Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1979-80
• Where—Puyallup, Washington, USA
• Raised—Doha, Qatar; Washington State
• Education—American University (Cairo,
Egypt); University of London
• Currently—lives in Doha, Qatar
Sophia Al-Maria is an artist, writer, and filmmaker. She studied comparative literature at the American University in Cairo, and aural and visual cultures at Goldsmiths, University of London. Her work has been exhibited at the Gwangju Biennale, the New Museum in New York, and the Architectural Association in London. Her writing has appeared in Harper's, Five Dials, Triple Canopy, and Bidoun.
Al Maria coined the term "Gulf Futurism" to explain an existing phenomenon she has observed in architecture, urban planning, art, aesthetics and popular culture in the post-oil Persian Gulf. Her interest in these areas arises from her youth growing up in the Persian Gulf area during the 1980s and 1990s, experiences she describes in The Girl Who Fell To Earth.
Gulf Futurism
Sharing some qualities with 20th century movements like Futurism, Gulf Futurism is evident in the agenda of the dominant class of this region, concerned with master planning and world building, and with a local youth culture that exhibits an asset bubble fuelled sense of entitlement and is preoccupied with fast cars and fast technology.
In an online 2007 essay, "The Gaze of Sci Fi Wahabi," Al Maria wrote:
The Arabian Gulf is a region that has been hyper-driven into a present made up of interior wastelands, municipal master plans and environmental collapse, thus making it a projection of a global future.
The themes and ideas present in Gulf Futurism include the isolation of individuals via technology, wealth and reactionary Islam, the corrosive elements of consumerism on the soul and industry on the earth, the replacement of history with glorified heritage fantasy in the collective memory and in many cases, the erasure of existing physical surroundings.
Informed by texts such as Baudrillard’s The Illusion of the End, As-Sufi’s Islamic Book of the Dead and Zizek’s The Desert of the Unreal, Gulf Futurism also uses imagery from Islamic eschatology, corporate ideology, posthumanism and the global mythos of Science Fiction.
Examples of Gulf Futurism can be seen in urban planning in cities such as Dubai and architectural bids such as the Al-Haram Masjid Mecca Expansion. The obsession with master plans is evident in the Qatar 2030 Vision document. There are also individual artists, such as musician Fatima Al Qadiri, who are concerned with its ideas as well as artists from previous generations such as Khalifa Al Qattan, Hassan Sharif and Mahmoud Sabri. Further examples compiled by Sophia Al Maria and Fatima Al Qadiri are included in a Dazed Digital article. (Adapted from Wikipedia.)