216 Westbound: A Topography of Latent Fear

The film, 216 Westbound, (2014), by artist Shona Illingworth made in collaboration with media sociologist John Tulloch, explores how the effects of PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) experienced by John, a survivor of 7/7 London bombings, can amplify another, less visible but powerful effect of the attacks: the mapping of a topography of latent threat and fear onto space. The explosion caused dramatic shifts in John’s sensory perception of time and space, his body embedded with fragments of glass, his eardrums ruptured, he is unable to look up at the sky. The assault on his body and sense of self was further exacerbated through the subsequent global media dissemination of an image of his injured body, which was used to promote the 90 days without charge anti-terror bill, a move that he strenuously opposed.

Through close analysis of 216 Westbound, Shona Illingworth, John Tulloch and writer Caterina Albano examine the effect of the terrorist attack at the level of embodied experience, media reporting and the machinery of State control. Working across text, images and extracts from the film, and moving from trauma trapped inside the body through the loss of agency and appropriation of voice to the institution of State powers of constraint, this chapter will explore the psychological, physiological and societal impact of the bombings and the intensification of a sense of threat, diminished personal space, and hyper-vigilance that results.