ABSTRACT
Tourist destinations became grim and art became predominantly political. Tehran murals – real, temporary, virtual, political or apolitical – invite outside viewers to a kind of attractive destination that will presumably give them a glance into one of the few places far from the homogenizing forces of capitalism where commercial murals take over everything else. This chapter introduces some aspects of murals in relation to the Islamic Republic ideology, and then move to Tehran's aestheticization movement (involving murals) and its connection to local and regional tourism or the lack thereof. The social media networks to discuss a lesser-known aspect of the experience of viewing murals in the context of global tourist voyeurism and (dis)embodied tourism. Social networks help construct a new social networks help construct a new environments. The countercultural murals have gone viral in social media spheres where local and diasporic Iranians, as well as those interested in change in Iran, (re)produce and consume such imagery.
