viz.

Image Credit : Timothy Schubert

As Cate’s post from last week illustrates, while we continue to be affected by the events of 9/11, we’re also faced with the task of interpreting an expansive and wide-reaching 9/11 memorial culture.

 In a recent NYT Op/Ed, when remembering the attacks, Charles M. Blow wrote, “I saw images of small figures that looked liked birds outside the towers. Only they weren’t birds, they were people, forced out by the flames, forced to make an impossible choice under impossible circumstances.” What’s odd is that Blow’s statement came before the memorial events of this year, when two beams of light were blasted into the night sky. The gesture, which oddly recalled the “bat signal,” attracted 10,000 migrating birds, which were subsequently driven into a frenzy and thrown off course.

Having first learned of the incident via a story on NPR’s All Things Considered, my interpretive cues were aural ones. Hearing the recorded flapping of thousands of wings left me only to imagine the scene until I saw the pictures and video posted on gizmodo.

Image Credit: Robert Berjarano

Video Credit: Robert Berjarano

Curiously, the blogger describes the incident and its accompanying images as “spooky.” Indeed, that a stream of “terrorized” birds overtook the celebration is remarkable, especially given Blow’s comments about the way in which those fleeing the towers those years ago took on an avian appearance.

But I’ll go a step further and ask whether such "spookiness" provides an occasion for us to reconsider whether blasting two streams of light can really be the most appropriate form of memorial given such (unintended) consequences and our growing energy concerns.  

To illustrate my point, I shift to the work of National Geographic photographer Jim Richardson who documents light pollution and its effects. The image below shows a group of local school children hovering over a display of Toronto's light pollution “victims."

Image Credit: Jim Richardson

Although the image depicts an educational occasion, it also portrays, quite obviously, such a morbid one. Furthermore, I can’t help but think that the shape of the sheet as well as the arrangement of the dead birds visually recalls the appearance of an American flag.

In these cases, to revise Emily Dickinson, hope is not necessarily the thing with feathers.