(Roughly) Daily

Tsunami #8 Indonesia

New York photographer Sasha Bezzubov uses a variety of conceptual methods to point viewers to larger phenomena that underlie visible landscapes…  Bezzubov’s series Things Fall Apart (2001-07), depicts the aftermath of natural disasters in India, Indonesia, Thailand and the United States. The pictures function in part as documents of these tragic events, but the series as a whole does not convey enough specific information to be useful as documentary work. Rather, the images blend together to form a more generalized, and aestheticized, portrayal of destruction, following the long artistic tradition of appreciating the melancholy beauty of ruins and nature’s destructive power. That tradition is closely tied to the idea of the sublime — a sensation of beauty and terror in the face of nature’s power — prevalent in 18th and early 19th century philosophy and landscape art, and often understood as a way of experiencing the divine. Nature’s power is certainly evident in Bezzubov’s images, but the knowledge that human-caused climate change has increased the frequency and strength of catastrophic storms reshapes our sense of the sublime…

Hurricane #4, Florida

Read more at Design Observer…

* Isaac Asimov

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As we take stock, we might recall that it was on this date in 1993 that the World Trade Center in New York was attacked for the first time:  a nitrate-hydrogen truck bomb was detonated below the North Tower.  The blast shook the 110 story tower, causing the collapse of several floors in the underground garage, and tore a hole in the ceiling of an adjoining subway; six people were killed, another thousand, injured.  The attack is believed to have been planned by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, a member of what we now know as al-Qaeda, and was executed by a group who were apprehended, tried, and convicted the following year.

Underground damage after the bombing

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