While the ten-day ceremony 'Âshûrâ' is a commemoration of the slaughter of the grandson of the prophet Muhammad and his relatives and companions at Karbalâ' in 680, it is also an invocation of the occulted Twelfth Imam, the Mahdî, in the hope of hurrying his exoteric earthly return. But how would the one invoked, who is (imaginally) present albeit occulted, perceive the ceremony? He would not perceive it the way we see it but in more temporal detail. While the first part of the video appears to be a documentation of the ceremony as it might be perceived by an all too human audience member, the second part of the video, which happens across a lapse of consciousness if not of being (indicated by the cut to black on the sound of the participants' hands striking their chests), and where time is dilated, implies that the essential spectator of the ceremony is the one to whom it is addressed, the Mahdî.

31 December 2005

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