“Simo Cell & Abdullah Miniawy – 'Dying Is The Internet‘”, Cyclic Defrost.

My preview of Simo Cell & Abdullah Miniawy’s album  Dying Is The Internet, released 12 March 2026 as part of Dekmantel’s UFO series.  

Dying Is the Internet is the second collaborative release from two prodigious talents shaping experimental club culture in Europe. Released as part of the Dutch festival Dekmantel’s UFO series, that showcases “ranky darkwave funk and industrial textures, jagged body music”, it is a considerable evolution of Simo Cell & Abdullah Miniawy’s 2020 release Kill Me Or Negotiate (Brothers From Different Mothers). 

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In the press kit Cell discloses that “dying is the internet” is a mantra about “how the internet lost its soul” as it became “less about sharing ideas and more about surviving in a digital business ecosystem.” While Miniawy describes the album as “a playful prophecy about the triggers of a new global revolution.” While I do not understand Miniawy’s Arabic lyrics, I gather it touches on themes of digital fatigue and dissolution with club culture and brings to my mind notions of doomscrolling, short attention spans and information overwhelm. 

Read at Cyclic Defrost.

 

“Post-National Flows: Colomboscope’s ‘Rhythm Alliances’”, Berlin Art Link

Arka Kinari performance Port City, Colomboscope, 23 January 2026. Foto: Hibatul Hakim

Colomboscope, a multi-arts festival in Sri Lanka’s capital, presented its ninth edition, ‘Rhythm Alliances,’ at the end of January, and a Berlin–Colombo axis was evident throughout. Festival Advisor and co-ordinator and former Berliner, Jan de Saram, has been a driving force behind Colomboscope since its inception in 2013, while Artistic Director Natasha Ginwala joined in 2019. A curator-at-large, Ginwala recently relocated to Colombo from Berlin, where she was based for over a decade, notably as an associate curator for Gropius Bau (2018–2024). Guest curator Hajra Haider Karrar works at SAVVY Contemporary and several participating artists are based in Berlin, including Basma al-Sharif, houaïda, KMRU and Sasha Perera. 

 ‘Rhythm Alliances’ assembled 50 artists and collectives, musicians, choreographers, filmmakers and cultural organizers in a free-to-attend “communal score of creation, resistance and alliance-building.” Sri Lanka has become a gathering ground for South Asian artists as citizens of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal can enter and meet, a difficult feat in these rival countries. While conflict still stirs in Sri Lanka, where minority ethnic groups and marginalized communities have long struggled for recognition, justice and equality, ‘Rhythm Alliances’ proposed to counter “normal” divisive and fractured state relations. As artist Seher Shah commented, alliances are tentative, fragile and precarious. Arguably, Colomboscope applied the soft power of cultural diplomacy to hold open a space for encounter, discussion, negotiation and collaboration. 

 Read at Berlin Art Link.