Categories
Afterlife Death + Art / Architecture Death + Popular Culture Grief + Mourning

Gravity is a Movie about a Dead Child

Gravity (2013)
IMBD (December 22, 2013)

 

Do not read this Death Ref post if you have not seen the film Gravity and would rather not read about the plot before seeing it.

You have been warned.

After much talking and planning, I finally saw the movie Gravity by Alfonso Cuarón. It stars Sandra Bullock and George Clooney.

Almost all of the reviews I’ve read or heard focused on Gravity’s use of 3D effects (which are very well done) and the somewhat existential-metaphysical-slightly New Agey-religious language used by Bullock’s character Ryan Stone.

What very few people seem to realise, I think, is that Gravity is a film about a dead child and parent grieving over the unexpected death of that child. In this case, it’s Bullock’s character and her daughter who accidentally died while playing tag at school.

It is also a film about living people talking to the dead and this is something that both secular and religious people do (whether they admit it or not) on a fairly regular basis. It’s completely normal and part of what is often referred to as a Continuing Bond after a person dies.

Case in point, near the end of the film George Clooney’s character Matt Kowalski suddenly reappears even though it’s clear that he must be dead. Bullock and Clooney have a conversation about how to get back to earth, which pulls Bullock’s character from choosing to die and instead motivates here to return home. The scene concludes with Clooney’s sudden disappearance and Bullock asking him to say hello to her dead daughter.

Sure sure, the world’s entire fleet of space stations and ships are ripped apart by space debris during the film and there’s a survival story involved but it’s just the spectacle that underscores the dead child narrative. I also get the sense that some of the perceived neo-Theological/New Age Christian critiques come from the scene where Bullock speaks to the dead Clooney about the dead daughter. Again, I didn’t see that as particularly religious rather it was a grieving parent asking a friend to check in on a beloved child.

The real genius of Gravity’s meditation on life and death is this: I firmly believe Bullock’s character Ryan Stone dies in the moments before speaking with the dead Matt Kowalski and that the film concludes with her entering a secular afterlife.

Of a kind.

Categories
Death + Popular Culture Death + Technology Death + the Web Death Ethics

Selfies at Funerals: Why People Freak Out when Technology Mixes with Death

Selfies at Funerals
Jason Feifer, @HeyFeifer

 

RT If You’re 🙁 About Someone Dying
Katy Waldman, Slate (November 1, 2013)

 

A Passionate Defense of Selfies at Funerals
Caitlin Doughty, Jezebel (October 30, 2013)

 

When Cameras Took Pictures of Ghosts
Megan Garberoct, The Atlantic (October 30, 2013)

When photography was new, people used it to suggest the endurance of the departed.

 

Dark tourism: Why Murder Sites and Disaster Zones are Proving Popular
Will Coldwell, The Guardian (October 31, 2013)

 

Selfies at Serious Places
Jason Feifer, @HeyFeifer

 

Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror
Series 2, Episode 1 Be Right Back (February 2013)

The kids today. They can’t catch a break.

I watched the Selfies at Funerals Tumblr link roll across the internet this week and after seeing the images I immediately knew what was going to happen. People would complain about how the kids today were so self-absorbed that civilisation was near its collapse and how today’s youth don’t have any respect. I also knew that after this immediate condemnation, another group of voices would rise up to support the forsaken youth.

And this, Death Ref faithful, is exactly what happened.

The kids in the Selfies were damned left and right. It got a little thick at times.

But then, as should always be expected, another group of people took a more nuanced stand per the Selfies.

My good friend Caitlin Doughty at the Order of the Good Death wrote a strong defense of the kids on Jezebel and I mostly agree with her thoughts on the images. Where I disagree with Cailin is in arguing that these images represent a broader social disengagement with the reality of death. If anything, these photos show young people engaging with death, and doing so with a specific language that they’ve developed.

We humans invented all of our human death rituals. As a result, this means that all death rituals are constantly being changed, altered, and turned into hybrids. There is nothing innate about any ritual (given its human construction) so I think that it’s important to say that I would be more surprised if young people weren’t taking Selfies at funerals. This is the world they know but that doesn’t mean that today’s youth somehow lack any education about death.

Ironically enough, the Selfies at Funerals Tumblr page probably caused thousands more people to discuss actual death and funerals this week because of its supposedly disrespectful tone. Maybe, just maybe, the kids beat the adults at their own ‘We NEED to talk about death game.’

Katy Waldman at Slate took a wise step and waited a few days before writing anything. She presents a good critique of responses to the images but also brings everything back to the kids using the photographs as forms of grieving. I agree with this point and I kept waiting for someone to roll out a broader discussion about the relationship between photography and death.

Photography has a long standing relationship with funerals, especially in America. The camera phone is only the most recent example of a technology we humans use to capture images at funerals. Another way of looking at these photos is this– what else would anyone in the First World expect teenagers to do with their camera phones at funerals? Megan Garberoct at The Atlantic wrote an uncannily timed article on 19th century postmortem photography and the ability of Victorian era photographers to capture ‘Sprit’ images with their cameras.

Selfie of the Author
Selfie of the Author

But more than the photos themselves, it seems that the people criticising the kids just don’t like the technology involved, i.e., the camera phone that produced the self-taken image.

Here, then, is the key lesson for everyone loving to hate and hating to love the Selfies at Funerals: We humans remain deeply conflicted when mixing all forms of technology with death.

The great science fiction writer Douglas Adams (who died far too young) made the following observation about humans and technology in The Salmon of Doubt:

I’ve come up with a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies:

1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.
2. Anything that’s invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.
3. Anything invented after you’re thirty-five is against the natural order of things.

Given that my own research in the University of Bath’s Centre for Death and Society examines how technology and death intermingle all the time, I want to let everyone know that Selfies at Funerals represent only the beginning of a much longer future. We should already be asking ourselves what happens when a person wearing a computing machine, such as Google Glass, captures images and video at a funeral. Is a line being crossed there and why? How? I ask these questions, because it is going to happen and happen soon.

Just remember, and not so long ago, the idea of using the internet for anything to do with death seemed inappropriate. So did playing pre-recorded music on a CD (especially loud rock and roll music), having mourners draw or paint on a coffin, or even choosing to be to cremated.

What we humans forget is that death’s persistence means that we will persistently invent new kinds of death rituals. No ritual lives forever. Will Coldwell’s Guardian article on Dark Tourism highlights how easily the very idea of established and appropriate ‘death rituals’ can be changed.

Earlier this year, Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror television series ran an episode called Be Right Back that effectively dramatised how the not-to-distant future might offer new kinds of technology for human grieving. Here is the show’s description:

Martha and Ash are a young couple who move to a remote cottage. The day after the move, Ash is killed, returning the hire van. At the funeral, Martha’s friend Sarah tells her about a new service that lets people stay in touch with the deceased. By using all his past online communications and social media profiles, a new ‘Ash’ can be created. Martha is disgusted by the concept but then in a confused and lonely state she decides to talk to ‘him’…

Trust me when I say that if the technology imagined in Black Mirror suddenly appeared, the Selfies at Funerals shock and outrage would quickly wash away into the sea of human memory.

So where does this week take us? It’s hard to say, because I have a feeling most people have already forgotten about the Selfies at Funerals and moved on to other more pressing issues.

But I do think that it is now time to officially launch a new Death Reference Desk rule about death and technology. To wit:

The Death Ref Technology Law: Any use of new technology that involves death, dying, and/or the dead body will be simultaneously rejected as a breakdown in human civility as well as embraced as an innovative turn for human grieving.

Or, as my friend Max summed up the situation on Facebook:

I was disgusted by this until I remembered I took a selfie at the last funeral I went to. Now I’m okay with it.

Categories
Death + Popular Culture Death + Technology Funeral Industry Grief + Mourning

Death Salon LA 2013: Better than Death Race 2000

Death Salon LA 2013 Los Angeles, CA (October 18 and 19, 2013)

Our good friends at the Order of the Good Death are putting on an enormous Death Fest next week in Los Angeles. Check it out if you can! And here’s some Death Race 2000 just for fun.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZLYEbkykCI

Categories
Death + Humor Death + Popular Culture Death + the Web

Dumb Ways to Die Wins Big at Cannes Festival of Creativity

In November 2012 we posted about Dumb Ways to Die, an Australian train company’s public safety campaign video. The video just won top awards at the Cannes International Festival of Creativity. You can read more about the award from the Guardian: Cannes Lions: Dumb Ways to Die scoops top award.

If you missed it last time, definitely check it out!

Categories
Cemeteries Death + Popular Culture Death + Technology Death Ethics

The Future of Death, Dead Bodies, and Cemeteries talk on June 20 in London

Future Death. Future Dead Bodies. Future Cemeteries
Illustrated lecture by Dr. John Troyer, Centre for Death and Society at the University of Bath
20th June 2013
Doors at 6:30 / Talk begins at 7:00 pm
Ticket price £7
The Last Tuesday Society at 11 Mare Street, London, E8 4RP

This coming Thursday, June 20, 2013 I’m giving a public talk for the Morbid Anatomy Library and the Last Tuesday Society in London. The Morbid Anatomy Library talks are normally located in the lovely Gowanus Canal area of Brooklyn (don’t pay any attention its Superfund site classification) but its Librarian-in-Chief Joanna Ebenstein is currently in London to organise this lecture series.

Joanna has been a good friend to the Death Reference Desk and one of our earliest supporters. Indeed, the very first Morbid Anatomy talk that I ever gave (in Brooklyn) was in July 2009. That was the same month and year that Death Ref launched.

It’s been an adventurous four years.

So come to this talk on Thursday if you can or, even better, go to one of the many other fantastic talks curated by Joanna at the Last Tuesday Society.

You will not be disappointed.

Future Death. Future Dead Bodies. Future Cemeteries
Illustrated lecture by Dr. John Troyer, Deputy Director of the Centre for Death and Society at the University of Bath

20th June 2013
Doors at 6:30 / Talk begins at 7:00 pm
Ticket price £7

 

Approximately 1500 people die every day across the United Kingdom, roughly one person a minute. And unless you are a person who works in a profession connected to the dying, chances are good you rarely (if ever) see any of these 1500 dead bodies. More importantly– do you and your next of kin know what you want done with your dead body when you die? In the future, of course, since it’s easier to think that way. Dr. John Troyer, from the Centre for Death & Society, University of Bath, will discuss three kinds of postmortem futures: Future Death, Future Dead Bodies, and Future Cemeteries. Central to these Futures is the human corpse and its use in new forms of body disposal technology, digital technology platforms, and definitions of death.

 

Dr John Troyer

Dr. John Troyer is the Deputy Director of the Centre for Death and Society at the University of Bath. His interdisciplinary research focuses on contemporary memorialisation practices, concepts of spatial historiography, and the dead body?s relationship with technology. Dr. Troyer is also a theatre director and installation artist with extensive experience in site-specific performance across the United States and Europe. He is a co-founder of the Death Reference Desk website (http://www.deathreferencedesk.org) and a frequent commentator for the BBC. His forthcoming book, Technologies of the Human Corpse (published by the University of North Carolina Press), will appear in 2013.

 

The Last Tuesday Society is honoured to house this exhibition and lecture series cultivated in collaboration with Joanna Ebenstein of the rightfully venerated ‘Morbid Anatomy’ Library, Museum & Blog.

 

Talks take place at The Last Tuesday Society at 11 Mare Street, London, E8 4RP

Categories
Death + Popular Culture Death + Technology Death + the Web

SxSW Platforms for Haunting: The Talking Dead Podcast

Platforms for Haunting: The Talking Dead
SxSW Interactive 2013

In March 2013, the Death Reference Desk headed to the South by Southwest Interactive conference.

A podcast of Death Ref John’s talk has now been released and you can listen to it above.

He was part of presentation called Platforms for Haunting: The Talking Dead.

Here is a description of the presentation.

The relationship between death and technology is as old as human civilisation; from cenotaph to facebook memorial, industries have been built on our desire to remember and be remembered. Technology now enables us to create spine-chilling immersive experiences; allowing us to embody the worlds of our ancestors, enter our ghost stories and even plan a little post-mortem haunting ourselves. We want to move the conversation beyond discussions of data legacy to ask whether we can engender a new form of history, one that allows us to interact with the dead.

 

Bringing together experts in human remains, memorialisation and new technology this Panel will explore our relationship with mortality in a digital age. The discussion will draw on recent projects which have used new technology to augment cemeteries, populate historic sites with ghosts of their past and instigate twitter conversations with a 1,610 year old woman.

Categories
Death + Popular Culture Death + Technology Death + the Web

Death Ref heads to South by Southwest (SxSW) in Texas

Platforms for Haunting: The Talking Dead
South by Southwest Interactive media conference
Saturday, March 9
5:00PM – 6:00PM
Radisson Town Lake
Town Lake Ballroom
111 E Cesar Chavez

The Death Reference Desk is headed to the 2013 South by Southwest (SxSW) Interactive media conference in Austin, Texas.

Doing our best to keep Austin weird!

Death Ref is part of a panel, Platforms for Haunting: The Talking Dead, on death, technology, the dead body and the future relationships of all these things. Same old same old, really. Death Ref John’s Future Cemetery project will also be involved.

Here is the panel’s description so that everyone can see what they’re missing (or seeing– if you’re at SxSW):

The relationship between death and technology is as old as human civilisation; from cenotaph to facebook memorial, industries have been built on our desire to remember and be remembered. Technology now enables us to create spine-chilling immersive experiences; allowing us to embody the worlds of our ancestors, enter our ghost stories and even plan a little post-mortem haunting ourselves. We want to move the conversation beyond discussions of data legacy to ask whether we can engender a new form of history, one that allows us to interact with the dead.

 

Bringing together experts in human remains, memorialisation and new technology this Panel will explore our relationship with mortality in a digital age. The discussion will draw on recent projects which have used new technology to augment cemeteries, populate historic sites with ghosts of their past and instigate twitter conversations with a 1,610 year old woman.

Updates about SxSW will appear here on the Death Ref blog, on Death Ref’s Facebook page and on the Twitter Feed of Death!

The Twitter feeds to watch are: @DeathRef, #SxSW, #haunting, @FutureCemetery, and @ReactHub

Anyone in Austin should come on up and say howdy!

And then after Death Ref is done with the SxSW panel, we’re all going to the Alamo’s basement to look for our stolen bicycle.

Categories
Death + Humor Death + Popular Culture

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from the Death Reference Desk

Merry Christmas to all of our lovely Death Reference Desk Readers.

And remember to keep it Goth this holiday season. Ho ho ho.

Categories
Death + Humor Death + Popular Culture Death + the Web

Dumb Ways to Die…the Public Service Announcement

Dumb Ways to Die
by John Mescall for Metro Trains Melbourne (2012)

 

Dumb Ways to Die: Australian rail company’s public safety warning video
The Guardian (November 29, 2012)

There are many reasons to admire Australians, especially their collective love for all things dark, sinister, and macabre.

But always with a smile. And maybe a Foster’s. Possibly a wombat.

So the Dumb Ways to Die song and video by John Mescall for Metro Trains Melbourne comes as little surprise:

The animated ditty is also something of an internet phenomena, and the Death Reference Desk has been following its rapid ascent.

Watch Mescall explain the idea for Dumb Ways to Die:

You can also watch the song with the lyrics underneath (not available in all countries):

Hat tip to Charles Darwin.

Categories
Death + Popular Culture Death + Technology Death + the Web

TEDxBristol Talk by Death Ref’s own John Troyer

TEDx Speaker Q&A: Dr John Troyer, Centre for Death and Society, University of Bath
MSHED Bristol (Saturday, September 15, 2012)

A quick post about a TEDxBristol talk that I’m giving on Saturday, September 15 in Bristol. The TEDxBristol theme this year is Future Shock so I’m talking about Future Death * Future Dead Bodies * Future Cemeteries.

My talk could also be called A Brief Review of Hilarious Articles from the Death Reference Desk .

Many thanks to the TEDxBristol organizers for inviting me.

If the talk is uploaded to the interwebs then I’ll post it on the DRD.

Here is my Q&A for the TED organizers.

Where does your story begin?

My story begins in a small town in western Wisconsin. Hudson, Wisconsin. Not much else to say really.

 

Tell us two quirky things about yourself

My father is funeral director. And even though I’m a person with tattoos, most people would not see me as a tattooed person.

 

Why did you want to be involved in TEDxBristol?

When TED asks you for a favour, you never say no.

 

What will you be talking about at TEDxBristol?

Future technologies that will impact death, the dead body, and cemeteries. But my talk is also about how these technologies represent the shock of the old, and are not entirely new.

 

What would you like people to take away from your talk?

I want people to answer two questions: What do you want done with your body when you die? And, have you explained these wishes to your next-of-kin?

 

What is your favourite TED talk and why?

Jae Rhim Lee’s Mushroom Burial Suit. Contemporary dead body disposal is entirely about pursuing innovations in human decomposition. Indeed, understanding the dead human body as organic biomass is the future of final disposition technologies.

Categories
Death + Art / Architecture Death + Popular Culture Death + the Law Death Ethics

Do Not Resuscitate Tattoos Cannot Be Stopped!

Tattoos Replacing Medical-Alert Bracelets for Those with Diabetes, Other Ailments
Aisling Swift, Scripps Howard News Service

Ladies and Gentlemen. Dearest Death Reference Desk Readers. Lovers of all things Death, Dying, and Dead Body.

We are witnessing an entirely new tattoo genre not only take flight but unquestionably cement itself into daily life. The Medical Alert Tattoo will not, cannot, oh my goodness no no no, go away!

In mid-June I wrote about recent developments in Medical Alert Tattooing: Do Not Resuscitate this Tattoo. Or the Person Attached to It.

This most recent article by Scripps Howard seems to have suspiciously borrowed some ideas from ye olde Death Reference Desk but it’s cool.

In a nutshell, people from all different kinds of backgrounds and age groups are having various medical condition alerts tattooed onto their bodies. So, for example, Type I or II Diabetes on the wrist. But many people are also having DO NOT RESUSCITATE tattooed onto their chest. We’ve been covering these DNR tattoos since Death Ref’s humble beginnings in 2009.

And now, it seems, the Do Not Resuscitate tattoos are a real phenomena.

As with any discussion on DNR (or other Medical Alert) tattoos, it’s important to state that medical staff are not necessarily going to follow the tattooed request. At least not the Do Not Resuscitate part.

But if you go for the ink, then no one can doubt your commitment. And that’s a political statement unto itself.

Special Note: Send the Death Reference Desk photos of your DNR or Medical Alert Tattoos. We want to start a photo collection.

Categories
Death + Art / Architecture Death + Popular Culture Death + the Law Death Ethics

Do Not Resuscitate This Tattoo. Or the Person Attached to It.

Medical Alert Tattoo Replaces Bracelet on Type 1 Diabetic
Susan Kreimer, AARP Bulletin (June 6, 2012)

Medical Alert Tattoos. This is my new favorite tattooing term. It is the perfect blend of utility, pragmatism and bad ass ink.

We’ve been covering Memorial Tattoos for a while on Death Ref and you can see those posts here.

All credit goes to the AARP (formerly the American Association of Retired Persons) for publishing this short article on its members who choose different kinds of Medical Alert Tattoos. I already knew about the Do Not Resuscitate tattoos. In December 2008, an older Death with Dignity activist in New Zealand gained international attention when she got her own DNR tattoo. And in late 2011, an 81-year old British woman did the same thing.

Albert Cutter, M.D., with his medical alert tattoo. — Photo by Dean Lewins/Corbis

The AARP discusses other MAT’s (a new tattooing acronym!), such as putting ‘Type-1 Diabetic’ on a person’s wrist.

I fully support the use of Medical Alert Tattoos. 100%. Indeed, these tattoos represent a form of older person activism that I really respect.

MAT’s also give the grandkids something to tell their friends about.

But any Medical Alert Tattoo, especially a Do Not Resuscitate tattoo, comes with a cautionary note: the status quo is still a piece of jewelry or a written order. The tattoos won’t necessarily register as a person’s officially and legally recognized choice. Paradoxically as that sounds.

The AARP also flags up this issue:

A word of caution: First responders aren’t trained to look for tattoos, and skin damage in accidents can obscure them, says Rebecca Dinan Schneider, spokeswoman for the National Association of Emergency Medical Technicians. “Medical alert jewelry is still the standard.”

One day this will change. And perhaps sooner than we might imagine.