Vanity Fair's Creative Director Discusses 9/11 And Visual Culture

You e-mail your professor to ask for their permission to enroll in a class as you're using your Blackberry to photograph your roommate who is passed out on the couch. You switch back to IMing your friend about the latest Britney scandal that you're both watching on YouTube (posted just eight minutes ago, having occurred nine minutes ago) as you are trying to sift through the multiple e-mails that your phone is demanding you look at. The abundance of modern technology in your life is something that you never dwell on. With camera phones, P.D.A.s, laptops the size of prematurely-born kittens, wireless everything, and full seasons of your favorite TV show available for your viewing pleasure on iPods, it's easy for anyone to relay information, photos, or videos at the push of a button or voice command.Tuesday, Nov. 22's Jan Cohn Visiting Scholar Lecture, "Witnessing 9/11: How Pictures Changed Us" in honor of Jan Cohn, G. Keith Funston Professor of American Literature and American Studies, brought David Friend to speak in the Rittenberg Lounge about his book and the idea of a visual culture. Friend discussed the importance of photography, television, and the Internet in today's society. His lecture brought a new perspective to such ideas. He pointed out that with the increasing speed at which individuals can transmit information, the average bystander can instantly become an on-site reporter or photographer.

The photos that recent camera phones take rival the megapixels available on most digital cameras. Seated in the Funston Café at the library, one can bear witness to numerous text and picture messages being relayed across the campus, the country, and even the Pacific (or Atlantic, your choice). A girl in line for a double espresso fumbles for her Blackberry as it vibrates, indicating a new IM from her friend in Germany. The trans-Atlantic text took 0.8 seconds (so it claims) to arrive in Hartford. Times have certainly changed, as Friend brought attention to the question that always gets asked after a news story. It is no longer a question of "Where were you that day when it happened?" but rather "Where were you when you heard the news?" Society is transforming into a visual culture of 24/7 news, where sometimes the line between civilian and reporter can become irrelevant. "We now have the capability of looking at videos on handheld devices," Friend remarked.

Friend spotlighted 9/11 as an example of such in his book, Watching the World Change. He stressed that the targeting of the World Trade Center was purely intentional, as it was a target that would be seen by millions, and ultimately captured digitally or on film by many. "Very rarely do we see the same breaking event simultaneously [...] We saw this for a couple of reasons. One is that Osama wanted us to see it, because that is what terrorism is. Terrorism demands frightened eyes -- it demands we see it, and the media completes the process for whatever political motives are behind it," Friend explained. "Osama's family was in the construction business but also in the media business [...] and Osama chose such specific targets on purpose. Osama wanted to maximize the death toll but also to choose a target that everyone would see." And everyone did see, as Friend proceeded to show his audience some of the pictures and videos featured in Watching the World Change. From daguerreotype prints to accidental captures by timed photographs, each one is just as moving as the next. He compared 9/11 to the JFK assassination, where the first footage was only available three days after it occurred. "Never before has a breaking news event been seen by this many people," he said of 9/11.

The intimate atmosphere of the Rittenberg Lounge allowed for an equally personal Q&A session that followed Friend's lecture. He mentioned that he had spoken in front of "huge crowds at big auditoriums and also at intimate classes" but that he generally mixed it up, "With anything, you get a new, fresh insight because people have unique interpretations, and that's really heartening." Friend invited his audience to ask questions. Hands were raised rather slowly though, as the potential thought of posing an intellectual question to the man who identified "Deep Throat" is somewhat terrifying. "I've been on sort of a whistle-stop tour of campuses and as much talking about the book is leaving myself open to students and professors' opinions of the book," Friend said. "To be called a scholar brings it to a whole new level, considering myself a journalist, an editor, and thinking that I'd always be a closet academic."

Watching the World Change is being taught in classrooms nationwide, including Purdue, Stanford, Amherst, and Indiana, among other places. His book is being used here, at Trinity, in the American Studies senior seminar, "Visual Culture" taught by Professor Lou Masur. Students in the seminar were fortunate to attend a dinner in Friend's honor proceeding the lecture and were able to get to know him and ask questions throughout the night.

He received an extremely positive response from all that attended his lecture; Amanda Dorian '08 commented, "He was very humble. Having him speak about the material in his book brought a whole new level of profundity to it." Friend was humble indeed, as he invited his audience to "rip apart" his book because "to see anyone spend any time with anything you've worked on is extremely gratifying." I immediately went home and re-read his book. Go and do likewise, gents.