Hyperrhiz 27
Thoughts and Prayers from a Glowing Rectangle
Bahareh Khoshooee
Citation: Khoshooee, Bahareh. “Thoughts and Prayers from a Glowing Rectangle.” Hyperrhiz: New Media Cultures, no. 27, 2024. doi:10.20415/hyp/027.a03
Abstract: Thoughts and Prayers from a Glowing Rectangle is a VR-based autobiographical project that examines the role of cyberspace in shaping personal and collective experiences of grief. Comprising four immersive chapters, the piece incorporates visual and auditory media, 3D models, and narrative vignettes that explore loss and remote witnessing of violence, especially through the lens of technology and diaspora. As it connects intimate stories to broader socio-political realities, the project questions how technology can be repurposed for healing and collective liberation in an era of mediated suffering and digital connection.
Keywords: virtual reality, grief, collective healing, diaspora, cyberspace, technological mediation.
View Project: Thoughts and Prayers from a Glowing Rectangle
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Artist Statement
“Thoughts and Prayers from a Glowing Rectangle” examines the role of cyberspace in shaping and mediating our experiences of grief, both on a personal and collective level. Previous iterations of this work include a video piece and its VR counterpart, both of which depict vignettes of interconnected autobiographical narratives. These narratives, viewed through the lens of technology and diaspora, explore how loss, grief, and the distant witnessing of violence shape our emotional and psychological landscapes.
The work is structured into four immersive chapters, each representing a distinct narrative space that intertwines autobiographical elements with broader socio-political realities. These chapters utilize visual and auditory media, combining 2D images, 3D models, and animations. Central to each chapter is a screen that plays a video vignette related to loss and the remote witnessing of violence. Viewers navigate the environment with 6DOF (degrees of freedom), engaging with objects and scenes as they move. Transitioning between chapters involves passing through animated portals shaped like spinning halva dishes—traditional Iranian sweets offered at funerals, symbolizing the intersection of mourning and cultural memory. Each chapter reflects the interplay between personal and collective grief. One chapter focuses on the experience of grief in the diaspora, capturing the loss of fragments of identity and culture, sometimes replaced by imagined “anticipatory memories” as coping mechanisms. Another chapter examines how witnessing violence online—specifically the Woman Life Freedom uprising in Iran—reshapes understanding of grief and the role of distant observers. This structure invites viewers to reconsider the relationship between the digital and physical, as well as personal and collective experiences.
By layering digital elements, the project resonates with the Iranian diasporic experience, where the fragmentation of culture, memories, and feelings becomes a daily routine. The repeated use of screens prompts reflection on whether technology acts as a passive observer of grief or an active participant in shaping it. While the work is rooted in personal experience, it serves as an invitation for others to share their own stories of loss, particularly for those who have grieved from a distance, mediated through screens. The VR space becomes a tool for storytelling and an archive of collective experiences, where memory and grief are continuously constructed and reimagined. This work explores the dual nature of digital technologies—as both a medium of isolation and a potential tool for community-building and healing.
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