Imaging Egypt’s political transition in (post-)revolutionary street art: on the interrelations between social media and graffiti as media of communication

Abstract

This article offers a conceptualization of the interrelations between street art and social media in (post-)revolutionary Cairo by focusing on the reasons as to why certain politically engaged young people in Egypt select graffiti as their medium for political expression in a time in which many other media of communication, most notably social media, are available. It contends that the particular appeal of street art for the graffiti artist lies in its ability to function simultaneously as a medium of communication and a contentious performance, combined with the particular power of the aesthetic to change conceptions of social reality of the audience through what Rancière has called the ‘(re)distribution of the sensible’. Graffiti and street art thus present artists with singular possibilities to express their political ideas and appeal to the public because street art combines the power of framing, the power of performance and the power of imagination.