Onus is a glass installation by Kuwaiti visual artist Monira Al Qadiri. I fell in love with it as soon as I saw the pictures and read the story behind it.
During the Gulf War, dead birds, fish, and animals regularly lined the coastline and deserts because of the massive toxic clouds fed by hundreds of torched oil wells. When images of these oil-drenched animals were shared in the news, many people thought they were fake and just propaganda. Monira learned of this misconception while she was studying at university in Japan and so Onus is her way of breathing life back into her memories by recreating these oil-drenched birds as glass objects.
If you’re in Berlin, Monira’s work is currently on display at the Koenig Galerie. If you want to see more of her work online, check out her Instagram @moniraism or website moniraalqadiri.com
GameWorks was an arcade that opened up in Marina Mall back in 2003. It was later renamed to GameWizz and eventually closed down in 2013. While going through one of my boxes the other day I found an old GameWorks recharge card and that triggered some nostalgia which got me looking for photos of the place.
For some reason, I couldn’t find any pictures of the place online. I guess because it was a period of time before camera phones or Instagram were a thing so not a lot of people took photos of the space and shared them online.
I went through my personal archive of photos and found a few, nothing too great and a few that was super low res since they were taken by a Sony Clie PDA, but they’re better than nothing. If you have any photos let me know. Here is a link to all the photos I found.
Last week Apple unveiled their VisionPro VR headset and a couple of days later I ended up experiencing free roam VR and so now I’m really excited about the future.
If you don’t know what free roam VR is, it’s virtual reality in a large room in which you can walk around and navigate freely in. Unlike conventional VR, you’re not just wearing a VR headset and sitting in a chair or standing in one spot, instead you’re walking or running around a room in both the real world and in VR. As a Star Trek fan, the best way to describe it is like being on the holodeck.
I was never able to experience VR properly before due to the fact it would cause me motion sickness. So, when an old friend got in touch with me and invited me to try his new free roam VR business, I was hesitant to go. But he promised me I wouldn’t get motion sickness and he turned out to be right. Zero Latency is an entertainment franchise specializing in multiplayer VR gaming. It’s a cordless experience where you put on the headset and carry a weapon without having to be connected to anything in the room. The room itself is fairly large at 12x12m and the games you get to play take advantage of this.
We played two games, the first was a zombie shooter that took place inside an arena. I’ve been playing video games since the early 80s and from the thousands of games I’ve played they never felt like this. I felt like I was inside the game. Being able to run around to the other side of the room to help my friend shoot up some zombies, and then run back to the other side of the arena to ward off an attack was so much fun, I wasn’t just controlling a character inside a video game, I was that character.
The second game we played was Far Cry VR, one of my favorite video game franchises. This game was a completely different in style since it mostly took place in the jungle and in a larger world. The games mechanics helped enhance that open area feeling because for the first level of the game took place in a small 5x5m area where we were taking cover while shooting the enemies. Once we finished from there the game would make us walk to another area which was say 10x10m. When done we would then walk to another area and that kept happening every level so the game felt really large and so did the real world space.
I had a blast and time just flew by. I thought the first game was 5 minutes long and the second 15, in reality it turned out we played the first game for 15mins and the second for 30. That’s how much fun and immersive the experience. I actually kept thinking about the whole experience for days later. There was a part of Far Cry where I walked to an edge of a cliff and saw a beautiful view and it got me thinking about the potential of the Apple VisionPro once it comes out. It’s very exciting time to be alive.
Zero Latency is located at the new Al Andalus complex in Hawally. Prices start from KD6 and each game can handle up to 8 people. For more information and to book here is the link. They’re also on Instagram @zerolatencyvrkw
The Aware Center is holding a Grand Mosque tour in English this coming Saturday, May 13th at 10:00 AM.
The tour will take you through the Arabic calligraphy exhibition, the main prayer hall, and the Emir’s hall.
Dress Code: No sleeveless shirts nor shorts for men, and full-length cloaks and headscarves for women
Parking: Available at gate 5
Meeting Point: Main Gate of the Grand mosque opposite Burgan Bank
Meeting Time: 9:45 AM
These tours aren’t held every weekend and aren’t always in English so don’t miss it if you’ve been meaning to go. Registration is required but this is a free tour. To register click here.
In 1960, Ian Fleming the British writer best known for his James Bond series of spy novels was invited to Kuwait by the Kuwait Oil Company. He was commissioned to write a book on Kuwait which he did and called “State of Excitement: Impressions of Kuwait”. However, the Kuwaiti government disapproved of the final manuscript, which they found condescending, and the book was never published.
There are two known copies of the book, one at the Lilly Library in the Indiana University, and another carbon copy sold at auction in 1997 to a private collector. I was given a photocopy of the book last year after trying to get access to one for nearly 5 years. Even though I never have the time or patience to read a book, I made sure I read this one because I knew how lucky I was to get a copy. As difficult it was getting a copy of the book, it was as difficult trying to find any photos of Fleming’s visit. Like the book, they seemed not to have existed, until now.
The photo on top is of Ian Fleming in Kuwait in 1960 on a hunting trip. I got the photo from the British novelist Louise Burfitt-Dons who recently published a book called “Our Man in Kuwait“, a fiction spy thriller based on true events from 1960.
Chapter 13 in Flemming’s book is called “Hunting the Hubarra” in which he discusses a hunting trip he went on in the Kuwaiti desert. Louise’s father, Ian Byres is the one who arranged that trip and took the picture above. In the photo is Ian Fleming on the left, John Collins on the far right who was the public relations officer at KOC, and I believe the person in the middle is a Kuwaiti called Khalid based on what I read in the chapter. Fleming didn’t enjoy the hunting trip, they weren’t able to catch a hubarra (a kind of bird) and blamed it on overhunting in Kuwait. He found the trip a total waste of his precious time and the chapter ends with him going off on a tangent criticizing Lebanon for over 2 pages.
I obviously can’t make copies of the book or upload it online, but I have shared the contents page above you can get an idea of what the book contains.
CARI is a food delivery app that promises to deliver your food within 30 minutes. Since I first posted about them back in October, there have been significant changes to the app.
Firstly, many new restaurants have joined the platform and are now part of the 30-minute delivery guarantee. These include BBT, Chucks, RHS, Marble Slab Creamery, Arabica, Domino’s Pizza, Johnny Rockets, DOH, Vigonovo, and others.
CARI has also managed to secure some popular restaurants exclusively on its platform, such as BFTP, Shrimp Pot, Holy Katsu, and Bob’s. Additionally, CARI has introduced a new feature called the “Delivery Box,” which is a secure box installed outside your home to keep your food hot after delivery. If you’re interested in getting one of those, you can contact them through their DM.
It’s worth noting that all deliveries on CARI are free of charge.
Lastly, if you’re a fan of McDonald’s, you are in for a treat! McDonald’s is on CARI and for the first time ever, McDonald’s is free delivery!
If you want to find out more about CARI, their website is getcari.com and their Instagram is @get.cari
After a quiet couple of weekends, events are starting to pick up again. Below are all the ones I found taking place this weekend. If I missed anything, let me know in the comments:
I’m a fan of the post-apocalyptic television series “The Last of Us” so when I stumbled into this area by accident, the first thing I did was shoot a video and send it over to a couple of friends who I knew watched the show as well. I felt like I had walked onto the set of the show with the only thing missing being the zombies.
The area is deserted with shrubs growing unchecked and walls covered with graffiti. All the buildings are crumbling because they’ve been neglected for decades, just like on the show. It was also eerily quiet except for the chirping of the birds.
If you want to film a short TikTok zombie flick or something, the area is located behind the abandoned buildings on Fahed Al Salem Street, next to Salhiya Complex. Google Maps
