In ESHRAQ, you play a soul that sets worlds in motion
Ali Eslami's Unreal Engine cognitive playground, built from Suhrawardi's philosophy of light, premieres in IDFA's free DocLab Exhibition, Nov. 13 to 22.
- When
- Nov. 13 to 22, 2026
- Where
- DocLab Exhibition at de Brakke Grond, Amsterdam
- Cost
- Free; entry tickets through IDFA
ESHRAQ is an interactive work by Ali Eslami in which the player is a soul. It possesses agents, from floating spheres to human figures, and sets modular worlds in motion with spells of light. The levels model real places, including the Ziggurat of Ur and an Amsterdam canal. IDFA's program notes describe a game with no fixed ending, which Eslami calls a "cognitive playground."
The 2024 trailer for ESHRAQ. Watch it with sound on the artist's channel, or see the new Story Mode trailer in the announcement.
The title comes from Ishraq, the Illuminationist philosophy of Shahab al-Din Suhrawardi, the 12th-century Persian thinker. A new Story Mode, introduced in the latest trailer, offers a guided path through the work in three chapters, starting in a Persian caravanserai. The piece is built in Unreal Engine 5.
ESHRAQ premieres in the free DocLab Exhibition at de Brakke Grond in Amsterdam, Nov. 13 to 22, as part of IDFA DocLab. Entry tickets are free and reserved through IDFA. Production is by Siuli Ko for K.O. Productions, with sound by Shahin Entezami.
Eslami, born in Iran in 1991 and based in Amsterdam, has shown at DocLab since 2016, when DeathTolls Experience won an IDFA DocLab Award. The virtual world False Mirror followed, and Nerd_Funk, made with Mamali Shafahi, won a Golden Calf for Best Interactive in 2020. Killscreen also covered DocLab's 20th-anniversary restorations.
Frames from the ESHRAQ trailer.
Work like Eslami's rarely gets more than a festival listing anywhere else. Killscreen gives it an argument, and the free newsletter brings you the next one.
