Diriyah Art Futures, the first institution in the Middle East and North Africa dedicated to new media arts, has officially opened its doors to the public. Situated in Diriyah, a UNESCO World Heritage site in Saudi Arabia’s capital city of Riyadh, Diriyah Art Futures is an international hub, established with the mission of diversifying the emerging field of new media arts by amplifying the voices of Middle Eastern practitioners.

“The opening of Diriyah Art Futures represents a milestone in the evolving narrative of new media arts, as we finally introduce perspectives from the Middle East and North Africa to global conversations in this field,” said Haytham Nawar, director of Diriyah Art Futures. “DAF will serve as an epicenter for critical engagement and innovation at the intersection of art and technology, pushing creative boundaries and imagining new futures.”

DAF’s launch is accompanied by a full slate of public events, anchored by the opening of its inaugural exhibition, “Art Must Be Artificial: Perspectives of AI in the Visual Arts,” which runs through February 15, 2025. Surveying the evolution of computer-generated art from the 1960s through the present, the exhibition serves as a bold declaration of DAF’s mission statement as well as an assertion of its bona fides.

“Art Must be Artificial”was curated by Jérôme Neutres, former director at the Réunion des Musées Nationaux-Grand Palais in Paris, and features works by more than 30 pioneering artists, including Frieder Nake, Refik Anadol, and Vera Molnar, as well as Saudi artists Lulwa Al-Homoud and Muhannad Shono, along with others from the MENA region.

DAF’s opening week was also marked by multiday workshops on geometric abstraction (taught by Al-Homoud) and the role of generative AI (led by pathbreaking artist Leonel Moura), as well as tours of the exhibition and an audiovisual concert devised and performed by artist Davide Quayola. Public conversations with Leonardo Dellanoce and Louis-Philippe Demers are scheduled through the rest of the year, with more workshops, masterclasses, performances, and film screenings planned for early 2025.

Diriyah Art Futures’ opening reflects Saudi Arabia’s ambition to become a global hub for innovation, part of the framework of Vision 2030, an ambitious venture that seeks to strengthen the Kingdom’s economic position on a global scale and elevate its status as a cradle of creative and technological innovation through multi-industrial initiatives rooted in Saudi culture and heritage.

Mona Khazindar, advisor to Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Culture, said: “Established by the Museums Commission, one of the 11 sector-specific entities of the Saudi Ministry of Culture, DAF is a testament to our nation’s efforts to nurture talent and pioneer new forms of creative expression. Through global institutions such as DAF, we are developing a cultural ecosystem that nurtures creativity, enriching lives and empowering the next generation of artists and scholars.”

This launch also marks the latest achievement in a long-running effort to revitalize Diriyah by the Saudi government and Diriyah Company, a public investment fund dedicated to advancing this initiative under the auspices of Vision 2030. The historic city lies along the fertile Wadi Hanifa valley northwest of Riyadh and served as the first capital of Saudi Arabia from 1727 until 1818.

As Riyadh grew into a modern capital, Diriyah was left mostly abandoned for more than a hundred years, until residents began to return to the area in the mid-20th century. Private repopulation efforts have snowballed over the following decades into a full-fledged, state-funded venture to preserve the city’s historic status and reestablish the area as an attractive destination for culture and commerce. Since 2010, At-Turaif—Diriyah’s historical district, where DAF is located—has enjoyed status as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

With strikingly modern forms and a natural earth exterior that evokes the mud-brick buildings of the old city, DAF’s facilities embody the confluence between Diriyah’s historical significance and its ambitious vision for the future. The 129,000-square-foot campus was designed by Italian architects Schiattarella Associati and houses cutting-edge exhibition areas, studios, digital labs, residential quarters, a library, and an auditorium, among other facilities. This is more than a mere museum of computer art; it’s a living forum for artists, scholars, and technologists to collaborate and catalyze the growth of this rapidly developing medium.

To that end, DAF has also underscored its advocacy for stewarding the next generation of talent and promoting the creative voices of regional practitioners through a series of programs and residencies.

The Emerging New Media Artists Program is a yearlong course designed to equip forward-thinking young artists for a career in new media arts. Developed with Le Fresnoy, Studio National des Arts Contemporains, an arts center in France, the syllabus encompasses weekly lectures, seminars, screenings, and workshops with leading artists, as well as an environment to create works across a range of disciplines. The participants’ creative endeavors are further supported through funding, mentorship, and access to the facility’s state-of-the-art equipment and production spaces. The first cohort comprises 12 young artists representing 11 countries throughout the Middle East, Africa, Europe, and Asia.

The Mazra’ah Media Arts Residency, meanwhile, is geared toward established artists and scholars working in the fields of new media and digital art, and will run from February through April 2025. The theme of the first residency is “High-Resolution Dreams of Sand” and encourages participants to create new work or scholarship that considers the intersections between ecology and human civilization through the dual lenses of art and technology. The theme also explores DAF’s proximity to the landscapes of historic Diriyah and the rapidly developing Saudi capital. As with the Emerging New Media Artists Program participants, residents will be supported through access to DAF’s facilities and equipment, a production budget, and opportunities to exhibit their work.

Applications for the Mazra’ah Media Arts Residency are open through January 20, 2025

For more information about Diriyah Art Futures, visit daf.moc.gov.sa/en/ or follow DAF on X (@DAFmoc) and Instagram at @DAFmoc.