MUERTE
CONTENTS
01
Introduction
05 The Experience of Death 07 Life that doesn’t end with death 10 A look into different traditions 14 Death, Burial and the Afterlife in Ancient Greece 18
Jisei no ku
24
Death and Utopia
31
Credits
THE EXPERIENCE OF DEATH
MUERTE The Experience of Death #1 September 2018 Editor: Ernesto Perez Rea Junca
Previous page and cover: Terracotta funerary plaque which belongs to the greek culture. 520-510 bC. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
MUERTE
We don’t want to die. Nowadays we are surrounded by a term that bombs us in our everyday life: wellness. We are obsessed with prolonging life - eat clean, quit drinking, take drugs under medical control, exercise, reduce stress, yoga- do everything possible to expand our lifespan the most until our mind doesn’t realize we are dying anymore. 21st century generations avoid talking about death as if denying it will erase the only certainty we have the moment we are born. In 2014, Dying Matters, a British coalition of individual and organisational members which aims to help people talk more openly about dying, death and bereavement, made a survey in which eight of ten people were found uncomfortable talking about dying and death. The “demonization” of death is quite recent; according to the philanthropist Satish Modi, “In the late 19th century, the standard of life used to be much lower and people died much earlier. The time people had on this planet was very limited – the average life expectancy was around 48 [by 1901]. Nowadays people can expect to live into the high 90s. In the Victorian era, people understood that they had little time left to live a life, and they confronted and talked about mortality, operations and medicine as people around them died. Now the lifespan has increased, people don’t talk about it.”
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In ancient societies, there was always a ritual for death events. People followed its procedures and learned from it, they spent their whole life preparing for its biggest life event. Since the very beginning of human kind, societies developed and built pyramids, tombs, mausoleums, mastabas, among many other typologies of funerary architecture. Now we are completely unprepared for death as if its denial will save us from it. Maybe its got something to do with our capitalist system kind of society this constant denial. Death depresses the market, it doesn’t sell. Death removes customers from the marketplace and sadness other customers, it’s not affordable. There is a necessity to remove death from the contemporary city: “no mourning, no funerals anymore. Traffic cannot stop, shops cannot close. No Lent, no Muharram. Always Christmas, always Mardi Gras.” (San Rocco Magazine) Death is essential. Without death there is no meaning or importance in anything we do. Our limited time transforms goals into achievements and achievements into transcendence. What meaning would life have without dead? Peter Saul, an emergency doctor, in a conference in 2011, showed graphs about four different ways of death and how common it is each of those nowadays: Sudden death, which has become very rare. Terminal illness, which happens to younger people, since by the time you’ve reached 80 this is unlikely to happen anymore, only one of ten people will die of cancer. The big growth industry are organ failure and frailty. The first one, means an admission to an intensive care hospital in which at some point someone says enough is enough and the doctors stop. The second one is the most common in our time (6 out of 10 people will die of this) which is the dwindling of capacity. A candle light fading away. The void is waiting. We must be conscious of how the worst thing that could possibly
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happen, will happen. The end of our individual world. A personal apocalypse.
MUERTE is a fanzine that confronts death, which is published monthly. It is designed for a four months plan, in which each of the four editions will speak about death related topics approached from architecture, design, photography, philosophy and literature. MUERTE aims to explore the relation between human and death with the premise that its crucial for our society to prepare and confront for the inevitable.
(Publication themes are being selected from the Call For Papers of San Rocco’s Magazine.)
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Ancient Rome funeral masks. (Most likely made of wax and possibly molded as death masks directly from the deceased.)
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The Experience of Death
One of the main issues with death is that you don’t even die anymore. Before you reach that point you’ve become so demented with Alzheimer’s that you never realize you are dying. So you will not experience death. And yet, to die is one of the few certain privileges we acquired when we were born, and we should not be too keen on giving it up. By not dying, we are actually defrauded of one the biggest spectacles associated with our life. (By the way, this loss of death is something that should worry priests, imams and shamans far more than they are now worrying about euthanasia.)
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Life that doesn't end with death
Kelli Swazey, a cultural anthropologist, made a TED Talk1 in 2013 addressing the role death takes in different cultures and how it is not always about grief, wearing black, seating in a religious compound to share tears, prayers and memories about the deceased one. In Tana Toraja, not weddings neither births are the main social events: death is. This community belongs to one of the 17.000 islands of Indonesia, named Sulawesi, which is one of the four Greater Sunda Islands and the world’s 11th largest island, situated east of Borneo and west of the Malku Islands.2 The Torajas, experience death not as a specific event but as a social process. Funerals are complex rituals in which people sacrifice animals in the name of the deceased, making death a visible and important aspect of Toraja’s culture. These events can last from a few days to several weeks, and it is seen not as a private sadness but “more of a publicly shared transition.”3 About 10% of the Toraja’s still conserve animist beliefs, this means that everything, from objects to any element of the natural world, have a soul and they are treated as gods. This could possible explain why they give so much importance to funerals. The process can take weeks, months or even years because when a member of their society dies, the family is obliged to make a
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1 Life that doesn't end with death. Kelli Swazey. TEDMED 2013 2 Central Sulawesi. Britannica, T. E. September 2013 3 Bienvenidos a Toraja, el lugar donde entierran a los ninos en el interior de los arboles. Miguel Jorge. Gizmodo. Julio 2016
Previous page: Burial tree in which babies are placed. Fabio Lamanna / Shutterstock
4 Life that doesn't end with death. Kelli Swazey. TEDMED 2013
proper funeral for all the community, in which, depending on the status of the deceased, they must raise the necessary resources for the event he or she deserves. After the physical death, the body is kept in a traditional residence known as tongkonan, and until the funeral ceremony, the death, is referred as a sick person. Once the funeral ceremony has taken place, the bodies are placed in caves, mountain holes, or wood coffins, but the ceremony doesn’t end here. Each year the bodies are taken out to change their clothes, clean them and comb them. Only then they will rest in peace. Instead of seeing this kind of rituals with the occidental ideology of disgust due to the proximity they have to a death body, Kelli Swazey makes us reflect about what does our medical definition leave out of the human experience of dying between the Torajan and our society. Swaezy tells us how this ideology of death doesn’t mean Torajans don’t aspire to a long life, in fact, they try to live a healthy life to survive until an advanced age. Nevertheless, “they don’t put much stock in efforts to prolong life in the face of debilitating illness or in old age. It’s said in Toraja that everybody has sort of a predetermined amount of life. It’s called the sunga. And like a thread, it should be allowed to unspool to its natural end.”4
Next page: Photograph of a burial mountain. Fabio Lamanna / Shutterstock
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5 Jazz Funerals and Second Line Parades. Matt Sakakeeny. 2017
A look into different traditions
6 Death Beads: South Korea's New Way to Honor the Deceased. Alexandra Sifferlin. Times Magazine. 2012 7 The Day of the Dead. Dale Hoyt Palfrey. 1995
New Orleans Jazz Funerals. Public burial services for prominent comunity members; traditionally African American males. After the funeral service, a procession of musicians, funeral directors, family, and friends moves from the site of the funeral to the cemetery while marching to the beat of a brass band.5 Death Beads. In South Korea, there is a relative new way to honor the dead: turning their remains into beads. As an alternative to traditional burial methods, South Koreans are taking relatives’ ashes and transforming them into shiny blue-green, pink or black beads.6 Sky Burial. In Tibet, they practice a funeral ritual in which the human body is cut into pieces and left on the top of a mountain to decompose and let carrion birds eat it. The spiritual meaning behind this is keeping the cycle of life going, nevertheless, the places where the Tibetan people live the ground is very hard and rock to dig into.
Next page top: Photograph of New Orleans Jazz Funeral by Synden Byne 1991. Next page bottom: Vultures feeding on cut pieces of body at a 1985 sky burial in Lhasa, Tibet
Day of the Death. In Mexico each year people gather together the 1st and 2nd of November. People go to cemeteries to be with the souls of the departed and build private altars containing the favorite foods and beverages, as well as photos and memorabilia, of the departed. The intent is to encourage visits by the souls, so the souls will hear the prayers and the comments of the living directed to them. Celebrations can take a humorous tone, as celebrants remember funny events and anecdotes about the departed.7 • 10 •
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Photograph of people taking traditional flowers to the cementery in San Miguel Canoa, Mexico. Photo by Miguel Tovar. 2013. Next page: Photo of the Day of the Death Parade by Carlos Jasso.
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Death, burial, and the afterlife in Acient Greece
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All the images shown are taken from the MET Museum art collection. Previous page: Terracotta lekythos (oil flask). Period: Classical Date: ca. 440 B.C. Culture: Greek, Attic Medium: Terracotta; whiteground Dimensions: H. 14 3/4 in. (37.39 cm) Classification: Vases Credit Line: Gift of Norbert Schimmel Trust, 1989 Accession Number: 1989.281.72
This page: Marble grave stele with a family group Period: Late Classical Date: ca. 360 B.C. Culture: Greek, Attic Medium: Marble, Pentelic Dimensions: H. 67 3/8 in. (171.1 cm) Classification: Stone Sculpture Credit Line: Rogers Fund, 1911 Accession Number: 11.100.2
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Previous page: Terracotta krater Period: Geometric Date: ca. 750-735 B.C. Culture: Greek, Attic Medium: Terracotta Dimensions: H. 42 5/8 in. (108.3 cm) diameter 28 1/2 in. (72.4 cm) Classification: Vases Credit Line: Rogers Fund, 1914 Accession Number: 14.130.14 This page: Marble stele (grave marker) of a youth and a little girl Period: Archaic Date: ca. 530 B.C. Culture: Greek, Attic Medium: Marble Dimensions: total H. 166 11/16 in. (423.4cm) Classification: Stone Sculpture Credit Line: Frederick C. Hewitt Fund, 1911; Rogers Fund, 1921; and Anonymous Gift, 1951 Accession Number: 11.185ac, f, g
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Jisei no ku
8 Conference: Dying, Death and Grieving a cultural Perspective, RMIT University Ven. Thich Nguyen Tang, 2002.
Also known as death poems, is a genre of japanese poetry that, as the name suggests it, speaks about death. They are written in the three-line, seventeen-syllable haiku form. The creation of poetry at the time of death, reflecting our transitory role in this world, is characteristic of East Asian culture. Perhaps beacause of Buddhism and Shinotism which are the main religions present in the continent. According to Thich Nguyen Tang, a vietnamise Buddhist monk, “in the teaching of the Buddha, all of us will pass away eventually as a part in the natural process of birth, old-age and death and that we should always keep in mind the impermanence of life. The life that we all cherish and wish to hold on... The fear of death stemmed from the fear of cease to be existent and losing ones identity and foothold in the world. We see our death coming long before its arrival, we notice impermanence in the changes we see around us and to us in the arrival of aging and the suffering due to losing our youth. Once we were strong and beautiful and as we age, as we approach our final moments of life we realize how fleeting such a comfortable place actually was.”8 One of the first recorded Jisei was recited by japanese Prince Otsu, executed in 686. • 18 •
Kuni wo omoi shinu ni shinarenu masurao ga, tomodomo yobitsu shishite yukuran
This brave man, so filled with love for his country that he finds it difficult to die, is calling out to his friends and about to die.
Kuroki Hiroshi
Japanese soldier who died in a submarine in 1944
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Photograph of a japanese soldier being captured on Iwo Jima Island by the US military. Photo obtained from albumwar2.com
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国の為 重き努を 果し得で 矢弾尽き果て 散るぞ悲しき 仇討たで 野辺には朽ちじ 吾は又 七度生れて 矛を執らむぞ 醜草の 島に蔓る 其の時の 皇国の行手 一途に思ふ Kuni no tame / omoki tsutome o / hatashi ede / yadama tsukihate / chiruzo kanashiki Ada utade / nobe niwa kuchiji / warewa mata / shichido umarete / hoko o toranzo Shikokusa no / shima ni habikoru / sono toki no / Mikuni no yukute / ichizu ni omou
Unable to complete this heavy task for our country Arrows and bullets all spent, so sad we fall. But unless I smite the enemy, My body cannot rot in the field. Yea, I shall be born again seven times And grasp the sword in my hand. When ugly weeds cover this island, My sole thought shall be [the future of] the Imperial Land.
General Tadamichi Kuribayashi
17.03.1945 Japanese commander-in chief final letter to the Imperial headquarters apologizing for failing to defend Iwo Jima againt the US army.
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이 몸이 죽어 가서 무어시 될고 하니, 봉래산(蓬萊山) 제일봉(第一峯)에 낙락장송(落落長松) 되야 이셔, 백설(白雪)이 만건곤(滿乾坤)할 제 독야청청(獨也靑靑) 하리라.
What shall I become when this body is dead and gone? A tall, thick pine tree on the highest peak of Bongraesan, Evergreen alone when white snow covers the whole world. 擊鼓催人命 (격고최인명) -둥둥 북소리는 내 생명을 재촉하고, 回頭日欲斜 (회두일욕사) -머리를 돌여 보니 해는 서산으로 넘어 가려 고 하는구나 黃泉無客店 (황천무객점) -황천으로 가는 길에는 주막조차 없다는데, 今夜宿誰家 (금야숙수가) -오늘밤은 뉘 집에서 잠을 자고 갈거나
As the sound of drum calls for my life, I turn my head where sun is about to set. There is no inn on the way to underworld. At whose house shall I sleep tonight?
Seong Sam-mun
1456. Korean scholar-official and one of the “six martyred ministers” who were executed for conspiring to assesinate King Sejo.
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旅に病んで 夢は枯れ野を かけめぐる
Tabi ni yande yume wa kareno o kakemeguru Falling ill on a journey my dreams go wandering over withered fields
Matsuo Basho
1694. The most famous poet of the Edo Period in Japan and he is considered the greatest master of haiku.
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Death and Utopia
There is somehow a connection between how we have stopped thinking about the future and our growing death denial. We live in an era where technological development is changing human life drastically, we can’t tell if for good or bad yet, but we are living an important historical milestone for humanity. We live in an era that our everyday life is ruled by the immediacy, everything must be quick and when we want it. Thousands of kilometres have been replaced by just a few milliseconds to be able to speak and see someone on the other side of the globe. There is neither future nor past anymore. With the immediacy there is no room left for uncertainty, we want to know everything and whatever is unknown for us we immediately reject it. Perhaps, that is the reason we don’t want to neither die nor speak about death: the concept of eternal nothingness, uncontrol and unawareness of anything scares our modern society.
Next page: Death: Modena from Superstudio Series. Superstudio. 1972
The growth of scientific knowledge, specially since the 17th century, changed man’s mentality to a more scientific and technological approach. Theology was questioned and religion, with its
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9 Death, Faith & Existentialism, Filiz Peach. 2000 10 Radical Utopias. Beyond Architecture: Florence 1966-1976 at Palazzo Strozzi, Florence. Mousse Magazine. 2017.
creator, formation of the world and man’s role in the universe, went on decline: “The weakening of religious beliefs changed man’s outlook concerning his idea of death and its significance. Increasingly, the focus switched to life ‘here and now’ as man became more preoccupied with the material side of the world at the expense of the spiritual.”9 In the 20th century the dystopian panorama gained a lot of popularity, probably because of the industrialization process the world was suffering at the time, which was meant to drive the world towards a better place, premise which began to collapse after the historical context going on at the time: the rise of dictatorships, two world wars, an atomic bomb, the Russian revolution, Spanish Civil War, between many others. The idea of utopia was beginning to get replaced by a more dystopian future, which, if looked close enough, they can become the same thing. The protests of 1968 were a worldwide awakening of popular rebellions against military and bureaucratic elites, which responded with political repression. Dystopia became a collective need; all the ideas of progress or improvement where failing. It was during this and the next decade that there was an artistic movement (if we can call it that way), that began to use the hopeless future as a tool for art, architecture and planning. One can affirm that the neo-avant-gardes that formed after 1968 were mostly driven by a critique of modernism’s grand narratives. It was happening all around the world: Hollein and Pichler in Vienna, Archigram in London, the Metabolists in Japan, Yona Friedman in France, Buckminster Fuller in the United States, Frei Otto in Germany, or Constant and Debord’s Situationist Movement in France and the Netherlands.10 All this groups were conjugating architectural utopia with research based on the most advanced forms of technology.
Next page: Blow-out Village. Peter Cook. 1966.
Peter Cook’s London-based Archigram was creating a “Plug-In City” for the emerging consumer society with modular residential
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units that connect to a main infrastructure, Florence’s Superstudio was proposing twelve ideal cities, Amsterdam’s Constant Nieuwenhuys was creating an anti-capitalistic city with transformable structures for the homo ludens to develop himself based on self -satisfaction and fulfilment and Japan’s Arata Izosaki was creating a rebuilt Hiroshima. All of these were responses to their social and historical context from a futuristic point of view, which, if examined deeply, some of the proposals could be predictions of the world we are living in. If we had kept the same approach (technological advances mixed with imaginative futuristic vision) nowadays, we could be on our way to a more utopian than dystopian future. On the contrary, we are focused on extending personal human life and brining them the most comfortable sedentary conditions possible: be able to do everything from a room with a chair. We don’t want to die and neither we want to live. We want to create false experiences that can be done from a comfy couch and some cyborg-looking glasses to have the delight of the experience without coming out of our comfortable zone.
Next page: Neuromancer. Josan Gonzalez. Editora Aleph.
So probably our future will be dystopian, and our “futuristic vision denial” comes from the acceptance of the imminent catastrophe, but ironically, we don’t want to die. Does that mean we want to presence the collapse of humanity? Or does it mean that we don’t want to presence it neither? Therefore, we are trying to escape to a virtual world where we can fool our human nature. In the direction the world is moving, that’s probably how the future will be: a new dimension, a dimension where we are all experiencing our everyday lives in a new reality, a virtual reality. Death may be experienced several times and at the same time never experienced at all. You’ll be 150 years old, connected to a machine which keeps you breathing and “alive” in the human world. Death will be eradicated and so will human life as we know it. You’ll miss your own end.
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This Page: The Future is Now. Josan Gonzalez.
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Credits Editor: Ernesto Perez Rea Junca References a
All images references are specified on the text. If you would like to contribute to MUERTE, please contact the editor on: ernestoprj@hotmail.com
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