{"id":765,"date":"2017-03-02T13:29:57","date_gmt":"2017-03-02T13:29:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/?p=765"},"modified":"2017-03-02T13:29:57","modified_gmt":"2017-03-02T13:29:57","slug":"how-far-will-we-go-to-exist-beyond-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/2017\/03\/02\/how-far-will-we-go-to-exist-beyond-death\/","title":{"rendered":"How Far Will We Go to Exist Beyond Death?"},"content":{"rendered":"

youtu.be\/gx9eDoS76LM<\/a><\/p>\n

Audrey Hepburn: Galaxy Chocolate Commercial, Adpressive, youtu.be\/gx9eDoS76LM<\/p>\n

Hearing the voices and seeing the images of the dead is so commonplace today that I struggled to understand how it was viewed in the Victorian times. \u00a0Listening to The Beatles or Buddy Holly or watching Robin Williams films isn’t the least bit eerie to modern media consumers. \u00a0In trying to relate to uncanny experience of hearing a dead person’s voice when recording was first introduced, I thought of two recent representations of dead celebrities. \u00a0The Audrey Hepburn chocolate ad and the Tupac hologram both created quite a stir for their representations of the dead. \u00a0Tupac appeared to perform live years after his death, and a young Audrey Hepburn once more graced our screens in footage that wasn’t recorded during her lifetime.<\/p>\n

We don’t think twice about listening to the voices of long-dead musicians, but the technology that created Ash in “Be Right Back” strikes us as definitively wrong. \u00a0Tupac and Audrey exist somewhere in between. \u00a0The question I’d like to pose is this: Will we ever draw the line at reanimating the dead, or are we engaged in an unstoppable progression\u00a0towards Ash-like technology?<\/p>\n

I obviously can’t predict the future, but I think it’s likely that recreating dead celebrities on screen will only become more commonplace. \u00a0I don’t think Ash tech is that far off either. \u00a0Enormous technological advances that may seem to defy nature (such as hearing the voice of someone dead), eventually become normalized. \u00a0I think, therefore, that while Ash tech may initially seem startling, it could very likely become integrated into our lives the way recording technology has. \u00a0These two representations make it clear that existing beyond the grave is becoming more of a possibility each day.<\/p>\n