Domestic Tourism I: Cairo by Night

Cairo by Night (edition 2/6) offers a nocturnal view of one of the capital’s major Nile bridges lit up by cars headlights, rainbow-striped party boats, dim street lights, and glaringly bright advertising signboards. Shot from above, this photograph captures the vibrancy of the city at night and the traffic in goods and people coursing through it. A casual viewer might miss then-President Mubarak’s disembodied smile floating above the scene, replacing the ads on many of the illuminated signboards lining the streets. The substitution recalls the former president’s irreverent popular alias: la vache qui rit (the laughing cow), the title of a cheap manufactured cheese featuring a cheerfully self-satisfied and dim-witted cow. The irreverence of the joke belies the sinister omnipresence of the smile, while the latter’s placement on advertising signboards recalls the former president’s rapacious neo-liberal economic policies.