Midtown Plaza was the first urban mall in the US. It was built in 1962 and slowly destroyed between 2010-2013. The destruction of Midtown Plaza held an eerie resemblance to images from 9-11.This series of photographs both created and from archives as well as installations and site specific interventions explore the embedded mutual memories in news photographs and how images of construction and destruction carry deeper narratives. The work in progress was exhibited in the Project Space at Visual Studies Workshop in 2014.
In the past several years I have been
fascinated to watch the closing and demolition
of Midtown Plaza in Rochester, New York, the first urban indoor mall (built in 1962). There is an
uncanny visual resemblance to the images of the destruction of the Twin Towers
in Manhattan. These references of destruction and despair lie in the literal
heart of the city of Rochester. The scene of the demolition project, which began
three years ago, was a low-level echo of trauma and violence similar to those
we see embodied in some of the media images of 9/11 and from countries in
conflict or in the aftermath of natural disasters. Beyond the metaphors of
destruction as a force of renewal that are quite common in the news media, I
have been thinking a lot about the idea of nostalgia—a memory of something idealized that never really existed in that form. I am also exploring the community’s memories of this site and
watching how those ideas change as the site moves from a destructive metaphor
to a creative one of rebuilding.
Occupation is a work-in-progress and
incorporates archival images and still frames from archival films of the plaza
being built along with stills that I made of the demolition of the plaza. I was
struck by the similarity of the archival images of the removal of bedrock to construct
the foundation, and the images of the removal of the current buildings. I have
started to think about the idea of perspective and how it relates to time. The
entire process of the destruction of Midtown Plaza has been documented by an
unmanned camera on top of a building across the street that streams the
information live to a website (www.cityofrochester.gov/midtown/). Looking at those
images and the satellite maps of the site, I realized that the contemporary
sense of perspective and virtual movement in space is remarkably different from
the historical perspective provided by the still camera when the building was
constructed. In the installation at the Visual Studies Workspace, I have explored the idea of perspective.
I also created a
set of photographs that re-document various views of the site that will be used
in an augmented reality application that plays with the “Kodak Picture Spot.”
Pedestrians will be prompted to download the app at designated picture spots
downtown. When they use the app they will be prompted to make a picture with
their smartphones. The picture they make will actually be a copy of the older
version of that view. There is a set of figures that I have been removed from
the original images and enlarged to life size. Much like Paolo Cirio’s “Street
Ghosts,” these historical ghost figures will be reintroduced as large posters
onto the buildings in the same position that they appeared in the original photographs.