Graffiti and Cultural Production in Contemporary Cairo: Articulating Local and Global Elements of Popular Culture

7/28/2019 Graffiti and Cultural Production in Contemporary Cairo: Articulating Local and Global Elements of Popular Culture

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GRAFFITI AND CULTURAL PRODUCTION IN CONTEMPORARY CAIRO:

ARTICULATING LOCAL AND GLOBAL ELEMENTS OF POPULAR CULTURE

Georgiana NicoareaUniversity of Bucharest

Abstract. The recent uprisings in the Arab World are indicators of continuous contestation of authoritarian

regimes, a continuing process that leaves its mark on the field of cultural production. Revolutionary graffiti

represent a dynamic self-expression practice of public opinion in Cairo, Egypt, during and in the aftermath of the

2011 Revolution. As a medium of both communication and subversion, residing at the intersection of art and

transgression, graffiti largely serve to re-appropriate the public space and their popularity is mainly due to the

themes addressed and their relevance to issues of everyday life. But can this re-appropriation be seen as more

than just a socio-political territory marking of the city? Can graffiti be integrated into a discussion about culture

in the Arab World?

Keywords: cultural production, graffiti, popular culture, political engagement, Egypt

The graffiti scene in the Arab World has witnessed a media and popular increase in

interest since the beginning of the Arab uprisings. It is hard to establish which came first, but

needless to say, forms of what is considered revolutionary street art, in which graffiti could be

included, in countries like Tunisia or Egypt have attracted the attention of a mostly

enthusiastic large public and are now more than ever present in public space. As it is an

unsanctioned practice, its presence sometimes creates debate and perhaps one dimension of

this debate revolves around its legitimacy and the right the practitioners have to inscribe it on

the walls of the city. Related to the legitimacy issue, another element of this debate

concentrates on whether or not this form of manifestation in public space conveys a message

and if so, what is the role of the message.

Graffiti as small-scale cultural production

In search of graffitis legitimacy we will tackle in this article the use of both high- and

popular culture references and icons, as one of the elements that conjugate to form the

particularities of Egyptian graffiti. We further posit that these local characteristics can qualify

graffitias a cultural practice rallied to the field of cultural production in the acceptation of


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French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (Bourdieu 1996). He describes the field as framed by the

relationship between two subfields, small-scale production and large-scale production that are

distinguished by their degree of autonomy from the field of power. As opposed to large-scale,

small-scale production is characterized by a higher degree of autonomy - even though never a

full one -, it is oriented toward the production of pure artistic products in contrast with the

commercial cultural goods largely produced and it is viewed as production forproducers due to its rejection of the market.

Graffiti in general could be described as a form of small-scale production that pertains

to the field of cultural production. Ever since its popularity registered a peak in the 1970s and

the 1980s, a very common theme of debate within the graffiti subculture is the one around

the relationship with commerce and the world of art. The interest of galleries in street art lead

to what can be considered a split in the subculture between the supporters and the adversaries

of the commoditization of the subcultures products. The emergence, within the subculture, of

the term post-graffiti to refer to the displacement of spray-can graffiti from the spaces of the

street and subway into Manhattan galleries during the mid 1980s (Dickens 2009:17)indicates its rejection of the market and its perception of graffiti as a purely artistic product.

The roots of this rejection can be found in the writers appeal for anonymity and the

authenticity, two important aspects of the subculture. As ethnologist Nancy MacDonald

states, this drive to keep graffiti illegal and out of commercial clutches does not come from

the lure of authenticity alone (MacDonald 2001:173). Nancy MacDonald underlines the

important role of what she calls subcultural fidelity, a value best defined by the impulse

described by graffiti writers to stay true to the subcultures traditions, which speak to

insiders alone. Contrary to the common belief that graffiti, perceived as an illegal act of

vandalism, aredirectly addressing those situated outside the subculture, Nancy MacDonald

implies that the production of graffiti is more likely to be one addressing its own producers, a

production for producers: what is hidden from and then rejected by the outside world

becomes theirloss and an insiders gain. The subculture remains their world accessible and

meaningful to them alone (MacDonald 2001:178). This position could explain the opacity of

some of the messages carried by urban inscriptions whose deciphering requires sometimes

more than just contextual and cultural knowledge.One of the defining aspects of the graffiti subculture is its illegality that, as Susan

Phillips states, creates intersections where legitimate and illegitimate meet and enablescultural groups to define themselves. Because graffiti is easily produced this practice is often


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adopted by the disempowered to negotiate relationships of power (Phillips 1999:20) and this

use points towards the subculuresautonomy, although it is largely acknowledged that otheragendas may intervene in the process of negotiating relationships of power through the

production of graffiti. More than autonomy, Jeff Ferrell points that the politics of graffiti

writing are those of anarchism (Ferrell 1993:172) and he further adds creativity to the aspect

of illegality. According to Jeff Ferrell, graffiti as the product of both illegality and creativityrepresenta resistance to authority, as well as a stance against private property constrains, lawand corporate art, a sign of direct action against these authorities.

The autonomy stance is additionally developed into an alternative street aesthetics that

challenges the culture industry. As Jeff Ferrell points out, graffiti writers play with their own

images and designs while they appropriate and re-configure popular culture icons. These acts

of appropriation and reconfiguration are interpreted as an engagement in a process of cultural

resistance (Ferrell 1993:173). Sociologist Stephen Duncombe uses the term cultural

resistance to describe culture that is used, consciously or unconsciously, effectively or not,

to resist and/or change the dominant political, economic, and/or social structure (Duncombe2002:5). Even if graffiti had previously existed before the 2011 Egyptian revolution, though it

must be noted that to a lesser extent, street art has mainly become a point of interest during

and in the aftermath of the uprising. Urban inscriptions consequently began to be perceived as

an element of what is popularly known as the art of the revolution or what Charles Tripp calls

the art of resistance.Icons of both popular and high culture are abundantly found on the streets of Cairo and

their presence, the transformation they suffer and the contexts they create or appropriate could

contribute to the further interpretation of the processes of cultural resistance in contemporary

Cairo, in the revolutionary and post-revolutionary contexts. This interpretation may prove

itself to be important if we consider Stephen Duncombes assertion that revolution is the

complete overthrow of the ruling system and a time when the culture of resistance becomes

just culture (Duncombe 2002:8). Whether or not Cairos urban inscriptions will come to be

sanctioned as elements of popular culture is perhaps too soon to be discerned but the

amplitude of the practice, with at least six books dedicated entirely to it, the massive media

coverage and the impressive popularity it has gained on social networking websites, makes an

important stance in favor of its analysis.


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Politics of graffiti in urban Cairo

The corpus of graffiti images this article is based on, gathered in September 2012 in

Cairo, showed a predominance of political graffiti and stencils with a high concentration in

Tahrir Square, the nerve center of the revolution, and the surrounding streets. This type of

graffiti exists more often than not under authoritarian systems and emerges during

revolutionary events challenging the states attempt to reduce and control public space. The

relevance of political graffiti thus lies not only in the message they display, but in its

reclaiming the public space. As Charles Trip mentions it demonstrates that public space is no

longer monopolised by the politically powerful and the military occupiers (Trip 2012:398).

The walls of downtown Cairo stopped being mere architectural elements as they were

transformed by the members of the society who took charge of them and used themin ways

that suited the needs and wishes of a people involved in a revolution raising political

consciousness.The Egyptian 2011 Revolution transformed the urban geography through the impressive

quantity of street art its participants produced on the walls of the city that marked, through its

omnipresence, a re-appropriation of public space. But maybe we can say that it did more than

that, influencing not just the political but also the cultural sphere. As Lyman Chafee notes, the

role of street art in general is to form social consciousness (Chafee 1993:4) and in order to

achieve it, its practices, graffiti included, may involve cultural icons, pertaining to both high

culture and popular culture. An additional function of contemporary Egyptian graffiti is

underlined by sociologist Mona Abaza, that of creating a memorial space (Abaza 2013:122)

underlining their crucial significance for the visual and artistic narration of the revolution

(Abaza 2013:131). Through this memorialization functionality graffiti become a source of

popular history and we posit that it greatly contributed to the creation of revolutionary popular

culture icons, transforming participants and martyrs into paragons.The high density of political graffiti in Tahrir Square is motivated also by the fact that

by and large this type of graffiti addresses the general public, thus having a wider intended

audience than regular graffiti. Tahrir Square, the focal point of the revolution, is the main

public square in downtown Cairo, in the middle of which a busy traffic circle is situated. As

the entire world has seen it on news channels, during the sit-ins the entire open space was

occupied by the revolutionaries. What the media only later revealed was that the walls of the

buildings in the area, including the dreadful Mogammaa government building and theoriginal campus of the American University in Cairo, were transformed into graffiti canvas.


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Because of the maximized exposure due to its position and the fact that governments view

such graffiti as disruptive and subversive (Chaffee 1987:39), the Egyptian Central

Security Forces adopted a similar agenda to that of officials in Peru, Argentina and in the

Spanish Basque country.In those regions of the globe where political graffiti is prevalent as a prodigious

manifestation of political dissent, officials often take up an agenda of cleansing the city walls

of urban inscriptions containing social and political commentary. Perhaps the most significant

attempt at cleansing from the part of the authorities is the repetitive painting over of the

murals on the walls of the American University in Cairos old campus on Muammad

Mamd Street, thatSoraya Morayef described aswhitewashing Cairo's Memory1. During

one of these campaigns, in September 2012, only the AUCs campus wall was covered in

white paint, leaving the surrounding graffiti untouched.

Street sign on Muammad Mamd Street. Minaqat grft graffiti zone. September

2012 (authors photo)

1 http://www. acus. org/egyptsource/mohamed-mahmoud-mural-whitewashing-cairos-memory-past


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This particular area is symbolic for the graffiti scene of Cairo not only because it

witnessed a great deal of revolutionary and post-revolutionary activities and violence but

mainly due to its subsequent transformation into a place of remembrance for the victims

through the successive murals painted there. The dynamics of the area accompanies the

dynamics of the society in the post-revolutionary period and as sociologist Mona Abaza notes,

this part of the city center and the wall of the old American University in Cairo campus inparticular witnessed fantastic mutations and transformations on a weekly basis epitomized by

a constant war over the painting of walls (Abaza 2013:129). This war involved graffiti

practitioners on one side and the Central Security Forces on the other, but in spite of the

repressive actions and the whitewashing campaigns, the urban inscription rapidly filled in the

empty space that turns out to be even more inviting.

Representations of popular culture

If there is no doubt that the themes of Cairene graffiti currently revolve for the most partaround politics and tangential social matters, one cannot ignore that thecontent reveals more

than just plain politics. The pragmatics of urban inscription is a complex mechanism and its

main goal is to maximize the efficacy of the messages it tries to communicate to the larger

public. One of what we can call captatio benevolentiae strategies is the common use of

popular culture icons and in general of an iconographic style, meant to add further

transparency to a form of communication perceived as being self-revealing even if its

transparency is disputed. This image centered style is rather a recent development in street-art,

which characterizes the so called post-graffiti aesthetic practice that distinguishes itself by a

shift towards iconographic forms of inscription. The reason may be that identified by Tristan

Manco, who notices that in the contemporary city images speak louder than words (Manco

2004:16) and thus using an image instead of writing broadens the urban audience as it is a

more universal language, a language that predates words.These instantly decipherable iconographic inscriptions are further more considered by

Luke Dickens as an attempt to directly engage with urban audiences through (...) using

critical, intriguing and often humorous graphics in order to challenge their visual

understandings and appreciations of the city (Dickens 2008:474). But perhaps this way of

interacting with the city can reveal some of the characteristics of the popular culture of a city

whose center has become symbolically iconic. In this section some of the popular culture


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icons used in Cairos graffiti are presented in an attempt to put together some of the pieces of

a large puzzle that would probably need some time to be arranged.The walls in downtown Cairo bear witness of a complex and surprising intertexuality

that connects different types of techniques and sources in an effort to enlarge the sphere of the

audience targeted by graffiti practitioners. Whether or not it reaches its goal or whetherthis isan intended tactics, the mix of icons, symbols, connotations and references creates a

concentrated panorama of what resides in the concept of popular culture. Defining this

concept within the framework of Arab cultural studies proves itself problematic because of

the political and intellectual project that alienates other types of interpretations of culture

described by the Morrocan anthropologist Tarik Sabry as the historicisation of the category

Arab culture (Sabry 2010:45). An Arnoldian-type vision of culture is familiar to the Arabic-

Islamic cultural heritage and it excludes the anthropological studying of everyday life and

cultural products of society in the spirit of the Birmingham School. As an attempt at defining

Arab popular culture surpasses the scope of this article, we will limit ourselves to a survey of

the popular culture scene as it is represented in the graffiti encountered in downtown Cairo, inthe autumn of 2012, for the purpose of outlining some of the roles playedwithin what we candescribe as contemporary cultural production in Egypt.

From the large array of popular culture elements employed some categories seem

prevalent: local Egyptian icons, whether from the domain of music, cinema, literature or

media to which international symbols are added. From the point of view of their production,

the type of graffiti most encountered for this kind of representations is also relevant as the

stenciling technique is almost exclusive. The stencil is a term used to define the type of

graffiti produced with the help of a pre-made template that is painted through with spray cans

or using regular brushes. Its advantage resides in the possibility of a somewhat mass

production of graffiti with a lower degree of risk, as the time needed to accomplish it

diminishes considerably. Additionally, an element of street credibility is added as stencils are

common ways of production for promotional campaigns and utilitarian urban inscription. Its

use is related to the shift towards more iconographic forms of inscription observed in the

recent developments within the graffiti subculture.Celebrated icons of Egyptian cinema and music stars alongside citations from a large

sphere of literary genres, from the Koran to Sufism and modern Arabic literature, politically

engaged poetry or political essays can be counted among the re-appropriations of popularculture symbols by graffiti practitioners. Actors like Mohamed Reda, Nagah el-Mogy, Tawfik


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el-Deen, Ismail Yasin and last by not least, Adel Imam and Dalida, to whom we must add the

beloved Lady of Arabic Music, Umm Kultm, are featured in stencils serving a role similar

to that of the characters included in American-style graffiti, that is to communicate with

mainstream audiences beyond the subculture itself (Dickens 2009:79). Unlike the

characters that are appropriated from secondary sources like the works of recognized

cartoonists, the above mentioned icons have gained their notoriety in the popular Egyptiancinema or as music superstars. Often blamed by critics for its triviality, popular Egyptian

cinema captivates to a large extent the local audiences due to what Viola Shafik identifies as

its recurrent dramatic patterns, ritualized performances and some almost archetypical, yet

partly contradictory stereotypes (Shafik, 2007:2). The appeal the masses might have for the

images reproducing these actors most famous poses is further augmented up by the choice in

the appended text, whether it consists of lines from the scripts of well known movies or

literary texts.Among citations from Naguib Mahfouzs Palace of Desire, the second volume of the

Cairo Trilogy or the mystical writings attributed to the ninth century Sufi Junayd of Baghdador to al-Nifarri who died in Egypt a century later, graffiti are abundant in modern and

contemporary colloquial Egyptian poetry that bears a strong political stance. As modern

manifestations ofzaal, the lyrical works of poets like Abdel Rahman el-Abnudi (fragments

from: lissa-n-nim masqa, The regime didnt fall yet), Amal Dunqul (fragments from: la

tole, Do not reconcile), Salah Jahin (leading poet of the 1952 Revolution) or the

emblematic Ahmad Fuad Negm are associated with popular literature, al-adab al-mmiyy,

not just because of their use of spoken Egyptian Arabic but also for theirnotorious popularity

and the peoples identification with the messages their poetry conveys. The above mentioned

poets pertain to a wave of politically engaged poetry that was influenced by and in the sametime accompanied the political events of the past century and subsequently left its trademark

on the contemporary lyrical production viewed as a form of genuine popular expression, a

perception that contributed to its growing popularity. It is therefore no surprise that graffiti

with theirclaim to authenticity embracethese authors work as they are both types of writings

used mainly by the disempowered as a common form of expressing dissent.Whether the high degree of public attractiveness determined the choice in literary texts

employed in graffiti, their use comes as an attempt to emphasize connections with the cultural

heritage of Egypt, pertaining to elements of the so called high culture that the practitioners do

not intend to neglect. Sanctioned culture is not just exempt from the undermining it usually


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suffers from in other parts of the world but a dialogue between well known literary texts and a

somewhat newer kind of writing is established, perhaps also as a method to contribute to

graffitis perception as an art associated with established cultural texts. It was in fact within a

campaign entitled, al-fann mi arm, Art is not a sin that images of Egyptian actors and

singers started to be used.The partnership between street art and popular culture goes even further as these texts

engage in a dialogue with the public astheir choice has a high contextualappropriateness. For

example, a stencil depicting Umm Kultm and bearing the caption li--abr udd, patience

has limits seems to convey further strength to the message as it is a verse from a popular

song. The same tactics of promoting messages using already known lines can be identified in

a stencil representing Dalida, the Cairo born Italian actress and a scene from the movie Al-

yawm as-sdis (The Sixth Day) by Yousef Chahine in which her character, adqa, has the

following line: inta fkir inn dika? Da gar fwi(Do you think this is a smile? This is

a wound on my face).Beside local elements of popular culture, Egyptian graffiti is not a stranger to the global

graffiti scene. References to internationally graffiti icons like Banksy and Shepard Fairey, just

to name two of the most publicized figures, are made through some of their most emblematic

work. Even if perhaps referring to global practitioners may remain opaque for the general

public, Cairos urban inscriptions created by self-conscious graphic artists or painters are

inscribed into the global cultural dynamics. Graffiti thus can be said to denote a kind of shared

experience that brings together young people through the internet, whether it be the simple

community of consumers or that of practitioners. The global references in the Egyptian scene

can be interpreted as a way to indicate street art literacy and to integrate the local practice

within the global dynamics of graffiti.A popular stencil of the England-based graffiti artist known as Banksy, assumed by

graffiti practitioners almost all over the world, also encountered in Cairo, is that of a protester

throwing a bouquet of flowers, a stencil made in the West Bank as a form of protest against

the Israeli West Bank barrier. A version of one of the most famous works signed by Banksy,

featuring two police men kissing, was initially painted on the American University in Cairo

wall as a means to subvert the authority of the local police as it was accompanied by an

English language message intended as an insult: Cops are Gays. The message was rapidly

covered in white paint and another slogan, also in English, appeared: Homophobia is notrevolutionary while two rainbows replaced the moustaches of the initial police men.


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Internationally notorious stencils and posters, authored by famous street artist are

present in Cairo in both the original form and as re-appropriations as well, playing on

accidental or provoked similarities. For example, the Obey poster, featuring the image of

Andre the Giant, a former French professional wrestler, turned into a viral street art campaign

by Shepard Fairey, an American contemporary graphic designer and illustrator, who emerged

from the skateboarding scene, can be regarded as associating the image of the giant with thatof Hosni Mubarak, on the basis of a fortuitous physical resemblance.

Another strategy popular with stencil graffiti is culture jamming, a form of media

sabotage that works creatively to alter logos, advertisements, corporate images and so on,

sometimes in order to reveal darker corporate realities (...) and sometimes simply to parody or

debunk (Gelder 2007:150). It is used by a Cairo based artist, known under his street-art alias

of Keizer, who hijacks logos of popular international corporations from the food industry like

Coca-Cola and Pepsi in order to criticize consumerism while the choice for the stencil

technique, in which a strong repetitive potential resides, can be interpreted as an effort to

subvert the invasive advertising campaigns these companies usually conduct.Additionally a type of stencil graffiti encountered as well in our corpus is the one in

which popular culture elements, both local and global, are mixed together, resulting in a

collage-like image that both attracts the attention and transforms the practice into a syncretic

and transcultural medium in accordance with Nestor Garcia Canclinis definition of graffiti

as a cultural practice that ignores the concept of patrimonial collection (Canclini 1995:249).

Symbolic productions are relocated and used to convey and sustain messages that pertain to

the complex events of revolutionary Cairo, like the stencils representing the Argentine

Marxist revolutionary Ernesto Che Guevara depicted by Keizer wearing a pharaonic beard

or wearing an Islamist beard and skull cap by another street art practitioner known as Sad

Panda. Deterritorializing the popular image of the South-American revolutionary determines a

break with its geographical origin which is replaced with local elements that contribute to its

adaptation. The symbols depicted alongside symbol acquisition and adaptation follows the

way graffiti practitioners relate to the local space and the cultural backgrounds of other

cultures that influence them.


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Conclusions

Without aiming at being exhaustive, this approach of the Cairo urban graffiti has

targeted representations of popular culture involved in the local graffiti scene as an attempt at

sketching it as an element of the production of culture. In the aftermath of the revolution,

Cairo has become one of the central spaces for the production of political urban inscriptions

with practitioners fueled by the revolutionary transformations rising in these particular

circumstances. Even if perhaps time is still necessary for the dust to settle on the changes that

took place in Egypt recently, the emergence of a powerful and very productive graffiti scene

cannot be neglected.As the analysis of our corpus indicates, graffiti in downtown Cairo, although mainly

influenced by political and social developments, articulate numerous elements of local and

global popular culture. Considered an art of protest, the urban inscriptions found in downtown

Cairo proved to form their own cultural alphabet if perceived as a set of communication

techniques born in a specific context. The analysis of popular culture elements that graffitiarticulate, both local and global, offers new perspectives on political and social items that can

shed light on the production of culture in a society traversing important changes in many of its

aspects.

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Graffiti and Cultural Production in Contemporary Cairo: Articulating Local and Global Elements of Popular Culture