Group March to Kom El Dika

More:
Workshop Introduction
Workshop Project 01: Collection
Workshop Project 02: Intervention

View selected documentation of the students’ interventions:
Lamia | Mohamed | Abdalla | Aya & Omar | Monsour

Lamia Moghzy, Phone card mosaic

Using another collection—discarded mobile phone cards—Lamia began to repair a broken mosaic with her own.

Mohamed Nabil, New street names for Alexandria

After collecting images of street signs with the names of unknown persons, Mohamed posted a map of Alexandria with street names of his own invention. As we looked at the map, we realized that it presented an opportunity for us and other passersby to add new street names to the map as well.

Abdalla Safwat, “Gaps” in the sidewalk

Abdalla was interested in altering how pedestrians might navigate through a space. He positioned these black strips on the sidewalk in an attempt to changes their typical passage here. The strips also began to record the texture of the paving and passersby’s footprints.

Aya Tarek & Omar Moustafa, Accident

After a minor car accident that forced their car up the curb here (no one was hurt!), Omar and Aya marked the site with spraypaint, thus noting their accidental but dramatic intervention in this public space on the side of the busy corniche road.

Mohamed Monsour, Electric junction boxes personified

In the course of his documentation of the electric junction boxes, Monsour came to think of them as unique characters that exhibited certain personalities. This cluster of boxes suggested to him further this personification as well as possible conversations between them, which he intimates with the addition of blank dialogue clouds.

More:
Workshop Introduction
Workshop Project 01: Collection
Workshop Project 03: Performance

View samples from the students’ collections:
Mohamed | Lamia | Abdalla | Aya | Monsour | Omar | Moushira

Mohamed Nabil, Street Signs

Mohamed noticed that many of the streets in Alexandria are named after persons whom he and most others have no knowledge of. His collection of these street signs reveals another history of the city, one largely unknown that is written in the public space of the streets.

Lamia Moghzy, Tram Graffiti

Silly names, notes to lovers, esoteric communiques… Lamia collected these snippets of vernacular writings-in-transit. Riding and waiting between destinations; these stories fill the spaces of mobility in Alexandria’s tram system.

Abdalla Safwat, Shop Signs

Abdalla was interested in the whole range of shop signs in Alexandria, from the high-style design to the more vernacular, which for him reveal the full spectrum of commerce in the city. Also, global and local issues collide in this terrain as small shops compete with multinational brands.

Aya Tarek, Numeric Notations

While working on a broader collection of graffiti writing on buildings, Aya soon focused on this system of cryptic numbers. Being indeterminate, they accommodate multiple interpretations but also offer an example of a very specific kind of language that perhaps only an initiated few can write or read—perhaps city employees or utility workers.

Mohamed Monsour, Electric Junction Boxes

Monsour made this collection of infrastructural nodes in Alexandria—the ubiquitous electric junction boxes which serves as connection points between the main power grid and branches that feed into each building in the city.

Omar Moustafa, Posted Signs

Omar’s collection consisted of these handwritten signs posted all over Alexandria. They represent a layer of personalized communications that broadcast a wide range of messages to the city’s inhabitants.

Moushira Elamrawy, Architects’ Nameplates

Many of the buildings built during the Belle Époque in Alexandria bear the mark of the architects’ and builders’ names on their facades, which Moushira collected for the workshop. Here is another layer of information written on the surface of the city that tells the city’s history and also marks changes within the architectural profession as well.

More:
Workshop Introduction
Workshop Project 02: Intervention
Workshop Project 03: Performance

The workshop dealt with three modes or strategies for addressing the city as a place to make work in and about: Collection, Intervention, Performance.

John R. Stilgoe’s Outside Lies Magic set the tone for the workshop and guided us as we walked and looked and talked around Alexandria:

Go outside and walk a bit, long enough to forget programming, long enough to take in and record new surroundings.

Flex the mind, a little at first, then a lot. Savor something special. Enjoy the best-kept secret around—the ordinary, everyday landscape that rewards any explorer, that touches any explorer with magic.

The whole concatenation of wild and artificial things, the natural ecosystem as modified by people over the centuries, the built environment layered over layers, the eerie mix of sounds and smells and glimpses neither artificial or crafted—all of it free for the taking in. Take it, take it in, take in more every weekend, every day, and quickly it becomes a theater that intrigues, relaxes, fascinates, seduces, and above all expands any mind focused on it. Outside lies utterly ordinary space open to any casual explorer willing to find the extraordinary. Outside lies unprogrammed awareness that at times becomes directed serendipity. Outside lies magic.

Our first day was spent doing just what Stilgoe suggests: slowing down, paying attention, wandering, exploring. Along the way, each of us selected a site in Alexandria that held some interest for us, and we visited each, talking about their significance. We became conscious of the subtle networks and patterns that organize the city. We considered the meaning of walking through spaces both private and public; we (some of us) faced the consequences of unintentional trespassing; we marveled at the power and threat that taking pictures can pose in this post-9/11 era. Walking through Alexandria gave shape to our conversations, and as we walked and talked I think we experienced something of the pedestrian histories I am/was thinking about often.

The students: (top left to right) Monsour, Moushira, Mohamed, (bottom left to right) Abdalla, Lamia, Omar, Aya

More:
Workshop Project 01: Collection
Workshop Project 02: Intervention
Workshop Project 03: Performance

I, along with other Directors of the Think Tank that has yet to be named, have struggled with the dilemma of a rooted practice, that persistent problem of exporting to an unfamiliar place a mode of working which relies so heavily on an intimate knowledge of place. And, of course, as an artist-tourist here in Alexandria, I am facing this dilemma again. Really, how does one drop in on a city for such a brief period of time and make something, communicate something, do something of value? Is it enough that the small circle of artists, students, and lecture attendees I’ve met here see the work and respond to it? That we begin a conversation? Would it be realistic to expect anything more? Place in place of. Meaning, between places or between states. What is the difference between “in” and “of”? Meaning, liminal: “occupying a position at, or on both sides of, a boundary or threshold.” Yes, that is a place to be.

I am an American artist-tourist. Riding out into the desert on a camel to pose for the photo opp. Wielding my tiny (not so tiny?) bit of American hegemonic might with a wave of the hand. Conquering ancient pyramids. Paying too much but not caring because it feels like play money anyway… You saw me on the street and waved, or amicably said Hello! trying out the word for the first time to actually see if it really communicated anything at all. You smiled and wanted to know my name, where I am from. When I stopped to take a picture of that thing that did not seem worthy of taking a picture, you stared and maybe shook your head as I walked on. Or you wanted me to take your picture, but I didn’t, and you didn’t ask me to.

We always looked each other in the eye when we passed. Sometimes I imagined the expression on my face—aloof or serious, friendly or jovial, too eager to please—but who’s to say what I really looked like. I wanted you to like me, to not feel threatened by me, to respect me, to not despise me, to be interested in me, to leave me alone, to know me, to understand me. I tried to understand you. I looked at you. I looked through you to the past that is crumbling around you. You translated the inscriptions on the walls, and they spoke of God, or rooms for let, or things for sale—or maybe they meant nothing at all, merely drawings that pretended to be letters and words and language.

You tried to run me down in your car. No, you didn’t, but it seemed like you did. You jostled me in the street, blocked my way on the sidewalk, dumped soiled water under my footsteps. You taught me how to avoid the cracks and holes and trash in the road. I followed you for a while and then crossed the street, setting off on my own. I hailed a taxi and held up five fingers. We found the place together. I ceremoniously placed the bills in your hand and you unceremoniously accepted. I got out and walked down the same street that you walk. Through the same square that you walk. Turned the same corner that you turn. I am thinking C’mon Pilgrim because sometimes we move in the same direction, looking for the same things. And sometimes not. But today we walk the same streets. So c’mon.

Side B
of things which he knew to be true of Justine, but which he he cried, taking me by the arm. Please help me. reads widely Balthazar’s conversation is not heavily loaded with me has always been the largest part of sensuality. “We must be shoulder. We turned to each other, closing like two leaves could not bring myself to visit the studio. Once as I passed I much time wasted in this way; instead of enjoying her and even to imagine that perhaps Justine did not wish to be cured Justine’s instability of heart. They may be, as Clea thinks, For all drama creates bondage, and the actor is only significant faithful to me, and at times when I had felt myself to be closest somewhere I see myself drifting, floating, reaching out arms. I so often heard that even now in memory the thought of them arresting. The more I knew her the less predictable she seemed They have the illusion of foundering on the ocean of blackne tongue reprovingly and shake his head. “I would love to”, h drunk and snoring, drawing in with every breath the compost into the scullery muttering and shaking his head and invoking bed. While I was out at work she was confided to the care of ears and pulling her hair; while one of the naval cadets was lay together bemused by the silence, watching the yellow cur sound, as if to take the soft imprint of a brush. At the time of illusion that she communicates with her fellow, but this is “You thought I simply wanted to make love? God! haven’t we tions of the autumn, like the wings of a butterfly fluttering to him sharply, and almost before the man could reply passed

Rereading the Quartet deconstructed like this is somewhat liberating and an interesting exercise for me since I carry with me the memory of the novels as a whole. I suppose the texture of that memory underlies the stiltedness of the composite fragments and coheres them in my mind. The fragments do read well together regardless, which is probably not surprising since Durrell’s style permeates each turn of phrase. The effect is one of broken narrative, a kind of formalist avant garde pastiche. I wonder how someone who hasn’t read the books would perceive these broken fragments. Which begs the question: what do I do with these things?

I think I’m wrestling with a definition of performance here. Admittedly, as a discipline with a unique history, my knowledge of performance is weak. Is performance dependent on some degree of intentionality? Or can performances be staged unknowingly by actors in the course of everyday actions and movements? What is the frame that is drawn around a particular body (or bodies) in a particular space and during a particular time to distinguish a performance? Must there be a receptive audience in order to legitimize the action(s) as a performance? What role does documentation fulfill in the reception and validation of a performance? Must a performance be made public?

I know this is happening: My movement through the city is conspicuous; it is noticed by the inhabitants of Alexandria. I can’t remember the last time I have been so aware of my own visibility in public spaces. Merely walking down the street elicits curious stares, smiles from children, excited greetings in English. (”Hello! Welcome! How are you?”) If I happen to be taking photographs of the funny things that I take photographs of, or walk through the market pointing a microphone in every direction, then I sometimes achieve the status of spectacle. It is this attention that I’m not used to and that has me considering my stay here as a performance.

Back to (dictionary) definitions. Perform is somewhat ambiguous, oscillating between “carry out, accomplish, or fulfill” and “present to an audience.” Similarly, performance: “action or process of carrying out or accomplishing an action, task, or function” and “act of staging or presenting a play, concert, or other form of entertainment.” Well, these aren’t very helpful at all actually…

Precedents come to mind: Mierle Ukeles washing the steps of the museum or shaking hands with every sanitation worker in NYC, Ulay and Marina Abramovic walking towards each other and the end of their relationship on the Great Wall of China, Gordan Matta-Clark and friends running the Food restaurant, Vito Acconci following strangers on the street, Alan Kaprow’s downtown happenings, Sophie Callie having her mother hire a private investogator to take surveillance photos of her, Situationist drifting in Paris, Francis Alys carrying a gun through Mexico City or a leaky can of paint, Joseph Beuys living in a NYC gallery with a coyote for a week, Alex Villar occupying public niche spaces, Bas Jan Ader sailing out to sea and never coming back, Buddhist monks setting themselves on fire in protest, terrorists flying planes into buildings… There are countless others.

That I would consider my presence in Alexandria as a performance has, essentially, to do with my body in space, and how the presence of my body changes that space, changes the people in that space. And what that presence might mean. My otherness here produces a kind of emanation that people visibly sense. My otherness stems from my appearance as a white western-looking male which, as Bassam (ACAF curator) notes, carries with it a degree of cultural power: my body is draped in the garments of western (mostly American) hegemony. If I do acknowledge the effect that my body has on the spaces I move through, I wish to do so without placing too much importance on these small changes. But they have significance in their own right that I am trying to come to terms with.

Finally, relating to the more modest sense of performance, I have thought about the pedestrian histories of the city as being performed by its inhabitants. My mundane performances in Alexandria—my own pedestrian histories—are compiled alongside theirs as we live out so many routines, paths, stories, etc each day.

I am faced with the dilemma of communication. The dilemma of determining an intended audience—not that that isn’t always a dilemma to be considered. But here, in Alexandria, there is the unavoidable: not speaking Arabic, written and verbal language is a barrier. The larger questions are: Why am I here? For whom am I doing this work? What is this work? Again, these are questions important to me in any context (and I should consider them more often). Only, now they become much more obvious in light of this new experience.

Much of my work relies on a textual component to give context and dimension to the visual. This is the nature of work that stresses conversation and participation, as well as the communication of research. I don’t ever balk at this—it is what it is. I like to think that those who will come to it will come to it; the work is not dumbed down, nor is it populist. Neither do I believe it is inaccessible or elitist. Conversely, I don’t pretend to privilege the visual as some universal language capable of transcending cultural, national, and linguistic barriers. Literacy is a complicated issue with any communicative language.

Nonetheless, I would like to do something here that engages a local audience, that aspires to the conversational and dialogical projects I believe in. I do have the assistance of locals who speak English well and could facilitate translation, but translation should be a peripheral concern and not relied upon, I think. This leads me to a pivotal question: What forms are available to me that Alexandrians are conversant in? Well, this is what I’m desperate to discover—and quickly!—through my explorations of the city and interrogations of my hosts at ACAF, who have already been so generous and helpful.