Missed encounter: Disavowal, apophenia, obscenity and reenactment in contemporary art

The September 11 attacks were designed as a series of actions that would symbolise the fall of American capitalist icons with the intention that the images would be globally disseminated and repeated sensationally. Despite the visibility of the attacks in mainstream media and the subsequent use of paradigmatic phrases such as 'post-9/11 art and aesthetics', there is a distinct lack of visual artworks that openly respond to the events. This project investigates the complex factors that have resulted in the sensational dissemination and yet subsequent disavowal of the September 11 attacks in mainstream media and visual art. This process of disavowal, consisting of abstracting text and images until they become simulacral fragments that do not immediately conjure the events, facilitates an unexpected and irrational connectivity known as apophenia, a key discovery in the project