Literature
How many words does it take to make a persuasive argument? What if images were used not just to supplement but to forward and develop an 'essay' in which words did not have obvious priority? I imagine a blog posting assignment that would require students to make an argument out of culled images (from Google images, camera phones, digital cameras, etc.), followed by a very deemphasized amount of written explication. For example:
Two of these photos are of Dennis Oppenheim's art installation "Flying Gardens" (2004) at the Sacramento airport, two photos are from 11 September 2001, and two are of a collapsed section of Charles de Gaulle airport outside of Paris (23 May 2004). In each of these pairs, one photo was taken from a personal camera phone. My argument is that post-9/11 airport aesthetics?ranging from visual art to camera-phone photojournalism?reference the images produced by the spectacle of 9/11.
This aesthetic trend comes through literature, as well. Don DeLillo?s 2007 novel Falling Man imagines the videotaped specter of a 9/11 hijacker-in-training. Hammad, the terrorist-to-be, dwells on his own spectacular exposure two times: ?He watched TV in a bar near the flight school and liked to imagine himself appearing on the screen, a videotaped figure walking through the gate-like detector on his way to the plane? (173). And a few pages later: ?When he walks down the bright aisle [of a supermarket] he thinks a thousand times in one second about what is coming. Clean-shaven, on videotape, passing through the metal detector? (177-178). This literary scene alludes to the widely disseminated photo of Mohammad Atta clearing airport security in Portland, Maine:
There are ties between the ways that airports and terrorism are rendered aesthetic through contemporary visual media.
Works Cited
DeLillo, Don. Falling Man. New York: Scribner, 2007.
- Jet Bridges
neither airport nor airplane... My Object Lessons essay on jet bridges was published this week at The Atlantic. Here are a few additional images to ponder... A completely bland jet bridge interior appears in a passing scene in the film Killing...
- It's In The Air
A short essay about my airport work?cleaning out aircraft seat-back pockets at night?is in the current issue of Narrative magazine. Meanwhile, over at Room 220 Nate Martin recently discussed the fantastic atmospheric photographs of JFK by Sophie Lvoff,...
- Pam Houston, Airplane Reader
It was in late 2003 or early 2004 when I first met Pam Houston. We were on an early morning airport run from Davis, CA to the Sacramento airport. To get from Davis to the airport, you have to hurtle across a spindly causeway that spans the swollen lowlands...
- Some Recent & Current Things
Tarmac watching at O'Hare Carolyn Kellogg wrote a very nice review of Checking In / Checking Out in the LA Times Books section. And Nicole Sheets gave the book and Airplane Reading a kind mention at Wanderlust and Lipstick. Meanwhile, I've been...
- On Airport Food
I'm quoted in an article on airport food in The New York Times this week. When Joe Sharkey originally asked me the two questions?1. Do you have a strategy for dining in airports? and 2. From your perspective how has the airport dining experience changed...
Literature
The 9/11 Digital Image Essay
How many words does it take to make a persuasive argument? What if images were used not just to supplement but to forward and develop an 'essay' in which words did not have obvious priority? I imagine a blog posting assignment that would require students to make an argument out of culled images (from Google images, camera phones, digital cameras, etc.), followed by a very deemphasized amount of written explication. For example:
Two of these photos are of Dennis Oppenheim's art installation "Flying Gardens" (2004) at the Sacramento airport, two photos are from 11 September 2001, and two are of a collapsed section of Charles de Gaulle airport outside of Paris (23 May 2004). In each of these pairs, one photo was taken from a personal camera phone. My argument is that post-9/11 airport aesthetics?ranging from visual art to camera-phone photojournalism?reference the images produced by the spectacle of 9/11.
This aesthetic trend comes through literature, as well. Don DeLillo?s 2007 novel Falling Man imagines the videotaped specter of a 9/11 hijacker-in-training. Hammad, the terrorist-to-be, dwells on his own spectacular exposure two times: ?He watched TV in a bar near the flight school and liked to imagine himself appearing on the screen, a videotaped figure walking through the gate-like detector on his way to the plane? (173). And a few pages later: ?When he walks down the bright aisle [of a supermarket] he thinks a thousand times in one second about what is coming. Clean-shaven, on videotape, passing through the metal detector? (177-178). This literary scene alludes to the widely disseminated photo of Mohammad Atta clearing airport security in Portland, Maine:
There are ties between the ways that airports and terrorism are rendered aesthetic through contemporary visual media.
Works Cited
DeLillo, Don. Falling Man. New York: Scribner, 2007.
- Jet Bridges
neither airport nor airplane... My Object Lessons essay on jet bridges was published this week at The Atlantic. Here are a few additional images to ponder... A completely bland jet bridge interior appears in a passing scene in the film Killing...
- It's In The Air
A short essay about my airport work?cleaning out aircraft seat-back pockets at night?is in the current issue of Narrative magazine. Meanwhile, over at Room 220 Nate Martin recently discussed the fantastic atmospheric photographs of JFK by Sophie Lvoff,...
- Pam Houston, Airplane Reader
It was in late 2003 or early 2004 when I first met Pam Houston. We were on an early morning airport run from Davis, CA to the Sacramento airport. To get from Davis to the airport, you have to hurtle across a spindly causeway that spans the swollen lowlands...
- Some Recent & Current Things
Tarmac watching at O'Hare Carolyn Kellogg wrote a very nice review of Checking In / Checking Out in the LA Times Books section. And Nicole Sheets gave the book and Airplane Reading a kind mention at Wanderlust and Lipstick. Meanwhile, I've been...
- On Airport Food
I'm quoted in an article on airport food in The New York Times this week. When Joe Sharkey originally asked me the two questions?1. Do you have a strategy for dining in airports? and 2. From your perspective how has the airport dining experience changed...