Emotional Tech

The Tribute in Light has been burning for days here in New York City, in anticipation of today's anniversary of the September 11 attacks. This is an iPhone shot I caught from my terrace in downtown Manhattan after midnight last night - a passing cloud gave the Tribute's photons a halo that shined brighter than the moon (which stubbornly refused to squeeze into the shot).

The Tribute in Light first memorialized the 9/11 attacks in March of 2002, and uses 88 search lights placed next to the site of the former World Trade Center to recreate the towers' footprints and beam them into space. The project has returned every year, but hasn't been funded past 2008, meaning this might be the installation's last appearance.

On a clear night the towers of light rise so high that it seems as if the beams recurve over the city, but thanks to a cloud's albedo I managed to catch them last night looking like perfectly straight ghost towers capped by a second moon.

At the same time that the LHC's particle beam begins to uncover the secrets of the universe, the Tribute in Light's beams reveal something altogether more human.