Uncommon Grounds

Anthony Downey is an academic and writer. He is the author of Art and Politics Now (Thames and Hudson, 2014), and editor of Uncommon Grounds: New Media and Critical Practice in North Africa and the Middle East (I.B. Tauris, 2014). Recent and forthcoming publications include The Future of a Promise: Contemporary Art from the Arab World (Ibraaz Publishing, 2011); Dissonant Archives: Knowledge Production and Art Practices in the Middle East (forthcoming, I.B. Tauris, 2015); and Mirrors for Princes (NYU Press, forthcoming 2015). He is the Director of the Contemporary Art Masters Programme at Sothebys Institute of Art, London, and the Editor in Chief of Ibraaz (www.ibraaz.org), a research forum on visual culture across the Middle East and North Africa.

Anthony Downey
Introduction


Philip Rizk
2011 is not 1968: An open letter to an onlooker
Franco Berardi
The Paradox of Media Activism: The Net is not a Tool, It's an Environment
Anthony Downey
For the Common Good: Artistic Practices and Civil Society in Tunisia.
Jens Maier-Rothe, Dina Kafafi, Azin Feizabadi
Citizens Reporting and the Fabrication of Collective Memory
Derya Yucel
Art's Networks: A New Communal Model
Dina Matar
A critical reflection on aesthetics and politics in the digital age
Nat Muller
Performing the Undead: Life and Death in Social Media and Contemporary Art
Sheyma Buali
Digital, Aesthetic, Ephemeral: A brief look at image and narrative
Omar Kholeif
Re-Examining The Social Impulse: Politics, Media and Art after the Arab Uprisings
Maymanah Farhat
New Media and the Spectacle of the War on Terror
Laura U. Marks
Arab Glitch
Maxa Zoller
Potential Media The appropriation of images commercial media and activist practices in Egypt today
Nermin Sayba??l?
The Magnetic Remenances: Voice and Sound in Digital Art and Media
Edit Molnar and Aleya Hamza
When the Going Gets Tough...
Tarek Khoury
The Art of the Written Word + New Media Dissemination: Across the Borders between Syria and Lebanon
Mahmoud Abu Hashhash
Farther Than Language Can Reach
Walter Mignolo
Re:emerging, Decentring, Delinking: Shifting the Geographies of Sensing, Believing and Knowing
Amal Khalaf
The Many Afterlives of Lulu
Timo Kaabi-Linke
On Revolution and Rubbish: What has Changed in Tunisia since Spring 2011
Annabelle Sreberny
Cardboard Khomeini - An Interrogation
Gulf Labor
Saadiyat and the Gulf Labor Boycott


ARTIST PROJECTS

Tarzan and Arab: GAZAWOOD
Ganzeer: POSTER DESIGNS
Sophia Al-Maria: CHEWING THE DATA FAT
Sarah Abu Abdallah: SAUDI AUTOMOBILE
Faycal Bahgriche: FAMILY FRIENDLY
Jananne Al-Ani: SHADOW SITES
Mosireen: REVOLUTION TRIPTYCH
Mariam Ghani: Notes from the Archive (IMAGES)