THINKING BODIES
Babak Ahteshamipour
Upset-Minded Bodies Coded as Upset Agent Mindsets (Part One)
Ping-Ponging between the mechanical teeth of the big hungry wolf
In the first part of a two-part essay, Babak Ahteshamipour’s explores how cyberspace, once a refuge for marginalised bodies and alternative identities, has been commodified and colonised by capitalism, reducing it into a sterile and regulated environment.
Upset-Minded Bodies Coded as Upset Agent Mindsets (Part Two)
Shattered & Scattered Into Multiple Directions at the Same Time
In the second part of his essay, Ahteshamipour explores how hyper-capitalism commodifies resistance, reducing countercultures and bodies into measurable, gamified units for profit. Individuals’ agency is stripped away, turning people into “dividuals” — fragmented entities tracked like video game avatars.
About the author
Babak Ahteshamipour (he/him) is an interdisciplinary artist, designer, writer & musician based in Athens, Greece. His works expand across many disciplines such as 3D, graphic design and music that collide into unison exploring topics from cyberspace to ecology and politics to identity via gaming and internet culture. His work has been presented across festivals, venues & spaces such as Centre Pompidou and Milan Machinima Festival, and has been featured on magazines and platforms such as Bandcamp daily and CTM Festival’s magazine. He has released music on the labels Jollies and Industrial Coast.
ABOUT THINKING BODIES
Thinking Bodies was conceptualised as an effort to build an exploratory body of knowledge(s), that draws upon the festival’s theme and weaves together perspectives, writing styles and formats. Drawing from the theme of the FIBER Festival 2024 edition, Outer/Body, we invited aspiring and emerging writers from a multiplicity of backgrounds to share their contributions, ranging from essays to interviews to poetries, resulting in a rich archive of knowledge.