\n
\n\tRIYADH: Diriyah Art Futures opened a new residency displaying cutting-edge artwork in Riyadh on Wednesday evening.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe Mazra\u2019ah Media Art Residency spring\/summer 2025 open studio displays work that combines art, science and technology.<\/p>\n
\n\tIt is a three-month program designed for artists and scholars working across new media and digital art.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe theme, \u201cHigh-Resolution Dreams of Sand,\u201d explored the evolving relationships between humans, nature and technology in rapidly changing environments, informed by the distinctive contexts of Diriyah and Riyadh.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe evening\u2019s open studio offered a behind-the-scenes look at work in progress from the spring\/summer 2025 residents, alongside talks and studio discussions.<\/p>\n
\n\tIn the studios, Arab News met with various artists including Saudi Arwa Al-Neami whose creations explore themes of acceptance, identity and societal transformation.<\/p>\n
\n\tDuring the residency, she undertook an artistic investigation of Saudi Arabia\u2019s landscapes, collecting sand samples from various regions across the Kingdom.<\/p>\n
\n\tThrough nano microscopy and advanced imaging techniques, she created an immersive sensory experience that transforms microscopic grains of sand into pieces of art in the form of films, virtual reality and 3D-printed sculptures.<\/p>\n
\n\tShe told Arab News: \u201cI am currently researching seven different areas in the Kingdom, where I\u2019m exploring the sound of the sun using specialized sensors during sunrise and sunset. The resulting sound waves are translated into frequencies that create audible sounds.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cBy analyzing the sound of the sun and the atomic structure of sands, I produce artwork that highlights the differences across various regions of Saudi Arabia.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tFor 90 days, artist Dr. Stanza has been creating a whole body of work based on Saudi Arabia using real-time data including weather forecasts, pollution stats and news feeds.<\/p>\n
\n\tUsing an AI prompt, he created the series \u201cSons of Time\u201d \u2014 an interactive Internet installation inspired by cybernetics and the future.<\/p>\n
\n\tHis other work, \u201cMachine Cities,\u201d connects 90 cities and towns across the Kingdom and tracks them in real time, presenting a visualization that the public can engage with.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe London-based artist has exhibited worldwide and earned numerous awards for his use of the Internet as an art medium.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cWhile I\u2019ve been here, what I\u2019ve really learned about Saudi Arabia is it\u2019s a very warm and inclusive country that\u2019s moving forward toward 2030.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cThere\u2019s a whole series of ideas about AI and agency that (are) also incorporated within my artworks. I look forward to presenting some of these works here in the future,\u201d he told Arab News.<\/p>\n
\n\tIndian artist Harshit Agrawal has taken his time at the residency to contemplate the juxtaposition of Diriyah\u2019s rich heritage with its exponential development in the past few years.<\/p>\n
\n\tSet against Diriyah\u2019s historic farms and Riyadh\u2019s evolving environment, the participants were encouraged to consider the impact of technology on natural and constructed landscapes.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cWhile I was here, I was quite fascinated, in my early days by the cultural richness, the different practices of culture, but also Diriyah as a city in transition in this beautiful time where it\u2019s developing into something else with all these constructions and all these new things that are happening,\u201d Agrawal told Arab News.<\/p>\n
\n\tIn \u201cMachinic Meditations,\u201d the artist was particularly fascinated with subhas, or prayer beads, that are commonly used in Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n
\n\tThis prompted his research, where he also found electronic subhas. \u201cIt\u2019s quite fascinating to move from this kind of manual device to an electronic version of it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cI started thinking \u2014 because I work a lot with machine learning, AI data\u2014 what is the extreme scenario of that? So, I created these devices, which are motorized systems that rotate these beads autonomously, and they keep doing that continuously.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cAnd with each rotation, they pick up new human data to meditate on. It\u2019s kind of the machine\u2019s version of meditating, but on human data and climate data.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tIn \u201cData Excavations: The New Soil,\u201d the artist takes inspiration from construction and excavation machinery, using its mobility as a way to write out words in a choreographed manner using light strips.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s been a really exciting time to be here, because it\u2019s a great intersection between deep cultural practices that are here that I can kind of see in the city, but also really cutting-edge studios and facilities that I\u2019ve had and (been) exposed through the material residency,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe open studio event welcomed a number of artists and prominent figures in the art scene, aiming to introduce them to the findings and research of this year\u2019s cohort around new media arts in the region.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cHaving Saudi Arabia attracting so many different cultures right now is a great thing, for artists to meet and research in the new media and technology is a great thing because they can implement their culture\u2019s ideas in so many different ways and that\u2019s what we see here \u2014 it\u2019s a great cultural bridge,\u201d visual artist Lulwah AI-Hamoud, who was attending the event, told Arab News.<\/p>\n
\n\tDAF Director Haytham Nawar and DAF Director of Education Dr. Tegan Bristow delivered opening remarks, followed by talks from Dr. Anett Holzheid, an ZKM science and art researcher and curator, and Mizuho Yamazaki, an independent writer and scholar.<\/p>\n
\n\tAttendees then enjoyed an open studio preview with Dr. Stanza, before a break for networking and a tour of the fabrication lab, sound lab and prototypes.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe evening concluded with studio discussions featuring Arwa Alneami, Harshit Agrawal and Reem Alnasser, all media artists.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
\n
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RIYADH: Diriyah Art Futures opened a new residency displaying cutting-edge artwork in Riyadh on Wednesday…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":58863,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle"],"yoast_head":"\n
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