Recorded

Will the commute ever really go away?

Nothing underscores how we do not live in the future as much as the daily commute. If travelling by car, then chances are the vehicle is running on a combustion engine – around since 1886 – that is emitting carbon and hastening climate change. The morning headlines blaring from your speakers are transmitted through radio waves, a form of communication that alerted people on land that the Titanic was sinking back in 1912.

Elsewhere, the insult of public transportation is fairly universal. Timely, clean and reliable buses and trams are not the norm, but still the hallmark of a well-managed, well-funded city. And for those lucky enough to catch the breeze in their hair by walking or biking to work, well, those simple pleasures are more timeless than they are ultra-modern. Whichever mode of transport you use, the daily commute today does not look all that different from how our grandparents got to work. The pandemic has changed that, however, all at once but not for all. Now, more attention is being paid to places that make the commute more sustainable, safer and, in some cases, more fun.

The National spoke to more than a dozen experts in urban planning, economics, transportation and real estate to understand the changing shape of this global necessity, which has been around since Ancient Greece.

Is the Xbox Series X beating the PlayStation 5 in the console wars?

Gaming colleagues Faisal Salah and Michael Coetzee rate the Playstation 5 and the Xbox Series X based on how well they did since their release.

Lessons from setting a Guinness World Record

On March 2, Dubai resident Sean Burgess set off on an epic journey in his quest to claim a Guinness World Record for crossing all seven emirates of the UAE in as many days on foot, in a bid to support disadvantaged children in Uganda in collaboration with Adidas and Gulf for Good.

Burgess shares his rather harrowing experiences, and what he learned from them, with The National. 

Art and technology forging the future

The art exhibition is called not in, of, along or relating to a line. Its name suggests the beginning of something vast, beyond the linear and potentially multidimensional. Or maybe the opposite, something lacking a physical dimension altogether. Maya Allison, executive director of NYUAD Art Gallery, and curator and artist Heather Dewey-Hagborg, began the task of collating the virtual exhibition. As parts of the world went into lockdown, so did NYUAD Art Gallery. There was no longer a physical space in which to interact with the work. 

While the world’s biggest museums and galleries began offering online tours and walkthroughs, NYUAD Art Gallery took a different approach. Its exhibition would not be one in which people could enter the gallery space virtually and tour it in 3D.

Instead, it would show works that are “born digital”, made specifically for the online world and tailored for the smartphone screen. Host Alexandra Chavez looks at the ideas culminating in this exhibition. We hear from curator Heather Dewey-Hagborg and artists Maryam Al Hamra and Lee Blalock.

How UAE citizenship will help scientists

The National’s Ramola Talwar Badam speaks to three scientists who have been granted the golden visa about their research in the UAE and what Emirati citizenship means to them.

Rediscovering art in Abu Dhabi

When Maya Allison first came to the UAE as the founding executive director of the NYUAD art gallery, she was excited to see what type of art she would find here. Having studied at the prestigious Columbia University School of the Arts in Manhattan, the idea of stories and narratives that existed outside the vast and powerful New York art world always interested her. She discovered a depth of creativity and history in the capital that helped her build a community around the university gallery. 

How Covid-19 is disrupting art

As NYUAD Arts Centre’s 2019-2020 season came to a close, Bill Bragin, its executive art director, and his team began thinking about next season. Coronavirus shut down industries with a brutality that reverberated through the art world. The arts centre was fully aware of the economic impact the pandemic had on artists everywhere. There was the uncertainty about whether there would be in-person performances, but also the potential of working with the newly enforced online medium. The challenges for the art world were vast and varied. But as the world looked for outlets from the pandemic - to watch TV and films, read books, listen to music and much more - it was obvious that creative content was vital in this time of crisis

 

Host Alexandra Chavez looks at how some of the artists from the NYUAD Arts Centre programme tackled the challenges. We hear from 600 Highwaymen, Martha Redbone and Boom.Diwan.

The NYUAD Arts Centre: Rethinking performance art

In March 2020, most of the world was waking up to the idea that life would change in ways we couldn’t have imagined. 

As the pandemic brought much of the planet to a halt, Bill Bragin, executive artistic director of The Arts Centre at NYUAD, had to rethink ways to bring cutting-edge art to the world. How could film screenings and live performance thrive at a time when people were struggling, isolated and unable to gather in public?  

The man who tested positive for Covid-19 twice

Salem Muqattash, who tested negative for Covid-19 several times between bouts of illness, may have caught the virus twice in 35 days.

David Guetta on his Covid year