As a child Moath’s love of music was sparked by one of his other great loves – video games. “Like many kids from the 80s, I was enthralled by video games,” he says. “I played a lot of Microsoft and Nintendo games, and to me, music was always the most memorable part.” What most inspired Moath about his beloved video games was how the designers and composers adapted to and worked around the very “primitive” consoles, “the idea of working with limited tools to fuel your creativity resonates with me a lot”, he says. But while Moath may admire his digital forebears, he’s grateful for the flexibility advances in technology now offer. “Modern technology definitely makes creating this kind of art easier,” he says, “and it also allows you to avoid limitations from using old hardware, like a limited colour palette.”
As many creatives have experienced, one medium can often lead into another. This was the case for digital artist Moath Bin Hafez, whose musical journey and work as a music producer have led him down the winding, glitchy path to the wonderful world of pixel art. His digital artwork began after realising that he needed to adapt his chip-tune remixes of Arab pop music to the very “visual” platform of Instagram, and so he set himself on creating some lo-fi visuals to match. Now, Moath is a seasoned multi-disciplinary creator, producing short catchy videos, full of old-school audio and quintessential Arab pop culture aesthetics.