The filtered ‘Noise of Cairo’
BY CHITRA KALYANI Cairo: A protester waves a flag from a pole as a helicopter flies overhead. The image is etched in our minds, not simply from the revolution but from a time long ago: David aiming his slingshot at Goliath, man rising against machine, commoner raising a fist at the system. The flag-waving protester also raises the curtain to German filmmaker Heiko Lange’s documentary “The Noise of Cairo – A Documentary about Cairo, Art, and the Revolution.” Enter into the salon with singer Shaimaa Shaalan who explains that previously, due to the education and culture in Egypt, “we were…
Pondering: ‘If I were president…’
BY MAURICE CHAMMAH Cairo: Several weeks ago, an artist named Amado Alfadni began to post stickers and posters around downtown Cairo. His design was simple, with an abstract border framing a short sentence and several dotted lines. The sentence, split into two versions to address both men and women, reads in calligraphy: “If I were president…” The dotted lines solicit whoever passes by to fill in their own answer. Alfadni had picked the stark design over others with eagles and Egyptian flags, believing that they would distract people from writing on them. He started placing them around downtown Cairo, where…
