Includes bibliographical references and index.

2011 is not 1968 : an open letter to an onlooker / Philip Rizk -- The paradox of media activism : the Net is not a tool, it's an environment / Franco 'Bifo' Berardi -- Revolution triptych / Mosireen -- For the common good? Artistic practices and civil society in Tunisia / Anthony Downey -- Citizens reporting and the fabrication of collective memory / Jens Maier-Rothe, Dina Kafafi and Azin Feizabadi -- Performing the undead : life and death in social media and contemporary art / Nat Muller -- Artists' inserts. 3rdi / Wafaa Bilal; Saudi automobile / Sarah Abu Abdallah ; Family friendly / Fayçal Baghriche ; Manazer / Ganzeer ; Untitled for several reasons / Roy Samaha -- Art's networks : a new communal model / Derya Yücel -- When the going gets tough... / Hamzamolnár -- Potential media : the appropriation of images, commercial media and activist practices in Egypt today / Maxa Zoller -- A critical reflection on aesthetics and politics in the digital age / Dina Matar -- Digital, aesthetic, ephemeral : a brief look at image and narrative / Sheyma Buali -- New media and the spectacle of the war on terror / Maymanah Farhat -- The magnetic remanences : voice and sound in digital art and media / Nermin Saybaşılı -- Re-examining the social impulse : politics, media and art after the Arab uprisings / Omar Kholeif -- Artists' inserts. Gazawood / Tarzan and Arab ; Chewing the data fat / Sophia Al-Maria ; Hans Haacke for Gulf Labor ; The pixelated revolution / Rabih Mroué ; Arab glitch / Laura U. Marks -- The many afterlives of Lulu / Amal Khalaf -- Cardboard Khomeini : an interrogation / Annabelle Sreberny -- The art of the written word and new media dissemination : across the borders between Syria and Lebanon / Tarek Khoury -- On revolution and rubbish : what has changed in Tunisia since Spring 2011 / Timo Kaabi-Linke -- Saadiyat and the Gulf Labor boycott / Gulf Labor.

"More and more contemporary artists are using new media in their work, creating new horizons for cultural experimentation and political activism. In this ground-breaking book, internationally renowned and emerging academics, writers, artists, curators, activists and film-makers critically explore the ways in which visual culture has appropriated and developed new media across North Africa and the Middle East. Examining the opportunities presented by the real-time generation of new, relatively unregulated content online, these writers consider the prominent role that new and social media has come to play in artistic practices - as well as social movements - in the Arab world today. Analysing alternative forms of creating, broadcasting, publishing, distributing and consuming images, Uncommon Grounds enquires into a global concern: does new media offer a 'democratisation' of and productive engagement with visual culture, or merely capitalise upon the affect of immediacy at the expense of depth and engagement? Featuring critical analyses and original, full-colour artists' inserts, this is the first book to explore, in depth, the degree to which the grassroots popularity of Twitter and Facebook has been co-opted into the mainstream media's characterisation of 'revolution' - and whether artists should be wary of being co-opted, by mass media, institutions and curators alike, into this 'revolutionary' event. In the process, it reveals the ways in which contemporary art practices not only reflect upon but also actively negotiate present-day notions of social activism and political engagement."