Often described as the “first live global media event,” 9/11 was one of the most affective mediated spectacles of the 21st century. The hypermediation of the event led many to feel as though they had personally lived through this catastrophe from their couches. As the news coverage of the event intensified, it spurred debate amongst scholars on the notions of mediality and “realness”. Jean Baudrillard contended that 9/11 was so deeply embedded in media representation that it was not real so much as it was a medial simulacrum. Slavoj Žižek saw the hypermediality of 9/11 as preventing us from accessing the “real” 9/11, thus understanding the event as something that exists prior to mediation. Richard Grusin claimed that 9/11 was the “last live global media event,” suggesting the news shifted towards premediation, where potential future events are speculated on and predicted in the media landscape. He theorized that this works as a means to maintain low level public anxiety, avoiding another global shock. While compelling, Grusin’s perspective can be understood through conspiratorial logic, envisioning a vaguely defined entity controlling the masses. 

As with much conspiratorial thinking, it also takes on a very US-centric point of view. Global responses to 9/11 were far from homogenous and with many even resisting the imposed media mourning by using 9/11 as a conduit for irony and trolling. The concurrent rise of the early internet and social media further fractured collective narratives, demarcating 9/11 as a catalyst for our current golden age of conspiracy theories. Beyond the immediacy and impact of the event itself, the repercussions of 9/11 have, of course, rippled far beyond the initial terror attack. Sentiments of nationalism soared, the West desperately clung to its withering facade of indestructibility, racial violence was reinvigorated, surveillance intensified, and the now infamous War on Terror began its 20+ year tirade. 

9/11, and the events surrounding it, allow for an inquiry into spectatorship, our mediatized experience, affect, misinformation, and the construction/ fragmentation of collective memory. What is the impact of the hyper-mediacized image? How do we relate to mediated events from different global contexts? Are they still affective in a hypermediated world? What is the role of the internet/media in shaping individual vs. collective memory? Should we be striving for “reality” through mediation? As an investigation into the mythologization of this iconographic event, this program consists of video works from the IMPAKT archive that either deal with the event of 9/11, its image, or its direct effects from varying perspectives. The works selected allow us to reflect on memory, power, and the lasting relevance of a hypermediated imaginary in our post-9/11 present.