Necromedia
The first piece we will examine will be Don Maynard‘s “Maintaining Gravity”. Maynard’s installation in many ways acts as a centerpiece for the forum. Sandwiched between City Hall and UW’s Critical Media Lab, the installation is easily accessible to those looking for CAFKA exhibits, and also incidental passer-by traffic. This physical location of the installation is significant for critical purposes as well. ‘Maintaining Gravity’ is more specifically located in the pond, which serves as a wading pool for the public on warm days, a skating rink in the winter, and a stage for exhibits such as this. However, many other exhibits require the pool be drained of its water. This drainage serves to signify the shift in use from a space which the public can access, to a separated, access-controlled space. In Maynard’s work, the water is not drained, and thus, an idea of public access to the space is preserved. The work is then positioned between the public and the closed; the quotidian and the critical; City Hall and the Critical Media Lab (where the CAFKA office is, in fact, located).
It is the tension between two spaces – in this case psychological and physical- which calls for mediation. The term ‘necromedia’ points towards the mediation which takes place between our understanding of the inevitability of death, and the strategies we employ in order to assign meaning to our actions.
Ernest Becker’s 1973 book “The Denial of Death” posits that the denial of death is not only pervasive in our culture, but the reason for culture itself. Firstly, Becker asks us to acknowledge the fear of death as a universal trait in humans. Unlike other animals, according to Becker, the human stands alone as a being which recognizes its impending death. However, Becker also asserts that humans have the ability to look beyond the limits of their lives. As a result, the human is an animal which is “half animal and half symbolic” (Becker 26). The realm of symbols is then where we attempt to validate our creaturely existence. Becker calls these validations ‘hero systems’. Our ‘hero systems’ the ways in which we create cultural meaning in order to affirm our existence and assign our existence a greater value.
