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The Spatial Imagery of Fractal Narratives: Marwan Hamed's

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The Egyptian film The Yacoubian Building (2006) is a mosaic of interrelated characters who all live in the same building that exists in Downtown Cairo. Referred to as the social microcosm genre, the film ensembles a large cast of people who go about their lives crisscrossing and sometimes colliding, all joined together by chance. Such unrelated stories interacting in unpredictable ways are known as fractals. This paper aims to explore and comprehend the notion of fractals as spatial narratives where space is entirely structured by complexity and unexpected encounters, rather than linearity and order. The research framework overlaps two theories of fractals. The first is the notion of fractal city drawn from the writings of Greek urban theorist Nikos Salingaros where he highlights urban growth and composition of spatial elements. The second is adopted from Professor Wendy Everett from the University of Bath who examines the idea of complexity in filmic narratives. Through examining The Yacoubian building (2006), the paper attempts to layer the physical and non-physical aspects of fractals, i.e. the actual Yacoubian building, its physicality against the backdrop of its socio-political historical layers, overlayered with the notion of fate and randomness containing the intertwined narratives of our characters.

Keywords: Abstract vs. Physical Representation ; Cairo ; Complexity ; Fractals ; History ; Interrelated Characters ; Megacity ; Microcosm Genre ; Modernism ; Society ; Spatial ; Stories ; Urban Growth

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The Spatial Imagery of Fractal Narratives: Marwan Hamed's The Yacoubian Building
Intellect , 44 (2024); https://doi.org/10.1386/9781789389807_4
/content/books/9781789389807.c02
/content/books/9781789389807.c02
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References

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  5. Anderson, Phillip. ‘More Is Different: Broken Symmetry and the Nature of the Hierarchal Structure of Science.’ Science 177, no. 4047 (1972): 393–96.
     [Google Scholar]
  6. Armbrust, Walter. ‘When the Lights Go Down in Cairo: Cinema as Global Crossroads and Space of Playful Resistance.’ In Cairo Cosmopolitan: Politics, Culture, and Urban Space in the New Globalized Middle East, edited by D. Singerman and P. Amar, 415–45. Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 2006.
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  12. De Koning, Anouk. Global Dreams: Class, Gender and Public Space in Cosmopolitan Cairo. Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 2009.
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  13. Duarte, German. Fractal Narrative: About the Relationship Between Geometries and Technology and Its Impact on Narrative Spaces. Belfield: transcript Verlag, 2014.
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  14. Everett, Wendy. ‘Fractal Films and the Architecture of Complexity.’ Studies in European Cinema 2, no. 3 (2005): 159–71.
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  15. French, Philip. ‘Magnolia.’ The Guardian (March 19, 2000). Accessed July 21, 2020. https://www.theguardian.com/film/News_Story/Critic_Review/Observer_review/0,,148600,00.html.
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  19. Hamed, Marwan, dir. The Yacoubian Building. Egypt: Arab Co. for Cinema Production & Distribution, 2006.
     [Google Scholar]
  20. Harvey, David. A Brief History of Neoliberalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.
     [Google Scholar]
  21. Havik, Maria Klaske. ‘Transcription: Addressing the Interactivity between Urban and Architectural Spaces and Their Use.’ In Exploring the Spatiality of the City across Cultural Texts: Narrating Spaces, Reading Urbanity, edited by M. Kindermann and R. Rohleder, 121–41. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020.
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  22. Hawking, Stephen. The Universe in a Nutshell. London: Bantam Press, 2001.
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  23. Jeunet, Jean-Pierre, dir. Amélie. France: Canal+ & France 3 Cinéma, 2001.
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  24. Johnson, Doyle. Contemporary Sociological Theory: An Integrated Multi-Level Approach. Texas: Springer, 2008.
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  25. Monod, Jacques. Chance and Necessity: Essay on the Natural Philosophy of Modern Biology, translated by A. Wainhouse. New York: Vintage Books, 1972.
     [Google Scholar]
  26. Myntti, Cynthia. Paris along the Nile: Architecture in Cairo from the Belle Époque. Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 1999.
     [Google Scholar]
  27. Osman, Tarek. ‘Rereading The Yacoubian Building.’ The Cairo Review of Global Affairs, March 6, 2016. Accessed August 3, 2020. https://www.thecairoreview.com/tahrir-forum/rereading-the-yacoubian-building-a-decade-later/.
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  29. Salingaros, Nikos. ‘Complexity and Urban Coherence.’ Journal of Urban Design 5, no. 3 (2000): 291–316.65
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  30. Salingaros, Nikos. ‘Connecting the Fractal City.’ 5th Biennial of Towns and Town Planners in Europe, April 2003. Accessed May 16, 2021. https://www.fractal.org/Samenhang-Industrieel-Ontwerpen/Connecting-the-Fractal-City.htm.
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  32. Tartoussieh, Karim. ‘The Yacoubian Building: A Slice of Pre-January 25 Egyptian Society?’ Cinema Journal 52, no. 1 (2012): 156–59.
     [Google Scholar]
  33. Tschumi, Bernard. The Manhattan Transcripts. London: Academy Editions, 1994.
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  34. Turan, Ayşegül. ‘Spaces of Memory and Memories of Space in Alaa al-Aswany's The Yacoubian Building and Elif Shafak's The Flea Palace.’ Neohelicon 46 (2019): 485–96.
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