In Touch with the Unknown: A Testimony on the Theatrical and Cinematic Approach of Arby Ovanessian

The author intends to elaborate on the possibility of being in touch with unknown through an invisible internal movement in Arby Ovanessian’s theatre and cinema.

The essay first recalls the author’s initial encounter and the essence and vivid personal experience with the unknown during the investigative exploration in his book. The author discusses his research methodology which is based on records of dialogues between the author and the actors and other participants, representing a collage of their ideas. The purpose of the book is to provide a historical account based on primary sources with the aim to offer a space to further exploration rather than suggesting any definite interpretation that would impose specific meanings. The paper emphasizes that the presence of the unknown and the layered possibilities embedded in Ovanessian’s work require a research that is open and fluid and allows qualities to be constantly discovered. Moreover, it turns one’s attention to the question of the presence of Ovanessian’s thought at the contemporary time, despite his lengthy hiatus from Iranian theatre and cinema. The author, after several years of investigation, attempts to answer the original question that initiated his endeavor: whether Ovanessian’s influential work and the basis of his artistic creation and its multilayered raised questions reached far beyond a specific time period.

The second part of the paper discusses the appearance and expression of the unknown in internal movements of Ovanessian’s theatre and cinema; his creative work offers a ground where possibilities for the emergence of the unknown could be established.
Through references to specific instances of Ovanessian’s work, this part discusses the discovery and encounters, as one could describe as “being in touch,” with the unknown. Although the necessity of the presence of this invisible quality is crucial, the essay emphasizes that its condition and emergence is not predefined and predetermined; rather, it is unexpected and can only be explored through the inner invisible movements of Ovanessian’s creation. The paper also alludes to the relationship of the unknown in Ovanessian’s work with the audience which leads them to cross the “real time.” Moreover, the moments of “being in touch” with the unknown are beyond collective revelation: they become individual, intuitive experience.