9/11 and the Visual Culture of Disaster Indiana University Press Bloomington & Indianapolis 9
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9/11 and the Visual Culture of Disaster Indiana University Press Bloomington & Indianapolis 9/ and the Visual Culture of Disaster THOMAS STUBBLEFIELD This book is a publication of ∞ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of Indiana University Press the American National Standard for Office of Scholarly Publishing Information Sciences–Permanence of Herman B Wells Library 350 Paper for Printed Library Materials, 1320 East 10th Street ANSI Z39.48–1992. Bloomington, Indiana 47405 USA Manufactured in the iupress.indiana.edu United States of America Telephone 800-842-6796 Library of Congress Fax 812-855-7931 Cataloging-in-Publication Data © 2015 by Thomas Stubblefield Stubblefield, Thomas. 9/11 and the visual culture of disaster / All rights reserved Thomas Stubblefield. pages cm No part of this book may be repro- Includes bibliographical references and duced or utilized in any form or by index. any means, electronic or mechanical, ISBN 978-0-253-01549-5 (cloth : alk. including photocopying and recording, paper) – ISBN 978-0-253-01556-3 (pbk. : or by any information storage and alk. paper) – ISBN 978-0-253-01563-1 retrieval system, without permission (ebook) 1. September 11 Terrorist in writing from the publisher. The Attacks, 2001 – Influence. 2. September 11 Association of American University Terrorist Attacks, 2001, in mass media. 3. Presses’ Resolution on Permissions September 11 Terrorist Attacks, 2001, in constitutes the only exception to this art. 4. Emptiness (Philosophy) I. Title. prohibition. HV6432.7.S78 2014 973.931 – dc23 2014029044 1 2 3 4 5 20 19 18 17 16 15 For C. D. S. This page intentionally left blank Contents · Acknowledgments ix · Introduction: Spectacle and Its Other 2 1 From Latent to Live: Disaster Photography after the Digital Turn 26 2 Origins of Affect: The Falling Body and Other Symptoms of Cinema 54 3 Remembering-Images: Empty Cities, Machinic Vision, and the Post-9/11 Imaginary 86 4 Lights, Camera, Iconoclasm: How Do Monuments Die and Live to Tell about It? 124 5 The Failure of the Failure of Images: The Crisis of the Unrepresentable from the Graphic Novel to the 9/11 Memorial 152 · Conclusion: Disaster(s) without Content 180 · Notes 189 · Bibliography 217 · Index 229 This page intentionally left blank Acknowledgments As pieces of this book have passed through so many skilled and caring hands over the past decade, it is impossible to faithfully represent the full catalog of those who have helped bring it into being. What I offer here represents only a small sampling of the many individuals who have participated in the ongoing conversation. I initially began to wrestle with issues surrounding the visual cul- ture of 9/11 in 2004 while pursuing my master’s degree in art history at the University of Illinois, Chicago. Throughout these early investiga- tions, I was encouraged and inspired by Bob Bruegmann, Peter Hales, Hannah Higgins, and Woodman Taylor. Together, they not only pushed me to clarify and develop my ideas further, but introduced the possibil- ity of my one day turning this project into a book. For that, I am eter- nally grateful. Several years later, the project was given new life at the Visual Studies Program at the University of California, Irvine. Anyone familiar with the unique interdisciplinary spirit of the program will immediately see its influence on my methodology and overall approach to visual culture. It is hard to imagine having the same opportunity to pursue these questions across such a disparate field of media at any other program at the time. I would like to thank Peter Krapp, who was (and remains) extraor- dinarily giving of his time. Peter can always be counted on for a relevant source or thought-provoking question. Additionally, Cécile Whiting offered tireless and timely feedback throughout. I am also grateful to Martin Schwab, who had the uncanny ability to force me to revisit the assumptions of my argument with a single well-placed question. Mark ix x Acknowledgments Poster too proved an invaluable resource, particularly with regard to helping me to build the theoretical toolbox that this project necessi- tated. I will never read Foucault without thinking of him. In addition, my interaction with colleagues in the program was critical in helping me to sculpt my ideas into the form that they would eventually take. For this, I thank Chris Balaschak, Kim Beil, Mark Cunningham, Doug- las Hodapp, Ari Laskin, Tim Seiber, Sami Siegelbaum, Nicole Woods- Beckton, and Ken Yoshida. It is also important to acknowledge the gen- erosity of the University of California, Irvine, in this endeavor. The Chancellor’s Fellowship, numerous traveling grants from the Interna- tional Center for Writing and Translation and the School of the Hu- manities, and a Summer Dissertation Research Fellowship allowed me to dedicate myself more fully to this project and are in no small part responsible for its success. This project has come to full fruition while I have been working as professor in the Art History Department at the University of Mas- sachusetts, Dartmouth. Throughout the endless revisions, I have ben- efited tremendously from the guidance and support of Anna Dempsey, Memory Holloway, Pamela Karimi, Hallie Meredith, Erin Sassin, and Michael Taylor. Allison Cywin and Charlene Ryder helped enormously in the endless hunt to procure images and essays. In addition, I am in- debted to the students of the College of Visual and Performing Arts at UMD, especially those in two classes, The Visual Culture of Disaster and Theory of Photography, who kept me on my toes and forced me to keep my ideas fresh and relevant. I also want to thank Indiana University Press for its diligence and commitment to this project. In particular, I would like to express my gratitude to my editor, Raina Polivka, who believed in the book from the beginning and worked tirelessly to bring it into being. Jenna Whittaker deserves ample credit for somehow ensuring that everything moved for- ward while at the same time always looking over my materials with a con- scientious and critical eye. Eric Levy provided the fine-tooth comb and meticulous scrutiny that was needed to my whip my prose into shape. I am also very appreciative of the insightful suggestions and comments of the outside readers. Additionally, I want to acknowledge Tom Gunning, Acknowledgments xi who fielded my questions about the representation of falling bodies in early film with characteristic expertise and generosity. Finally, I want to thank Barbara, Dave, David, and Trisha Stubble- field for their unwavering support, Hayden, Zoey, and Damien for inter- jecting some much-needed perspective throughout, and Karen, whose gentle nature and wild optimism make all things appear obtainable. This page intentionally left blank 9/11 and the Visual Culture of Disaster I don’t know what we’ll see when the smoke clears . but I fear it may be nothing. Lynne Sharon Schwartz, The Writing on the Wall 2 Introduction Spectacle and Its Other The collision of the jet passenger planes with the Twin Towers, their subsequent collapse into nothingness, the ominous absence within the smoke-filled skyline, the busy streets of Manhattan turned disaster movie – these scenes were images as much or more than actual events.1 The hard truth of this realization came less than a week after the attacks when Karlheinz Stockhausen described the disaster as “the greatest work of art that is possible in the whole cosmos” and once again on the eve of the one-year anniversary of 9/11 when Damien Hirst expressed his admiration for the terrorists’ ability to create such a “vis ually stun- ning” piece of art.2 With the remains of the dead still being sifted out of the rubble at Ground Zero and the Tribute in Light beaming into the night sky as a daily reminder of the horrific events of the day, it was all but impossible to see through the callousness and publicity-driven nature of these remarks at the time. Eventually, however, as references to the Hollywood disaster movie and the rhetoric of the sublime rever- berated throughout popular discourse, the realization set in that the eerily photogenic quality of the event was not a coincidence. Rather, as Stockhausen and Hirst suggest, the attack was aimed at and made for the image. As a result, the disaster appeared tailor-made for a familiar post- modern discourse. In a discussion with Jürgen Habermas held only days after the attack, Jacques Derrida catalyzed this response by noting that the shared interest of “maximum media coverage” between the perpe- trators and victims of 9/11 reflected a pervasive desire to “spectacularize the event.”3 Not long after, Samuel Weber diagnosed the “theatricaliza- 3 4 9/11 and the Visual Culture of Disaster 0.1. Paul Fusco, Tribute in Light, 2002. By permission of Magnum Photos. tion” of the attack and subsequent retaliation as an escalation in war- as-spectacle, one which shifted the stakes of the conflict from a specific geographical space or national identity to the media itself.4 Summarizing what has since become a refrain within the scholarship of 9/11, Katalin Orbán describes the disaster as a “constitutively visual event that can (and did) become a real time global media spectacle, where maximum exposure, rather than concealment, ensures terror’s success as an act of communication.”5 While acknowledging the primacy of the image to the event, the enduring association of the disaster with spectacle served to obscure the fact that the experience of 9/11 and its aftermath was one in which absence, erasure, and invisibility dominated the frame in equal mea- sure. Following the logic of implosion rather than explosion, the World Trade Center withheld its contents from view as it fell; its stories “pan- caked” on top of one another rather than turning themselves inside out.