FLAY
2025
Comissioned by Global Art Forum for The New New Normal.
Zein Majali, Shumon Basar, Hannah Cobb
There’s no escaping your face. You are your face. We see our own faces more than at any other time in history––but do they still bear an inherent relationship to individuality, or do they belong to imagined masses? Multimedia Artist Zein Majali screened her new Global Art Forum commissioned video work, made using AI tools and an abundance of internet content reflecting the New New Face––tracing the augmentations, reductions, fillers and filters sculpting the look of now.
Art Dubai’s flagship transdisciplinary summit, the Global Art Forum, the leading arts conference in the Middle East and Africa, brings together the brightest minds, including artists, curators, technologists and thinkers, to explore the ideas shaping the future of the creative industries.
The 2025 edition entitled ‘The New New Normal’, examined how change keeps changing, often making everyday life feel more unsettling and unpredictable than science fiction. This edition was organised by Commissioner Shumon Basar and Curators Y7 (Hannah Cobb and Declan Colquitt), and took place on 18th and 19th April 2025.
Sessions — featuring many of the world’s foremost thinkers, technologists, artists, and forecasters — covered transformations in quantum computing, artificial intelligence, gamified economics, the power of memes, cultural geopolitics, the beauty and luxury industries, and the never-ending reach of social media into our personal and political realms. Timely and full of unexpected encounters, ‘The New New Normal’ presented the cultures and economies that are transforming chaos into progress — and vice versa.
Speakers that contributed to the forum included Private Ear, Lawrence Abu Hamdan; Theorist and CSO at Nym Technologies, Jaya Brekke; Writer & Brand Consultant, Al Hassan Elwan (POSTPOSTPOST); Writer, Editor, and Creative producer, Halle Frost; Lecturer and Researcher, Idil Galip; Artist, Researcher, Aya Gawdat (Onewiththeinternet); Architect and Writer, Rem Koolhaas; Artist and Writer, Charlie Koolhaas; Multimedia Artist, Zein Majali; Head of Product Development, Quantinuum, Konstantinos Meichanetzidis; Artist, Researcher, and Co-founder of Cream Projects, Ana Nicolaescu; Artistic Director of Serpentine, London, Hans Ulrich Obrist; Consultant, Venkatesh Rao; Curator and Writer, Milia Xin Bi; Artist and Writer, Artist and Researcher, Günseli Yalcinkaya; and Gary Zhexi Zhang.
The 2025 edition entitled ‘The New New Normal’, examined how change keeps changing, often making everyday life feel more unsettling and unpredictable than science fiction. This edition was organised by Commissioner Shumon Basar and Curators Y7 (Hannah Cobb and Declan Colquitt), and took place on 18th and 19th April 2025.
Sessions — featuring many of the world’s foremost thinkers, technologists, artists, and forecasters — covered transformations in quantum computing, artificial intelligence, gamified economics, the power of memes, cultural geopolitics, the beauty and luxury industries, and the never-ending reach of social media into our personal and political realms. Timely and full of unexpected encounters, ‘The New New Normal’ presented the cultures and economies that are transforming chaos into progress — and vice versa.
Speakers that contributed to the forum included Private Ear, Lawrence Abu Hamdan; Theorist and CSO at Nym Technologies, Jaya Brekke; Writer & Brand Consultant, Al Hassan Elwan (POSTPOSTPOST); Writer, Editor, and Creative producer, Halle Frost; Lecturer and Researcher, Idil Galip; Artist, Researcher, Aya Gawdat (Onewiththeinternet); Architect and Writer, Rem Koolhaas; Artist and Writer, Charlie Koolhaas; Multimedia Artist, Zein Majali; Head of Product Development, Quantinuum, Konstantinos Meichanetzidis; Artist, Researcher, and Co-founder of Cream Projects, Ana Nicolaescu; Artistic Director of Serpentine, London, Hans Ulrich Obrist; Consultant, Venkatesh Rao; Curator and Writer, Milia Xin Bi; Artist and Writer, Artist and Researcher, Günseli Yalcinkaya; and Gary Zhexi Zhang.
FLAY at FACT
Flay was later developed into a live AV performance at Fact Liverpool, in collaboration with artist Jeremy Chen.