Alexandrian urban scenes
in Motion Artistic description of the city's urban life
In this cultural approach, I combine social research and artistic practice to understand modern Alexandria's socio-cultural patterns. In that respect, I study inclusive spaces of social gathering and interaction among the different and diverse groups of the community, in other words: the society's living room. I observe, read and analyze, then reconstruct alternative or parallel bottom-up social narratives that communicate how society is shaped by tangible and intangible inheritance, how it functions now, and how individuals (regardless of their background, age, or gender) are trying to adapt their physical environments to make their cities work for them. I believe this approach could be a counter-argument that serves to correctly understand the social historiography of modern Alexandria.
This artwork, which does not exceed 145 seconds, took about a month of daily work to implement. Between writing the story and preparing hand drawings (ink pens and watercolors), where each element was drawn separately on a separate board, After that, it was collected to build movie scenes (650 scenes) at a rate of 7 scenes per second, which were animated based on the previously prepared storyboard. The scenes in this short film can happen anywhere and everywhere in Alexandria. They are all imaginary scenes, but they are real expressions. It tries to reflect the daily life of the city, which we rarely stop to study, analyze, and understand its origins. This film is, above all, the product of long research and continuous daily studies of the city in an attempt to examine the Alexandrian personality that was shaped and is still being shaped, and in return impacts the city ( positively or negatively, which is not the goal of the research). But the goal is continuous monitoring, conveying a true image far from the bias of previous research or a pre-structured image imposed on the city, and presenting it in a simple and easy-to-taste artwork. This work is based on my personal observations and opinions, which I have attempted to be as accurate as possible. These are observations that may be true or false, but they can be corrected and brought closer to reality by interacting with the users of the city.
Thank you, your feedback is highly appreciated
