In time for the war: 3/11 after cinema

Abstract

This essay explores the imagination of war after 3/11 through the lens of media aesthetics. Using Obayashi Nobuhiko’s digital essay, Casting Blossoms to the Sky (2011) as a springboard, Kaffen analyzes spectacle images of war in relationship to an intensified state of security. Security names the power to protect the hometown by propagating war elsewhere. Claiming that cinema has lost its power after 3/11, Obayashi deploys digital technologies, retooling his use of idiosyncratic effects to re-imagine media’s relationship to war and security. Casting Blossoms presents a journey through unsettling wonderland, pointing toward the necessity of locating sites of contingency beyond the frame and forms of refuge that are distinct from security.