Ich, wie es wirklich war

Consider two images that so clearly define our historical moment. The first is Dolly the sheep, the cloned animal that became the global icon of genetic engineering, with all its promises and threats. The second is the twin towers of the World Trade Center at the moment of their destruction, a spectacle that ushered in a New World Order defined by terrorism. Both Dolly and the twin towers exemplify the sensuous spectrum of image anxiety in our time, ranging from the overwhelmingly traumatic spectacle of mass destruction on the one hand to the subtle creepiness of the cloned sheep, which, as a visual image, is quite unremarkable, but as idea is a figure of considerable dread. (W.J.T. Mitchell, What do Pictures want?: Vital signs / Cloning Terror)