Egypt Archives
Documenting You, Documenting Me
Nov 09, 2006
A Cairo waiter shows off his photo of this researcher above, and a more traditional studio photographer in Delhi below.
With the tools to capture experiences in the hands of more and more people its not surprising that one of the experiences that ends up being documented is, um, the process of being documented. How does being watched affect how we (researchers) work? when will we have the first Rodney King style documentation of a mis-behaving field researcher?
Knocking Off
Nov 07, 2006
Diesel, Pamu, Rebook on sale in a Cairo store.
Remember the comments about Al Zawahri in his promo video wearing New Balance shoes? What chance they were fakes?
Conversion
Oct 17, 2006
Car stereo converted for shop use.
Ritual Blessing
Oct 17, 2006
Blessing a new residence.
The more traditional blood substituted by, well, something else.
Ambient Audio
Oct 17, 2006
Cairo is one of the worlds noisier cities - from the constant stream of honking cars, the mosques calling worshippers to prayer, TV’s blaring out from pretty much any stall that has access an available power source, or sales pitches from street vendors. And yes the occasional ring tone.
To what extent do ambient noise levels affect device usage and in particular media consumption? Do high noise levels force a 'retreat' into using headphones or reducing consumption to visual only? Or does the high noise level make it more acceptable to introduce your own noise into the public space?
For such an aural city it makes sense to utilize audio to explain the city and its inhabitants, hence the recording of ambient audio from taxi's (photo above), streets, markets and beyond.
Parent, Founder, Guide
Oct 17, 2006
The extent to which local lineage is acknowleged by the current owners - photo of the former proprietor hanging on the wall of a Cairo cafe above. The extent to which it affects the experience of current or would be customers.
With a wider range of experience-capturing and experience-enjoying tools in the hands of, well, everyone, what is tomorrow's equivilent of the photo-of-founder-on-wall? And what does this have to do with the gentleman below? One of the indearing aspects of conducting research in Cairo these last couple of weeks has been the extent to which people have recording us recording them. It's not just that the recording devices are carrried, but the fact that they are valued and used. And it's a small part of an emerging trend, more of which later.
Local Heroes I
Oct 15, 2006
Face masks for sale. Where are the local heroes? Are these the local heroes?
It Looks Like This
Oct 15, 2006
This is what a phone looks like in Egypt. If you think it's otherwise you're mistaken.
Street Norms
Oct 15, 2006
Hassan Does
Oct 15, 2006
Bits, that
Oct 14, 2006
Sounds of the City
Oct 14, 2006
Last night's taxi driver takes an interest in my 'pod and we end up nudging up to one another on his front seat, each taking one ear bud. He’s in his 50's, a long graying beard and full length galabeyah so it's not as romantic as you might think. His enjoyment of teenage riot is probably tempered by the fact that Cairo's roads are a constant cacophony of noise, but starts to wiggle his butt and wave his cigarette in appreciation of Punjabi MC/Ghalla Gurian. Strangers linked by sound, a cable and the cost of a fare.
Does the share-music-with-strangers scene like this be more or less likely with ubiquitous wireless music players and earphones? The more techno-utopian amongst you might assume that the wireless equivalent would involve me simply beaming my music to his phones, or car radio. But the reality is that there's money to be made from incompatibles standards, and ultimately I doubt my stuff would play on his 'phones. And what of would-be-lovers (but not us, here in this cab, now) using the minimal length of the cable as an excuse to enter and then remain in each others personal space? Is sharing music in this context about the sharing, or about the music?
Value Added Services
Oct 14, 2006
Ring tone, wallpaper, application and anti-virus services of Cairo's thriving mobile phone market in Abdul Aziz Street. Most of the people in this photo are either buying or selling a mobile phone, or phone related services.
Popularity of file transfers mechanisms: copying to memory card, Bluetooth and in last place infra red.
Pixel Script
Oct 14, 2006 | 0 Comments
Celebrating this.
My Friday is Your Saturday
Oct 13, 2006
A weekend that starts Thursday night, ends Saturday night. Taking advantage of the lull in traffic from iftar. Taxi driver's taking advantage of the lull in competition to nudge up the going rate.
Contextual Markers
Oct 13, 2006 | 0 Comments
Projection of space beyond the curb.
The Perfect Bad Hotel
Oct 12, 2006
Given the splendor of our apartment it might surprise you that last night I checked into a suite of the delightfully named New Riche Hotel - situated in one of Cairo's more down-market districts. Oh the glamour - the hotel does have a faded splendor but those times are well gone. For 20 dollars it seems churlish to expect to find linen on any of the four beds, or working lights in one of the rooms. The reason why I'm spending the night here is simply that it is in a prime location for researching what is out there, the teeming throng that is Cairo's largest used mobile phone market. A moment of calm on the balcony observing interactions on the street before six+ hours in the throng documenting and trying out the unique flavour of Egyptian mobile phone services. By midnight I lie exhausted in bed and sleep soon follows.
At 3am or so the door to my room opens and totally oblivious to my presence a group of 5 men walk in and spend a couple of minutes in what I assume in my beta-state is a lively discussion on how to fix the room's electrics. Yes, I know it makes perfect sense. And I know I'm here to appreciate local norms but this is going too far and I get up. The sight of me standing naked, save for a strategically placed shirt and a grim look on my face is enough to clear the room. As I doze off it occurs to me that the room may have been unofficially double booked - possibly the night staff selling access to a room they thought was empty. That will explain the women in the hallway trying to peer in the room then.
The next morning as I check out the manager asks me innocently why I'm leaving. It's the perfect bad hotel, and I actually want to stay, but our efforts are focussed elsewhere.
Complimentary Directions
Oct 12, 2006
Speed signs in Arabic and Roman. Both norms - left to right and right to left comfortably accommodated in the same information layout.
The Perfect Hotel Office
Oct 12, 2006
Our Cairo home office for the next two weeks is located in Zamalek - an island nestled on either side by the Nile. It's very much the home of old Egyptian money but in a culture this old its new-old rather than old-old. We've managed to secure a ground floor apartment for the duration of our stay - it's spacious, worn and the furniture is a cross between evolved-rental and 70's Arabic kitsch. Given that we need somewhere sufficiently clean, secure and not too comfortable it serves us well. Not too comfortable? Getting out there is psychologically harder when it is too much fun in here, so yeah, in the big scheme of things not too comfortable works just fine.
By the time of my arrival here the space is already looking like an office - a map of Cairo stretches across one wall, folders full of forms that will be filled in by the time we leave, day schedules to capture what the team has been up to and a stream of cables charging our laptops and cameras. A glass table serves well as a vertical white board and lists appear on the walls indicating what kind of ad-hoc data gathering has the most potential. A printer is soon up and running to print our newly translated Arabic versions of forms, and will later be pressed into service to print out a selection of photos that will form part of the thank-for-taking-part-in-the-study feedback to the study participants.
With all the travel and non-stop meetings of the last few weeks it has taken a while to catch up on sleep and sync with the local time zone. Except that during Ramadan the part of the day that is condusive to conducting in-depth research really starts after iftar - the breaking of the fast - so adjusting to the local time zone is not enough, we need to adjust to the rhythm of the city, meaning starting late and working to the early hours.
Literacy, Communication & Design, Cairo
Oct 10, 2006
Sunday's presentation on Literacy, Communication & Design at the American University of Cairo can be downloaded from here [6MB] - it's essentially the same presentation as last month in Helsinki. Thanks to Martina Rieker of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences for hosting.
Egypt has 14 million illiterates, 10 million of whom are women. Hmm, how might higher and equal levels of literacy affect gender roles in society?
What if anything does this have to do with an empty Iraqi Air office in downtown?
Adaptive
Oct 06, 2006
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