Zachary Kaplan

A dialogue about the ethics of the suicide attack has played out in mainstream cinema from The Dark Knight to United 93 to Inglorious Basterds. There's a curious history of the crude misappropriation of ash, falling men, and collapse, and the equally puzzling emergent value of pop-commentary (such as Frank Rich’s infamous column on the photo above.) During the last week of July, independent curator Zachary Kaplan will occupy Golden Age during business hours to discuss these ideas and more through a variety of media and activities intended to stoke and evaluate interpretations of the attack’s evolving influence on the popular culture.

Structured to complement the intimacy of Golden Age's new space and to physically correlate with the digital social-interpolative environment that is the Internet, the residency takes the form of an ongoing series of conversational, casual mini-courses held with a small number of participants as they trickle in and out of the gallery during the week-long run. Courses invite visitors to experience and reflect on material from film, music, the web, and text and to contribute their own perspectives and theories to a weblog documenting the project. While lesson plans will be pre-arranged and feature new video, gifs, and demonstrations by contributing artists, conversations will cater to the individual interests of participating visitors.

To launch the project, on Wednesday, July 28th from 6 - 9pm, Kaplan will discuss the aesthetics of conspiracy and screen Charles Irvin's video Membrane Lane and excerpts from popular YouTube videos such as Loose Change: An American Coup (Second Edition) and 911 Taboo. The first five visitors will receive a compilation of music culled from 9/11 conspiracy videos.