Ordeal by Memorial

By Olga Kopenkina

New York is a city in which one does not feel historical boundaries and whose appearance is defined by progressing modernism circa 1920-1950s that turned the city into the architectural passé that is petrified in the recycled forms of art deco and post-war modernism. But if something really marks the transition from past to present it is the reconstruction of the World Trade Center as a memorial to the victims of September 11th. This temporal transition occurs not only by way of erecting a new, modern high-rise tower at the old WTC site that deplored the best architects of our time, but also by revealing the new directions in the formation of American identity post-9/11. This is a controversial process that can be attributed to late capitalism’s modernization, which, in Jean Baudrillard’s view, tries to exclude death from symbolic exchange –the exchange between the living and the dead– thus reducing life to a pure economic surplus.[1]

Erection of the memorial in downtown Manhattan– which is also a bonanza for the American real estate business – can only be understood as a logical and finalizing event in recent capitalist development, that is to say, event of market normalization. It is also a way of survival, a lever with which capitalism creates a new platform with which to leap forward and capture a bigger territory for the purpose of not only re-building destroyed spaces, but also unfolding an entire landscape of normalcy in both its physical and psychological sense. A small portion of the site’s sixteen-acre territory, including the footprint of the original Twin Towers, has been designated as a memorial “Reflecting Absence.” It consists of two fountains with tumbling streams, a squared pool forming a reflecting surface, falling water, and a series of surrounding panels inscribed with the names of those who tragically perished in the 9/11 attacks. It is a park, as well as a visitors’ center complete with gift shop and concert hall. In combination with the rising skyscrapers the idea of such a monument presents a struggle between the functionalization of memory, and a spiritual meditation whose struggle reached its climax in the 21^st Century.

 As theorist of history Reinhart Koselleck writes in his book “The Practice of Conceptual History,” [2] the function of each modern memorial signifies new directions in political and social identification, directions that tend to justify the society’s existence in the aftermath of collective tragedy. The dead, while taken out from real time and space, are endowed with exceptional status. They are perceived to be in possession of values that come to define why the tragedy occurred in the first place. The American nation will never be the same it is said. And neither will its state politics. The death of people on 9/11 has been paid for by the death toll in other countries. The number of these other victims exceeded those who perished in the September 2011 attacks. This fact remarkably corrects the meaning of the memorial: it is no longer identified with the act of mourning and meditation, but it gains the character of a new radical utopia that implies an understanding of democracy promoted by the world’s neo-conservative policy makers.

 To consider the meaning of the 9/11 memorial is to discern the heritage of all progressive historical traditions aimed at democratizing tragic events. This tendency has been observed in modern history since its outset. According to Koselleck, when the cult of the memorial – in a form we now have– emerged at the dawn of bourgeois society, the genre of the war monument already served the interests of future utopias generated by this new class. In other words, the decline of Christian approach to the death in the 18^th c. freed space for its new political and social meaning. This was especially evident during the French Revolution, and the European Wars of Liberation between 1813 and 1814). Koselleck points out that the overall number of memorials to lost solders greatly increased, and not only in churches and cemeteries, but also in public spaces. The memory of those perished had begun to assume a function oriented towards the future of the survivors. This is why even the numerous Christian figures and symbols decorating the memorials in the 19^th c. were henceforth interpreted differently. They became a symbolic means of preserving the idea of a national future. As Koselleck observes, “in any case, war memorials themselves are a visual sign of modernity.”[3] In short, their democratization is also their functionalization. The increasing representation of subjective mourning in the actual decoration of war heroes’ tombs in the 19^th c. became a part of the visual code for the new century. This in turn introduced the figure of a mourner: a survivor who gets to capitalize from a specific tragedy. Indeed, we have been witnessing the emergence of numerous memorial foundations and societies in New York following the 9/11 attacks. It’s as if the struggle between the city, private owners, and civic groups (the core of the latter consisting of relatives of the dead), remain in pitched battle over who makes decisions regarding the WTC reconstruction site and is memorial. And this struggle represents the very identification of this tragedy, including who has the right to own it, and who owns the rights to our national future.

 American memorials have always been characterized by their enormous forms and use of precious materials. They present conflict abstractly, as a war between good and evil, rather than a fight with this or that concrete opponent. Enemies of the state are deprived of visual representation, sometimes reduced to nothing but black forms over which is superimposed in shadowed gold letters the names and deeds of history’s winners. In the WTC project reconstruction authored architect Daniel Libeskind, the structural focus of the new complex is the Freedom Tower. [4] It is intended to become the USA’s tallest high-rise. Yet freedom – the primary civil right declared by state ideology– appeared in the aftermath of 9/11 as an ideological justification for the American interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan. Nevertheless, these enemies are not directly mentioned, although their specter has been hovering above Ground Zero, defining the identity of the American nation, ever since the attacks.

In a contemporary world it becomes obvious that the function of any memorial is both to permit the mourning of victims, as well as the glorification of winners. It completes a normative history whereby the victorious impose their control over the defeated. And it does so regardless if a particular enemy is evil, or a victim of circumstance. In any case, the opponent steps back, vanishing into non-existence. As Koselleck points out, “the meaning of death is forced back to the survivors.” It is they who must deal with the deliberate exemption of the other (the dead) – a practice observed in all memorials, but here serving to underscore the victory of a rebuilt WTC complex whose towering architectural presence ascends skywards, in direct contrast to falling streams of water that offer a dramatic “Reflecting Absence.” All in all it is an exercise in absolute control and total power over the political reading of worldly images, symbols, and appearances.

(Initially published in Russian in Moscow Art Journal, #64, 2007)