The In-Between
The situation of life through death
by: Kenan C. Stoltenow
Research:
We don’t talk about death enough. It has become a taboo topic of conversation as people don’t want to feel awkward, and uncomfortable. But what exactly are we afraid of? Loss of memories? Depression from separation? Or, fear from the unknown. Each person has their own reason for discomfort. But something we can all agree on is that everybody dies.
This competition focuses on designing the passage to the spiritual realm. The space I was tasked with creating means to transfer souls from our reality to the afterlife while remaining otherworldly and non-denominational. The project aims to make us question what we believe about the afterlife - to truly understand what we believe and why we believe it. The competition states, “the design concept explores various different theories of philosophy and expresses it through proposing a creation of an imaginative typology for all belief systems that serves as an arrival space for all souls before they embark on their journey of afterlife.” The building typology does not exist in our physical world, as it draws the line between life and death.
The site for this project is within our own minds. Each of us has a different landscape - our ideas creating the topography. Site visits come in the form of introspection, reflection, and inquiry. Putting personal beliefs aside is near impossible as the designers must see through the lens of all belief systems, reducing them to their most fundamental values.
Our history informs each individual's design. The range of products is as diverse as each human's life path. The pure sonder and entropy of the human experience is displayed as each dimension is questioned and presented from a different perspective. Such a variety of solutions would be impossible to find in any other competition.
Death is all around us, yet we choose to ignore it. Humans live with a false sense of security in their bodies, failing to realize we walk a tightrope of thread. This is, perhaps, because we fear it. It is, of course, human nature to fear the unknown. People have searched for the answer, from the Planck length to the infinite scale of the observable universe, and found nothing. Theories, religion, philosophy, all aim to answer this question - their followers dedicated to the point of starting wars, genocides, and committing mass suicides. But the question still stands: What happens after death?
The mind will go to great lengths to avoid discomfort. From blindly following to deleting entire years out of your memory, it has no hesitation when it comes to feeling safe. Memories will bend. Reality is merely an accepted hallucination. Questioning the very existence of consciousness is uncomfortable. Questioning the existence of consciousness after death is even more difficult. People often avoid such conversation as it has the tendency to lead you to despair. As a coping mechanism, people find a sense of safety and security in community with others. The communities that aim to digest such a conversation together.
Language is instrumental in people’s sense of security and understanding. The very root of the word “death” begins from the Proto-Indo-European verbal stem “*dheu-” meaning “to die”. Across most of the PIE language family, this root word is used to represent the cessation of life. These languages have decided on a common arrangement of sounds to represent this universal unknown. Though, the process of death still has no definition. So, how do we talk about such a topic without a communally accepted foundation? Much like we use language to communicate accepted ideas with each other, we use belief systems to communicate the unknown intricacies of the process of death.
The different pathways of communicating have diverged from the innate desire to understand and to feel safe. These ideologies communicated by words represent our feelings and faiths. Our feelings and faiths come from our evolutionary propensity to be protected from the unknown in an effort to stay alive.
People find this protection in sets of vocabulary that they understand. These sets of words represent ideologies that align with their core values. Religion personifies the energies of the universe. Science uses logic and mathematics to understand the seemingly indescribable. Philosophy questions the foundations of everything we perceive in search of an underlying theme, pattern, or motive. This project, the In-Between, forces you to imagine a space that comforts all vehicles of belief in a poetic and honest way.
Design criteria is thrown out the window. Escapism is no longer an option. Inspiration must come from the darkest, most private parts of your life. I explain my design response through a six part installation that proposes the transition of the deceased as well as the dilapidating memory of the living. Death is uncomfortable, but it must be talked about if we are to truly live.
Narrative:
Death is our life's ultimate unknown. It is stored in the recesses of our consciousness until it’s not. But just because keeping it down is comfortable, does that mean it is wise? Death is a constant in the equation that is my thought process. Death does frighten me, but I am not afraid to die. Death scares me because of what, because of who it can take away. It terrifies me because I have held it, I have heard it, I have been it.
There is something hollow yet heavy about death. The feeling of holding their body on the shower floor never leaves you. The weight pressing down on you, making you sob to the point where no tears come out. Each heave getting stronger, seemingly breaking your bones with grief. The weight stored in your memory forever. The helpless feeling of you slipping away. Joints seem to bend in new ways, infiltrating your thoughts and haunting your dreams. No tension, no strength. It is strange how you don’t notice the blood. It does not make you feel dirty. It flows down like water. It is not disgusting; it is life. What stays is the touch of cold. The figure chiseled in your mind. The weight you left behind. I held death in my arms. I held what death leaves behind.
There is something grotesquely silent about death. The sound of death rings in my ears. The shrill as their foot slips. The conquering silence as the rock consumes them. I stand there, petrified by the inevitable. So empty. So loud. All you can do is stand there, holding tight to what remains. Your body is stabbed with ice as you strain with grief. The feeling of your foundation closing in on itself. Frozen air suffocates your body. I can still have your release. The sound of a misplaced foot. The cry of life letting go. I have heard death. I have heard death leaving.
Death takes; but, death also gives. No more pain. No more anguish. No more thoughts. Sweet release from reality. Such comfort. Ultimate bliss. I was an addict and death was my drug. The more I experienced it, the more I needed it. Left behind is your shell - the weight of the world. You are tired of existing. You dread pulling yourself through endless days. As you stare at yourself, you do not recognize the form you have become. The soul is begging to be set free. The physical pain of death does not scare me. The pain from death appears infinitesimal beside the pain felt from sustaining each day. Constant pain waning to numbness. With this sacrifice, freedom. The promise of release is tantalizing. Sensual. Seductive. I have met death. I have met who death can turn you into.
The dead only die halfway. They continue living within the people they leave behind. However, this is only a half life. The way the living remember them is not true to the dead’s original identity. Masked is the truth and promoted are the highlights. These memories bend and alter until the person we created bears no resemblance to the one passed. The mind has a way of comforting itself at the expense of reality. These ideas stored in our empty heads are not real. They are not people. They are a perception. The identity eludes us, dancing so seductively behind the veil. We try so frivolously to solidify their legacy, though all that will remain is what our mind chooses to remember.
We mustn't be afraid of death. It is the only universal human experience. The bond with the spirit and body is broken with mortal acquiescence. You are no longer held by the constraints of biology. What exists now is divine energy transcending. As your vessel fades you scintillate among realities. No concept of dimension to constrict your movement. Your being is diffused into sensuality. Transformed into fluorescent energy, you feel your mind dilated. The veil has disintegrated. You have come back to get me. You have not died, you are at last living. Death has given you everything; and everything is beautiful.
There is nothing to fear about death. It is a natural, beautiful event. It is not scary. It is not our enemy. What we must fear is our own mind. It bends and twists our history to fit our current truth. The brain is constantly altering our perception of people, of memories, of reality. The only enemy here is our own mind; for it has the ability to turn anything, even death, into a monster.