Tragedy
Process, Creation, Exploitation, and Authenticity
Hello and welcome to this talk on tragedy, where we'll be looking at process, creation, exploitation and authenticity in regards to tragedy and tragedy works. My name is Art Banymandhub and I'm a second year PhD student at Royal Holloway University of London, reading music composition.
I'd just like to give this disclaimer that sensitive themes will be discussed in this presentation and audience discretion is advised.
So for me it's important to set a groundwork by looking at a definition, and the definition of tragedy that I work with is that of “an event, series of events, or situation causing great suffering, destruction, or distress, and typically involving death, especially on a large scale or prematurely” (Oxford English Dictionary, 2023).
I'd like to invite you at this point to just have a moment of reflection and ask yourself where were you:
on September 11th 2001;
on July 7th 2005;
and on the 26th of March 2020.
Take a moment to reflect on these prompts and we will return.
Before continuing I just want to give a background to my PhD project titled Isolated Sound. Isolated Sound looks at interpretive frameworks for live installation looking at the COVID-19 Pandemic in the UK. In order to do this, it explores works associated to the Holocaust, 9/11, and other global tragedies looking at the depictions of tragedy through music and live installation. It uses practice-led research at its primary method and challenges the notions of ownership of both tragedy and the creative process; with a focus on audience and composer well-being.
So, where were you on September 11th 2001?
A fire engine from 9/11 (Banymandhub, 2023a)
On the 7th of July 2005? The day of the London bombings.
The National 7/7 Memorial (Banymandhub, 2023c)
And on March the 26th, 2020, when the UK entered the first lockdown?
The National COVID-19 Memorial Wall (Banymandhub, 2023b)
Now each of us will either have a direct experience of being alive on that day or will have learned about it subsequently. However I can guarantee that everybody listening, reading, or watching this video has a connection or perspective to these events based off their own exposure and experience within these events. And that's important because it's that difference between each individual based off one tragedy that is of particular interest to me.
And a great activity I found that I find helps me to break down my own trauma or thoughts on a tragedy is the three-minute recount. As the name implies all you need to do is sit down, set the time of three minutes and pick a theme and write as many words or thoughts that come to your mind in that time. Here you can see three examples here, the first being the 9/11 attacks, the 7/7 bombings, and the Pandemic.
Primary experience:
Were you there?
Do you know somebody who was lost?
Were you directly impacted by it?
Primary trauma or exposure causes direct trauma.
Secondary experience within a tragedy:
Were you watching it on TV?
Have you been watching a movie on it?
Have you read a book on it?
Are you researching it currently or did you go to a museum?
That can cause vicarious trauma and in the digital age this has become increasingly more prevalent.
And memetic trauma: Knowledge passed down to individuals, groups, or generations; be it from family, curriculum, government, music and media.
These exposures have been metamorphicized, or given a metamorphic representation, through the radioactive transfer model by Gampbel (2000), which shows how all of these individual experiences come together and boundless of each other create a new knowledge, positive or negative, into a wider community.
So now let's look at processing tragedy as a depiction. Now this well-known Adorno quote,
“to white poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric” (1982),
has been used a lot, but it's important to understand what Adorno was saying here. Now, this is of course down to interpretation, but what I take from this is the notion that if you were to literally write poetry after Auschwitz; if you release that or that becomes something that is shared, you are releasing or sharing work based off the loss of life or the suffering of others.
And in that way, you are exploiting the individuals that suffered as a result of that tragedy. However, writing poetry might be your outlet of processing and it's important to be aware that we all have our own ways of processing tragedy and the trauma associated to it.
Different methods of depicting tragedy and processing trauma include:
Written form: journaling, poetry and blogging
Spoken: therapy, friends, family, and community groups
Media: music composition, songwriting, screenwriting
Physical engagement with the source: visiting the direct site, watching footage.
Interdisciplinary methods combining one or more of the above.
Key findings in my current research have found strong support for the use of music in trauma processing, with particular links to songwriting being the dominant form, though not in isolation (McFerran et al., 2020). It is highlighted that if people are processing their own trauma at home or independently, what well-being checks are in place to ensure that their safety is being acknowledged? (Kaplan, 2005: p64). This goes for creators and receivers of trauma as well. Additionally, engaging with trauma directly or secondary also increases negative and harmful characteristics on individuals with potential to form addiction to the trauma (Robben & Suarez-Orozco, 2000: p20; Magano et al., 2022). Finally, I found research showing interdisciplinary works as being pivotal to aiding potential healing and community restoration in the aftermath of tragedy (Robben & Suarez-Orozco, 2000: p3).
So with these findings, two questions that I would like to propose are:
How does society influence the ways in which an individual attempts to engage with tragedy?
What are the moral and ethical dilemmas presented when engaging with tragedy from a personal perspective and how can these be exploited?
Now the exploitation of tragedy can take many forms and is subjective to an extent.
But it can be argued that, again, if we are to set a narrative at the expense of suffering of others, that we are exploiting that suffering for our own purposes. This is especially true when we politicize tragedies. It can also be argued that communities and groups can create collective representations of an event to portray a set narrative (Robben & Suarez-Orozco, 2000: p23). In itself that is also exploitation, because when we look at a tragedy we should look at the true events of it and not an altered narrative to affect how a group interacts (Volkan & Itzkowitz, 2000). A setback that can occur with creating set narratives or set responses from groups is that when groups start to splinter off and disagree or find different interpretations of a tragedy it can damage the social fabric causing disruption, cancellation and outcry.
Now this all comes together in what I call the conundrum of tragedy works, where free thinkers provide a very good dialogue to explore within.
These are Adorno (2003), Camus (2008), and Barthes (1977). Now, as I've mentioned, Adorno (2003) sees that when you release tragedy work, a capital product can be made, and that capital product exploits a life lost for financial gain, or political exploitation, which could be taken to the extent of malicious intent. Camus looks at it slightly differently and says that as a creator, part of the act of creating is to know that you are the vulnerable entity here, and once the work is created it goes into an unforgiving world, and therefore the only thing you can do is make the work true to yourself (2008), giving you the authenticity behind your work. For Barthes, he states that the intent of the creator cannot be imposed on the audience, and thus even though the creator has a set intention for their work, once it is released they have to relinquish control and let the audience interpret it in their own way (1977).In all of these situations there has to be an acknowledgement for the fact that once a work is released into the public it can be repurposed, repackaged and used for a plethora of reasons that you may not have intended.
I'm going to go through two examples now that contrast each other based off their uses. The first is Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue, (the Angry American), by American country artist Toby Keith (2002). This was released in the year following the September 11th attacks and uses strong collective grouping in language choice such as “American girls”, “American guys” and the word "we" to give a collective voice of a nation to the listeners. It uses the American flag and strong symbology and patriotic themes such as the Statue of Liberty, Bald Eagle, Mother Freedom, and Uncle Sam. This comes together to give a collective voice of anger representing the American nation, the United States, to the attackers that committed the tragic events of September 11th. However, this doesn't speak for everyone, especially in 2002 when the calls for war and military action were causing divisive debate across the West.
In contrast to the emotive and group language used by Toby Keith (2002), Gordon Lightfoot's The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald (2018), a narrative account of the real-time maritime disaster of the Edmund Fitzgerald, uses a triple-A form and a folk style to tell a researched and well-accounted story of the wreck of the ill-fated vessel. Lightfoot (2018), in order to make this piece, did speak to family members and researched the news and other media in order to build an accurate account. To the extent that when new information was presented, contrary to the written lyric, Lightfoot amended the lyrics to maintain accuracy (Sparling, 2024).
Now these are two different ways of putting work out into the world. Both were performed, both were sold. But in one you can see the channeling of groupthink to set a narrative and in the other you can see a perception and a willingness to want to maintain accuracy for documentation purposes. This gives considerations to how creators can depict tragedy in a way that aids their own processing of an event and that of their audience. Furthermore, it asks if creators need to be aware of potential exploitation in the first place.
It all comes down to striking a balance. For me, I found this when creating a series of works depicting the 7/7 terror attacks in London. I used selfies as my primary visual alongside created works using found sound and recording instrumentation. In this process I put myself through quite a few moral and ethical choices and my notes reflect on this as I'm processing how I personally want to depict this tragedy.
Artwork for 7/7 Project
Through the completion of the work I created the prism model (Banymandhub, 2023e), providing I think the best way to give autonomy to the creator to process their own trauma in relation to a tragedy and create a product that goes out into the world potentially, is to look through an ethical, moral and societal lens in order to create using practice, reading or research, and the creative process itself. By doing this, I believe that you create a situation where the individual has autonomy and process ability with an awareness of the wider aesthetic.
As a result, in my key findings I have found:
We have to remember that tragedy is unique to the individual, but how these unique strands come together, build a community and a collective narrative.
When putting a work out we have to remember that we are just one voice providing a resource that others can connect with positively or negatively. And this is subjective
Creators should be aware of the potential exploitation and work released into the public sphere.
By providing frameworks, such as the prison model to engage with tragedy, you offer a blend of autonomy to the individual that they can work within their own framework and help build authenticity on their part.
I'd like to leave with a quote:
“those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” (George Santayana, 1998).
And as we process our own tragedy it's important to know that by doing that we keep the memory of the tragedy alive so that others won't forget it in the game of not repeating it.
And finally, years after the poetry after Auschwitz statement, Adorno did write that:
“perennial suffering has as much a right to expression as the tortured should have to scream” (2015).
This is a key way to end this presentation, as for me, it shows that we all have the right to process our own connections to the tragedy. And as long as we all continue to process our tragedy and talk about our process and put our process into the world, we keep the knowledge pool of that tragedy alive, and enhance the debate, discussion, and community based around a tragedy in the hope of helping ease trauma for future generations.
I'd like to invite you to consider the following questions:
What draws us to explore tragedy?
How do we engage in tragedy?
What, if anything, should be done to ensure accuracy and reduce exploitation?
Does the responsibility fall solely on the creator, researcher or individual?
How does the community influence our perspective after a tragic event.
Thank you.
References:
Adorno, T. W. (1982) Prisms. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Adorno, T. (2003) The jargon of authenticity. Abingdon: Routledge Classics.
Adorno, T. W. (2015) Negative dialectics. London: Routledge.
Banymandhub, A. (2023a) Fire engine at the national 9/11 memorial and museum [Photograph].
Banymandhub, A. (2023b) The national COVID-19 memorial wall [Photograph].
Banymandhub, A. (2023c) National 7/7 Memorial [Photograph].
Banymandhub, A. (2023d) The different aspects of tragedy [Digital Installation]. Available at: https://www.artmakesmusic.com/portfoliotimeline/tragedy (Accessed:16 April 2024).
Banymandhub, A. (2023e) Prism model for practice-led research in the depiction of tragedy [Digital Image].
Banymandhub, A. (2024a) 3 minute reflection of 9/11 [Digital Image].
Banymandhub, A. (2024b) 3 minute reflection of 7/7 [Digital Image].
Banymandhub, A. (2024c) 3 minute reflection of COVID-19 [Digital Image].
Barthes, R. (1977) ‘The death of the author’, Image, Music, Text. pp.142-148.
Basinski, W. (2012) The disintegration loops (remastered). [CD] New York: Temporary Residence Ltd.
Basinski, W. (2014) The Disintegration Loops [Photograph]. Available at: https://williambasinski.bandcamp.com/album/the-disintegration-loops (Accessed: 29 April 2024).
Camus, A. (2018) Create dangerously. Milton Keynes: Penguin Random House UK.
DatBot. (2017) Angry American Single CD Cover [Photograph]. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Angry_American_Single_CD_Cover.jpg (Accessed: 29 April 2024).
Lightfoot, G. (2018) ‘Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald’, An introduction to Gordon Lightfoot [CD]. United Kingdom: Rhino Entertainment.
Kaplan, E. A. (2005) Trauma culture the politics of terror and loss in media and literature. Piscataway: Rutgers University Press.
Gampel, Y. (2000) ‘Reflections on the prevalence of the uncanny in social violence’, in Robben, A. C. G. M. and Suárez-Orozco, M. M. (eds.) Cultures under siege: Collective violence and trauma. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, pp. 48-69.
Kieth, T. (2002) ‘Courtesy of the red, white and blue (The Angry American)’, Unleashed [CD]. Polydor.
McFerran, K. S., Lai, H. I. C., Change, W-H., Acquaro, D., Chin, T. C., Stokes, H., & Crooke, A. H. D. (2020) ‘Music, Rhythm and Trauma: A Critical Interpretive Synthesis of Research Literature’. Frontiers in Psychology. [Online] 11. Available at: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00324 (Accessed: 12 April 2024).
Magano, J., Fraiz-Brea, J. A., & Leite, Â. (2022) ‘Dark Tourists: Profile, Practices, Motivations and Wellbeing’. International journal of environmental research and public health. [Online] 19 (19). Available at: doi: 10.3390/ijerph191912100 (Accessed: April 10 2024).
Oxford English Dictionary. (2023) ‘Tragedy, n. meanings, etymology and more’, Oxford English Dictionary [online]. doi:https://doi.org/10.1093//OED//1087329770.
Santayana, G. (1998) The Life of Reason. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books.
Sparling, H. (2023) Disaster songs as intangible memorials in Atlantic Canada. New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.
Sparling, H. (2024) ‘Death Culture, Vernacular Memorialization, & Disaster Songs of Atlantic Canada’, The Music, Medicine and History Network Wednesday Seminar Series. Death Culture, Vernacular Memorialization, & Disaster Songs of Atlantic Canada, Sydney: Cape Breton University, Canada, 17 January.
Suárez-Orozco, M. M. & Robben, A. C. G. M. (2000) ‘Interdisciplinary perspectives on violence and trauma’, in Robben, A. C. G. M. and Suárez-Orozco, M. M. (eds.) Cultures under siege: Collective violence and trauma. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, pp. 1–42.
Theo’s Little Bot. (2018) WreckEdmundFitzgerald [Photograph]. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:WreckEdmundFitzgerald.jpg (Accessed: 29 April 2024).
Volkan, V. D., & Itzkowitz, N. (2000) ‘Modern Greek and Turkish identities and the psychodynamics of Greek-Turkish relations’, in Robben, A. C. G. M. and Suárez-Orozco, M. M. (eds.) Cultures under siege: Collective violence and trauma. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, pp. 227–247.
