“Fallen Empire”
As the fire continues to cling on the roofs of a fallen empire, the charred black smoke lingers. Desperate bodies wander to find scraps to savour and remnants to rescue. Their aged bones are physically unable to rebuild to the mythical glory they once did 40 years ago. The Kingdom has crumbled. It has been ten years since the impending hit – 9/11- the event that created the first crack in the monumental symbol of wealth, power and security, and where we see for the first time, fear and doubt seeping into the human imagination. It was an American dream, a fallen dream, that once became everyone’s dream that we are seeing beginning to shatter. But what is left?
In the dust and ashes of the decade to follow we see sudden shifts in values and visions. We see the election of the first president of colour, a sudden awareness of global warming, a scaling back of industries, the rise of the global south, and in 2008, a major global economic meltdown. A decade following the first meteorite in the shape of an aeroplane to penetrate psyche of a masses, what can we now fathom of the world? Can we accept that dust is dust and now we must build anew?
The fires of the forest continue to burn as nature claims its rightful power over humanity. The remaining debris of many human civilizations that came before lie buried in the Earth. Nature prevails over man once again.
“Bond-Fires”
What we see beginning to emerge from the ashes is a new consciousness and awareness of each other in the world and in nature. We see a new generation burning with energy. A generation left to undo, remake and re-imagine a new world that was destroyed by mislead visions progress of previous generations. We see an ecological turning and a movement towards traditional forms of pedagogy, craftsmanship and knowledge sharing that was lost in industrialization. But what now continues to burn is the fires that bring us together.
Around the fire we gather, to keep warm, to provide mutual support for survival. We talk, we share stories, we dream of the past. A new system is emerging one that connects us by ethernet that creates a model of the human mind and where we search for a collective vision. But there are forces trying to control it. A gripping past of former daemons that haunts us.
We believe, we worship the spirit that brings us together, and celebrate the fires that burn within us.
“Fires of Desire”
Fire is heat, and burning. Fires spread. It lies dormant in hotspots within the Earth, waiting to re-emerge again – connected by a network of embers. When a flame is killed, it can still grow strong again in another time and in another space. Fire moves silently – warming, cooling, sparking and burning. It is a fire of desire that lies within all our hearts. It is a desire that moves between us and that links us. There are no words for this desire that grows and burns. It is a desire that emerges and burns when fueled and brought together collectively.
In a seeming apocalyptic time of immense change in a collapsed economy for culture as conservative governments around the world demolish the welfare state as uprisings emerge across Europe by disenchanted youth mobilized by social media resisting against high rates of unemployment and an astronomical rise in tuition fees,how do we maintain hope? How do we find space for the desire beyond economic concerns and to find new sustainable models of subsistence? Within a globalized community around the world, there is still a desire to create, and that fire will never die despite any economy or government support. How can we now begin to rebuild from the ashes a new world, a new vision of culture? How will it manifest in flames? How can we begin to spark imagination of new possibilities and utopias and to question the structures that have crumbled?
Flames spread, they grow and flare up.
As a collective of individuals from a generation lost of opportunities, lost in a time of great uncertainty, altering weather patterns, economic structural upheaval, social re-organization through digital innovations and change. Fires of desire is a sparking and ignition of an exploration of new platforms and ideas of collective working to find and create our own visions and possibilities in a world of dwindling finances and hopes for the future.
In response to the question:
I ask: Why do we need to rebuild the Twin Towers? To re-build a new symbol of a financial empire? Or more likely as memorial of a historical event. The event has many different significances, which differs around the World. Americans may likely see it as a traumatic loss of lives and an act of terrorism – an attack on American capitalism – on freedom and democracy. For others it is the beginning of a realization of the faults of capitalism and the foreshadowing of the current global financial crisis in the years following.
Perhaps the re-building of the WTC should be online as an archive of memories and reflections on the event. The event should be commemorated in different ways, but perhaps re-building as a physical structure is not necessary? It is a starting point for debate, but the discussion has no
significant place, only in our minds and our collective memory of the event. There should only be a structure unless it serves a specific symbolic purpose, but the purpose should be open and unbiased. The re-building of the Twin Towers perhaps should serve the purpose as 1. memorial / remembering the event 2. reflection on its significance and meaning 3. understanding its significance now. What did this event signify for the World?
For me, it is the fall of the “American Dream” – the symbol of an empire beginning to crumble. The fact that the site remains vacant is interesting 10 years after the fact. It represents a void, a lack and impotency, which is a mood of the current economic climate and the now forever-changed Wall Street post-2008 crash.
On a more personal level, I am born and raised in Canada to Chinese parents. My father was working in NYC during 9/11 and was actually heading to Wall Street for meetings on the day. My family since the recession has gone through difficult times. We discovered my father had lost his job (without telling the family for over a year) and accumulated a significant amount of debt. I was at the time pursing a masters degree at Goldsmiths’ College in London, UK (where I currently live) and also accumulating debt. Prior to studying, I was living in Hong Kong for two years where I witnessed the ‘rise of China’ in many regards with the 2008 Olympics as a major signifying event. The financial crisis has a large impact on my life, understanding of the World.
Growing up in the suburbs of Toronto, I didn’t believe the dream and rejected the society in which I lived and the commercialized culture that was fed to us. I yearned for more – exploring the underbellies of suburbia and wandering the barren urban landscapes with a few close friends. I participated in anti-capitalist protests as a teenager and knew that the perfect middle-class life I lived was a lie. It only became a stark reality in the past couple of years following the crash, where my family had to move out of my childhood house (which was a symbol of wealth and stability). The image of my childhood was shattered as the false guise of security were revealed. I pursued work in arts and humanities in a desire for another way of life (but also perhaps thinking I had the financial security to pursue my interests), but now find myself lacking the skills for the current job market. Somehow I always knew the falsity of the middle-class ideal, but I didn’t realize that the truth could be so hard.
In darker days, we can only be positive and begin to look inwards and to
reflect and learn from the past – to find new values and ways of being that cherishes nature and the people and the World around us. Find value in simplicity without further yearnings and desires that are often fueled by advertising and marketing tactics. Through reflection, we can find new values in taking care of the self and others, and foster collaboration rather than competition to build a better World for everyone.
These are some of the discussions that can emerge around commemoration of
the Twin Towers and the significance of the event. Perhaps we can recreate the towers as a symbol not of conflict, attack, antagonism and violence, but a leveling and equalizing of society – the act of rebuilding the Twin Towers as an act of re-building society post-crisis and imagining new possibilities in a globalized World.
Submitted for Twin Towers Go Global by Pedro Lasch & collaborators
