{"id":98538,"date":"2026-09-18T06:20:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-18T06:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/?p=98538"},"modified":"2026-09-18T06:20:00","modified_gmt":"2026-09-18T06:20:00","slug":"arab-news-highlights-from-the-art-exhibition-continuum-26","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/?p=98538","title":{"rendered":"Arab News | Highlights from the art exhibition \u2018Continuum \u201926\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

\n

RIYADH: \u201cContinuum,\u201d which runs until Nov. 7 in Diriyah, presents works by 17 emerging artists from 12 countries who\u2019ve spent the past year participating in Diriyah Art Futures under the mentorship of artists Louis-Philippe Demers and Rick Treweek. The four pillars of the exhibition are: \u201cMemory as a living process, exploring personal, collective, environmental and cultural remembering\u201d; \u201cSystems of power and optimization, examining technology as an extension of human decisions, desires and control\u201d; \u201cThe body, perception, and presence, focusing on embodiment, interspecies relationships and immersive sensory environments\u201d; and \u201cRepetition, rhythm, and collective experience, exploring automated systems, labor, and human endurance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Here, we present five works from the exhibition.<\/p>\n

\u2018Being Beside\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2018Being Beside,\u2019 Evgenii Popov. (Supplied)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Evgenii Popov<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Russian artist\u2019s contribution to the group exhibition initially seems like a sculptural installation. However, the show notes explain, \u201conce entered, it shifts observation to embodied participation.\u201d Popov\u2019s intention with \u201cBeing Beside\u201d is to \u201cmomentarily unsettle the visitor\u2019s sense of self.\u201d Once you enter the structure, \u201cfour vanishing points pull visual attention toward the light itself, reducing reference to the external environment. As attention is\u00a0reallocated, orientation becomes less stable spatially, perceptually, and cognitively.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018This is All a Big Test\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n

Njood Albawardi<\/strong><\/p>\n

In her exhibition piece, Saudi artist Albawardi \u201cexplores the human relationship with automation,\u201d positing that while machines are often seen as \u201cclinical objects that somehow emerge fully formed from a void, entirely independent of human touch,\u201d the reality is that all such constructions \u2014 \u201cevery precise layer of our technological landscape\u201d \u2014 is in fact \u201can accumulation of\u00a0deliberate human choices, from the specific structural layout of a microchip to\u00a0 the mechanical code running an interface.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Does the Sea Die?\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n

Ezzat Shdad<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Yemeni artist\u2019s practice, according to the exhibition organizers, \u201caddresses collective memory, urban deterioration, and postcolonial narratives.\u201d For the show, he contributes \u201ca film-based spatial installation\u201d set in Aden and \u201cconcerned with the fragile space between holding on and letting go.\u201d According to the notes, it \u201cfollows a man carrying the last trace of his mother. The sea, the city, and the wind become witnesses to an intimate act of grief: the attempt to release what\u00a0cannot fully be released. Rather than approaching loss through direct\u00a0explanation, the work moves through gestures, pauses, textures, and\u00a0atmosphere.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Avoid Nil\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n

Gabriela Reyes<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Mexican artist, who works under the name Cero Tres, contributes this light-and-sound installation which extends the logic of visual programming interfaces (in which the term \u201cavoid nil\u201d is used to replace nil values, which cannot be processed, with 0 \u2014 \u201ca potential value that represents absence while enabling presence or existence\u201d) to perception and space. Thus, the piece \u201ctreats the void as an active medium, one in which intangible forces and basic conditions of perception become apparent.\u201d It \u201cproposes emptiness not as\u00a0nothingness, but as potential: a condition that can host and reveal non-material phenomena through carefully tuned audiovisual stimuli.\u201d<\/p>\n

‘You may not like it, but this is what peak performance looks like’<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n

Y7<\/strong><\/p>\n

Y7 consists of UK artists Hannah Cobb and Declan Colquitt. For \u201cContinuum,\u201d the duo tasked an AI system to make a video essay called \u201cThe Lazarus Mechanism: How Your Cells Cheat Death.\u201d According to the show notes: \u201cY7 took the group exhibition as a design brief, working towards a single goal: to produce, through entirely quantitative means, the work most likely to capture attention.\u201d Their chosen method meant \u201cabandoning traditional notions of authorship,\u201d instead \u201cceding\u00a0creative decisions to a system\u201d and thereby investigating \u201cwhether novel artistic methods\u00a0can be derived from AI slop pipelines: processes in which content is shaped by\u00a0its capacity to game human attention and to circulate, not by aesthetic intent or\u00a0meaning-making.\u201d It\u2019s like a 2026 version of the Infinite Monkey Theorem.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n