burial at sea..

[Chupacabra]

It’s an interesting topic.  I think the closest to a villian’s memorial I can think of is when they parade around the corpse/body parts, and I guess in a way that’s more of a temporary installation than an actual design.

 

I remember reading that after WWII there was talk about not rebuilding dresden, and to leave it as a mass of wreckage and ruins as an anti-war memorial.  I thought that was a compelling idea – hallowing, numbing, able to really capture the scale of the tradgedy, and interactive to boot.  (also not very realistic)

[Boilerplater]

I didn’t get the cheering going on outside the White house.  Just wasn’t feeling like cheering.  Its like the quarterback was sacked five years after the game ended.  With high unemployment, high gas prices, and a generally sour national mood, it feels like the terrorists won.

[Rob Halpern]

But no one builds memorials for “bad guys.” Memorials for their victims, yes, but not for the guy. Stalin in his mausoleum was not intended as memorializing a monster but rather the country’s leader.

I’m guessing that the designers working on the 9/11 Museum in NYC will be wrestling with how to depict today’s events.

[Trace One]

I geuss you’re right, Rob..Just some crazy imaginings, on my part..I did a design for a water fountain that was supposed to be centered on a bronze statue, that depicted Cory Aquino killing Marcos (I used to live in the PI), Cory looked like the Silver Surfer, but female, and Marcos was laying across, Cory weilding a lightning bolt towards Marcos”s heart..

 

I geuss we don’t really memorialize bad guys..

back to the old drawing pad. 

[Rob Halpern]

Well Trace’ I was thinking more about your thread and realized that just because no one does it and probably no one would ever fund it, doesn’t mean it isn’t an interesting design challenge to consider.

It seems to me that a “memorial” to a bad guy needs to be interactive.

You might gaze with inspiration upon a memorial to a great guy or woman… but for evil you kind of want to react, don’t you? So a static installation is either unsatisfying or is going to get trashed

[Claudia Chalfa]

Excellent point, I hadn’t thought of that.

[Jon Quackenbush]

I agree.  I find it quite sad to find people chanting outside of the white house (or anywhere else for that matter) like it were some sort of sporting event that this guy was killed.  Since his name became part of our everyday, hundreds of thousands of people have died. We invaded Iraq –a country that had absolutely nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks or Al Queda or Osama Bin Laden. We essentially created an Al Queda presence in Iraq by invading it. As a result Iran became a far more influential force in Iraq than it ever would have been, and we have given a grand motivation for people around the world who want to do harm to America & kill civilians.

This is a instead a somber day where we should be remembering all the victims. The 3,000 souls in NY and the hundreds of thousands that died afterward from a US response that should have been more a police action instead of an all out war on the middle east to the tune of over a trillion dollars.

All of that for one man. Not worth it.

[Claudia Chalfa]

It would be a tough thing to lie about, I am sure that Al Qaeda would immediately produce him and call us on it.

[Claudia Chalfa]

They did take DNA samples of the body before they buried him at sea, anyway.  That’s what they said on NPR this morning.

[Claudia Chalfa]

Sorry, I will comment now on what you actually asked for!

 

First of all, I think for anyone besides the people who supported him to erect any sort of memorial would be crass, like rubbing salt into the wound.  Perhaps mention of the timeline could be made at the Ground Zero memorial, but it would need to be carefully worded to not enflame resentment or make us seem as if we are glorifying his death. (We are already doing that on TV for the world to watch, lets not make a permanent reminder.)

 

Second, as far as I am concerned his followers have every right to create a memorial to him.  Yes, it probably will become a rallying point and a symbol for them, but nevertheless they have that right. Not that it really matters anyway in this digital age, when they can easily rally and build symbolism through images online.

 

Thirdly, and this is the part of your question I find interesting, I think a burial at sea has two possibilities from a design standpoint.  You can either create a floating monument, which if it can be seen from land is a nice idea, or you can create a monument that is on the nearest shore or the shore of the country where the person was from or lived.

 

As for memorials for bad guys in general, I think it depends on what you are trying to achieve.  The Holocaust memorial in Germany is not a memorial to Hitler, it is a reminder that we should not forget this period n our history and to not let it happen again.  That’s very different from a memorial to a bad guy.  I think in general I would not be supportive of such a memorial, for various reasons.

 

Just my opinion. 

[Claudia Chalfa]

three trillion dollars.

[Jon Quackenbush]

…sigh

[Trace One]

thinking about Mr. Rainey’s idea of a ‘memorial’ at sea, or whatever you want to call it, reminds me that the original design for the manhattan World Trade Center memorial was two voids out in the Hudson, the absent footprints of the World Trade Centers..I reallly liked that idea..

Do we have paintings of the faces of evil? Do they serve any purpose? Saw a Caravaggio (I think) sculpture of Mary Magdalen, the wooden sculpture with the sunken eyes, a thin and tired poor person, as she undoubtably was.. We certainly love to depict evil in films and books..

and one of my favorite paintings is called “The day my father died”..a red cloudy sunset, very beautiful to my eye..

anyway, just idle speculation..My favorite activity, next to irrigation tables. 

[Claudia Chalfa]

No big deal, but actually I’m a “Mrs.”  🙂

You can actually just call me Claudia.

[Trace One]

sorry! hee! you can call me anything but late for dinner..

[Author]

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