Beirut and visual culture: Topologies of control and contestation, from mapping to satellite broadcasting, 1920--2008

The visualization of space has been central to the history of Beirut, which is also a vitally important node in the landscape of Arab media. This study critically examines the historical relationship between media technology and urban space in Beirut to critically reflect on visual culture in the Arab world. It contextualizes contemporary political events in light of the historical role of imaging in attempts to shape the city. The study draws on archival and textual material in Beirut—such as maps, aerial photographs, urban plans, street posters, real estate advertising and industry films, and live televisual events—and is supplemented by interviews with engineers, urban planners, architects, journalists, and finance professionals. The study puts the role of live satellite media in two events—the 2006 Israel-Hizballah war and the Hizballah-led sit-in protests—in a broader historical context of urban exclusion and contestation in Beirut. This history is examined through the intersection of the social life of maps and mapping with the economic priorities and urban planning regimes in the period from the French Mandate through the end of the Lebanese Civil War, and the crucial role of technical imaging (especially digital technology such as GIS) and popular texts in the cultural economy of postwar construction. As the spatial and political fragmentation of Beirut has inadvertently shaped Arab broadcast media more broadly, I argue that the geopolitically tenuous position of Hizballah's Al Manar satellite channel embodies a paradox of contemporary visual culture, namely an aesthetic tension between modalities of display and concealment. I draw conclusions about the visual formation of urban ethno-religious difference in the era of satellite and digital media.