Media: the Dead → materialist approaches:

A four day event to be held in ??? 2009

An open submission will be held to find 4/6 artists projects in Sept/Oct09.

The invite will be to a project hot housed during a 4 day event to speculate on the material nature of the relationship between media and the dead:

We expect to draw proposals from local/national Artists

Day 1: Introductions – Current work, ideas presentations criticisms / expansions - requirements Day 2: Project Builds – supported by students Day 3: Project Builds – supported by students Day 4: Exposition and talks – we should find somewhere much more public then Goldsmiths for this bit.

Goldsmiths Centre for Cultural Studies will supply a lab and a Technician for the artists to work in and a group of volunteer students from Graham Harwood’s Interactive Media MA will support the artists.

Introduction:

Immediately after passing and for several years, the deceased in Japan are termed Hetoke. The individual remains Hetoke until the individual is no longer recognised or remembered personally by members of the house hold. During this period the Hetoke have an intense personal interest and power over family affairs and is likely to return at all souls day in midsummer. Once this period of remembering the deceased for several years or decades has passed the individual becomes merged into the far more featureless mass of the household kami.

All forms of media eventually end up being a repository of the dead. At some point the dead will out number the living in film and audio recordings.

Films shot over 100 years now contain the Hetoke of generations past, – Silver bromide salts - films shot during the world wars contain legions of Hetoke that are still reeking revenge on our households for what our ancestors did or did not do.

Photos litter the charity shops and the internet creating an ether of family kami.

david-bennett.remembered-forever.org

This memorial website was created by Nancy Roose in loving memory of David Bennett. David was born on 01.01.1984 and sadly passed away on 01.01.2005 at the age of 21. David is missed greatly by family and friends and will be remembered forever.

The dead are frequently chopped up, sequenced, normalised and inserted into databases. For those of us that are close to Jesus the on line databases allows us to check out our genealogy and ensure our ancestors enter the gates of heaven through a baptism for the dead.

Mortal remains are exhumed to become drug companies larders for propriety investment. In mid September 2008 Sir Mark Sykes was unearthed after almost 90 years in a lead coffin. Professor John Oxford, the Professor of Virology at St Bartholomew’s led the project, explaining the body would provide a Spanish flu “virus imprint, a genetic footprint”.

So quick off to the Norwegian permafrost start digging up old bog bodies split open their intestines and reveal some grain that has not seen the light of day for 4,000 years – sell the gentic sequence to on group – museum the remains for tourism.