The Arab Gulf is hyper-technological, hyper-capitalist, hyper-collectivist, and hyper-real. Regional aesthetics and credo are notoriously futurist while simultaneously readapting traditionalist aspects of culture, life, and religion, to the ever-evolving project of the Gulf. An uncanny collapse of time and coexistence between tribal conservatism, and robust technological and economic advancement. How may we dissect our contemporary condition, in the face of sprawling futurity? Shot in Dubai, Sharjah (Fossil Rock), and Hatta from a seemingly alien surveillance lens, in Petro-Ghareebo, by Talal Al Najjar, subjects, objects and environments are decontextualized and defamiliarized. Fusing various stages of technological lifestyles and material culture, we see obscured objects oscillate and mutate; land and industry amalgamate; a symbiotic soundscape of Arabian wind instruments and modern trilling anxiety-inducing sounds synthesized to support the erratic imagery and embryonic distortions.
