SUMMARY
The Evolution of Simorgh: Re-forming Collective Identity
"Simorgh in the 21st Century," serves as an imagined contemporary follow-up to Farid ud-Din Attar’s 1177 Persian masterpiece, "Conference of the Birds." In classical Iranian mythology, the Simorgh is a benevolent hybrid healer. In Attar's Sufi text, the word Simorgh literalizes as thirty (si) birds (morgh), revealing that the divine protector the birds seek is actually the realization of their own collective unity.
For the modern Iranian diaspora, this project serves as a vital framework for cultural healing, transforming experiences of displacement into opportunities for shared restoration. Rather than dwelling on historical fragmentation, "Simorgh in the 21st Century" literalizes the process of cultural reclamation. By inviting seven distinct diaspora storytellers—each specifically anchoring one of the seven spiritual valleys of the Sufi path (Quest, Love, Knowledge, Detachment, Unity, Wonderment, and Poverty/Nothingness)—the project builds a focused, sequential collective framework. This collaboration directly mirrors the core philosophy of Saadi Shirazi’s "Bani Adam"—the understanding that humans are limbs of one interconnected body. The project celebrates the endurance of cultural identity. By transforming individual vulnerabilities into a synchronized artistic community through these seven transformative stages, the work demonstrates how a dispersed culture reforms, reclaims its heritage, and heals as one.
Narrative Form & Cultural Impact
The Artifact of Shared Perspective, Project Status, and Intended Impact
The aesthetic framework of Simorgh in the 21st Century repositions the scratch-animation medium as a tool for cultural preservation, historical dialogue, and profound emotional restoration.. In this piece, the seven storytellers guide the narrative through the progressive perspectives of the valleys, documenting a profound journey of return. The energetic, raw lines etched into the black film leader do not merely signify past ruptures; they represent the active, tactile trace of the artist reclaiming their narrative space. By layering these vibrant, hand-scratched animations over deconstructed and re-contextualized historical found footage, the project directly visualizes the synthesis of memory and modern diaspora life.
The project has achieved significant momentum and is poised for full execution. The current project status stands fully verified: technical testing for both the 3D modeled assets and the rotoscoped vintage film elements is complete, as is the detailed storyboard for the upcoming animation teaser. This solid foundation ensures structural continuity as the narrative moves into deep production.
The project is designed to engage and impact three distinct tiers of viewers:
Young, hyphenated Iranians born in English-speaking countries: This audience may not have encountered Attar’s masterpiece during their education, and those who did were likely restricted to severely abridged translations. This film offers them an uncompromised, structurally rich window into their literary heritage.
English-speaking hyphenated Iranians grappling with generational dislocation: For those who have felt untethered by the legacy of the 1979 revolution and subsequently traumatized by witnessing the continuous mistreatment of citizens inside Iran, this work provides a space for collective processing. It shifts their relationship to their homeland from one of passive distance to active, collaborative storytelling.
Deep-thinking English speakers worldwide: For individuals of any background walking a spiritual path of enlightenment, the sequential progression through the seven valleys offers a universal, visually arresting template for self-reflection.
"Simorgh in the 21st Century," serves as an imagined contemporary follow-up to Farid ud-Din Attar’s 1177 Persian masterpiece, "Conference of the Birds." In classical Iranian mythology, the Simorgh is a benevolent hybrid healer. In Attar's Sufi text, the word Simorgh literalizes as thirty (si) birds (morgh), revealing that the divine protector the birds seek is actually the realization of their own collective unity.
For the modern Iranian diaspora, this project serves as a vital framework for cultural healing, transforming experiences of displacement into opportunities for shared restoration. Rather than dwelling on historical fragmentation, "Simorgh in the 21st Century" literalizes the process of cultural reclamation. By inviting seven distinct diaspora storytellers—each specifically anchoring one of the seven spiritual valleys of the Sufi path (Quest, Love, Knowledge, Detachment, Unity, Wonderment, and Poverty/Nothingness)—the project builds a focused, sequential collective framework. This collaboration directly mirrors the core philosophy of Saadi Shirazi’s "Bani Adam"—the understanding that humans are limbs of one interconnected body. The project celebrates the endurance of cultural identity. By transforming individual vulnerabilities into a synchronized artistic community through these seven transformative stages, the work demonstrates how a dispersed culture reforms, reclaims its heritage, and heals as one.
Narrative Form & Cultural Impact
The Artifact of Shared Perspective, Project Status, and Intended Impact
The aesthetic framework of Simorgh in the 21st Century repositions the scratch-animation medium as a tool for cultural preservation, historical dialogue, and profound emotional restoration.. In this piece, the seven storytellers guide the narrative through the progressive perspectives of the valleys, documenting a profound journey of return. The energetic, raw lines etched into the black film leader do not merely signify past ruptures; they represent the active, tactile trace of the artist reclaiming their narrative space. By layering these vibrant, hand-scratched animations over deconstructed and re-contextualized historical found footage, the project directly visualizes the synthesis of memory and modern diaspora life.
The project has achieved significant momentum and is poised for full execution. The current project status stands fully verified: technical testing for both the 3D modeled assets and the rotoscoped vintage film elements is complete, as is the detailed storyboard for the upcoming animation teaser. This solid foundation ensures structural continuity as the narrative moves into deep production.
The project is designed to engage and impact three distinct tiers of viewers:
Young, hyphenated Iranians born in English-speaking countries: This audience may not have encountered Attar’s masterpiece during their education, and those who did were likely restricted to severely abridged translations. This film offers them an uncompromised, structurally rich window into their literary heritage.
English-speaking hyphenated Iranians grappling with generational dislocation: For those who have felt untethered by the legacy of the 1979 revolution and subsequently traumatized by witnessing the continuous mistreatment of citizens inside Iran, this work provides a space for collective processing. It shifts their relationship to their homeland from one of passive distance to active, collaborative storytelling.
Deep-thinking English speakers worldwide: For individuals of any background walking a spiritual path of enlightenment, the sequential progression through the seven valleys offers a universal, visually arresting template for self-reflection.
STORYBOARD
Stories about Simorgh, the mythical flying creature, span 5000 years. She is beautiful, with the tail feathers of a peacock that are magical. She is inherently benevolent, able to heal man and to purify nature. And in stories of Sufi mysticism, she is devine.
But Life has not been easy.
She is burnt black from the constant barrage and plucked out of magical feathers.
No longer together, they fear the other.
Without empathy, all hope is lost.
Unless they transform their faults and reform as one.
TECHNIQUE
But Life has not been easy.
Her patience with us, and her protective bubble from us, has worn thin.
No longer together, they fear the other.
Without empathy, all hope is lost.
Unless they transform their faults and reform as one.
TECHNIQUE
Technical Innovation & Methodology
Analog Metaphor and Digital Interconnection
This project introduces a novel animation methodology that bridges historical avant-garde cinema with modern computation, transforming a difficult and grueling manual task into an act of meditative, ritualized creation. I am deconstructing and expanding upon the camera-less, direct-to-film techniques pioneered by early animators like Len Lye. While Lye's hand-scratched 16mm frames in Free Radicals masterfully captured energetic motion, maintaining volume and repeatability by hand must have been an exhausting hurdle. To streamline this process, I utilize an 8-step pipeline that leverages procedural repeatability to achieve fluid, three-dimensional motion.
For the bilingual countdown, the rotating numbers are modeled, animated, and rendered in black and white within Maya, 3D software. Sequenced onto a Super 16mm template in Photoshop, vectorized in Silhouette Studio, and mechanically scored before being layered and colored by hand.
Crucially, the physical handling of the film leader acts as a metaphor for structural restoration. I am developing a custom embossing process that utilizes a 3D printer to fabricate form-fitted embossing folders. Stamping traditional cultural iconography directly into the film substrate to represent the progression through the seven spiritual valleys allows the medium itself to carry the weight of our shared history. The computer does not replace the human touch; rather, it provides the repeatable structure needed to weave seven distinct artistic contributions into a seamless visual continuum.
Analog Metaphor and Digital Interconnection
This project introduces a novel animation methodology that bridges historical avant-garde cinema with modern computation, transforming a difficult and grueling manual task into an act of meditative, ritualized creation. I am deconstructing and expanding upon the camera-less, direct-to-film techniques pioneered by early animators like Len Lye. While Lye's hand-scratched 16mm frames in Free Radicals masterfully captured energetic motion, maintaining volume and repeatability by hand must have been an exhausting hurdle. To streamline this process, I utilize an 8-step pipeline that leverages procedural repeatability to achieve fluid, three-dimensional motion.
For the bilingual countdown, the rotating numbers are modeled, animated, and rendered in black and white within Maya, 3D software. Sequenced onto a Super 16mm template in Photoshop, vectorized in Silhouette Studio, and mechanically scored before being layered and colored by hand.
Crucially, the physical handling of the film leader acts as a metaphor for structural restoration. I am developing a custom embossing process that utilizes a 3D printer to fabricate form-fitted embossing folders. Stamping traditional cultural iconography directly into the film substrate to represent the progression through the seven spiritual valleys allows the medium itself to carry the weight of our shared history. The computer does not replace the human touch; rather, it provides the repeatable structure needed to weave seven distinct artistic contributions into a seamless visual continuum.
Inspired by Len Lye's rotating marks in Free Radicals (1959)
I developed a technique which takes advantage of modern technology.
Given the course look of Scratch film, the Birds may be represented by zoomorphic calligrams.
An Example of an animated calligram which uses the Arabic Alphabet
Amentü Gemisi Nasıl Yürüdü (1969)
Tonguç Yaşar, Turkey
trt: 3 min. 15 sec.
I will also be scratching found footage.
By deconstructing the film at the edit points,
I will re-construct the clips to tell the story of Simorgh in the 21st Century.
I will develop a process for embossing the film which utilizes a 3D printer for making custom, fitted embossing folders. This test uses off-the-shelf embossing folders.
SCRIPT
PHASE 2: COLLABORATION
At 4500 lines Attar's poem it is too long for one person to complete. I will ask 30 storytellers to each take on the representation of one bird., which they can make in any style and use the technique of their own choosing. This will emphasize the multicultural and inclusive nature of the story.
RECENT MEDIA starring Simorgh
Simurgh boardgame
released June 2016
Simurg is a dragon.
Developers Website
Review by Board Game Geek
Simorgh Animation (2014) with animated Ebook (2016)
Listen to the professional reading of the poem in both languages.
Play a game to learn about the character design, and how the Arabic letters in the spelling of each bird name were used to give them form.
I am an Iranian-American who was born an American-Iranian—in Tehran in 1966, to an Iranian father and an American mother. The love and mutual respect within my bi-cultural family is a shield to the overt biases of the wider community—biases that were fueled in 1979 for 444+ days on the nightly news. I was one of the lucky ones, while Iranians in America were vilified, I was just ‘othered.' There is a strange kind of freedom in being overlooked. Its like being handed a invisibility cloak. With the resilience of a child, and later the naïve optimism of a teenager, I survived—and eventually thrived—by choosing alternative paths. These choices grew from my admiration for the communities I encountered—invisible communities made of people whose convictions were earned through perseverance and quiet resilience. It is within these unseen circles that I discovered the profound value of listening to voices that often go unheard. In doing so, I learned not to fear change, as it is inevitable—and often an opening for transformation. A researcher I met early in my career once told me I’m like the canary in the coal mine. I’ve come to understand that challenging social norms often comes at a personal cost. But I’ve also learned that the communities willing to embrace diversity and protect independent thinking are the ones most capable of transformation—and ultimately, of becoming stronger.
Kurosh ValaNejad has managed to stay an amateur - in love - my consistently changing the field in which he applies his 3D CG skills, Land Planning 1990, Architecture 1996, Feature Film &
Experimental Animation , Artificial Intelligence & Virtual Reality , and most recently in Video
Games & Interactive Media . From 2001-2016, as a lead artist and/or art director he helped
researchers at USC advance remote learning and develop innovative Impact games on topics
ranging from national & international politics to spiritual enlightenment . 8 pieces from The Ca
and the Coup , his documentary videogame are in the Art of the Middle East collection
of LACMA He was a key team member on projects funded by the National Science
Foundation , National Endowment for the Arts & the Humanities . His emotionally evocative
virtual environments feel real by avoiding the uncanny valley of the photo real. Excited by the
emergence of a new convergence of the Cinematic & Performing arts, ValaNejad shifted his
focus in 2013 to live performance. He returned to school and developed the Body Scrub device,
a software and sensor that correlates Space & Time to spatialize animation. When used in
site-specific installations, these virtual funhouse mirrors encourage spectators to become the
spectacle. And on stage in multimedia performances, the device returns control of the audience
experience to the performer who is present, rather than the media maker who is not. The first
application of Body Scrub was acquired by The Strong National Museum of Play. The 30th was
Gender ID, and his thesis project for an MFA (2018) in Animation & Digital Art from USC Schoo
for Cinematic Arts. He is currently working with choreographer Stephen Hues on an adaptation
for the stage .
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Professor Christine Panushka CTAN 451; History of Animation
It was in this course that I first wondered:
Professor Lisa Mann CTAN 544; Introduction to the Art of Animation
I used the large plus sign (+) embosser of Parasite with Symbiotic Intentions (from the Bani Adam series) to emboss the film before I scratched it. This triggered all the ideas documented in this blog post.
Professor Trixy Sweetvittales CTAN 547; Animation Production
With her guidance and patience, I developed a new Scratch technique utilizing digital technology.
