The Celebration of Ashes

Celebration of Ashes was first shown at the Tehran Contemporary Sounds Festival in November 2024 at Kunstraum Bethanien, Berlin. I programmed interactive 3D particle systems and three dimensional objects, layered with glitch art, real world footage of world war and test-site nuclear explosions, and anime clips including mushroom cloud scenes from Barefoot Gen, before looping back into the kaleidoscopic fireworks of the Fourth of July. The visuals unfold from stylized destruction through archival documentary footage into hyper festive fireworks. This audiovisual set is a direct response to pro war rhetoric in Germany and the United States and to the systemic inertia around the genocide in Gaza. It lays bare the aesthetic of annihilation: what we choose to celebrate, what we ignore, and how easily one becomes the other.