Uncommon Grounds : New Media and Critical Practices in North Africa and the Middle East

Anthony Downey, Sarah Abu Abdallah, Roy Samaha, Sophia Al-Maria, Fayçal Baghriche, Franco 'Bifo' Berardi, Wafaa Bilal, Sheyma Buali, Maymanah Farhat, Ganzeer, Hans Haacke, Laura U. Marks, Dina Matar, Aleya Hamza, Edit Molnár, Timo Kaabi-Linke, Jens Maier-Rothe, Dina Kafafi, Azin Feizabadi, Amal Khalaf, Omar Kholeif, Tarek Khoury, Gulf Labor, Mosireen, Rabih Mroué, Nat Muller, Philip Rizk, Nermin Saybaşılı, Annabelle Sreberny, Tarzan and Arab, Derya Yücel, and Maxa Zoller.

ISBN 10: 1784530352 / ISBN 13: 9781784530358

Published by I.B.Tauris,, 2014

About this Item

Very clean and well bound copy, internally as new. Front cover very lightly worn at the corner, some dust soiling to the white part of the rear panel but overall sharp copy.

Seller Inventory # ABE-1664926442451

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Uncommon Grounds : New Media and Critical Practices in North Africa and the Middle East
• Publisher: I.B.Tauris,
• Publication Date: 2014
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1784530352
• ISBN 13: 9781784530358
• Binding: Soft cover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Very Good

About this title

Synopsis

In this groundbreaking book, a range of internationally renowned and emerging academics, writers, artists, curators, activists and filmmakers critically reflect on the ways in which visual culture has appropriated and developed new media across North Africa and the Middle East. Examining the opportunities presented by the real-time generation of new, relatively unregulated content online, Uncommon Grounds evaluates the prominent role that new media has come to play in artistic practices and social movements in the Arab world today. Analysing alternative forms of creating, broadcasting, publishing, distributing and consuming digital images, this book also enquires into a broader global concern: does new media offer a democratisation of and a productive engagement with visual culture, or merely capitalise upon the effect of immediacy at the expense of depth? Featuring full-colour artists inserts, this is the first book to extensively explore the degree to which the grassroots popularity of Twitter and Facebook has been co-opted into mainstream media, institutional and curatorial characterisations of revolution and whether artists should be wary of perpetuating the rhetoric and spectacle surrounding political events. In the process, Uncommon Grounds reveals how contemporary art practices actively negotiate present-day notions of community-based activism, artistic agency and political engagement.

About the Author

Dr. Anthony Downey is an academic, editor and writer. Recent and upcoming publications include Art and Politics Now (2014); Uncommon Grounds: New Media and Critical Practice in North Africa and the Middle East (2014); Slavs and Tatars: Mirrors for Princes (2015); Dissonant Archives: Contemporary Art and Contested Narratives in the Middle East (2015), and The Future of a Promise: Contemporary Art from the Arab World (2011). He is currently editing The Matter of Critique: The Institute of Human Activities (2016).