In trying to figure out the relationship between human need for energy and natural disaster, there are many different conceptions of the relevant narrative. I searched the words “energy” and “natural disaster” to try to get an idea of the most prevalent narratives. Last week I found myself advocating the causal story as “the need for energy begets natural disaster” (in light of our need to construct energy creating structures that are then succeptible to natural cycles) or “the coincidence of human construction and natural geologic and meterologic cycles leads to human disaster”. This conception is not very similar to the popular narative. Here are the summarized theses of the top 7 google stories for this search:

Natural disaster endangers energy systems

Energy systems are not a luxury

Tsunamis are not related to climate change

Renewable energy may endanger the enviroment
i.e. japan

Japan endangers hopes for renewable energy

We need to research natural disaster for the sake of scientific understanding of climate change and and consider the implications for national security.

I am intrigued by the notion that the narrative, or any similar manifestation of the imagination, can act as a medium that connects two different worlds – that which is objective and existent, and that which only parallels the first. Boltanski claims that these forms “fill the imagination of the spectator of distant suffering” and catalyze the awaiting split of the spectator into its two divergent forms. Though the creator of the narrative can be referred to as an “agent”, he is merely a spectator who has chosen a path, and has abandoned the role of the more objective, idealized spectator. In turn, the work put forth by this agent will, more often than not, inspire new agents; should this chain reaction be extrapolated, what effect does the perpetual creation of agents have?

Upon assuming artistic responsibility in presenting a narrative, artists are prone to retain the role of the agent, whether influenced by moral, social, or political pressure, The appeal to the emotions of the unfortunate transforms the spectator into an agent, taking on the “benefactor” role. Who, then, is responsible for playing the part of the “persecutor”? Perhaps, this role is merely implied and universally understood by unfortunates and spectators alike. Perhaps, the persecutor need not be a spectator who explicitly declares this perspective, but rather a force – not an individual – that is implicitly acknowledged. Consequently, when narratives are evaluated and weighed in context of morality, there becomes an internal struggle for balance between the benefactor as channeled by the artist and the underlying representation of the persecutor.

Debris – Creation

Deconstruction – Destruction

Dead – Alive

Dead, Quiet, Still – Alive, Sound, Move

What we keep – Why we keep – How we keep

Scattered – Algorithm

Revoking Trauma – Infilling Loss

Emotional Attachment to Artificial Debris – Emotional detachment from evaporating relic

Constant accumulation of debris – Sustainable re-usage of debris

 

The main point of my response is to making deconstruction structure by using debris of 3/11 Tsunami. To convert the debris from dead relics to alive sources, I am planning to put sound, movement, algorithm and stories of affected people into debris.

However, this process of debris is standing on a keen line. It could either revoke the trauma or infill the mental loss. I have to make a healing monument rather than hurting trash. Therefore, I am trying to figure out the reason why people build the monument after disasters and the reason why people keep remainders of their dead relatives and so on.

On September 8, 2011, The New York Times published an article, “What We Kept”, which was written about privately kept relics after 9/11. With the pictures of 22 mundane items, the stories of 22 people were published online.

Why do these people have kept these relics? What kind of relics do they have kept? And, how could we expand these relics and attached emotions in a creative and positive way?

Following pictures and stories are parts of articles.

“I was downtown when the planes hit the towers on Sept. 11. I walked back to Brooklyn over the bridge to where my family and I were living on Sackett Street near the waterfront in Cobble Hill. By the time I got home, the towers had fallen and our neighborhood was littered with papers and debris that had blown across the water from the towers. This is a piece of paper I picked up in the street in front of our house — a Peace Corps application burned around the edges.”

 - Nicholas Arauz

“I was a New York City police officer and picked up a thin ribbon of metal from the site. I feel kind of dumb because it didn’t occur to me that there were others doing this kind of thing. I didn’t want a ‘souvenir,’ but I wanted something tactile just so I knew it really happened. I like that it is just a piece of scrap to anyone who sees it, not that I display it. I try not to think about it most of the time and something tells me I’m not going to enjoy reading about what others kept, but thank you for helping me not to forget.”

-Dante Messina

 ”Recovery workers gave these to me while I was volunteering at ground zero. I believe the pin is from a steel beam. There is a fragment of marble, and to me the most disturbing artifact, glass from one of the towers. I do not display these at home. They have been in a drawer for over nine years.”

-  Stephanie Zessos

 

Link to the article: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/08/us/sept-11-reckoning/relics.html?_r=1