California Wildfire, American Apocalypse

October 15, 2008December 4, 2013
Hariman
catastrophe
3 Comments

At least since Nathanael West, artists have turned to California for periodic images of an American apocalypse. This photograph fits nicely into that category.

Cars stream along a Southern California highway as wildfires rage across the mountains. The fires seem all-consuming, yet beneath that terrible horizon motorists can still creep along in semi-darkness. Indeed, lights have to be turned on in the valley despite the radiant holocaust above. This fusion of fire and darkness seems a premonition of hell, perhaps the level reserved for those who are complacent amidst pending disaster.

The New York Times caption said that the traffic included residents fleeing their homes in the hills. The photo contains a larger story as well. Intensive automotive use is not the direct cause of the wildfires’ destructiveness, but it is a key part of a larger pattern of land use, resource consumption, and social organization that is the reason the fires burn so extensively and cause so much damage. Likewise, the combination of business-as-usual behavior on the highway (a good thing in itself, of course) and the emotional tone of the twilight exodus captures an attitude of normalcy-by-denial while suggesting its larger cost. That attitude will result in insurance claims being filed, homes rebuilt, and another turn of the wheel.

Perhaps one of the symptoms of a catastrophic culture is that people take more pride in surviving disaster than in preventing it. Nothing to brag about, of course, but calm, resolute determination to carry on during the worst of it and then rebuild. If a bridge collapses as happened in Minneapolis, then build a new and bigger bridge rather than reassess the mixture of automotive and light rail transportation. If the levees break as in New Orleans, rebuild the city right where it was rather than move it inland while improving on past inequities. If the financial markets collapse, shore up the banks rather than jettison the ideology that destroys public goods to fuel private greed.

Bearing up and rebuilding makes sense during a war, but the major economic and environmental damage of the 21st century has been self-inflicted. Take another look at the photograph. The End Time may not be here, but you may be looking at the last days of twentieth-century America.

Photograph by Dan Steinberg/Associated Press.

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Political Theater on the Trading Floor

October 13, 2008
Hariman
boots and hands economic optics the visual public
2 Comments

The collapse of the global financial markets is difficult to understand in part because it is difficult to visualize. That may be why there have been so many photographs of traders in various states of consternation or dismay. The shot is so conventional that photographers always are looking for a fresh angle, like this:

The trader on the right is literally laying down on the job. His more conventional associates don’t mind, however, because there is no longer a job to do. They might try to drone down into the disaster, but this guy knows better. That isn’t going to save him, however. He also looks like he’s laid out on a hospital gurney: the skin tone of his bare feet is picked up by the flesh colored shirt and bare head to suggest the vulnerability and dependency we experience when wearing a patient’s smock. He could be looking at his X-rays before they put him under. He’s cool but not in control; he’s just comfortable with not being in control.

The contrast between the the bare-footed patient and his environment pervades the image. Amidst the institutional decor, messy array of machines and printouts, and cyborg workers, he looks like a human being. The photo is unusual in featuring his composure, but still conventional in that it brings the global, systemic, structural collapse down to human scale. As does this:

From feet to hands, but to the same effect. Like the image above, this is both a conventional photo and an attempt to be distinctive. Just as there are many shots of trading floors littered with equipment and distracted traders, so are there many photos of people staring into screens that bear only bad news. And just as the first photo was keyed by those bare feet, here the trader’s hands define the picture. He, too, has stopped working–leaning back to hold his head as if it to keep in place while he watches the disaster unfold. Hands are symbols of work, and his have been taken off the task. They can’t stop the lethal dive depicted on the screen. Even so, they are young, strong, capable hands. The photo may be reassuring after all.

There is much to not like about the convention of reducing collective trauma to images of traders reacting to the news. The images are highly gendered, fragmentary depictions of isolated individuals. Anything like a social fabric or common good is left to the mise en scene of the market–what most of us would consider a seriously mistaken substitution. Worse, perhaps, the harm that will in fact be distributed across millions of lives for years to come is localized–as if only these guys are bearing the brunt of the crash.

The public often has to make do with less than optimal resources for understanding and judgment. These images have their problems, but they also may be an attempt to put a human face–and feet and hands–on the problem. Seeing the disaster as the operation of an alien system with its own harsh logic can only make the problem worse, destroying political will and accountability alike. These images are performances of the body politic–albeit the fragmented body politic of a liberal society–and they each offer a slightly different perspective and varied means for grasping and responding to the crisis.

But good theater will not always be reassuring. So it is that I’ll close with this image.

The intention to capture a distinctive image may seem to be all there is to the photo, but there is more. The hands on head cue attitudes of dismay and capability just as in the image above. This time, however, the economic data are not set apart from the trader, not placed in a safe distance in the background (or off screen as in the first photo). While looking at a screen, he has become a screen. Although still caught up in his human choreography, he appears completely subsumed under the operation of an alien system with its own harsh logic. This is not so reassuring.

And so we need other resources for dealing with our fate. Humor, for example. In this case, an excellent post labeled Sad Guys on Trading Floors. Dozens of photos, each with a clever caption. Enjoy the show.

Update: See also Images of a Crisis? at Spiegel online; the link comes courtesy of Conscientious. And here’s another variation on the theme: Traders with Hands on their Faces.

Photographs by Adi Weda/European Pressphoto Agency, Martin Oeser/Agence France-Presse-Getty Images, and Hassan Anmar/Associated Press.

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Sight Gag: If You Were A Train, What Would You Be?

Photo Credit: Anonymous E-Mail (With thanks to Maurice Charland who brought it to our attention).

“Sight Gags” is our weekly nod to the ironic and carnivalesque in a vibrant democratic public culture. We typically will not comment beyond offering an identifying label, leaving the images to “speak” for themselves as much as possible. Of course, we invite you to comment … and to send us images that you think capture the carnival of contemporary democratic public culture.

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Conference Paper Call: Imaging America

Imaging America

Papers and session proposals are invited for the conference “Imaging America,” a meeting of the Great Lakes American Studies Association (GLASA), which will be held at the University of Notre Dame, March 19-21, 2009. Deadline for submission has been extended to October 15, 2008.

Imaging America evokes themes that are both fundamental to the development of American Studies as a discipline, and representative of some of the most current research in the field. “Images” can refer both to visual or material representations and to the cultural impressions and expectations embodied in texts, oral traditions, or social performance. “America” is a contested term in American Studies, referring alternately to the United States and the Americas. As a theme for our conference, we hope that “Imaging America” will provide an opportunity for scholars and emerging scholars to enter a discussion about the boundaries, both literal and cultural, of America, as well as about the role of images in our analysis of America.

Proposed papers may consider any aspect and interpretation of the theme “Imaging America” including the following:

“America” conceived and defined as a place, land, nation, and people in terms of visual, cultural, and textual images and practices of mapping, naming, and/or cultural geography.

The transnational dimensions of “America” with expanded attention to the “Americas,” both north and south.

Stereotypes, competing cultural images of and from minority communities, including those defined by race, ethnicity, religion, class, gender, sexuality, ability, region.

The diversity of American religious iconography and images.

The production and cultural use of visual images, e.g. photography, art, advertising, and how new imaging technologies transform national, regional, and individual self-understanding and experience.

The ways in which America is “imaged” during political campaigns, especially the 2008 presidential election.

The roles that American images play in defining national subjectivity and determining who “counts” in the national imaginary.

The emotional and affective dimension of American images and icons, e.g. the flag, the soldier, the West.

Please send 200 word abstracts and c.v. by October 15, 2008 (electronic submission is preferred) to Erika Doss, Chair, Department of American Studies, University of Notre Dame, at: doss.2@nd.edu. Submissions may also be mailed to Sandra M. Gustafson, Department of English University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, IN 46556.

Participants will be notified of their acceptance by November 1. Graduate students are encouraged to apply; partial funding for conference travel may be available.

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Conference: Cold War Culture

Cold War Culture
Friday 21 & Saturday 22 November 2008
10.30-17.00 Lecture Theatre

Victoria and Albert Museum

London

International conference that brings together art, design, cultural and architectural historians of the post-1945 period. The Cold War was a period of high tensions and exceptional creativity, which touched every aspect of life from everyday goods to the highest arenas of human achievement in science and culture. This conference explores the major themes of Cold War Divisions, Americanisation, High Technology, and Last Utopias. The keynote speaker is Ariel Dorfman, and other speakers include Alice Friedman, Jean-Louis Cohen, Michell Provoost, David Crowley, Branislav Jakovljevic, Victor Misiano and Richard Barbrook.

£110 for 2 days, £55 for 1 day, concessions available
Supported by the Council of Europe
Book online or email bookings.office@vam.ac.uk

Photograph by John French (1960s)/Victoria & Albert Museum.

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Repose and Heartbreak Outside the Markets

The breakdowns and bailouts in the financial markets have created sky-high levels of fear, anger, more fear, and more anger. As the Dow drops, anxiety spikes. The situation is awful, dire, disastrous, catastrophic–a maelstrom of panic, collapse, more panic, and further collapse as investors act like crazed victims piling up against a door in a theater that has caught fire.

Don’t think that I had my money in CDs. I’ve been nailed badly and the prospects are not good for my family. But somehow, everyone needs to take a deep breath and exhale. For all the talk of pain, the term remains a metaphor for many of us. And the panic is a symptom not only of the obvious problems but also of what happens when a society becomes a market society instead of a society with a market economy.

If a photograph can help us regain a sense of balance, it might be this one:

The caption at The Guardian tells us that we are looking at a man performing with a horse at the Cavalia equestrian show in Lisbon, Portugal. The horse will be exhibiting superb training, but the roles almost seem reversed. The man looks like the lesser animal, almost like a monkey who has been trained to do tricks on the big ball. By contrast, the horse seems the epitome of nobility, a superior being who only has to show up to dominate the scene. He is the standard by which the man will be judged.

Perhaps this seeming inversion of a natural order appealed to me because of the financial world being turned upside down, and because of my wish to regain a sense of balance. And the scene is about balance–more specifically, about repose, with balance one means to that end. Indeed, the man could be a metaphor for the markets, as he balances precariously (however skillfully) on a globe than is at once unified and capable of punishing any sudden shift in his stance. Above all, however, it is something different from the madness of the markets. Sure, they will have sold tickets to the show, but for a moment a man and a horse stand in perfect equipoise. The man is on top of a small world, but not to get rich. Communion with the horse is more important than that. The sense of ritual harmony runs deep; Confucius would say that this sense of things is essential to restoring balance in the individual and the state.

I could end there, but there is need to go a step further. Repose in a theater may be too easy. The real test is real pain. This is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, and observance has included this beautiful portrait:

The caption at The Big Picture says, “Nathan Gentry, age 6, sits by a window overlooking New York City traffic on September 8, 2006.” Nathan died after months of painful treatments. Although trapped in a disease that most children, thankfully, do not experience, Nathan captures so much of the vulnerability of childhood and the profoundly precious quality of life itself.

This also is a picture of repose. He is experiencing, it seems, a moment free of pain, of quiet reflection on the scene outside the window. And the scene is outside: the glass walls him in as much as it lets him see, and the outer world has shrunk to that small portal. Outside we can see scaffolding, and so he is looking at a building that will be sustained, though he cannot be. His repose comes not for keeping everything in balance, but from putting himself in relationship with what remains. He asks–and takes–nothing but a moment of peace. It seems that he has already learned how to live with less. Obviously, that is something many of us have yet to learn.

Photographs by Nacho Doce/Reuters and, via The Big Picture, Susan Gentry (©), who asked for a link to the Children’s Neuroblastoma Cancer Foundation.

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Something Big Arrives: Spread the Story, Stop the Disease

Click Above to See James Nachtwey’s TED Prize presentation.

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Sight Gag: The Free Markets Survive

Or for an alternate take, click on the cartoon.

Credit: Scott Stantis, Birmingham News

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Underground Democracy

Guest post by Aric Mayer.

New York City is one of the greatest cities of the world, and certainly is one of the most integrated and diverse. Here you can find all cultures and all ethnicities practicing their own heritages side by side. People who in their homelands are at war with one another here manage to find ways to coexist. This coexistence is exhibited best in New York City’s Subway.

When the train doors close, instance and ephemeral communities are formed. Status and power do not buy you a seat at rush hour. On an average weekday five million riders board the train, and whether rumbling along in the darkness of the tunnels or the daylight above, community standards are created and enforced by proximity.

In an age of internet associations across geographic lines, it is becoming easier and easier for communities to form, communicate, share ideas and reinforce each other’s belief systems. The internet has the promise of a great Athenian experiment in civic discourse. Unfortunately the trend seems to be that people are increasingly able to seek out and congregate only with others who are like them, and diversity, once the great possibility of the internet and the fundamental promise of democracy, suffers, replaced by a stultifying homogeneity.

And yet, by contrast, the New York City Subway is the great leveler of class, ethnicity, and virtually any other form of difference and distinction. It encourages the daily practice of tolerance and cohabitation among millions of users. And by doing so it has become a gritty sort of civic square where all, for a time, are mostly equal.

Many pictures of democracy in action will be offered over the next weeks as we lead up to one of the most important presidential elections in recent memory. And many of these will be grand visions of power and triumph. In the midst of this, let us not forget what a great jumble of people we are. And democracy is a messy business, worked out in the daily act of differing peoples coming together to work out their differences — or just to live with them.

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Stay Tuned For Something Big

Photojournalist James Nachtwey was one of the 2007 recipients of the TED Prize. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design and it brings people from these three worlds together to spread ideas, mostly by challenging fascinating thinkers to “give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. These talks are available on-line at TED.com. The annual prize winners are given a $100,000 award AND granted one WISH to help change the world. James Nachtwey’s wish is to “break [a story that the world needs to know about] in a way that provides spectacular proof of the power of news photography in the digitial age.” That story will break on October 3 both on-line and around the world. Don’t miss it!