6. AFTERMATH
Cycles of Violence

On September 11, 2001, I was living in Prague, watching the first tower fall on an office television, thousands of miles from my pregnant wife and young son in New York. Cycles of Violence is my attempt to make sense of that day and everything it set in motion.

This cycle of ten images was created as the tenth anniversary of 9/11 approached.  I created these decollaged images on the streets of New York by tearing through layers of advertising posters on abandoned construction sites around the city. I call this process process semiotic archaeology: digging through strata of words and images to reveal new juxtapositions and hidden meanings. Destruction is the method. Nothing is added, moved, or put back. Every image was already there, buried in the city’s walls, waiting to be uncovered.

Read in sequence, these ten images: Projection, Impact, Chaos, Carnage, Collapse, Aftermath, The Death of Liberty, Invasion, Insurgency and Sacrifice trace the attacks and their long shadow: the wars, the fear, the erosion of trust and freedoms that followed. The series ends where it begins, because this is how history continues to unfold and manifest.

Advertising is the water we swim in, everywhere and almost invisible. Tearing it open reveals what it carries: the violence, desire and memory of the culture that produced it.