Technological transformation of the perception of death
Author
Akkuş, Murat Baran
Advisor
Gürata, Ahmet
Date
2013Publisher
Bilkent University
Language
English
Type
ThesisItem Usage Stats
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Abstract
The historical attitudes toward death are compared with the philosophical tradition
of death contemplation to suggest points of divergence and similarities on the notion
of the death of the body. Technological transformations of the attitudes toward body
that are established through new modes of perception are often confined into the
narrow understanding of Cartesian philosophy. Merleau-Ponty’s notion of flesh
overcomes the dualistic consequences of the representational theory of perception
thus offering a unified understanding to the elementary relation of bodies to their
world. Death must be understood in this bodily sense of Being on which the
technological makeup of the daily life plays a crucial and transformative role. The
changes in the tradition of Vanitas and the technological penetration of body in
Cronenberg’s cinema are prime expressions of bodily death. Merleau-Ponty’s
phenomenology and textual and visual expressions of encounters with technology
and nature are used in order to propose a transformative project to re-establish a
primal relation with the intertwinings of death and life.