Review: THINGS HIDDEN SINCE THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD, Battersea Arts Centre

Javaad Alipoor's new show is hard to categorise. Part lecture, part poetry-slam, part abstract Wikipedia game and part lesson on colonialism. It acts as a provocative and creative way to pass on a message about the realities of our modern knowledge under the auspices of investigating a cold-case murder.

Alipoor's previous shows, Rich Kids: A History of Shopping Malls in Tehran and The Believers Are But Brothers, showed similarly creative ways to tell stories through the means of Instagram and Whatsapp. Here it is Wikipedia that is used to tell the story of Fereydoun Farrokhzad, a huge pop star in Iran who escaped the 1979 Islamic Revolution, only to be found mysteriously murdered in his apartment in Germany. The murder has never been solved.

The show often feels like falling down an internet rabbit hole, turning up unexpected facts and figures and diverting into wild tangents. Alipoor encourages the audience to conduct their own Wikipedia search, as we notice the wildly different things that pop up after only a moment's searching.

Alipoor starts with this introduction, which moves onto the recording of an arch cold-case podcast, hosted by a knowingly smug and satirical Asha Reid. We move to projections of the story of a contemporary Iranian musician, King Raam, who takes us through his own exile and family tragedies. In a very meta moment, Raam steps though the screen to continue the story.

"The more you know, the more you understand" is the refrain, but what is made obvious is that the knowledge we obtain from the internet does not necessarily mean we understand it. Technology gives us the world at our fingertips, but what does this actually mean for society? There is a delusion that everything is already known. 'An Iranian Tom Jones' is used as context for Farrokhzad, but it is a way of highlighting how we always need a familiar framework to understand something. And how often that comes from a Western perspective.

There are some striking ideas within the play, but Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World ends up suffering from not being able to be categorised. The tangents are the point, but they are also frustrating to watch. The lack of understanding is identified, but this is not a particulary insightful concept.

Limbic Cinema's projections and video design are slick and immersive, using graphics, computer pages and original footage of Farrokhzad and his wonderful moustache, including one clip where he reclines as a barber shaves him, louchely smoking a cigarette. It often feels like an overwhelming visual assault and becomes tricky to follow, but this is the point. There is too much out there to ever be consumed in a thoughtful or balanced way.

Me-Lee Hay accompanies both Raam and Alipoor with her haunting and propulsive musical composition. It adds well to the atmosphere, but ocassionally the volume and intensity of the music threatens to drown out the words.

The show is weirdly unique and despite the frustrations, I'm intrigued to see what Alipoor comes up with next.

Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World is at Battersea Arts Centre until 26 November

Photo Credit: Chris Payne

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