Egypt

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Photography

End of the World Cinema: An Abandoned Outdoor Movie Theater in the Desert of Sinai

Somewhere on the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt, nestled at the foot of a desert mountain range, sits a peculiar sight that is almost completely out of place: hundreds of seats for an outdoor movie theater. Estonian photographer Kaupo Kikkas recently visited the desolate location and brought back these amazing shots of a decaying dream. He shares via his blog that the theater was built not too long ago by a man from France with considerable means. Tons of old seats and a generator were hauled in from Cairo, not to mention a giant screen that looked like the sail of a ship.

Everything was set for opening night, with one small problem. Kikkas says the locals weren’t particularly keen on the whole idea and decided to discreetly sabotage the generator. A single movie was never screened. So now it sits in the middle of a desert, a random movie theater that was never used. You can still see it on Google Maps. (via Lustik, Abandoned Geography)

Art

Desert Breath: A Monumental Land Art Installation in the Sahara Desert

Located near the Red Sea in El Gouna, Egypt, Desert Breath is an impossibly immense land art installation dug into the sands of the Sahara desert by the D.A.ST. Arteam back in 1997. The artwork was a collaborative effort spanning two years between installation artist Danae Stratou, industrial designer Alexandra Stratou, and architect Stella Constantinides, and was meant as an exploration of infinity against the backdrop of the largest African desert. Covering an area of about 1 million square feet (100,000 square meters) the piece involved the displacement of 280,000 square feet (8,000 square meters) of sand and the creation of a large central pool of water.

Although it’s in a slow state of disintegration, Desert Breath remains viewable some 17 years after its completion, you can even see it in satellite images taken from Google Earth. You can learn more about the project in the video above or read about it here. (via Visual News, Synaptic Stimuli)