7 ms·

Interpreting 9/11 commemorative Afghan carpets (2011)

182 points by samirillian 5y ago

1ris 5y ago
(2011)
kumarsw 5y ago
I'd thought that these were related to the 9/11 quilts (though reading the article they turned out to be quite unrelated), at least one of which is still on display at the Pentagon. I've never found a good explanation of the quilt phenomenon - unlike the Afghan carpets which were driven by a mixture of anti-Taliban sentiment and good-old-fashioned commercialism, the 9/11 quilts seemed to motivated by a return to traditional values in the aftermath of tragedy.
- ferdowsi 5y ago
  Quilting is a very Americana mode of remembrance. The African American community has a rich history of story quilting. Also see the AIDS quilt.
  - ummwhat 5y ago
    Given the history of quilts and infectious disease in the Americas (re: smallpox blankets), I always felt aids quilts were accidentally tasteless and, due to the sincerity of the good intentions behind them, kind of hilarious in a subtle dark humour way.
    - azernik 5y ago
      1. The only documented case of blankets being intentionally used to spread smallpox was recorded simply as "blankets"; there is no indication they were specifically quilts. 2. Quilting as a tradition in WASP culture is so long and dense that any association with smallpox is far from the first; quilts with squares commemorating deaths are very very common.
      - jacobolus 5y ago
        It’s also unclear whether the gifting of smallpox blankets had any practical effect. Cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Fort_Pitt#Biological_warfare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Fort_Pitt#Biological_...
    - PhasmaFelis 5y ago
      It would be less of a stretch to say that wearing pants is offensive because the conquistadores wore them.
      - ashtonkem 5y ago
        They did however ruin a few forms of head wear.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
selimthegrim 5y ago
These were being exhibited at the Penn Museum around the time of the blogpost. I have a photo of one with some nicely rendered B-52s dropping bombs.
- edge17 5y ago
  I searched for the Penn Museum and found this link https://www.penn.museum/collections/videos/video/1014 https://www.penn.museum/collections/videos/video/1014, but the video seems to have conveniently left out examples of anti-American rugs.
  - selimthegrim 5y ago
    None of them I saw were anti-American. The one I snapped a pic of is at 1:35.
KhoomeiK 5y ago
The way in which the design reverts to the norm is so profound in a way, even though it's the product of "mistakes". Entropy, evolution, and economies follow parallel patterns.
- beervirus 5y ago
  It’s like watching an image being compressed back and forth between two different lossy formats.
  - malkia 5y ago
    Content-aware fill
- Hayarotle 5y ago
  Reminds me of Jean Baudrillard's progression of simulacra, starting from a faithful, sincere image of the events and ending in stage of pure simulacrum, having no relationship to any reality of the events
tyingq 5y ago
There's a comment on the bottom that links to various psy-ops leaflets the US dropped around Afghanistan that's also pretty interesting: http://www.psywarrior.com/Herbafghan02.html http://www.psywarrior.com/Herbafghan02.html Edit: Also, more war rug photos: https://warrug.com/warrugs/styles.php?ids=37 https://warrug.com/warrugs/styles.php?ids=37
dclowd9901 5y ago
The second example is almost haunting in its abstractness. While I understand the “copies of copies” nature of its existence, it nevertheless could be easily interpreted as a reflection of the “lost” nature of the retaliatory war effort, and the way the original attacks had been weaponized into ways that caused America and its values to erode and turn on itself.
- varjag 5y ago
  It's like GANN output but without the "artificial" part.
- sunshineforever 5y ago
  I would probably buy the second carpet. I thought the rockets were poppies at first. Which is basically accidental poetry.
rhn_mk1 5y ago
This is utterly fascinating. This game of telephone took 10 years and used a medium that can be copied with high accuracy. Makes me wonder how much of the original is still left in older literature which was told by word of mouth.
jazzyjackson 5y ago
There are many varieties of these carpets available for purchase on Etsy [1] including the design in this article [2] They’re quite fascinating but I can’t picture myself displaying it in my home, not sure who’s the target market [1] https://www.etsy.com/search?q=afghan+war+rug https://www.etsy.com/search?q=afghan+war+rug [2] https://www.etsy.com/listing/1040160135/303-beautifully-handmade-genuine-afghan https://www.etsy.com/listing/1040160135/303-beautifully-hand...
- tokai 5y ago
  I'm planning to buy one. Afghanistan and the war has been a constant element in my life since I was a child. They are interesting artefacts connected to the war, but not from the viewpoint of the west. A good reminder of the cruelty and folly of imperialism.
t12 5y ago
https://imgur.com/a/UC1EX1V https://imgur.com/a/UC1EX1V
- systemvoltage 5y ago
  This is absolutely amazing, thanks for sharing.
jaredandrews 5y ago
These sort of artifacts are fascinating. It reminds me of a t-shirt I saw a man wearing in Thailand in 2012. I was in rural Isan and spotted a Thai man wearing a t-shirt with an image of the falling towers, above the towers were portraits of Bush and Bin Laden with text like "Bush VS Bin Laden". I never saw a copy of this shirt again in Thailand (which was strange because Bangkok has many, many t-shirt stalls filled with shirts that would be controversial in the west). I googled it and discovered that there were actually many variations on this shirt[0], but I never saw the same design as the one the man was wearing. Weirdly, this mystery was sorta solved for me this year. A Rudy Giuliani parody account I follow on Instagram posted an image of this controversial handheld game: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laden_VS_USA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laden_VS_USA The image featured on the game is the exact same one I saw on the shirt. And yes, several people on YouTube have acquired and played copies of this game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XNJM_Kamyg&t=142s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XNJM_Kamyg&t=142s [0] https://www.google.com/search?q=bin+laden+vs+bush+shirt&tbm=isch https://www.google.com/search?q=bin+laden+vs+bush+shirt&tbm=...
- LaserDiscMan 5y ago
  > controversial handheld game Shortly after the 9/11 attacks, an unlicensed Game Boy Color game called "Terrifying 9/11" was released, which uses the attack as a central plot point, despite the game essentially being a port of Metal Slug. The quality of the port is actually quite good which leads some to speculate that it's based on an unreleased port by SNK. It actually has perhaps one of the most impressive examples of video (or something close to it) I've ever seen on the Game Boy. I get the feeling that the game creators didn't mean to cause offense but simply wanted to use the attacks to add context or "plot" in other words. More info: https://bootleggames.fandom.com/wiki/Terrifying_911 https://bootleggames.fandom.com/wiki/Terrifying_911 Full gameplay (Chinese version): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dq7Vlk2r-eo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dq7Vlk2r-eo
- marcodiego 5y ago
  A similar phenomenon happened in Brazil in the extremely polarized 2018 presidential elections: https://store.steampowered.com/app/930460/BOLSOMITO/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/930460/BOLSOMITO/
dash2 5y ago
My mum brought a war carpet back from Peshawar for me. At first it looks abstract, you have to stare at it for a while to see the AK 47s, grenade launcher and bullets round the side. "Oh no ma'am", said the seller in response to her not entirely innocent question, "it is not a prayer rug."
steve76 5y ago
Wars start when you want but do not end as you wish. Tyrants rule by cunning until they fall into a trap of their own making. The Taliban and their allies are to blame for the war along with many horrific crimes against humanity. Time to give them the bill. Collect with sanctions and embargoes. Same for the fools and liars who think murder pays and worsen conflict for petty gamesmanship. Go up the chain until they stop. Iran. Pakistan. China. Russia. For liberals to partner with China and Iran erases all idealism they want to present. Truly win at any cost scum. What are they going to do? Attack us? They do that anyways. Similar to cutting welfare. What are you going to do? Riot? Loot? You do that too. Sober up petulant teenager.
smhost 5y ago
> they could not be seen as other than opportunistic and exploitative I find this a bit hypocritical considering the incredible opportunism and exploitation represented by the WTC, as well as Bush's immediate command to spend money. They're moralizing other people for holding the very same values that America upholds.
guiriduro 5y ago
Still find it amazing that so many people think Osama bin Laden had the power to create the new "Pearl Harbor" of some insane but well-placed and well-funded PNAC Hawks' 'prescient' 'prediction', that he was able to send 19 crack terrorists who, despite showing low aptitude for actual flight, practiced on circa 2000 MS flight sims that apparently accurately modelled how an airliner at full throttle would behave (which pilots consider very challenging) to still hit their targets accurately enough and with enough force that sufficient deformation to the buildings occurred (while most fuel inconveniently burned off) that the structures were just damaged enough not to fall immediately but needed to burn inexplicably hot to finally collapse fairly symmetrically. To say nothing of the aerobatics of the Pentagon hit. And then for the command centre building that wasn't hit by planes but maybe some debris, which 'coincidentally' housed evidence against Enron conspirators, to suffer small fires and then collapse completely symmetrically later that day.
colanderman 5y ago
The derived version looks not unlike something a Markov chain or neural network might generate, when trained on the original.

182 points by samirillian 5y ago

1ris 5y ago

(2011)

I'd thought that these were related to the 9/11 quilts (though reading the article they turned out to be quite unrelated), at least one of which is still on display at the Pentagon. I've never found a good explanation of the quilt phenomenon - unlike the Afghan carpets which were driven by a mixture of anti-Taliban sentiment and good-old-fashioned commercialism, the 9/11 quilts seemed to motivated by a return to traditional values in the aftermath of tragedy.

ferdowsi 5y ago
Quilting is a very Americana mode of remembrance. The African American community has a rich history of story quilting. Also see the AIDS quilt.
- ummwhat 5y ago
  Given the history of quilts and infectious disease in the Americas (re: smallpox blankets), I always felt aids quilts were accidentally tasteless and, due to the sincerity of the good intentions behind them, kind of hilarious in a subtle dark humour way.
  - azernik 5y ago
    1. The only documented case of blankets being intentionally used to spread smallpox was recorded simply as "blankets"; there is no indication they were specifically quilts. 2. Quilting as a tradition in WASP culture is so long and dense that any association with smallpox is far from the first; quilts with squares commemorating deaths are very very common.
    - jacobolus 5y ago
      It’s also unclear whether the gifting of smallpox blankets had any practical effect. Cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Fort_Pitt#Biological_warfare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Fort_Pitt#Biological_...
  - PhasmaFelis 5y ago
    It would be less of a stretch to say that wearing pants is offensive because the conquistadores wore them.
    - ashtonkem 5y ago
      They did however ruin a few forms of head wear.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

selimthegrim 5y ago

These were being exhibited at the Penn Museum around the time of the blogpost. I have a photo of one with some nicely rendered B-52s dropping bombs.

edge17 5y ago
I searched for the Penn Museum and found this link https://www.penn.museum/collections/videos/video/1014 https://www.penn.museum/collections/videos/video/1014, but the video seems to have conveniently left out examples of anti-American rugs.
- selimthegrim 5y ago
  None of them I saw were anti-American. The one I snapped a pic of is at 1:35.

KhoomeiK 5y ago

The way in which the design reverts to the norm is so profound in a way, even though it's the product of "mistakes". Entropy, evolution, and economies follow parallel patterns.

beervirus 5y ago
It’s like watching an image being compressed back and forth between two different lossy formats.
- malkia 5y ago
  Content-aware fill
Hayarotle 5y ago
Reminds me of Jean Baudrillard's progression of simulacra, starting from a faithful, sincere image of the events and ending in stage of pure simulacrum, having no relationship to any reality of the events

tyingq 5y ago

There's a comment on the bottom that links to various psy-ops leaflets the US dropped around Afghanistan that's also pretty interesting: http://www.psywarrior.com/Herbafghan02.html http://www.psywarrior.com/Herbafghan02.html Edit: Also, more war rug photos: https://warrug.com/warrugs/styles.php?ids=37 https://warrug.com/warrugs/styles.php?ids=37

dclowd9901 5y ago

The second example is almost haunting in its abstractness. While I understand the “copies of copies” nature of its existence, it nevertheless could be easily interpreted as a reflection of the “lost” nature of the retaliatory war effort, and the way the original attacks had been weaponized into ways that caused America and its values to erode and turn on itself.

varjag 5y ago
It's like GANN output but without the "artificial" part.
sunshineforever 5y ago
I would probably buy the second carpet. I thought the rockets were poppies at first. Which is basically accidental poetry.

rhn_mk1 5y ago

This is utterly fascinating. This game of telephone took 10 years and used a medium that can be copied with high accuracy. Makes me wonder how much of the original is still left in older literature which was told by word of mouth.

jazzyjackson 5y ago

There are many varieties of these carpets available for purchase on Etsy [1] including the design in this article [2] They’re quite fascinating but I can’t picture myself displaying it in my home, not sure who’s the target market [1] https://www.etsy.com/search?q=afghan+war+rug https://www.etsy.com/search?q=afghan+war+rug [2] https://www.etsy.com/listing/1040160135/303-beautifully-handmade-genuine-afghan https://www.etsy.com/listing/1040160135/303-beautifully-hand...

tokai 5y ago
I'm planning to buy one. Afghanistan and the war has been a constant element in my life since I was a child. They are interesting artefacts connected to the war, but not from the viewpoint of the west. A good reminder of the cruelty and folly of imperialism.

t12 5y ago

https://imgur.com/a/UC1EX1V https://imgur.com/a/UC1EX1V

systemvoltage 5y ago
This is absolutely amazing, thanks for sharing.

jaredandrews 5y ago

These sort of artifacts are fascinating. It reminds me of a t-shirt I saw a man wearing in Thailand in 2012. I was in rural Isan and spotted a Thai man wearing a t-shirt with an image of the falling towers, above the towers were portraits of Bush and Bin Laden with text like "Bush VS Bin Laden". I never saw a copy of this shirt again in Thailand (which was strange because Bangkok has many, many t-shirt stalls filled with shirts that would be controversial in the west). I googled it and discovered that there were actually many variations on this shirt[0], but I never saw the same design as the one the man was wearing. Weirdly, this mystery was sorta solved for me this year. A Rudy Giuliani parody account I follow on Instagram posted an image of this controversial handheld game: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laden_VS_USA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laden_VS_USA The image featured on the game is the exact same one I saw on the shirt. And yes, several people on YouTube have acquired and played copies of this game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XNJM_Kamyg&t=142s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XNJM_Kamyg&t=142s [0] https://www.google.com/search?q=bin+laden+vs+bush+shirt&tbm=isch https://www.google.com/search?q=bin+laden+vs+bush+shirt&tbm=...

LaserDiscMan 5y ago
> controversial handheld game Shortly after the 9/11 attacks, an unlicensed Game Boy Color game called "Terrifying 9/11" was released, which uses the attack as a central plot point, despite the game essentially being a port of Metal Slug. The quality of the port is actually quite good which leads some to speculate that it's based on an unreleased port by SNK. It actually has perhaps one of the most impressive examples of video (or something close to it) I've ever seen on the Game Boy. I get the feeling that the game creators didn't mean to cause offense but simply wanted to use the attacks to add context or "plot" in other words. More info: https://bootleggames.fandom.com/wiki/Terrifying_911 https://bootleggames.fandom.com/wiki/Terrifying_911 Full gameplay (Chinese version): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dq7Vlk2r-eo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dq7Vlk2r-eo
marcodiego 5y ago
A similar phenomenon happened in Brazil in the extremely polarized 2018 presidential elections: https://store.steampowered.com/app/930460/BOLSOMITO/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/930460/BOLSOMITO/

dash2 5y ago

My mum brought a war carpet back from Peshawar for me. At first it looks abstract, you have to stare at it for a while to see the AK 47s, grenade launcher and bullets round the side. "Oh no ma'am", said the seller in response to her not entirely innocent question, "it is not a prayer rug."

steve76 5y ago

Wars start when you want but do not end as you wish. Tyrants rule by cunning until they fall into a trap of their own making. The Taliban and their allies are to blame for the war along with many horrific crimes against humanity. Time to give them the bill. Collect with sanctions and embargoes. Same for the fools and liars who think murder pays and worsen conflict for petty gamesmanship. Go up the chain until they stop. Iran. Pakistan. China. Russia. For liberals to partner with China and Iran erases all idealism they want to present. Truly win at any cost scum. What are they going to do? Attack us? They do that anyways. Similar to cutting welfare. What are you going to do? Riot? Loot? You do that too. Sober up petulant teenager.

smhost 5y ago

> they could not be seen as other than opportunistic and exploitative I find this a bit hypocritical considering the incredible opportunism and exploitation represented by the WTC, as well as Bush's immediate command to spend money. They're moralizing other people for holding the very same values that America upholds.

guiriduro 5y ago

Still find it amazing that so many people think Osama bin Laden had the power to create the new "Pearl Harbor" of some insane but well-placed and well-funded PNAC Hawks' 'prescient' 'prediction', that he was able to send 19 crack terrorists who, despite showing low aptitude for actual flight, practiced on circa 2000 MS flight sims that apparently accurately modelled how an airliner at full throttle would behave (which pilots consider very challenging) to still hit their targets accurately enough and with enough force that sufficient deformation to the buildings occurred (while most fuel inconveniently burned off) that the structures were just damaged enough not to fall immediately but needed to burn inexplicably hot to finally collapse fairly symmetrically. To say nothing of the aerobatics of the Pentagon hit. And then for the command centre building that wasn't hit by planes but maybe some debris, which 'coincidentally' housed evidence against Enron conspirators, to suffer small fires and then collapse completely symmetrically later that day.

colanderman 5y ago

The derived version looks not unlike something a Markov chain or neural network might generate, when trained on the original.