A Reflection
Some 50 days after that tragic day in September, which may come to divide our lives, I feel uncomfortable in speaking openly and honestly about the consequences of and responses to the event. This is an issue w...
A Reflection
Thank you for your invitation to reflect on the September 11 events.
Rather than emphasizing – as the American media have done, for example, for their own purposes – how “everything changed” on September 11,...
Mediation and Affect in New York
Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek – always quick off the mark – wasted no time whatsoever in providing, via the internet, his scattered reflections on the “Attack on America”. Most interesting was his ruminati...
Things are Forever Changed: Business as Usual
Human beings seem to be put together in such a way that no matter how extensive and ironclad their experience, it is never sufficient to dash their hopes. On the whole, this is of course a fortunate thing. But ...
Cinema as Delphic Oracle
Cinema has been a prophetic medium from its inception. I'm not talking about the drama, musical, comedy, or the Western genres, but horror movies, science fiction, fantasy and thrillers. These genres, which are...
Cinema and Reality
“We live inside an enormous novel. It is now less and less necessary for the writer to invent the fictional content of his novel. The fiction is already there. The writer's task is to invent reality.”
- J.G. B...
Watching Horror: A Gendered Look at Terrorism, or, Everything I Need to Know I Learned in Psycho
"Oh God, I can't watch!"
My boyfriend is used to hearing this protest, during Psycho, Halloween, and countless other horror movies we've seen together. Today, as always, I bury my face in his shoulder, avert...
Reflections on September 11 and its Aftermath
Like many other Americans lately, I've been scared – but like only some Americans, I've been scared both of Middle Eastern terrorists and those whom I regard as American terrorists, almost in equal measure. For...
On the Interval between Reality and Unreality
As a counterpoint to Slavoj Žižek's interpretation of September 11th – the World Trade Centre Twin Towers as symbols of “virtual capitalism” and “the stark separation between the digitised First World and the T...
Just Like a Movie: September 11 and the Terror of Moving Images
A sulking vagrant arrives in a small American town, equipped with an absurdly large knife and lethal skills gained in the service of the same US military interests by which he now feels betrayed. Harassed by an...
A Reflection
the winds of change begin to move
hurts of which, they've come before
telling silent sides to mend their ways
upset by random effects and sways
signs of peace have no place tonight
I slap you hard from the...
Watching from a Distance: September 11 as Spectacle
I switched on the TV soon after the planes hit, and there were the twin towers smouldering like giant cigarettes. As I watched this 'live' spectacle unfold from the safe distance of my lounge room in Melbourne,...