#Jan 25, 2012

Barry R. Jones

Austin Peay State University

Like a lot of people, I was an arm chair witness to the revolution in Egypt. While I was glued to my computer for hours on end, I found that following the events on Twitter provided better real time information than more traditional news outlets. Many of the protesters in Cairo's Tahrir Square were using Twitter as a way to communicate with each other and to update the world on events taking place. Most were using the hashtag #jan25 (the revolution began on January 25th, 2011) with their posts, making it easy to keep up with events. Watching the drama unfold on Twitter was a direct and honest experience.

Using a portable battery system and projector, I projected tweets from January 25 on buildings throughout Clarksville, TN. Projecting these words as large as possible in public spaces gave them a great sense of importance and monumentality. Democracy is a very delicate thing that requires a lot of work and attention. It is good for us in the US to be reminded of that.

Nadia Idle and Alex Nunns edited a wonderful book title Tweets from Tahrir and graciously allowed me to use their book as a source for this project.






Biography

Barry R. Jones is an associate professor at Austin Peay State University. His work is about ethics and it asks the oldest of questions: what does it mean to live a good life? What is our responsibility to each other, to our families, to those with disabilities, to the past? In the face of tragedy how do we reaffirm that life is good. These are the themes of his work. He lives in Clarksville, TN with his wife, Jennifer, and their four children, Marlena, Aidan, Hope and Elliott. He also works in the audio/ video collaborative Black & Jones and perform in the vj duo [fladry + jones]. You can find him on Twitter and on Facebook. You can find the stuff he teaches here.

 
 
 
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