{"id":1331,"date":"2017-04-06T13:19:56","date_gmt":"2017-04-06T13:19:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/?p=1331"},"modified":"2017-04-07T17:43:21","modified_gmt":"2017-04-07T17:43:21","slug":"rest-in-pieces-incorporating-the-soul-into-modern-day-remembrance-photography","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/2017\/04\/06\/rest-in-pieces-incorporating-the-soul-into-modern-day-remembrance-photography\/","title":{"rendered":"Rest in Pieces: Incorporating the Soul into Modern-Day Remembrance Photography"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The final product<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In looking at the objectives of our course, our class focused on how representations of death in the 21st century interact with pop culture and applied historical and theoretical concepts to this morbid intersection. Our haunted media object is a physical representation of this intersection, as a way to evoke the themes we have discussed this semester in an artistic, physical presentation. The two ways we approached this intersection were through (a) ghost-centric examples of technology that perpetrated to allow the user to speak with friends, family, or other entities after their death, or (b) grief-centric facets that helped individuals and families move through the grieving process more quickly, or with less pain.<\/p>\n

For this project, I was influenced by our discussion in class on the phenomenon of interacting with a loved one after they pass away. While current generations take this for granted in the modern age, the idea of hearing a loved one\u2019s voice was unimaginable before the invention of recording and transcribing sound onto phonograph records; As was the idea of seeing a loved one\u2019s face after they died before the invention of photography. Along with the reading in The Audible Past <\/em>by Jonathan Sterne, in which he discusses how strange it was for society to listen to the words of those who had died, we also discussed how the invention of photography changed the way families grieved their loved ones by allowing them a perfect visual reminder for the first time. We see this in what are commonly called \u2018Victorian Death Photos,\u2019 where families in Victorian London posed the dead in family photographs, in coffins, or in their cribs, and made it look like the dead were still alive.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Those dead in Victorian Death Photos are shown more sharply because they did not move in long-exposure shots. Sourced from BBC<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Once photography became affordable, portable, and more socially acceptable, Victorian-era families began permanently preserving their loved one\u2019s likeness. Since photography was still relatively expensive and the practice was not yet widespread, these families often did not hire a photographer until their loved one had died- making it necessary to stage the photo and prop up their loved ones. As an article in BBC<\/em> confirms, death portraiture became increasingly popular as people realized it offered the last chance to have a remembrance of their measles-riddled children. These death-reminders, or memento mori, were considered acceptable at the time but our class was relatively shocked by these remembrances.<\/p>\n

I did more research into death photography, often called remembrance photography, and found that many families still choose to commission photographs of their loved ones who pass away. Molly McElroy, in an article posted by the University of Washington, found a surprising practice of remembrance photography and preemptive photography for children facing life-threatening illness. One of these nonprofit groups, called Soulumination, focuses on helping families with children under 18 who are in the hospital for major illness. The other nonprofit, called Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep, is a nationwide network of photographers who provide free remembrance photographs often for newborn children who pass away shortly after birth. The service believes that the photos provide parents with lasting memories of their children who lived so briefly that \u201clittle else exists to remember them by.\u201d They also say that the professional photos are easier to look at than the photos the families took themselves. It becomes easier to breach the subject of death if one has a photo to talk about and explain, like a \u201cgateway to bringing up memories of the deceased.\u201d<\/p>\n

Surprisingly, this practice was born with the invention of photography and lives on today. I wanted to know why remembrance photography was (somewhat) popular and what it might look like in today\u2019s digital, video-centric world. This led to a discussion of grief, and the function of grief in society. Authors Claire White and Daniel Fessler discuss in their article, \u201cEvolutionizing Grief,\u201d how photographs of the deceased impacts the bereaved and influences their grieving process. For them, they believe that grief is a process that has two functions. First, to encourage two (living) people who have separated to reunite. Second, if one of the partners dies, to \u201cfacilitate the reconceptualization of the other as no longer a living, viable relationship partner, opening the door to investment in new relationships.\u201d They found that neurobiological systems, like our facial recognition systems are activated by photographs and videos. This means that viewing a photograph of a loved one who has passed away creates a response in your brain as if the person were physically with you. White and Fessler argue that this will \u201cenhance the conflict between the old representation of the loved one and the new one to which the bereaved is transitioning.\u201d This is understandable, that while photographs may make us more uncomfortable and delay the grieving process because of our neurological responses to seeing our loved one\u2019s face, our state of grief forces us to reconnect with them in any way possible.<\/p>\n

Moving away from the biological research- our discussion of grief, of remembrance and Victorian-era death photography, and of the phenomenon of interacting with someone after they have died, motivated me to try and capture a digital interpretation of death photography.<\/p>\n

With the gracious help of my friends, I posed a photo which showed three friends centered around a chair and another friend pretended to be dead and was propped up on the chair. The \u2018living\u2019 friends were encouraged to move freely- fix their hair, scratch an itch, etc.- while I asked the \u2018dead\u2019 friend to resemble a corpse propped up like in a Victorian-era photo. I then took this video and created a .gif file that would allow the video to loop when displayed, which created the illusion that my friends were continuously moving, and \u2018alive\u2019 in a way, within the video.<\/p>\n

imgur.com\/CnFJnJl<\/a><\/p>\n

(Above .gif file was created by the author)<\/p>\n

In many Latin-American countries and in some other societies, there is a myth that when you are photographed, a piece of your soul is trapped within that photo. With this video and .gif, I wanted to capture this idea that my friends were alive within the frame and that their souls existed within it.<\/p>\n

When first creating this .gif, I realized that videos are not generally used to grieve a loved one, because videos are generally candid and unposed. Videos are also difficult to casually display in the home because of the limits of technology, so it is more common to grieve a loved one through a photo taken while they are still alive. By creating a video of my friends in a pose normally reserved for a photograph, and their small movements within the video, I feel it adds an uncanny element to the project.<\/p>\n

I then wanted to carry this illusion in the physical representation by placing the video in a photo frame. I used a tablet to display the video and found a frame that fit well around the tablet. As a result, the final product initially seems like a standard photo in a frame, until you notice that the people within the photo are moving. To make the frame more exciting, and to reinforce the idea that the project carried small pieces of my friends\u2019 souls, I engraved the frame with Mary Elizabeth Frye\u2019s famous poem \u201cDo Not Stand at my Grave and Weep.\u201d I have included it below:\u00a0(Sourced from poemhunter.com<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Do not stand at my grave and weep;
\nI am not there. I do not sleep.
\nI am a thousand winds that blow.
\nI am the diamond glints on snow.
\nI am the sunlight on ripened grain.
\nI am the gentle autumn rain.
\nWhen you awaken in the morning’s hush
\nI am the swift uplifting rush
\nOf quiet birds in circled flight.
\nI am the soft stars that shine at night.
\nDo not stand at my grave and cry;
\nI am not there. I did not die.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

By including this famous bereavement poem, I wanted to pretend that my haunted media project carried a piece of the deceased\u2019s souls; that it is useless to cry at their graves because they are just as present, if not more present, in the photo frame. The poem suggests that the deceased does not want people to miss out on life because of their mourning; that they will be with their loved ones always. While the poem adds a religious element to the project, I think it furthers the idea that the subjects of the video are spiritually within the video and frame.<\/p>\n

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Custom engraved photo frame to hold the kindle fire<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I believe I combined the grief-centric and ghost-centric objectives in my project because the photo frame is both a tool for grieving as well as a \u2018haunted\u2019 vessel for the deceased\u2019s souls. I wanted to create something that would put a modern spin on Victorian-era remembrance photos and show the intersection of popular culture and technology with a photography practice that has been around for generations. Grieving has been a natural part of human existence, and only recently in our history have we been able to interact with people after they die. After looking at the different biological factors that impact grieving, I see that there is a natural conflict between trying to move on after death and trying to hold onto a loved one through photos and other remembrances. While we may think that some practices in today\u2019s death-avoidance society are morbid or uncomfortable, practices like infant photography after death helps families validate their child\u2019s short life and provide small comforts as they move through the stages of grief.<\/p>\n

Works Cited:<\/p>\n

Bell, Bethan. “Taken from life: The unsettling art of death photography.” BBC News<\/i>. BBC, 05 June 2016. Web. 06 Apr. 2017.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Frye, Mary Elizabeth. “Do Not Stand At My Grave And Weep.” PoemHunter.com<\/a><\/i>. N.p., 31 Dec. 2002. Web. 06 Apr. 2017.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Konigsberg, Ruth Davis. “New Ways to Think About Grief.” Time<\/i>. Time Inc., 29 Jan. 2011. Web. 06 Apr. 2017.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
McElroy, Molly. “Grieving parents find solace in remembrance photography \u2013 with photo gallery.” UW Today<\/i>. University of Washington, n.d. Web. 06 Apr. 2017. <www.washington.edu\/news\/2013\/03\/19\/grieving-parents-find-solace-in-remembrance-photography-with-photo-gallery\/&gt<\/a>;.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
White, Claire, and Daniel M. T. Fessler. “Evolutionizing Grief: Viewing Photographs of the Deceased Predicts the Misattribution of Ambiguous Stimuli by the Bereaved.” Evolutionary Psychology<\/i> 11.5 (2013): 147470491301100. Web.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In looking at the objectives of our course, our class focused on how representations of death in the 21st century interact with pop culture and applied historical and theoretical concepts to this morbid intersection. Our haunted media object is a physical representation of this intersection, as a way to evoke the themes we have discussed … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Rest in Pieces: Incorporating the Soul into Modern-Day Remembrance Photography”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":114,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[163],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-haunted-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/114"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1331"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1331\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1394,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1331\/revisions\/1394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}