north tower

Hoping to gather some stock footage of a placid skyline to illustrate the juxtaposition between expectations and apprehensions surrounding the hysterical build-up and climax to the Millennial Computer Bug and the quieter, calmer realities of the real world, Stuttgarter artist Wolfgang Staehle, an early adopter of technology in creating art, set up a webcam in New York City on 11 September 2001 and inadvertently captured the first plane’s impact into the World Trade Center and the subsequent collapse.
Because of the state of web-cameras seventeen years ago, the images are granular and advance in spans of four seconds. Though not the first time that the unique recording has been shown in remembrance and commemoration, on this anniversary the Brooklyn Historical Society will be projecting the film onto a custom screen and have synchronised the video so it plays out in precise real time. It is hoped that visitors to the screening will be able to incorporate this digital witness to terror in a resilient and circumspect way that recalls how the virtual world can both inform and contradict the real one.