Post Trauma

For about three weeks now, I've been working on an installation piece that deals with a some what provocative subject. The idea surfaced as a response to a resultant shift of interest in given topics of discourse thanks to a shift in media (media being the various "news" outlets) interests. We as a culture seem to be most interested in sensational events that capture our over saturated short attention spans with predictions, or at least insinuations, of apocalyptic doom. Issues are treated as a flavor of the month, and get passed over before they are resolved. China is the new Middle East, Cancer is the new AIDs, Georgia is the new Darfur is the new Tibet, Gay Rights is the new Immigrant Rights is the new Women Rights is the new Black Rights is the new Native American Rights, and Wall Street is the new National Security/ Iraq/ Afghanistan. Okay, so that is a gross generalization for explanation purposes, but let me present it this way;

Gay Equality (not resolved)
Immigrant Equality (not resolved)
Woman Equality (not resolved)
Black Equality (not resolved)
Economic Equality (not resolved)
Health Care Equality (not resolved)
China's Economic/ Military Threat (not resolved)
Russia's Economic/ Military Threat (not resolved)
Darfur (not resolved)
Israel/ Palestinian Equality (not resolved)
Korean War (turned cold, but not resolved)
Terrorism/ National Security/ America Having Enemies (not resolved)
Economy (not resolved)
AIDS (not resolved)
Cancer(not resolved)

All of these topics have been "front page" issues at one time or another, yet none of them have been truly settled, rather passed over for something more sensational and new.

I've chosen the topic of Wall Street and juxtaposed it with the issue of National Security because of how influential they were and are in prevalance in presidential election dialogue, and the their coverage in American media outlets.
Wall Street > National Security.
Why do we no longer see statistics of dead soldiers on the nightly news? And progress of government reform and "terrorist hunting" in Afghanistan. Whatever happened to the Shiite/Sunni conflict that had the fruition of Iraqi sovereignty paralyzed?
It was all replaced by the Sub prime Mortgage Crisis, the Short Selling tactics of Wall street, the fall of Lehman Brothers, the closing down of small town banks, etc...

This is the thinking that led me to "Post Trauma"



(not my photo)