This project is not a project in its practical sense and also cannot be classified as a research project; let us place it in the context of reflections and notes under construction.

The truth is that the habit of wandering through satellite images of Cairo began years ago, and I saw in the map something beyond it being a two-dimensional image on a screen, especially after the appearance of the time-travel feature in Google Earth.

Our usual knowledge of maps is that they are a means not only to know the coordinates of a place or even to find where Uncle Bashandy is located (Egyptian beans and falafel shop in Nasr City, Cairo), because Google Earth has made the map today more than just a digital image. Today you can open Google Maps and search for the best kebab place near you, see restaurant ratings and rate places yourself and share their photos, and follow the path of your movement across an infinite number of days, and many options that have made the user an active and participating element in the formation of the map.

But despite that, within the folds of the false neutrality of maps, there is a lot of imperialism; maps are closely tied to empires, because how would this patch be known as an empire without imposing borders on it? And along this line of thought, our dear Google Earth, with its appearance in 2005, falls under the same consideration. The digital images of maps available to everyone are images that represent, in one way or another, a unique form of domination through drawing borders or classifying lands to produce knowledge and political authority for imposing borders. The examples in the Middle East are present, for example changing the name of Palestine on the map in a way that imposes a kind of control that, in its essence, is not different at all from military control (and if you don’t like the names, go drink from the sea).

With the beginning of flexibility in computer-based mapping methods, the representation of different data on the map began to appear; from population census maps to maps of weather, disease, poverty, and many other important pieces of information through which you can control users’ inputs. In general, the map is not truthful and hides many facts; because in the end it is a two-dimensional representation of a real world full of different interactions. Monmonier wrote in his book “How to Lie with Maps,” describing the one sidedness of map representation:

''A good map tells a multitude of little white lies; it suppresses truth to help the user see what needs to be seen. Reality is three-dimensional, rich in detail, and far too factual to allow a complete yet uncluttered two-dimensional graphic scale model. Indeed, a map that did not generalize would be useless. But the value of a map depends on how well its generalized geometry and generalized content reflect a chosen aspect of reality.'' (1996: 25)

Sometimes this simplification is damaging to reality, but without it there would be a visual distortion that is difficult for the human eye to read. And generally, through that simplification, some distortions also appeared in the form of the map. For example, the common map in classrooms and the one known to everyone -the Mercator projection- basically took this formation to make Europe the center of the earth. But of course, my dear, in our Egyptian school curricula, the first geography lesson in fourth grade was about the centrality of Egypt and that it is exactly in the middle of the world. The truth is, since then I have been asking myself: since the earth is spherical, does the surface of the sphere actually have a center? And I realized that the centrality of Egypt is also (a nice little snack to magnify the country’s status).

At the heart of this subject, Google Earth made many features available which witness only a little of in our dear homeland; features such as Street View, which was added in 2008, and which after almost 20 years is still not available in our beloved country. And I claim that it is not negligence from Google, God forbid, but surely a preventive measure from the concerned authorities in Egypt. But the comic irony is that the local security obsession makes the police officer use his spying instinct to prevent any individual from photographing the street in the name of “national security,” while today you can reveal the map of the country in its finest details from above! Meaning, the sky is open, but the street has been blocked by citizens and visitors. This ban succeeded in producing a shattered memory for the citizen, an archive fit only for a country developing in its economy and rich in its fabric. And also, other features such as the Flight Simulator, through which one can see three-dimensional representations of buildings, trees, and others in cities, reaching the Historical Timeline feature, through which one can return to the archive and see images of maps from different times in some places, such as San Francisco in 1946.

And continuing from the fact that Google is not a charity but rather operates fundamentally on a capitalist system that created a modern digital empire, it alone decides who can have a visible past and who falls into the darkness of digital shadow. Imagine the archive and the amount of information made available by these features, which we also lack; it is difficult to find this amount of information available to everyone in most developing countries. Even the only feature that can be exploited, which is the timeline, when I tried to return to the archive in Egypt, I found that before 2002, in truth, it is very difficult to read.

Seeing the map as a representation of the cultural and political compositions of the lived society within it, and that the map is deeper than being a two-dimensional image, can make us more aware that space is not merely a pre-existing void, but rather the product of life practices that affect us as much as we affect them. Two-dimensional images have an effect that could be a motive for a societal movement toward change, a change that can be represented in many societal and governmental practices aiming for a better void for everyone.

And from here I will begin documenting map images for some places in Egypt. I will include a page on my personal website, and I will add to it more maps of different places starting with Cairo. And despite the poor quality of the images before 2002, which shows the extent of data poverty in our dear country, this is an initiative through which I try to create a counter-archive through the timeline; to shed light on the sweeping urban change in Cairo and its suburbs, a catastrophe that began with dealing with the map as if it really were a two-dimensional medium, a medium in which you can drag a pen with an axis or a bridge, so you erase the sense of place and the collective memory of Egyptians; a change that builds replacement and class separation and restricts the simplest human rights to life; a change in which there is no place for Abu El-Feda Corniche and Saddam’s foul cart... aftermath.

Cairo, Egypt (1984-2026)

Abdelaziz Fahmy St, Cairo, Egypt (2003-2026)

Al Hegaz St , Cairo, Egypt (2003-2026)

Alf Maskan , Cairo, Egypt (2004-2026)

Azbakeya Garden, Cairo, Egypt (2003-2026_

Al Sakakini, Ghamrah, Cairo, Egypt (2003-2026)

Al Abbasia, Ramsis st, Cairo, Egypt (2003-2026)

Child Park, Nas City, Cairo, Egypt (2003-2026)

Ain Shams University Campus, Cairo, Egypt (2003-2026)

Al Amiriyyah, Cairo, Egypt (2003-2026)

Al Marg Al Qebleyah, Egypt (2004-2025)

Alsayda Nafisa sq, Cairo, Egypt (2007-2026)

Nasr City, Cairo, Egypt (2004-2026)

Al Zaitoun, Cairo, Egypt (2003-2026)

Delta, Egypt (1984-2026)