The People Are Not an Image
Vernacular Video After the Arab Spring
Published on 29. September 2020
304 pages
978-1-78873-318-2 (ISBN)
Description
The wave of uprisings and revolutions that swept the Middle East and North Africa between 2010 and 2012 were most vividly transmitted throughout the world not by television or even social media, but in short videos produced by the participants themselves and circulated anonymously on the internet.
In The People Are Not An Image, Snowdon explores this radical shift in revolutionary self-representation, showing that the political consequences of these videos cannot be located without reference to their aesthetic form. Looking at videos from Tunisia, Bahrain, Syria, Libya, and Egypt, Snowdon attends closely to the circumstances of both their production and circulation, drawing on a wide range of historical and theoretical material, to discover what they can tell us about the potential for revolution in our time and the possibilities of video as a genuinely decentralized and vernacular medium.
In The People Are Not An Image, Snowdon explores this radical shift in revolutionary self-representation, showing that the political consequences of these videos cannot be located without reference to their aesthetic form. Looking at videos from Tunisia, Bahrain, Syria, Libya, and Egypt, Snowdon attends closely to the circumstances of both their production and circulation, drawing on a wide range of historical and theoretical material, to discover what they can tell us about the potential for revolution in our time and the possibilities of video as a genuinely decentralized and vernacular medium.
More details
Edition
Ebook UK & RoW
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Product notice
Reflowable
ISBN-13
978-1-78873-318-2 (9781788733182)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Book
09/2020
Verso Books
€50.95
Shipment within 3-4 weeks
Person
Peter Snowdon is a filmmaker and researcher. His feature-length film The Uprising, based entirely on YouTube videos from the Arab revolutions, was awarded the Opus Bonum Award for best world documentary at the Jihlava International Documentary Film Festival and has screened at more than 30 festivals around the world. From 1997 to 2000 he lived in Cairo, where he was on the staff of Al-Ahram Weekly, and his writing on Arab politics and film has appeared in Open Democracy and Le Monde diplomatique. Peter has lived and worked in Egypt, Palestine, and France, and is currently based in Belgium, where he teaches filmmaking in the visual anthropology programme at Leiden University.
Content
- Cover Page
- Halftitle Page
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Introduction. Video as a Vernacular
- Part I. The Body of the People
- 1. A Happy Man (Tunis, January 14, 2011)
- 2. Video as Performance
- 3. Seeing as the People (Diraz, February 14, 2011)
- 4. What Day Is It? (Homs, December 22, 2011)
- 5. The Death of Ali Talha (Tripoli, February 25, 2011)
- Part II. Video as a Critical Utopia
- 6. The Filmmaker as Amanuensis (Cairo, January 25, 2011)
- 7. The Party of the Couch (Cairo, January 18, 2011)
- 8. O Great Crowds, Join Us (Tripoli, February 2011)
- 9. The Mulid and the Network
- 10. The Last Broadcast (Benghazi, March 19, 2011)
- Conclusion. This Is Just the Beginning
- Acknowledgments
- List of Videos Referenced
- Notes
- About the Author
