| The following project considers the formative role of missing and/or elided visual phenomena within what I call the "aftermedia" of the event, those modes of representation (photography, film, painting and sculpture) not involved or only indirectly involved in the "live" presentation of 9/11. Under consideration are not only blatantly censored images such as the Guernica reproduction at the United Nations that was covered on the day that Colin Powell announced plans to invade Iraq, but also active experiences of invisibility. Examples of the latter include the tourist's experience of the city while atop the observation deck of the World Trade Center, the camera's interruption of vision as amateur photographers documented the collapse of the Towers and the affective charge of Richard Drew's Falling Man photograph, which relies upon a powerful, but unconscious memory. Throughout these case studies, the larger claim being made is that absence, defined in terms of censored images and/or images whose content is somehow shadowed by negativity, operates as an active presence in the visual culture of traumatic events such as 9/11.;In considering the unique status of analog media in light of the advent of digital formats, this inquiry attempts to expose the limitations of prevailing theories of trauma studies with regard to the 21st century disaster. Of particular importance in this discussion is the way in which the varying temporalities that are brought about by the interaction of these two modes of representation diverge from the traditional understanding of trauma. In order to catalog this convergence, this project utilizes a visual studies approach which places the individual object or visual experience within a web of interconnecting phenomena. |
