First presented at Maryland Institute College of Art
Faculty Exhibition
Main Court
September 19 - 28, 2001
"First, a sharp crack and then what sounded, oddly, like a waterfall, thousands of panes of glass shattering as the north side of the tower buckled. Then a slow, building rumble like rolling thunder that will not stop as the tower cascades toward the ground." – World Trade Center survivor
Ordinarily we think of “the” void as empty space, space that contains nothing, where nothing exists. Or perhaps we think of it as a feeling of emptiness, lonliness, alienation. Since the disastrous attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, we have heard frequent references to “a” void as a pocket of space and air where survivors sometimes find temporary refuge beneath the crushing rubble of a fallen building.
From
our detached perspective, a view of stunning, unbelievable images disseminate
in real-time over global media, we rarely hear the terrifying avalanche
of falling debris, the torturous scraping of metal, and the crush of glass
and massive beams. These sounds have a visceral, punishing quality that
television can never convey.
In memory of the victims of the terrorist attack, this sound installation
places the listener directly within this space, to inhabit this notion
of a void that sustains the lives of those trapped beneath the destruction.
This is a non-space where one can contemplate the enormity of the event,
the weight of its destruction, and the implication of its impact on humanity.