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The commonly held ideal for a "happy death" would be one without pain - a swift death without suffering, or a quiet passing surrounded by loved ones. Catholics believe that a happy death means becoming one with God at the moment of death. Timothy Leary wrote a book on the subject while he was terminally ill; in Designing Death, he proposes that a happy death is simply a matter of choosing the situation you will die in. Similarly, in his novel A Happy Death, Camus espouses a "will to happiness" as the means to a happy life and death. To not be alone is artist Joe Conlon's idea of a happy death. It is also the impetus for his photo and video installation 101 Talismans for a Happy Death. To not be alone is not only to approach death with loved ones nearby, but also to recognize the universality of death - that everyone dies or is dying.
Conlon and his camera do not flinch away from death. Each vignette is a vividly detailed examination of death: the camera pans slowly across a frozen man's face, filling the screen with frost-caked pores and hairs; a girl stumbles and falls, squishing a birthday cake in slow motion; a bright feather is shaken loose from a fleeing man's jacket and gently drifts towards the ground, alluding to the fall of the corpse we had glimpsed resting on the forest floor. The event is slowed down or frozen for our viewing pleasure. The object of our gaze is the evidence of a life lived and now ended. The camera sumptuously examines The Body. Each patch of skin, wrinkle, wound or urine stain reveals something terrifying - that these people age; that they have bodily fluids to be spilled; that our lives are as fragile and fleeting as theirs.
According to Nietzsche, man is always trying to repress the knowledge of two things: death and, therefore, the body.1 Images of the body such as those in 101 Talismans for a Happy Death are taboo images in contemporary Western culture. They remind us too viscerally of growing old, getting sick or meeting death suddenly. Unlike the spectacularly violent images of death that glut our popular visual culture, Colon's images are quietly insistent: everyone dies.
The video vignettes fade in and out on the monitors. The doubled images, multiple monitors and large scale wall works split and bounce the viewer's attention from scene to scene. Each image is concentrated for maximum psychological impact, then tossed out and repeated as if the artist were compulsively playing out trauma.
Repetition and iconic representation refer to the literal process of creating religious talismans. For instance, in Taoist practice talismans exercise power over the dead through the twisting, repetition and doubling of potent textual symbols. Symbolic representation and repetition are common strategies for mastering death. They appear around the world in religious and secular rituals concerning death. While each image in 101 Talismans for a Happy Death is undeniably individual and human, the accumulation of such images implies the universal human condition. The truncated narratives function as icons of death. They call up the presence of death so that we can exercise (symbolic) control over it.
While a talisman may provide a way to master an unpleasurable experience or frightening knowledge, 101 Talismans for a Happy Death also presents opportunities to experience pleasure and peace. Many of the images are self-consciously campy, diffusing the atmosphere of tragedy. Instead of a
naturalistic soundtrack, the video images are accompanied by an abstract soundscape by Sally Station. The soundtrack compels you to breathe deeply
and rhythmically. The measured soundtrack and repeated visuals suggest something more than the distancing of trauma they suggest an acceptance of and meditation on the cycle of life and death.
Notes:
1. "Even in your folly and despising ye each serve your Self, ye despisers of the
body. I tell you, your very Self wanteth to die, and turneth away from life."
F. Nietzsche. Thus Spake Zarathustra. New York: Dover Publications. 1999.
Sandee Moore is an artist working in a variety of media - from bookworks to interactive electronic sculpture - in order to explore the potential for pleasure and empowerment in participating in systems of exchange and aesthetic activity. Over the past year she has created community-based projects in Regina, Kelowna and in Winnipeg. Sandee earned her MFA from the University of Regina in 2002 and her BFA from the University of Victoria in 1997.
Joseph Conlon has worked as an artist and designer for over twenty years. He received his MFA from the University of Chicago, Illinois, his hometown. Working with photography and video, Joe's personal experiences are articulated through his artwork, which has focused on the AIDS crisis in the gay community.
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