Andre Vida: “In my approach to creating scores, the relationships between intervals have ceded importance to those existing between performers and their imaginations, instruments and bodies”Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha, is set to play host to Global Art Forum_7 today and tomorrow before the event continues at Art Dubai, Madinat Jumeirah, from March 20 to 23.The Global Art Forum is the annual regional platform for cultural discussion and debate that brings together a diverse line-up of participants, including artists, musicians, writers and thinkers, for six days of talks and display of commissioned projects.Global Art Forum_7 is presented by the Dubai Culture and Arts Authority (Dubai Culture), and is held in partnership with Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, (Qatar Museums Authority), Doha.This year, Global Art Forum_7 is directed by Istanbul-based writer-editor HG Masters and commissioned by writer-curator Shumon Basar. Titled “It Means This”, the forum will explore the concept of “definitionism”, investigating the words, terms, clichés and misunderstandings that proliferate in the art world and beyond. The forum will attempt to (re)define words, phrases and ideas people think they know, and those they need to know, to navigate the 21st century.Each session or element of the forum will focus on a keyword; some are terms that are used every day, while others may be less familiar - including Middle East Nervous Anxiety (Mena), Freezone and Neologism. The contributors are set to discuss these terms through talks, debates, performances, TV clips, new publications, films, music and more.Participants of Global Art Forum_7 in Doha include writer-editor Charles Arsene-Henry, artists Ala Younis and Abdullah al-Mutairi, writers Elif Batuman (contributor, The New Yorker), Maryam Monalisa Gharavi (editor-at-large, The New Inquiry) and Oscar Guardiola-Rivera (author of What if Latin America Ruled the World?), writer-urbanist Keller Easterling (professor, Yale University), curator-translator and Dar Al-Ma’mun co-director Omar Berrada, curators Lara Khaldi (director, Khalil Sakakini Cultural Centre, Ramallah) and Koyo Kouoh (director, Raw Material Company, Dakar), Turi Munthe, founder of “citizen journalist” newswire Demotix, and Doha-based analyst and commentator Tarik Yousef. In addition to the live talks, commissioned artist videos will be on display in “Forum-Forum”, a media repository accompanying Global Art Forum_7 in Doha and Dubai. In Doha, visitors can enter the unique viewing space of a Hummer limousine parked outside Mathaf to experience video works by artists Lantian Xie, Abdullah al-Mutairi, Yto Barrada, Tunç Ali Çam, Nada Dada and Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster & Tristan Bera.The talks begin at 3pm on both days of the forum in Doha. Forum visitors can also attend a special lecture by architect Rem Koolhaas at Virginia Commonwealth University’s biannual art and design conference, Tasmeem Doha 2013 - Hybrid Making – at 7.30pm today following the Global Art Forum sessions at Mathaf.The forum will close with a site-specific performance by composer and musician André Vida at 6pm tomorrow. Vida’s work examines the relationship between written music and the body of the performer who plays it, and incorporates visual elements such as video, lighting and costume design.“In my approach to creating scores, the relationships between intervals have ceded importance to those existing between performers and their imaginations, instruments and bodies,” says Vida. This is the first performance in the Gulf for the Berlin-based artiste.