Image Activism After the Arab Uprisings| The Augmented Archive: History in Real Time. An Archaeology of Images of the Egyptian Revolution

Abstract

This study explores the challenges of archiving the Egyptian revolution from 2011, and basically any archive consisting of digital media, specifically in contexts of ongoing political contestation. The text proposes a media-archaeological approach in both theory and practice: The media artist Kaya Behkalam speaks about his project The Augmented Archive, a digital topographic archive for Cairo’s urban space, whereas media philosopher Knut Ebeling traces the wider historical and media theoretical context to archival and memory practices of resistance. Behkalam and Ebeling have repeatedly worked together in the past on essays and projects around archival practice and media archaeology.