (where, through SoundWalk LB, he intersected art and commerce). He has headed for the desert to begin exploring the potential intersections between art and nature.

Video Credits:
Part 1
Kamran Assadi: Direction, Videography, Editing

Snezana Saraswati Petrovic: Costumes

Afsaneh Hamedani, Laura Juhl, Shelley Rugg, Frauke von der Horst: Actors

Kamran Assadi & Marco Schindelmann: Concept

Part 2
Kamran Assadi (artist) , Sheri Ki Sun (video editor), Marco Schindelmann (ass’wipe)

On-site event June 1st

soundplay <=> southbay

Artwork / SoundWalk Listening Station installation
I am intrigued by the tensions that arise among different experiences and modes of presentation  produced by art in static and non-static mediums.

Static artforms, such as traditional painting and non-kinetic sculpture are fixed and unchanging (relatively speaking) allowing viewers to observe and to contemplate at their own pace. 

Dynamic artforms, such as sound art, and music, change over time and require audiences to experience them as they evolve.  

Static art can be preserved long-term, while dynamic art (never experienced in the same way twice) is fleeting, posing challenges for documentation, archiving, and preservation.

These ideas are in play, throughout the soundplay <=> southbay space, as mute artifacts sit in juxtaposition, to live performance, to process, and to sound itself.

 ~ Kamran Assadi

Return to Artists Past & Present page

Posted in Artists.