Block | "Synaptic Cleft": Electric Room 43/50

Dastan in collaboration with Va Space and Residency is pleased to announce “Synaptic Cleft”, a presentation by Block at Electric Room. The show, a multimedia installation will be open to public view from August 3 to August 8, 2018.
Writing on Synaptic Cleft*, Block write: “In all its aspects, the idea of Utopia is read on a different level than the flowing reality, and is defined as desires for sublime ideals. If the ideals are reached, utopia shall see itself eternal Hence, the desire for this ideal state, is the desire for moving from the current state to an alternative —in a vertical movement— a column that is higher than the current state and lower than the state in which every ideal is realized (metabasis), with its sustainability depending on the tolerated weight forcing from the body to the base and the base to the surface.
“While creating a well-defined border between the two states, this distance is kinetic, acting on the stimuli to crate disorder and take things to the second state.
“Since the difference between the top and the base of this hypothetical column is not due to its shape but in order for it to be stable, any change or shift in the column could lead to changes in the upper or lower parts, changing it to the other**. As such, ‘height’ is only an visual illusion and the meaning of ‘movement’ is reduced from a movement in the vertical direction to moving from one column to another. This is the only way to preserve the columns whose stability has been so much stressed upon.”
Block is a collective including three members, Hoseyn Hoseyni (b. 1982, Isfahan), Iman Izadinia (b. 1988, Isfahan), and Davood Dorra (b. 1987, Isfahan), formed in 2017. Block is both the name of this collective and the unit by which the members are defined with —Block and ‘Block of Block’ are hence preferred to Group/Collective ▪ Block is not a design template, but an open block which is created from scratch every time and the cube root of A in Block’s logo refers to this aspect ▪ Block is an organic construction in response to the regular forms of artistic spaces ▪ Block is a way of design for its members —an open system for interacting with the space outside ▪ Block is the intro-group experience of artistic presentation using different exhibition algorithms in a variety of regular and experimental spaces ▪ Block is a search for new experiences through interaction with non-visual-arts group, especially musicians, for collective projects.

* One neurons junction with another is termed a synapse. The neurons communicate through their membrane.
** Most synapses are axon-to-dendrite or axon-to-cell-body; but in some areas of the brain and the spinal cord axon-to-axon or dendrite-to-dendrite synapses have been detected. Nevertheless, the general working of synapses is quite similar in most instances. The ending part of the axons is branched and each of their ends (telodendria) is relatively swollen. This area creates a synapse when near the membrane of the next neuron. The first synapse is termed pre-synaptic and the second post-synaptic. In the central nervous system, each neuron can be pre-synaptic or post-synaptic relative to other neurons.