I was in Berlin during the 18 days of revolution and returned to Cairo a couple weeks after February 11, 2011 when Mubarak stepped down. I felt I had missed out on the revolution’s 18 days of “utopia” as everyone called it and, like any Egyptian away during that time, I wanted to go to Tahrir square immediately. It just so happened that that day was March 8th: International Women’s Day. I thought surely there would be many women there, and it would be a beautiful symbolic moment, because now was the time, if there was any right time. But the outcome was something entirely different, and incredibly disappointing: http://blogs.aljazeera.net/middle-east/2011/03/09/long-battle-ahead-egyptian-women

I was successfully intimidated that day, but at the same time I couldn’t pass up the rare opportunity that my friends described as a photographer’s haven. It isn’t the easiest to take pictures in public space in Egypt, and I’ve been stopped many times before. But for the first time, I went downtown and took pictures without any problems. People had become accustomed to cameras documenting the revolution.

I ended up with these photos that reveal a complete fantasy, with European looking figures and European looking buildings and am writing up a piece about the body politic in the context of Cairo’s urban infrastructure, especially in the context of the revolution and that day, in particular.

In the wake of what is happening in Egypt right now, I have been rethinking a project I have been working on for the past year. My current work explores narrative through abandoned structures. It addresses the paradox of monuments and memorials as spaces of commemoration that dictate how people remember. Cairo and its clichés of a romanticized Ancient Egypt is banking on fantasy through its tourism industry. The contemporary identity of Cairo is confused, where Egyptians are constantly defined by their country’s history rather than the present moment. Today, while its ancient monuments still define the city, Cairo’s contemporary infrastructure is in a deteriorating state. Heavily populated with abandoned structures, the visuals of the city reveal the neglect for the city’s infrastructure and a disregard for space and resources that could be utilized to aid millions living in poverty. My work attempts to raise awareness to the haphazard structures outnumbering the monuments that represent Cairo. It attempts to depict the harsh reality of the physical state of the city and address the role that the urban infrastructure plays in instigating unrest amongst its inhabitants.

So now the unrest has occurred. It was bound to happen, you could feel it and see it and smell it. After days of clashes, human loss, property destruction, and an economic crash Egypt will face an overwhelmingly long road to recovery. Part of me can’t help but wonder whether or not it is even possible for a new government to give Cairo a face-lift. What will become of the multi-million dollar building projects for Egypt’s elite that were allowed under a corrupt government? What will become of Egypt’s urban planning, which until now has seemingly been progressing sans plan? As for abandoned Cairo, perhaps we can hope for a preservation of a neglected past that is significant to our story but probably unlikely at this point.

I hope for the future that we will not rebuild the city as a construct of a fantasized past. I hope the new narratives of Egypt will incorporate all Egyptians here and now and not ones of a city that never existed except as a construct of flawed memory. The uprising revealed a lot about the way our world works. Are our memories individualistic and self-fulfilling or can we preserve a collective reality of the past which, in turn, helps us build a present that is inclusive of everyone? Times are uncertain. For the first time Egyptians feel they are reclaiming what is theirs. They are cleaning their streets. Egyptians have waited decades for this moment and deserve to not only have pride in their past but, more importantly, pride in an Egypt that supports and promotes the inclusion and well-being of every Egyptian today.

Stanley Greenberg’s photography explores hidden systems, infrastructures and technologies, both state-of-the-art and antiquated. New York City’s unseen workings, the region’s complex water systems, architecture mid-construction, physics labs, telescopes and a decommissioned dam have all been the subject of Greenberg’s careful eye. Though his projects range in location and scale, his curiosity about how things work and his enthusiasm for sharing the concealed with his audience is constant. Part urban exploration, part “Unseen Machine,” part historical document, his art offers an uncommon view of the built environment and encourages us to look at our surroundings in a new way. Greenberg has published three books: Invisible New York: The Hidden Infrastructure of the City; Waterworks: A Photographic Journey through New York’s Hidden Water System; and Architecture Under Construction; and is currently raising funds on Kickstarter for the printing of Time Machines.

more information here:
http://urbanomnibus.net/2010/11/stanley-greenberg-city-as-organism-only-some-of-it-visible/

http://www.cca.qc.ca/en/collection/432-william-notman-son-little-james-street…

In Zamyatin’s 1920 novel We everything is made of glass. There is only one city, ruled by the Benefactor, a glistening metropolis of green glass – all the buildings, all the streets, all the furniture, even the very wall of the city itself are cast from that one pure liquid. The ‘cyphers’ (as the mathematically-minded citizens are known) operate in a transparent world where everything is immediately visible, and therefore immediately perceivable.

At the edge of this vast crystal dictatorship is “the ancient house”, a home from the early 20th century protected from the age of millennia by a protective glass pustule. It is remarkable because of its solidity, its opaqueness, and its strange ornaments and objects that imply outmoded societal structures. But as the protagonist, D-503, points out, while in the process of solving a question of mathematical logic: “there is no end to revolutions. Revolutions are potentially infinite.” Even the magnificent towers of glass will one day crumble back below the surface of the earth, leaving behind them only one thing: a violent and savage humanity.

from: http://www.millenniumpeople.co.uk/2009/10/we.html

“In Ersilia, to establish the relationships that sustain the city’s life, the inhabitants stretch strings from the corners of the houses [...}. When the strings become so numerous that you can no longer pass among them, the inhabitants leave: the houses are dismantled; only the strings and their supports remain."
(Calvino Italo, Invisible Cities, Trading Cities 4)

"Reading Italo Calvino's novel "the invisible cities" gave us the idea to create these installations: Berlin is a place full of abandoned buildings and sites. It is loaded with with history, scars, emotions, and is obviously a perfect place to develop such a project.

The chapter "Ersilia" almost seems to have been written only for this city. We used two abandoned urban spots for our installations: an factory close to the Schwartzer Kanal, and a hospital in Beelitz."

Read more: http://unurth.com/74155/Ersilia-Berlin#ixzz0q7EVp6bX

The house of Zeinab Khatun
Built in 1468, with later additions in 1713, restored in 1996.

Minneapols Art on Wheels
Minneapolis-San Jose road trip, summer 2008.

(click on slideshow to see larger versions)

MAW goes to the ZERO 1 New Media Biennial in San Jose, California, trekking across 10 states and projecting in a variety of sites ranging from the Badlands of Interior, South Dakota, to the sand dunes of Winnemucca, Nevada, and the streets of downtown San Jose. Documentation is viewable on the MAW website.

Yet another example of failed architectural investments in Egypt:

Two photographers reveal images of Sinai resorts that never quite made it. And now, just like many other projects all over Egypt, they are abandoned concrete structures.

http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/2008/04/hotels-in-afterlife.html