Spoiler Alert: The following blog reveals details about Artist Laurie Anderson’s Aloft piece
Artist Lori Anderson’s virtual reality piece Aloft puts you on a plane whose destination elegantly unravels and places you into a subconscious interior filled with questions about life, death and the beyond. In her piece, shortly after the plane takes off the seats around you slowly dissolve. You are left floating in the sky in a chair, conscious yet essentially dead. Objects such as the planes black box, a crow, a typewriter go by and it seems all relatively random. Then the book, “Crime and Punishment”, emerges floating in front of you. I grab it and thumb through the pages remembering the egocentricity, guilt and powerful self-punishment themes central to the book. These themes in juxtaposition with the experience of being high above the world as a disembodied conscious form, put things into a perspective that is greatly different from when our feet are firmly planted.
When feeling less vulnerable our conscious mind does not often think of our impermanence. It would be hard to manage daily tasks, plan and have a common conversation if preoccupied with our return to nothingness. Our suppression and illusion about mortality help us function and to a certain extent is adaptive. How many friends would we have if we talked about death all the time? We cognitively know we are going to die, but the common mindset is that death is really for other people. Freud suggests, in the unconscious every one of us is convinced of his own “immortality”. Therefore, is anything wrong with this collective narcissism?
One issue is that while death awareness is suppressed we spend time and energy craving more, desiring more, and striving to be superior. Consumption, self -improvement and enhancement may be a defense or a way to deny that we are mortal like everyone else and ultimately not superior. Having a better house, more digital followers feel good in the moment, but it remains an unquenchable desire and continues to persist. How we judge ourselves and what we learn when faced with mortality is humbling and powerful. What Anderson and existential thinkers suggest is that when we are more aware of death, we may ask ourselves what really matters, what type of life are we living?
In Anderson’s piece if you grab onto the crystal a Buddha appears and to a certain extent is the counterpoint to Raskonikov’s initial perspective. I wonder if the symbol is also her suggestion to managing our existential dread. Let go of our craving a little more, appreciate the moment, be kinder to others and yourself as you focus on what’s important to you. I am not sure constantly thinking about death is the answer or healthy, but keeping in mind our impermanence to help facilitate living in the present and to find meaning may be helpful. Being aware of our future can guide us to what is in front of us.
A therapy technique popular in ACT (Acceptance Commitment Therapy) to help find meaning is to imagine your Eulogy and what you would want people to say about you and how you would be remembered.