Death mask

A death mask is a wax or plaster cast made of a person’s face following death. Death masks may be mementos of the dead, or be used for creation of portraits. It is sometimes possible to identify portraits that have been painted from death masks, because of the characteristic slight distortions of the features caused by the weight of the plaster during the making of the mold. In other cultures a death mask may be a clay or another artifact placed on the face of the deceased before burial rites. The best known of these are the masks used by ancient Egyptians as part of the mummification process, such as Tutankhamun's mask.

In the 10th century in some European countries, it was common for death masks to be used as part of the effigy of the deceased, displayed at state funerals. During the 18th and 19th centuries they were also used to permanently record the features of unknown corpses for purposes of identification. This function was later replaced by photography.

In the cases of people whose faces were damaged by their death, it was common to take casts of their hands. An example of this occurred in the case of Thomas D'Arcy McGee, the Canadian statesman whose face was shattered by the bullet which assassinated him in 1868.

Death

Death is the termination of all biological functions that sustain a living organism. Phenomena which commonly bring about death include biological aging (senescence), predation, malnutrition, disease, suicide, homicide, starvation, dehydration, and accidents or trauma resulting in terminal injury. Bodies of living organisms begin to decompose shortly after death. Death has commonly been considered a sad or unpleasant occasion, due to the termination of social and familial bonds with the deceased or affection for the being that has died. Other concerns include fear of death, necrophobia, anxiety, sorrow, grief, emotional pain, depression, sympathy, compassion, solitude, or saudade.

Etymology

The word death comes from Old English deað, which in turn comes from Proto-Germanic *dauthuz (reconstructed by etymological analysis). This comes from the Proto-Indo-European stem *dheu- meaning the "Process, act, condition of dying".

Associated terms

The concept and symptoms of death, and varying degrees of delicacy used in discussion in public forums, have generated numerous scientific, legal, and socially acceptable terms or euphemisms for death. When a person has died, it is also said they have passed away, passed on, expired, or are gone, among numerous other socially accepted, religiously specific, slang, and irreverent terms. Bereft of life, the dead person is then a corpse, cadaver, a body, a set of remains, and when all flesh has rotted away, a skeleton. The terms carrion and carcass can also be used, though these more often connote the remains of non-human animals. As a polite reference to a dead person, it has become common practice to use the participle form of "decease", as in the deceased; another noun form is decedent. The ashes left after a cremation are sometimes referred to by the neologism cremains, a portmanteau of "cremation" and "remains".

Death Masks

Death Masks is a 2003 novel by science fiction and fantasy author Jim Butcher. It is the fifth novel in The Dresden Files, his first published series that follows the character of Harry Dresden, professional wizard.

This book is published by New American Library with the ISBN 0-451-45940-7.

Plot summary

Harry shares a TV panel with a Vatican priest, Father Vincent, and São Paulo University Professor Don Paolo Ortega, a disguised Red Court Vampire noble. Father Vincent hires Dresden to recover the stolen Shroud of Turin while Ortega challenges Harry to a duel to end the war between the White Council and the Red Court. After the show concludes, Dresden is attacked by the Denarian Ursiel, a fallen angel attached to a mortal host. Michael Carpenter and two other Knights of the Cross, Shiro and Sanya, rescue him and ask him to drop the Shroud investigation, but Dresden refuses.

Dresden tracks the Shroud to a boat, but is captured by the thieves. Deirdre, another Denarian, attacks the boat and kills one of the thieves. Dresden fools her into taking a decoy safe rather than the Shroud itself.The surviving thief, Anna Valmont, flees with the Shroud. Dresden's onetime lover, Susan Rodriguez, escorts him to a high society art sales charity event run by Johnny Marcone, where the Shroud will likely be sold. The sale is interrupted by the Denarians, who seize the Shroud and kidnap Dresden.

Ed Atkins

Ed Atkins (1982) is a London, UK based artist best known for his video art and poetry.

Work

Through a practice that involves layering apostrophic text with high definition video, Ed Atkins makes work in which "The suck and the bloom of death and decay are channeled through technological tools at the height of contemporary image management". Atkins' video oeuvre is composed largely of stock footage and CGI avatars that are animated using motion capture and dramatic, commercial sound. Many of these videos feature a computer generated avatar as an isolated protagonist, whose poetic soliloquies intimately address the viewer. This protagonist, often surrounded by generic stock images and cinematic special effects, has been noted as capable of procuring the uncanny valley effect. In Us Dead Talk Love (2012), a 37 minute two-channel video work, the avatar speaks on finding an eyelash under their foreskin, a confession that sparks "a meditation on authenticity, self-representation, and the possibility for love".