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In and out of memory: exploring the tension between remembering and forgetting when recalling 9/11, a traumatic event. My research is an unravelling of a traumatic memory to describe, understand and answer questions about the 'trauma body.' In my research, I put forward the idea that traumatic memories are detached memories with an emotional resonance that fixes them historically in a specific place and time, unwieldy anchors for a body that is neither here (present), nor there (in the past). I analyse this paradox from philosophical and psychoanalytical perspectives. Through a layered arts practice of text, sonic art work, and moving and still imagery I examine the tension where trauma meets memory, whether in an attempt to forget, or an effort to remember. Memory in this context is perceived as crucial towards understanding oneself socially, culturally and personally, whilst trauma is understood as an experience borne by the act of ‘leaving,’ wherein the mind’s coping mechanism overwhelmed by shocking external events fractures or splits. I began this process by revisiting a journal written on the day of and days following the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. A journal that had remained closed and unread until starting my research in 2012. My aim was to deconstruct my memory of this traumatic event, lay it to rest and explore the latent witnessing that defies assimilation into a narrative. I employ autoethnography as a methodology to facilitate a greater understanding of trauma and its wider cultural implications, overlaying my personal memories upon a well-established collective memory of 9/11. Autoethnography, in this instance, is a reformulation of ethnography or anthropology, an in-depth examination of context incorporating cross-disciplinary approaches. With an emphasis on self-reflection and subjective participation, as both the artist and the owner of certain memories, my intention was to engage a larger epistemological discussion of the meeting place of trauma and memory.

Les attaques du 11 septembre 2001 sur le sol américain ont eu un impact incontestable dans les sphères politique, religieuse, sociale mais aussi culturelle de ce début de siècle. Elles ont mis à l'épreuve les positions idéologiques d'une certaine idée américaniste née avec les États-Unis et encore largement partagée. Si les images de l'effondrement des deux tours du World Trade Center ont symbolisé une rupture jugée historique, la catastrophe nationale a nourri depuis lors un grand nombre de représentations fictionnelles. À travers l'étude de dix-huit œuvres publiées dans la décennie qui a suivi - diverses dans leur nature mais emblématiques par leur impact sur la culture étasunienne -, notre travail prétend mettre au jour une logique temporelle opératoire, une typologie égrenant les différentes étapes du travail de deuil, de la sidération à l'éventuelle reconstruction. L'analyse diachronique de ce corpus, tourné vers la culture étasunienne dans son rapport à l'histoire des idées politiques, entend ainsi mettre en perspective le rôle de la fiction face au choc du 11 septembre. Ceci dans le but de saisir les évolutions et les limites de la fiction, lorsque celle ci se met à l'épreuve du réel. / The attacks of September 11th, 2001 on the American soil had an undeniable impact in the political, religious and social fields of this new century, but also in the cultural one. They put to the test the very foundations of what is known as “americanism”, an ideology born with the United States and still mostly prevalent to this day. While the images of the two collapsing World Trade Center towers symbolized a historical breaking point, the national catastrophe has since then nourished a large amount of fictions. Through the study of eighteen works of fiction published in the following decade - various by forms but noteworthy by their impact on the US culture -, our work claims to unveil an operative typology through time which follows the various stages of the mourning process, from denial to possible rebuilding. Thus, the diachronic analysis of this corpus, in close relationship with the American culture and history of political ideas, intends to question the role of fiction towards the shock resulting from September 11th, in order to seize the evolutions and limits of it, when the real puts it to the test.

Imagine a world where someone’s personal information is constantly compromised, where federal government entities AKA Big Brother always knows what anyone is Googling, who an individual is texting, and their emoticons on Twitter. Government entities have been doing this for years; they never cared if they were breaking the law or their moral compass of human dignity. Every day the Federal government blatantly siphons data with programs from the original ECHELON to the new series like PRISM and Xkeyscore so they can keep their tabs on issues that are none of their business; namely, the personal lives of millions. Our allies are taking note; some are learning our bad habits, from Government Communications Headquarters’ (GCHQ) mass shadowing sharing plan to America’s Russian inspiration, SORM. Some countries are following the United States’ poster child pose of a Brave New World like order of global events. Others like Germany are showing their resolve in their disdain for the rise of tyranny. Soon, these new found surveillance troubles will test the resolve of the American Constitution and its nation’s strong love and tradition of liberty. Courts are currently at work to resolve how current concepts of liberty and privacy apply to the current conditions facing the privacy of society. It remains to be determined how liberty will be affected as well; liberty for the United States of America, for the European Union, the Russian Federation and for the people of the World in regards to the extent of privacy in today’s blurred privacy expectations.