Diriyah: Diriyah Art Futures (DAF), the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region's first hub dedicated to new media arts, today launched its second exhibition, "Maknana: an Archaeology of New Media Art in the Arab World," with the participation of several artists and curators. The exhibition will run until July 19 at DAF in Diriyah.
According to Saudi Press Agency, the exhibition explores the rich history of new media arts in the Arab world through a collection of over 70 works of art by more than 40 pioneering Arab artists. The Arabic term 'Maknana,' meaning the act of entrusting a task to a machine or becoming part of it, inspires the exhibition's central inquiry: how Arab artists have interacted with, repurposed, and challenged technology to shape their own creative vocabularies.
The selected works engage with contemporary sociopolitical contexts, from digital protest and machine logic to memory preservation, speculative environments, and glitch aesthetics. These explorations are presented across four thematic sections: automation, autonomy, ripples, and glitch.
'This exhibition reflects the rich history of Arab artists who have explored non-traditional technological mediums, driven by an authentic desire to innovate and respond to the pressing issues of their time,' said Ministry of Culture advisor Mona Khazindar. 'It embodies Saudi Arabia's ongoing efforts to celebrate the pioneering contributions of Arab artists and to open new doors for innovators in the fields of art and technology through an inspiring spectrum of talent and artistic expression.'
The exhibition reviewed the evolving relationship between art and technology in the Arab context, showcasing how artists have used new media tools such as video, digital imagery, data, programming, and sound to address issues of identity, memory, and social transformation.