What is Visual Rhetoric? A Towering Question...

Garnered from readings for class last week, and the presentation of the 6 perceptions of aesthetic engagement (sensory, representative, appreciative, formal connection, emotional connection, and individual connection) I define visual rhetoric as follows: a strategic blending of visual aesthetics with a concern for the needs and wishes of a target audience that operates within one or more cultures. Visual rhetoric also must involve an understanding of the cultural forces that shape the production and reception of a certain document or visual material.

In brief, visual rhetoric is a careful arrangement of visual aesthetics that considers the cultural scope under which a target audience operates in order to create for said audience an engaging and persuasive physical presentation of ideas or materials.

How a viewer will receive and process the visual materials is unique to each person. If you are to employ visual rhetoric, then you must be aware of this, but must also realize that you have no control over individual experience.

Let me share some of my individual experience with (personal and emotional) sensational images.

Meet 14-year-old me. I am sitting with my friend Bridget in a closed-to-the-public area of Liberty State Park in Jersey City, the Hudson River shoreline only feet away. Both of our Dads work for the JCPD and this was the site of their annual summer barbecue. Thank you Mom for taking these photos.

Standing is Bridget's dad, and from left to right, my little brother, our family friend, and Bridget's sister.

Both photos have something in common: The Twin Towers.

That's my Dad, an American hero, patrolling downtown Jersey City's streets on 9/11/01. The entire Jersey City Police force was on duty to provide medical aid and the safe transport of victims from New York into Jersey City. Someone snapped this photo without Dad knowing; he only received the print two years ago, since it took the photographer that long to locate him. As you can see, Tower One is burning, while Tower Two had already collapsed. I know this because its view would not have been obstructed from behind the building on the right in the photo.

Since the attack, Ground Zero is still a gaping hole and the New York City skyline is without its most trademark. In an effort to acknowledge and pay respect to the victims, Russian President Vladimir Putin and the people of Russia donated the little-known Teardrop Memorial to The United States. Educate yourself: read the full article.

On September 11, 2006, Russian artist Zurab Tsereteli unveiled his work in Bayonne, NJ (the town next to Jersey City, which is also the town that The Statue of Liberty was in fact gifted from Bayonne, France). The Memorial is positioned so that the teardrop hanging from the center would align with the area between the two Towers were they still erect. A polished marble slab encircles the base of the Memorial; on it is etched the name of every victim from 9/11. When I visited, I located one name, Mary Melendez, the mom of three boys who attended my grammar school. She worked in Tower Two; she phoned her husband after the plane crash and told him she was helping a handicapped coworker to escape; neither survived.

It saddens me to learn through Google search that The Teardrop Memorial has become a thing of urban legend. I have visited the site and can vouch that it does in fact exist. But, I can understand why some may question its existence. Since the Memorial sits on the river's edge, there is only one access point from the land, via Route 440. You then proceed through unfinished labyrinthine dirt roadways, making this and that turn until you reach the site. There are no instructions on how to get to the Memorial, you just have to know.

Since 9/11, the New York City and its surrounding Metro area (which consequently includes Jersey City) has received mass attention. However, almost a decade after the most devastating incident in the Northeastern United States, we all have mostly forgotten. May this meager post serve as a point of reference for all who will always remember.

The images featured above are ones that I personally and emotionally relate to, though I sincerely feel that those who have read this post will feel as deeply moved as I do.