GLOBAL ART FORUM 12: MARCH PROGRAMME

ART DUBAI GLOBAL ART FORUM MARCH 21-24, 2018 MADINAT JUMEIRAH

ARTDUBAI.AE

HELD UNDER THE PATRONAGE OF HIS HIGHNESS SHEIKH MOHAMMED BIN RASHID AL MAKTOUM, VICE-PRESIDENT AND PRIME MINISTER OF THE UAE, RULER OF DUBAI

GLOBAL ART FORUM

The Global Art Forum was launched by Art Dubai at its inaugural fair in 2007. In 2018, it is presented by the Dubai Culture & Arts Authority and supported by Dubai Design District (d3).

Featuring live talks guided by a curated theme, the Global Art Forum brings together a diverse line-up of participants, including artists, writers, curators, novelists, futurists, architects and technologists.

Day 1 of the Global Art Forum took place on February 14 in Dubai.

For more information, visit artdubai.ae

The Global Art Forum 12 will focus on the power, paranoia and potentials of automation. Entitled “I Am Not a Robot”, the 12th edition of the transdisciplinary summit will be programmed by Commissioner Shumon Basar, with Chief Operating Officer and Futurist-in-Chief of the Dubai Future Foundation Noah Raford, and Curator of Digital Culture & Design Collection at the MAK, Vienna, Marlies Wirth, as Co-Directors.

The implications of automation run through our lives today and tomorrow: from machine learning, to algorithmic policy-making, social credit scores and gene editing. It is said that automation, more than any other factor, will fundamentally alter our working lives (leading Bill Gates to suggest robots pay taxes). This brings about the ambient fear of automation. We’ve already heard the first AI composed pop song and can read the first AI authored short story. Where does this all leave the fate of the human? And what exactly are machines saying about us behind our backs? “I Am Not a Robot” becomes a natural sequel to previous editions that dealt with technology, the future and trade.

After the debut at the Serpentine Gallery’s 2017 “Guest, Ghost, Host, Machine!”

Marathon, the Forum continued on Wednesday, February 14, 2018 at Dubai Design District, introducing some of the key themes of “I Am Not a Robot”, in a series of talks, presentations and discussions. The forum will take place in its acclaimed three day programme at Art Dubai from Wednesday, March 21- Friday, March 23 2018.

DAILY SCHEDULE

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 21 ART DUBAI, FORT ISLAND

2-2:15pm WELCOME AND INTRODUCTION

By Global Art Forum Commissioner Shumon Basar with Co-directors Noah Raford and Marlies Wirth 2:15-2:45pm IAMAI LECTURE Media Theorist Paul Feigelfeld What are the apocryphal histories of computing, and artificial/machine intelligence?

Its obscure layers and lairs? The cryptic and alien languages it speaks? And the images it imagines but we cannot see? In this lecture, we’ll look for the Cloud at the bottom of the oceans and for platforms in the skies. We’ll travel the land of the blind and go mind jogging in China.

2:45-3:45pm I AM NOT WESTERN AI: ANIMALS, ALIENS, AND ALTERNATE PHILOSOPHIES OF MIND DISCUSSION Assistant Professor, Academy of Media Arts Cologne Mi You, National Technology Officer Microsoft China Ltd Qing Wei, Professor, Philosophy Department, Autonomous University of Barcelona Jordi Vallverdú, Hosted by Noah Raford How do intelligence, cognition, and concepts of the self vary across cultures (and species)? How might this influence the development of AI? From robot monks in Japan that hold perpetual prayers, to octopus consciousness and multi-bodied minds, the creation of perceiving machines will reflect deeply on our sense of self, and indeed, life itself.

3:45-4:15pm AM I STILL EMPLOYED: JOBS, JOYS, AND WHAT DO YOU DO LECTURE AND CONVERSATION Head of Research, Dubai Future Foundation Jessica Bland with Shumon Basar For hundreds of years, new waves of technology have motivated fresh fears of automation of human labour. Some of this fear has been about loss of jobs. But that is wound together with worries about loss of personal identity. We now develop machines that can take on tasks deeply woven into our human identities – producing knowledge, decisions and, perhaps, intelligence. What kind of social order would remain in a world without economic status or knowledge work as hierarchy?

Do Gulf nations have a head start in understanding what comes next?

4:15-4:30pm BREAK

4:30-5pm I AM AWESOME, ANNOYING AND AWFUL: AI IN EVERYDAY LIFE, 2050 CONVERSATION Product and Interaction Designer Simone Rebaudengo with Noah Raford AI will take many forms in the future, from self-selling disposable goods to terrifying, continent-wide minds that shape entire industries. How will these minds interact with our everyday goods and experiences? Will it be awesome, annoying, or awful? A pantheon of negotiation, a paradise of domination, or a compound of complication?

5-5:30pm I AM A HYPERSTITION LECTURE Artist, Writer and Trend Forecaster Emily Segal “Hyperstition” was a term coined in the 1990s to describe fictions that make themselves true – a form of automation in their own right. This lecture presents new research from the think-tank Nemesis that recasts the concept of Hyperstition in the contemporary moment, mapping the architecture of hype and its vectors of development.

5:30-6:30pm I AM A HUMAN ARTIST: PART 1 DISCUSSION Artists Rokni, Ramin Haerizadeh & Hesam Rahmanian, Yuri Pattison, Ania Soliman, Hosted by Writer Melissa Gronlund How are artists engaging with technologies of automation, as well as the ever increasing automation of the world? What new kinds of aesthetics, experiences and knowledge emerge? From interactive puppetry to robot choreography via the unconscious intent of algorithms, these artists discuss their ideas and work, and the complex concerns facing the current moment.

THURSDAY, MARCH 22 ART DUBAI, FORT ISLAND

10am-12:30pm I AM/NOT A ROBOT WORKSHOP Artists Isabel Lewis and Asad Raza Artists Isabel Lewis and Asad Raza offer a workshop to interested members of the public. The workshop format will allow a more thorough immersion in the practices and ideas specific to Lewis and Raza’s work, and will take the format of a group participation in a collective live interaction. Lewis and Raza will focus on the notion of the cyborg using texts by Donna Haraway and others as a guide. The workshop will also function as a moment of collective creation for a public presentation that will occur at 6pm this evening.

2-2:15pm WELCOME AND INTRODUCTION

By Global Art Forum Commissioner Shumon Basar with Co-directors Noah Raford and Marlies Wirth 2:15-3:15pm I AM A HUMAN ARTIST: PART 2 DISCUSSION Artist and “Private Ear” Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Artists Katja Novitskova, Pamela Rosenkranz, Hosted by CTO Serpentine Galleries London and Initiator unMonastery Ben Vickers How are artists engaging with technologies of automation, as well as the ever increasing automation of the world? What new kinds of aesthetics, experiences and knowledge emerge? From aural surveillance to neuropharmacology via the sculptural qualities of Internet images, these artists discuss their ideas and work, and the accelerated textures of the present moment.

3:15-3:45pm IS IT DJINN: GHOSTS, MACHINES, MUSIC CONVERSATION Music Producer and Artist Fatima Al Qadiri and Shumon Basar Long before Artificial Intelligence arrived, technology has often been framed as a supernatural force. There are maybe more “ghosts in the machine” now than there are human beings in the world. Fatima Al Qadiri’s work, too, is haunted by many things. A Kuwaiti childhood during the first Gulf War shaped a sonic sensibility, which in turn has produced music redolent of war video games and a spirit world.

She discusses the links between sound and memory, djinn and the digital.

3:45-4:45pm I AM HUMAN: CAN YOU PROVE IT? DISCUSSION Artist and Architect Alessandro Bava, Designer Simone Niquille, Artist and Writer Patricia Reed, Hosted by Marlies Wirth Supranational structures (Google, Amazon, Alibaba) preside over our knowledge and technology. They cunningly manipulate the masses with the use of self-learning algorithms and streamlined filter bubbles. But should our major societal decisions be given over to what Hito Steyerl has described as “Artificial Stupidity”? As we increasingly inhabit responsive environments that attempt to predict our wishes and desires before we even have them, this discussion identifies the shifts in personal and political dynamics, and the role of human agency in a non-human world.

4:45-5pm REPORT FROM THE SERPENTINE MARATHON 2017 PRESENTATION Artistic Director Serpentine Galleries London Hans Ulrich Obrist and Ben Vickers The 2017 Marathon, entitled “Guest, Ghost, Host: Machine!,” brought together artists, scientists, activists, engineers, poets, sociologists, philosophers, filmmakers, writers, anthropologists, theologians and musicians to consider the advent of “artificial intelligence,” consciousness, interspecies cooperation, trans-humanism and nonlinear time. The Marathon sought to illuminate the ways in which these fields of exploration leave unrecognizable traces and unknowable apparitions in the present.

5-6pm I AM DISTRIBUTED: AT THE FRONTIERS OF THE BLOCKCHAIN DISCUSSION Theorist Jaya Klara Brekke and Architect and Musician Martti Kalliala, Hosted by Hans Ulrich Obrist and Ben Vickers The blockchain is a database validated by a global community, and backed by code/math, rather than a central authority. Many claims are made for it: from introducing a new, better Internet to disempowering centralized banks. But what does the geography of the blockchain look like? What are its politics? And what is a "Decentralized Autonomous Rave Scene?" This discussion explores the still-emerging philosophy and technology of the blockchain and the kind of world it might bring about.

6-6:30pm I AM/NOT A ROBOT PERFORMANCE Artist and Dancer Isabel Lewis and Artist Asad Raza A playful encounter between crafters of live experience Isabel Lewis and Asad Raza using voice, text, electronic music and vocal processing. Following their open workshop earlier in the day, Raza and Lewis will address the particular agency we could and do have in our current condition as real cyborgs.

FRIDAY, MARCH 23 ART DUBAI, FORT ISLAND

2-2:05pm WELCOME AND INTRODUCTION

By Global Art Forum Commissioner Shumon Basar with Co-directors Noah Raford and Marlies Wirth 2:05-2:45pm AM I A SAD ROBOT: THE CLINIC OF AI LECTURE Philosopher and Writer Aaron Schuster Why are AI's typically portrayed in popular culture as murderous/psychotic, bent on wiping out the human race? Wouldn't intelligent machines run the full range of human psychopathologies? Think of Marvin, the melancholic robot from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Isn’t it more likely that a hyperintelligent AI would become depressed, not aggressive? Perhaps in the future, the main role of human beings will be to minister therapeutically to depressed AIs, whose melancholic bouts threaten civilization with digital malaise and total breakdown. In this lecture, Schuster explores the "clinic of AI:" the psychopathologies of our machine intelligent future.

2:45-3pm BREAK (SET CHANGE) 3-6pm

PRESENTS ‘CONSIDER THE ROBOT & “OTHER” STATES OF FUTURENESS’ SCREENINGS AND CONVERSATION Cinema Akil presents a filmic framework of intersectional imagination.

Sci-fi short mockumentary Last Days of the Man of Tomorrow (2017) takes a look at Lebanon’s history through the life and legend of Manivelle, an automaton gifted to the nation in 1945, making it the country’s first AI citizen. In Wanuri Kahui’s sci-fi drama Pumzi (2009), a post-apocalyptic future East Africa is visited, 35 years after World War III. Together, the two sci-fi shorts will unthink Eurocentric depictions of imminent automation. A conversation between Pumzi director Wanuri Kahui and writer/curator Özge Calafato explores these themes deeper. Cinema Akil at GAF12 will close with the Middle East premiere of the documentary Free Lunch Society (2017) as the Lexus, the Nexis and the Auto Tree collide and crossover to face UBI realpolitik.

3-3:30pm LAST DAYS OF THE MAN OF TOMORROW SCREENING 2017 | Lebanon, Germany | PG | Animation | Arabic Director Fadi Baki A young filmmaker investigates the legend of “Manivelle”, an automaton gifted to Lebanon in 1945 that still haunts an abandoned mansion in Beirut. After being coaxed back into the limelight, the people who knew him come forward to speak out and the myth that “Manivelle” has constructed around himself starts to unravel.

3:30-4pm PUMZI SCREENING 2009 | Kenya, South Africa | PG | Short, Sci-Fi | English Director Wanuri Kahiu Nature is extinct. The outside is dead. Asha lives and works as a museum curator in one of the indoor communities set up by the Maitu Council. When she receives a box in the mail containing soil, she plants an old seed in it and the seed starts to germinate instantly. Asha appeals to the Council to grant her permission to investigate the possibility of life on the outside but the Council denies her exit visa.

Asha breaks out of the inside community to go into the dead and derelict outside to plant the growing seedling and possibly find life on the outside.

4-4:30pm PUMZI Q&A CONVERSATION Wanuri Kahiu and Writer and Curator Özge Calafato Özge Calafato talks to Wanuri Kahiu about the themes behind her acclaimed sci-fi short, the increasing ways Africa finds itself fast forwarding to an automated present, and the recent cinematic languages of non-Euroamerican futurism.

4:30-6pm FREE LUNCH SOCIETY SCREENING 2017 | Austria, Germany | PG | Documentary | German, English Director Christian Tod What would you do if your income were taken care of? Just a few years ago, an unconditional basic income was considered a pipe dream. Today, this utopia is more imaginable than ever before - intense discussions are taking place in all political and scientific camps. Free Lunch Society provides background information about this idea and searches for explanations, possibilities and experiences regarding its implementation.

CONTRIBUTORS

COMMISSIONER Shumon Basar is a writer, curator and cultural critic. He is Commissioner of the Global Art Forum in Dubai; Editor-at-large of Tank magazine; Contributing Editor at Bidoun magazine; Director of the Format programme at the AA School; part of Art Jameel’s Curatorial Council; and a member of Fondazione Prada’s Thought Council.

His most recent book, co-authored with Douglas Coupland and Hans Ulrich Obrist, is “The Age of Earthquakes: A Guide to the Extreme Present.” @shumonbasar

CO-DIRECTORS Noah Raford is the Chief Operating Officer (COO) and Futurist-in-Chief of the Dubai Future Foundation. He was also a former advisor on futures, foresight, and innovation for the UAE Prime Minister’s Office. As part of a team that identifies emerging opportunities and future initiatives for the Government of Dubai, his work helps frame the UAE as a global test-bed for 21st Century technologies and ideas.

He is currently leading the construction and curation of the Museum of the Future (opening in 2019), as well as various public sector transformation initiatives. He lives in Dubai and is a semi-retired techno DJ. @nraford Marlies Wirth is a curator and art historian based in Vienna, Austria. With a background in contemporary art she has been active at the MAK – the Austrian Museum of Applied Arts / Contemporary Art in Vienna, since2006, where she has worked closely with MAK Center for Art and Architecture, Los Angeles and was appointed curator in 2009. She was recently named Curator of Digital Culture & Design Collection at the MAK. She curates exhibitions, programmes and discursive events in the fields of art, design, architecture, media and technology, and has had a key role in the programming of VIENNA BIENNALE 2017. Next to her institutional practice, she develops independent exhibition projects with international artists, and writes essays and texts for artists and publications. Recent exhibitions include the themed group show “Artificial Tears” and “ich weiß nicht [I don’t know] – Growing Relations between Things” (Vienna Biennale 2017), the group show “24/7: the Human Condition” (Vienna Biennale 2015). She is also part of the curatorial team for the international travelling exhibition “Hello, Robot. Design between Human and Machine” (2017, MAK in cooperation with Vitra Design Museum and Design Museum Gent). @marlieswirth

Facing Page “Zombie Hand”, originally uploaded to Google Street View by Adalberto Menardi.

(Kyle Williams via Google Maps)

CONTRIBUTORS

Lawrence Abu Hamdan is an artist and “Private Ear” who creates audiovisual installations and conducted investigations with Forensic Architecture for organizations such as Amnesty International and DCI-Palestine.

Fatima Al Qadiri is a music producer and artist. She has released music as a solo artist on Hyperdub, UNO NYC and Fade to Mind, and as a member of Future Brown on Warp. She is also a member of the collective GCC, whose work has been shown at MoMA PS1, Berlin Bienniale and Sharjah Art Foundation.

Fadi [the fdz] Baki studied graphic design at the American University of Beirut and earned a MA in filmmaking from Goldsmiths College in London. He wrote, directed, short and edited the 40 minute mockumentary “It Came from Al-Makkab!” nominated for the FutureTV Award. In 2007 Fadi co-founded and edited Samandal Comics Magazine and currently divides his time between motion graphics, comics and filmmaking.

Alessandro Bava is an artist based in London, UK and Naples, Italy. His recent work focuses on augmented intelligence in its embodied and spatial dimensions. He is the founder of the art collective åyr, researching contemporary domesticity, and the independent ecology magazine and publishing platform ECOCORE. Jessica Bland is Head of Research at the Dubai Future Foundation, previously head of the technology futures team at Nesta, a UK foundation. She works on the governance of emerging technologies – particularly artificial intelligence, synthetic biology and open science.

Jaya Klara Brekke writes, does research and speaks on the politics and power of distributed systems, blockchain and consensus protocols. She is the author of the Satoshi Oath and the B9Lab ethical training module for blockchain developers and is based between London and Durham University Geography Department where she is writing a PhD. James Bridle is a writer and artist whose works explore the cultural and political effects of new technologies, and have been commissioned by institutions worldwide.

His book “New Dark Age: Technology, Knowledge and the End of the Future” is forthcoming in 2018. Özge Calafato currently works as the Project Manager for the Akkasah: Center for Photography at NYU Abu Dhabi and Programming Consultant for the Imagine Science Film Festival. She is co-founder and project director of the UAE National Film Library and Archive and has worked as a programmer and consultant for a number of film festivals and institutions including Cinema Akil and Abu Dhabi Film Festival. She has authored five books and worked as a journalist, editor and translator for several magazines.

Paul Feigelfeld is a Media Theorist based in Vienna. He is the Data and Research Architect of TBA21-Academy the exploratory, scientific and artistic research arm of Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary.

Melissa Gronlund is a writer based in Abu Dhabi. She is the author of Contemporary Art and Digital Culture (Routledge, 2016) and writes about art for The National, Artforum, Art Agenda and other venues. She is a former co-editor of Afterall and taught for many years at the Ruskin, University of Oxford.

Ramin Haerizadeh, Rokni Haerizadeh, and Hesam Rahmanian have lived and work together in Dubai since 2009. Their work has been exhibited at the Guggeneheim Abu Dhabi; ICA Boston; Kunsthalle Zurich; Trussardi foundation, Milan; Den Frie Center for Contemporary Art, Copenhagen; the New Museum, New York; Carnegie International 2013; and the Sharjah Biennial 2011, among others. Recipient of the Han Nefkens Foundation/MACBA Award, most recently exhibited at MACBA in Barcelona.

Wanuri Kahiu born in Nairobi is part of the new generation of African storytellers.

Her stories and films have received international acclaim and her films screened in numerous film festivals around the world. To date, Wanuri has written and directed six films and is working on her second feature length film. She is the co-founder of AFROBUBBLEGUM, a media company that supports, creates and commissions fun, fierce and frivolous African art.

Martti Kalliala is an architect and musician. He is the co-founder of the think tank Nemesis and the other half of the electronic music act Amnesia Scanner, known for its involvement in the Decentralized Autonomous Rave Scene.

Isabel Lewis (born 1981, Santo Domingo, DR) works on the aesthetics of the experiential creating spaces of sociable encounter between human and nonhuman agents in the format she’s named the hosted occasion. Lewis’ sensorial occasions have been presented internationally, recently at Tate Modern London, Ming Contemporary Art Museum in Shanghai, and Martin Gropius Bau in Berlin.

Simone C. Niquille is a designer and researcher. Her practice Technoflesh investigates the representation & digitisation of corporeality. She is a 2016 research Fellow at Het Nieuwe Instituut Rotterdam and a contributor to the Dutch Pavillion at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2018.

Katja Novitskova follows ongoing ecological, social and informational processes in the times of biotic crisis, developing personal strategies to render world’s future forms. Novitskova represented Estonia at the 57th Venice Biennale. Recent solo exhibitions include CC Foundation, Schanghai (2017); Greene Naftali, New York (2016); Kunstverein Hamburg (2016). She has also exhibited at Okayama Art Summit 2016, the 9th Berlin Biennale; MoMA, New York (2015), the 13th Biennale de Lyon (2015), and Fridericianum, Kassel (2013).

Hans Ulrich Obrist (b. 1968, Zurich, Switzerland) is Artistic Director of the Serpentine Galleries, London. Prior to this, he was the Curator of the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. Since his first show “World Soup” (The Kitchen Show) in 1991, he has curated more than 300 shows. Obrist’s recent publications include Mondialité, Conversations in Colombia, Ways of Curating, The Age of Earthquakes with Douglas Coupland and Shumon Basar, and Lives of The Artists, Lives of The Architects.

CONTRIBUTORS

Yuri Pattison is an artist living and working in London. Pattison was the recipient of the 2016 Frieze Artist Award. Recent solo exhibitions include context, collapse, mother’s tankstation project, London; Trusted Traveller, Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen (both 2017) and user, space, Chisenhale Gallery (2016).

Asad Raza combines experiences, human and non-human beings, and objects in his work as an artist. His recent projects include Untitled (plot for dialogue) at CONVERSO, Milan; Root sequence. Mother tongue at the Rockbund Museum, Shanghai, and the Whitney Biennial, New York; and Mondialité at the Villa Empain, Brussels.

Simone Rebaudengo collaborates with international clients exploring the future of connected and intelligent products. He’s funding member of automato.farm and visiting lecturer at Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design. His work is exhibited in international museums as Vitra and MAK and awarded by IxD Awards, Robot Film Festival, IDEA and Core77.

Patricia Reed is an artist and writer based in Berlin. Her elected exhibitions include those at The Museum of Capitalism, Oakland; Homeworks 7, Beirut; Witte de With, Rotterdam; and HKW, Berlin. Recent writings have been published in e-flux Architecture; Cold War Cold World (Urbanomic); and The Neurotic Turn (Repeater).

She is part of the Laboria Cuboniks techno-feminist working group.

Pamela Rosenkranz work explores how physical and biological processes affect art.

It addresses the shifting philosophical and scientific meanings of the “natural” and the “human” during Anthropocene. In 2015, Rosenkranz represented Switzerland at the Swiss Pavilion of the 56th Venice Biennale. Her most recent large scale installations were shown at the Louisiana Museum in Denmark, the Fondazione Prada in Milan, the K21 in Düsseldorf, and the GAMeC in Bergamo.

Aaron Schuster is a philosopher and writer, based in Amsterdam. He is the author of The Trouble with Pleasure: Deleuze and Psychoanalysis (MIT Press, 2016).

He was a fellow at the Institute for Cultural Inquiry ICI Berlin and the Center for Advanced Studies Rijeka, Croatia. In 2016 he was a visiting professor at the University of Chicago.

Emily Segal is an artist, writer, and trend forecaster. She founded the art collective and trend forecasting group K-HOLE, and is currently the director of Nemesis, a think tank for cultural insights.

Ania Soliman has a drawing-based research practice, and is interested in readings of technology from a post-colonial perspective. Her work was shown at the Drawing Center (NY), the 2010 Whitney Biennial, 15th Istanbul Biennial, the Museum of Modern Art in Salzburg, and Museum of Culture in Basel.

Christian Tod is an accomplished economist and filmmaker. Tod’s first feature length documentary “Es muss was geben” firmly established him as an auteur filmmaker after it got theatrically released nationwide and was shown at Filmfest Munchen and Crossing Europes 2010 edition. Free Lunch Society is his current and most ambitious film, and is the subject of his diploma and dissertation: the unconditional basic income.

Jordi Vallverdú is a professor at UAB (Catalonia), expert in Computational Philosophy and Cognitive Sciences, with interests on Western-Eastern Traditions, Minimal Cognition, Multi-heuristics, Artificial Creativity, Emotional Modeling, and Human-Robot Interactions. His cross-cultural and transdisciplinary approaches to academic research offer a new view on several current debates.

Ben Vickers is a curator, writer, explorer, technologist and luddite. He is CTO at the Serpentine Galleries in London and an initiator of the open-source monastic order unMonastery.

Qing Wei is currently the National Technology Officer in Microsoft China which allows him to evangelize Microsoft latest technology vision and innovation. Qing Wei is an ICT industry veteran who has been working in mobile communication, information technology and smart devices related business for over 25 years in Asia with Microsoft and Motorola. He is also an active public speaker and coach specialized in digital transformation.

Mi You travels physically and metaphysically on the silk road. She curated performative programs at Asian Culture Center (Gwangju) and the inaugural Ulaanbaatar International Media Art Festival (2016) taking the silk road as a figuration for deep-time, de-centralized and nomadic imageries. She researches on art/performance philosophy and science and technology studies Cinema Akil is an independent cinema platform that brings quality films from around the world to the audiences in Dubai. Showcasing directors and filmmakers spanning decades, genres and places, Cinema Akil aims to create awareness and interest in film and the cinematic arts. Launched in 2014, Cinema Akil has held over 35 pop up cinemas around Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Sharjah. Follow us into the dark. www.cinemaakil.com // Facebook - Cinema Akil // Twitter - @CinemaAkil // Instagram - @CinemaAkil // Snapchat – CinemaAkil #fortheloveoffilm

PARTNERS

Dubai Culture & Arts Authority (Dubai Culture) is the Emirate’s dedicated entity for culture, arts and heritage. In line with its key mandate to fulfil the Dubai Plan 2021 vision for a city of happy, creative and empowered people who proudly celebrate their cultural identities, the Authority is focused on nurturing young talent, inspiring a happy community and preserving Emirati heritage. Dubai Culture has played an instrumental role in establishing Dubai as a global centre for creativity and enhancing the city’s cultural identity in order to drive the creative economy.

As part of its mandate to strengthen the city’s cultural and creative fabric, Dubai Culture launches and supports a wide variety of artistic initiatives throughout the year, including Art Dubai and the Global Art Forum. As the region’s largest international art fair and art forum, these events further the Authority’s mission to promote Dubai as a global hub for culture and art, while also inviting all members of the community to immerse themselves in the joy of art, and spreading happiness and positivity across society.

DUBAI DESIGN DISTRICT (d3), a member of Dubai Holding, is a destination dedicated to design. Created to provide a home to the region’s growing number of designers, creatives and artists, d3 has fast become the hub for inspiration and innovation. Located in the heart of Dubai, just minutes away from Dubai Mall, the thriving community provides a platform where individuals can unite, create and be inspired.

The Design Quarter at d3 is fully operational with over 400 creative partners and retailers. Visitors can discover an authentic shopping and dining experience with unique lifestyle boutiques, fashion ateliers, art galleries, design workshops and home grown restaurants. d3 has also become a popular events space, attracting international crowds and artists to cultural exhibitions such as Dubai Design Week, Fashion Forward, and Sole DXB as well as d3’s own Art Market.

From early 2018, the d3 Waterfront Park will be online and will provide outdoor activity areas, an urban beach, fun F&B outlets as well as a venue and entertainment space all developed to further position d3 as a design destination.

For more information please visit: dubaidesigndistrict.com

Cover Image “Legend”, originally uploaded to Google Street View by Arthur Star (Kyle Williams via Google Maps)