3 - Cartographic Desires: Some Reflections on the Shahr-e Farang (Peepshow) and Modern Iran

Summary

A late nineteenth-century photograph by the Iranian Armenian photographer Antoin Sevruguin (c. 1830s–1933) shows one Iranian man and two boys crouching under a floral curtain and watching a peepshow (Figure 3.1). The vendor stands behind the box, spinning narratives that accompany the secret images the customers are enjoying. The curtain provides privacy, acting as both an enticement and a separation to potential customers; behind the barrier, only paying patrons can satisfy their curiosity and indulge in the hidden spectacle. Two framed pictures, which are difficult to decipher and sit atop the box, also elicit curiosity.

By the nineteenth century, during the height of European colonialism, one could find these types of mobile peepshow boxes worldwide – in Europe, Asia and the Middle East – showcasing pictures or photographs of foreign cities, pornography, wars and exotic images as spectacles to consume. The thorough distribution of these boxes worldwide situated them as sites of contact between colonial powers, political agendas, anthropological ventures and globalist designs, as one's understanding of the world was possibly framed, to some extent, through the moving pictures presented. In Iran, the traveling peepshow box was called the shahr-e farang. The literal translation of “shahr-e farang” can be “French city,” “European city,” “Western city” or “foreign city.” In any case, the name of the box implies that the images one paid to see were something of a more European nature that especially attracted spectators.