World’s first digital arts center soon to open in Saudi Arabia
Saudi Gazette report
Riyadh — The world’s first educational art center dedicated to digital arts (Diriyah Art Futures) is set to open soon in Saudi Arabia, the Diriyah Gate Development Authority (DGDA) has announced.
The DGDA said on the sidelines of the Arabian Travel Market (ATM) exhibition that the Diriyah Art Futures is a joint project with the Ministry of Culture, and it will be a model museum that builds bridges of culture and communication with the world.
The DGDA has set up, in partnership with the MoC, the first global platform that focuses on the arts and innovation in the fields of digital art, artificial intelligence and modern technologies.
The center, with its various programs and training paths in modern arts and technologies, is the first center specialized in digital arts in the world.
The center was designed by Italian architect Amedeo Schiattarella, who designed it into a living creative environment, as it includes sites with all the technical capabilities needed for research, development and innovation in the arts future.
The center is located in the Diriyah Governorate, which administratively follows the Riyadh region, next to the Al-Bujairi heritage district, in an area of 10,000 square meters. It has several advantages such as:
1 – The center includes six art workshops.
2 – Presence of workspaces for artists.
3 – Modern facilities for emerging artists.
4 – Several special rooms for workshops and education and training classes in the fields of arts and technology.
5 – Library and shop specializing in art and art tools.
All of these devices, through which it constitutes an integrated creation platform for artists, aims to support and enhance the digital arts and to offer them opportunities and production tools.
The center also contributes to providing the best ways to teach and practice modern arts and technologies, as well as to create a common space between the public and the community and the creators of modern digital art.
Four major educational streams will be offered at the centre, namely:
1 – Arts and Artificial Intelligence Program.
2 – Creative computing.
3 – Center for research on new media and contemporary art.
4 – Automatic learning.
Machine Learning will specialize in exploring areas using machine learning algorithms, as well as programs in digital arts, photography, film production, and audio arts.
Machine learning will also help artists produce contemporary creative work, and the Graphic Design, 3D Modeling, Animation, and Motion Graphics program dedicated to creative designers skilled in these fields.
The DGDA said the Center for Research on New Media and Contemporary Art would provide an active and educational environment to explore the changing cultural contexts in the contemporary world.
Features of the center will include the presentation of several public participation programs with the public, as well as exhibitions and hackathons for digital arts. It will also include an annual international exhibition of art and artificial intelligence with the participation of local and international artists specializing in computer arts.
There will also be several hackathons, such as: cyberspace hackathon, library hackathon, in addition to many seminars and various activities that revolve around digital arts, their applications and research.
One of the objectives of the DGDA in its partnership with the MoC for the creation of Diriyah Art Futures is to establish a center for contemporary culture in Diriyah.
The center contributes to a deeper exploration of the thriving arts scenes in Saudi Arabia in light of Saudi Vision 2030, and will significantly enhance Diriyah’s transformation into a cultural and tourism hub that encourages creative artistic expression and investment in future science.
It should be noted that the construction works of the center started in the governorate of Diriyah in 2020, in order to prepare it before its scheduled opening date in 2022.
