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The One Thing You Can’t Stop, 2021

The One Thing You Can’t Stop, 2021, 1’44”

The One Thing You Can’t Stop creates a dizzying kaleidoscopic tapestry of the visual communication that has come to define Khaleeji contemporary digital existence since the advent of wireless devices and the exchange of streams of data and accompanying social phenomena – from retro BBM and Bluetooth visuals to TikTok, Snapchat and WhatsApp voice notes through to circulated snippets of doomsday sermons and Snapchat influencer culture. Here, GulfGraphixx creates a narrative wherein Hind Al Qahtani, one of Saudi Arabia’s most polarizing Snapchat figures, dances gleefully against the potent laments of her over 20 million disapproving followers who hate her but want to be her. Ultimately, Al Qahtani comes to represent a growing disregard for social decorum and society’s gradually weakened grip on women, much to the gun-wielding, macho men’s absolute dismay. She dances until the world ends – the one thing they can’t stop.

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