Analysis of Dubai public space at A4 Space

UAEU professor Dr Yasser Elsheshtawy delivered a presentation, "Slow Space", at the A4 Space in Al Serkal Avenue today, describing the methodology of and data from his studies on the usage of urban spaces in the Middle East.

He began the Campus Art Dubai talk with an introduction of his earlier Cairo project and mentioned his Abu Dhabi project with FIND, but the bulk of the presentation was about his work on public space usage patterns in Dubai -- specifically, of a street in Hor al Anz and a square in Deira, both in "old Dubai".

I thought the long-ish time lapse videos were kind of unnecessary, but I liked his data maps, his descriptions of the process of acquiring the data, information about the histories and functions of the areas, and various anecdotes from the study, some of which were also revealed during the Q&A session that followed.

Kurt Hentschläger with Campus Art Dubai at Pavilion Downtown

Last Sunday, Campus Art Dubai brought renowned audiovisual artist Kurt Hentschläger to Pavilion Downtown, where he presented and discussed some of his projects. The presentation included not only his independent work, but also his Granular Synthesis collaboration series.

A lot of these were really impressive, especially given that Hentschläger has made something of a name for himself in creating large-scale, immersive works. As well as a select few others, he spoke about two of them - CORE and ZEE - at length, noting how the former projected a hellish impression of mis-coordination and intrusion, while the latter facilitated the self-perception of disembodiment and loss of visual bearings that was described by some as heaven-like (those in whom it did not induce epileptic seizures, that is).