Intermediating Aural and Visual Divides in Ahmed Shafie’s Print Literary Media and Hassan Khan’s New Media Art

Abstract

Abstract New literary media in print has changed its paradigms by converging with new media art; likewise, new media art draws on narrative techniques and poetic images. These paradigm transmutations have generated collaborative links binding distinct creative practices, intensifying the reading engagement and/or immersive experience. The mutual interpenetrations of print literary media and new media art challenges traditional understandings of literary, visual and acoustic practices, urging us to rethink mainstream/popular and local/global divides. This paper draws on new literary writing in print by Ahmed Shafie (b. 1977), a Cairo-based writer, poet and translator, along with new media art by Hassan Khan (b. 1975), a Cairo-based writer, composer, and new media artist, both informed by regional and worldwide cultures. By intermediating their visual, verbal and/or aural experiences, this paper addresses the convergent strategies used to produce signification in a worldwide rapidly changing cultural context. The intensity of the reader’s/viewer’s/user’s engagement with the literary or visual experience will be explored to reconsider intermediation as an act of intervention.