A MORBID FASCINATION

摘要

Death rituals have been part of mankind's rite-of-passage predating the Egyptians' elaborate system of mummification. Before the discovery of vaccines and antibiotics, the mortality rate, particularly among children, was more common and accepted as part of life. In our Disney-driven ideology, killing and death is now a form of entertainment, and death is considered to be a failure to prolong life indefinitely rather than the organic predisposition of life on earth. With the invention of photography, the possibility to preserve the presence of a loved one through a photograph or "memento-mori" became extremely popular. Post-mortem photographs are a particular branch of vernacular photography and often thought to be rather macabre, but mainly because the original intention has been lost to our 21st-century fear of death.