For all the opportunist politics and exploitative media reporting we've let slide over the past decade, it's disappointing that the arts remains an area routinely besieged by the impossibly dense and hot-running taboo associated with the September 11th terrorist attacks.But as both intellectuals and altruists, we can not hastily dismiss nor award unquestioned validity to these criticisms. The question has always been: Do they help by making art that deals with tragedy more accessible, or merely serve to obfuscate a work's message and compromise the artist's integrity?
Released six months after the invasion of Iraq, Gonzalo Frasca's September 12th was one of the latter examples, a surprisingly poignant non-zero sum Flash game that demonstrates a process in which violence begets violence. In it, the player is presented a top-down view of a middle-eastern settlement, populated by both civilians and the occasional Kalashnikov-toting terrorist. Aiming the crosshairs and clicking the screen drops a time-delayed bomb, perhaps killing the terrorist but also inevitably killing civilians. Each time an innocent is killed, other civilians will mourn briefly, then take up rifles and transform into more terrorists, until the entire screen is filled with them.Critics like "newsgames" advocate Ian Bogost praised the game, citing its ability to make shrewd political commentary simply by leaving the player with no victory condition. But others called foul, hollering that it exploited the tragedy to make an anti-war statement and demanding it be removed. Others skewered it, calling it, among other things, an inane piece of offensive crap. Thankfully, none of the pitchforks truly found their mark and September 12th emerged (relatively) unscathed, going on to become one of the most prominent examples of political commentary in an interactive medium.Symbolism & Self-Censorship
But Frasca's game was small potatoes. In the world of post-9/11 sensibilities, specific images and symbols play a much more vital role in stirring controversy. Such is the case with the the album art for minimalist composer Steve Reich's 10 year anniversary musical tribute to the tragedy and its victims. The cover, which features the indelible image of a smoking World Trade Center just seconds before the second plane smashed into the North tower, has been met with considerable outrage, eventually compelling Reich to voluntarily change it.Shortly after, he released a statement explaining the decision with record label Nonesuch:At this point, it's safe to say that very few people in America are unfamiliar with the original version of the photo above, which has had its bright blue sky tinted and darkened to menacing effect. It has long since been entered into the pop culture disaster zeitgeist — a pit from which there is no escape, no avoiding the endless simultaneous fetishization and taboo.And from that, art inevitably springs forth, for better and for worse. As much a shame it would be for Reich's piece to go unheard due to an album cover, we must also take the good with the bad, and all the things in between. Brian Freeland, director of an experimental theater group in Denver responsible for the eyebrow raisingly-titled Bieber Meets al-Qaeda recognizes this, and uses it to paint a picture of the last 10 years of American culture."We came back to what an explosion of escapist pop culture we've wrought," he says. "At looking at what has really defined us, it's been, over the last decade, pop culture and al-Qaeda. Those are what make the news. Those are our water-cooler conversations."
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The Day After

Symbolism & Self-Censorship
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Another minimalist composition commemorating September 11th, John Adams' beautiful and haunting On the Transmigration of Souls, is accompanied by similar art, but remains bereft of any images of planes or burning towers. This is appropriate, since Adams' piece is focused specifically on the aftermath of the tragedy. Reich's, however, is not.As a composer I want people to listen to my music without something distracting them. The present cover of WTC 9/11 will, for many, act as a distraction from listening and so, with the gracious agreement of Nonesuch, the cover is being changed.
Reich's recall illustrates an old and somewhat disturbing idea which suggests that an artist must be prepared to censor themselves for the sake of an audience, even if portions of the audience in question may be more interested in the work's presentation than its content. But even if Reich's cover was identifying of his content, the associations of the image, beyond the obvious stigma, must also be considered.When the cover was being designed, I believed, as did all the staff at Nonesuch and the art director, that a piece of music with documentary material from an event would best be matched with a documentary photograph of that event. I felt that the photo suggested by our art director was very powerful, and Nonesuch backed me up. All of us felt that anyone seeing the cover would feel the same way.
