 |
| dialektic im stillstand |
Thomas Hoepker took this picture (below) of young people sitting on the Brooklyn waterfront on 9/11/01, of which he says: "The picture, I felt, was ambiguous and confusing: Publishing it might distort the reality as we had felt it on that historic day. I had seen and read about the outpouring of compassion of New Yorkers toward the stricken families, the acts of heroism by firefighters, police, and anonymous helpers... [the] shot didn't "feel right" at this moment and I put it in the "B" box of rejected images... "
 |
| Young people on the Brooklyn waterfront on Sept. 11 |
Now, distanced from the actual event, the picture seemed strange and surreal. It asked questions but provided no answers. How could disaster descend on such a beautiful day? How could this group of cool-looking young people sit there so relaxed and seemingly untouched by the mother of all catastrophes which unfolded in the background? Was this the callousness of a generation, which had seen too much CNN and too many horror movies? Or was it just the devious lie of a snapshot, which ignored the seconds before and after I had clicked the shutter? Maybe this group had just gone through agony and catharsis or a long-concerned discussion? Was everyone supposed to run around with a worried look on that day or the weeks after 9/11? How would I have looked on that day to a distanced observer? Probably like a coldhearted reporter, geared to shoot the pictures of his life. I just remember that I was in shock, confused, scared, disoriented, and emotional, but trying hard to stay focused on getting my snaps." And I just think its astonishing and I am reminded of Brueghel's painting and Auden's poem Musee des Beaux Arts and the boy Icarus!
In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away‘Oh,’ dialektic im stillstand - dialectics at a standstill - that amazing Icarus boy ignored, the ordinary smashing up against the extraordinary, and everything shaking just a little bit. As Auden suggests in his poem, the juxtaposition between the ordinary events and extraordinary ones collide and are worth recording as an arrested moment of experience, of something new which will not stand still, for it will never be new again, but will always be starting over. And perhaps there is a paper waiting to be written on the Benjamin / Breughel / Auden / Hoepker connections - pondering... how can a poor man share such times and live...
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.
