This week’s editorial musings
from magpie’s nest
The quote: Think without words Gwen John …
RAK job op The National Museum of Ras Al Khaimah is looking for a Senior Museum Curator – needs a Master’s Degree, understanding of the collection management principles, excellent English, creativity and writing skills; other languages and experience in local cultural heritage, desirable. No mention of salary but benefits include work visa and housing “among others”. CV, portfolio, writing samples and queries to annissa.g@museum.rak.ae …
Reasons to go Uptown The Plaza at Uptown Dubai is running a Moonlight Market during Ramadan – F&B, retail, creative workshops and interactive board games (chess, checkers, Jenga); open 5pm to midnight on weekdays, to 2am on weekends. There are many similar pop-ups during the season, of course, but this one sounds good – and provides a reason for actually going to Uptown Dubai …
Zabeel refurb Zabeel Theatre is closing for “renovation and repurposing” as a part of a wider spruce-up for the Jumeirah Zabeel Saray. This means Art For All – which has been a regular booking, presenting nearly 500 performances there since Oct 2023 – will have to move to new venues from the end of Feb. For the short term at least this means the Meyana Theatre in Jumeirah Beach Hotel, with five Art For All shows scheduled there in April and May; but the Meyana seats only around 400, while the Zabeel is/was good for 636 (Art For All is also putting on The Tiger Who Came to Tea at the Cultural Foundation Abu Dhabi) Further projects to be announced …
Collectible design in the Avenue The A/P Room, which opened this week in Alserkal Avenue, claims to be the Middle East’s first permanent gallery “dedicated exclusively to historic and contemporary collectible design … redefining the future of collectible design in the region”. Check out the claims for yourself: it opens with a mostly-furniture exhibition (At First Sight, 11 Feb – 29 Mar) featuring contemporary designers like Vincent Dubourg, Faye Toogood, Choi Byung Hoon alongside mid century names such as Gio Ponti and Joaquim Tenreiro …
More UAE AI power … G42, the Abu Dhabi-based AI group backed by Microsoft and Mubadala, has unveiled a AI chip with 4 trillion transistors. It was developed with Silicon Valley chipmaker Cerebras for G42’s Stargate data centre cluster.
And Semafor reports that G42 is working with OpenAI on a version of ChatGPT for the UAE government – more attuned to Gulf Arabic, the local political outlook, and restrictions on speech (G42’s tech investment vehicle MGX has put money into OpenAI). The standard ChatGPT will still be offered in the UAE, though OpenAI plans to tailor it to local laws and inform users when content triggers legal restrictions …
… for the people An eight-month Harvard Business Review study of a 200-employee tech company that embraced AI found that any time AI freed up would be (voluntarily) used for more work – and “the changes brought about by enthusiastic AI adoption can be unsustainable, causing problems down the line … fatigue, burnout, and a growing sense that work is harder to step away from“. Be warned …
… and people for AI Could this be any more 2026? RentAHuman.ai allows AI agents to hire real people to carry out tasks they can’t do themselves (also seems to allow other humans to hire them too) …
Last chance Closing in the next few days, and recommended: Bady Dalloul’s Self-portrait with a Cat I Don’t Have at the Jameel, Mohamed Ahmed Ibrahim’s Two Clouds in the Night Sky at the Cultural Foundation, and (unexpectedly) Ludmilla Radchenko’s Wings of Power at Oblong Contemporary …
Premiere advanced Last week we mentioned the UAENO’s world premiere at Dubai Opera for Nadim Tarabay’s symphonic poem Echoes of Time, abased on Ibn Araby’s writings. Now the UAENO has added another performance – 25 Feb at NYUAD Arts Center. So that will be its world premiere …
Useful app of the week Most website blockers (which stop you wasting time on your computer) are easy to cheat. With Cold Turkey it’s almost impossible to stop the block once you lock it. Block anything from specific websites and applications to the entire internet (with a few exceptions). Cleverly installs itself as an extension on all browsers it can find on your Mac (apart from DuckDuckGo). Free, though there’s a purchased version with scheduled blocks, breaks and allowances …
Something for the weekend The real thing may be a barking mad adrenaline rush, but Luge is a great little daily game with elegantly minimal graphics is a fine alternative for the rest of us. Three goes and a different course each day. Speedy, difficult, over quickly so you can get back to work. Try it here …
Things we didn’t know no.94 One proton measures 0.84 femtometres (trillionths of a millimetre) in radius, according to a study published in Nature. That’s the most precise measurement to date of the subatomic particle …
Earworm of the week PVA : Okay
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