EVENT: BAHAREH KHOSHOOEE (NOVEMBER 7—20 2025)
LifeStream
digital video (1920 x 1080), color, sound, 6’ 26”, 2020, Iran
created by Bahareh Khoshooee
introduced by Matteo Bittanti
In LifeStream, produced during the first month of the 2020 COVID-19 lockdown, a week of continuous Instagram broadcasting culminates in a hand-off: the artist’s apartment and routines are reconstructed in The Sims 4, where avatars “keep living” on camera. The work stages a porous threshold between IRL and simulation, testing the aesthetics of boredom, the politics of proof-of-life, and the metrics of care in a media ecology saturated by datafication. Five years on, LifeStreamreads against pandemic memory and its doubles, echoing Naomi Klein’s analysis of mirrored selves and ideological doppelgängers, while extending an inquiry into game engines and game-based art as instruments for critical performance.
Bahareh Khoshooee (b. 1991, Tehran) is an artist and educator based in New York whose practice spans video, 3D/game environments, projection mapping, sculpture, performance, and sound to examine surveillance, profiling, and simulation as everyday interfaces of power. Her work has been presented in solo form at Baxter St CCNY and in platform-native pieces such as LifeStream (2020) and The Sims-based serial MaxMotives (2019), which probe the politics of liveness, automation, and the subject position of the avatar. Khoshooee has exhibited with The Immigrant Artist Biennial at EFA Project Space (2020) and has shown with venues including Orlando Museum of Art, NADA Miami (2018, with Rawson Projects), Elsewhere, Housing, and Rawson Projects. Her recent programs also include presentations with The Latinx Project/NYU and Honor Fraser. Residencies and fellowships include Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture (2018), Baxter St CCNY (2019–20), Triangle (2020–21), BRIC (2021), NARS, Ox-Bow, and ACRE; she currently serves as Assistant Professor (Foundation) at Pratt Institute. Her education comprises an MFA in Studio Art from the University of South Florida (2017) and a BA in Industrial Design from the University of Tehran (2014). Coverage of her work has appeared in outlets such as The Guardian, Artnet News, The Huffington Post, and Hyperallergic, among others.