Death and Virtual Mourning. The “Return of the Dead” in Digital Afterlife
Maria Serafini
research: Seminar
Death and Virtual Mourning. The “Return of the Dead” in Digital Afterlife
Maria Serafini
In Death and Ritual Mourning (1958), the Italian anthropologist Ernesto de Martino argues that the purpose of funeral rites is to culturally mediate the problem of the relationship between the living and the dead. The question of the return of the dead refers, on the one hand, to the negotiation of new forms of presence of the dead in the spaces of the living and, on the other hand, to the consequent perception by the living of their own mortality. In the words of Philippe Ariès, the "death of the other" refers to "one's own death". The return of the dead, a typical theme of funerary cultures, takes on a new centrality in digital reconfigurations of the nexus that has historically and conceptually linked the image to death. Not only does the overlap between ordinary contexts and the digital afterlife produce a “return of the dead” in everyday life, opening up new configurations of the memento mori. But also the everyday practice of “leaving traces” represents the progressive construction of what we will be digitally when we are dead. The new techniques of image-making, which offer the possibility of new kinds of iconic and social presence, seem to constitute contemporary technologies of absence that inherit the cultural function of mediating the experience of death and the expression of mourning. From this point of view, the “digital afterlife” also has another meaning: the Nachleben of images - to quote Aby Warburg. Indeed, the phenomena of digital commemoration call for research that reconnects virtual realities with a tradition of practices and images of mourning that seem to be revived and given new life. Are these images themselves revenants from the afterlife?
Biography
Maria Serafini
Maria Serafini graduated in Philosophy at the University of Rome La Sapienza in 2016. She subsequently obtained a Masters' degree in Cognitive Sciences and a Masters' degree in Philosophical Sciences from Roma Tre University. Since 2018, she has taken interest in phenomena related to digital death and immortality, developing two dissertations proceeding from Ernesto de Martino’s anthropological and philosophical reflections on mourning rituals. She is currently a PhD student within AN-ICON ERC advanced program, researching emerging visual and multimedia mourning practices in the subcultural contexts of virtual environments such as social networks, employing de Martino’s framework.
research: seminar
Death and Virtual Mourning. The “Return of the Dead” in Digital Afterlife
Maria Serafini
In Death and Ritual Mourning (1958), the Italian anthropologist Ernesto de Martino argues that the purpose of funeral rites is to culturally mediate the problem of the relationship between the living and the dead. The question of the return of the dead refers, on the one hand, to the negotiation of new forms of presence of the dead in the spaces of the living and, on the other hand, to the consequent perception by the living of their own mortality. In the words of Philippe Ariès, the "death of the other" refers to "one's own death". The return of the dead, a typical theme of funerary cultures, takes on a new centrality in digital reconfigurations of the nexus that has historically and conceptually linked the image to death. Not only does the overlap between ordinary contexts and the digital afterlife produce a “return of the dead” in everyday life, opening up new configurations of the memento mori. But also the everyday practice of “leaving traces” represents the progressive construction of what we will be digitally when we are dead. The new techniques of image-making, which offer the possibility of new kinds of iconic and social presence, seem to constitute contemporary technologies of absence that inherit the cultural function of mediating the experience of death and the expression of mourning. From this point of view, the “digital afterlife” also has another meaning: the Nachleben of images - to quote Aby Warburg. Indeed, the phenomena of digital commemoration call for research that reconnects virtual realities with a tradition of practices and images of mourning that seem to be revived and given new life. Are these images themselves revenants from the afterlife?