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Dr.M
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Depends on the person, to me it doesn't seem "right", yes we know people jumped out of buildings but it seems like it would be provoking to those who lost family/friends during 9/11.
WTC sculpture - a new low in taste and decorum?
- Thread starter mekannik
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Dr.M
Guest
Kind of an in your face "HEY REMEMBER THIS, THIS WAS YOUR SISTER", yeah, kinda fucked.
smokinghawk
New member
I found it to be a work of extraordinary beauty and power. Why?
Not for the mere physical form. As an object, it was clunky and off-balance and awkward. But as a reference to life, it was wonderful. Not delightful, mind you, but stunning. For me, it helped me re-frame my memories of 9-11. Instead of it being a day of distant images of planes in distant buildings, followed by montages of flags and slow music and "United We Stand" stickers, it removed the experience from a television-only context (the only way I've experienced that day), and reminded me of the human tragedy.
By re-humanizing the moment, two effects occur to me:
First, I am angry that the sculptor forced me to remember that this was a human experience, not as political, or an architectural, experience. I can handle the tragic fate of buildings, but falling buildings aren't falling humans (no matter what our minds coldly *know* about what's inside).
Second, after being angry that he made me humanize the event again, I felt like real life was wonderfully affirmed. Not through the depiction of death, but by the reminder that we still have emotional reactions--a caretaking instinct--for strangers who are devastated right before our eyes. I realized that I was angry and offended because it evoked something precious in me: empathy and compassion for a fallen human, no matter how anonymous and disconnected from me she is. Our outrage proves our humanity. Our outrages proves we are not barbaric or cold.
That realization brings me to hope that despite the ugliness of the moment the art captures, it provokes a reaction in us based on our collective sense of sanctity for human life, and our unified desire to see pain and destruction done away with.
It stunned us into seeing the day as a human day in which human emotional connectivity is challenged--and triumphant.
Not for the mere physical form. As an object, it was clunky and off-balance and awkward. But as a reference to life, it was wonderful. Not delightful, mind you, but stunning. For me, it helped me re-frame my memories of 9-11. Instead of it being a day of distant images of planes in distant buildings, followed by montages of flags and slow music and "United We Stand" stickers, it removed the experience from a television-only context (the only way I've experienced that day), and reminded me of the human tragedy.
By re-humanizing the moment, two effects occur to me:
First, I am angry that the sculptor forced me to remember that this was a human experience, not as political, or an architectural, experience. I can handle the tragic fate of buildings, but falling buildings aren't falling humans (no matter what our minds coldly *know* about what's inside).
Second, after being angry that he made me humanize the event again, I felt like real life was wonderfully affirmed. Not through the depiction of death, but by the reminder that we still have emotional reactions--a caretaking instinct--for strangers who are devastated right before our eyes. I realized that I was angry and offended because it evoked something precious in me: empathy and compassion for a fallen human, no matter how anonymous and disconnected from me she is. Our outrage proves our humanity. Our outrages proves we are not barbaric or cold.
That realization brings me to hope that despite the ugliness of the moment the art captures, it provokes a reaction in us based on our collective sense of sanctity for human life, and our unified desire to see pain and destruction done away with.
It stunned us into seeing the day as a human day in which human emotional connectivity is challenged--and triumphant.
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