The eschatology of the image

© 2001 Dr. Rebecca Scott BrayThis research considers the visualisation of the dead body throughout forensic and aesthetic discourse. Weighted toward the photographic image of the dead, the thesis explores routines of framing and composition in forensic practices, and the maneouvres of aesthetic pieces, to more fully understand the ways in which images of the dead body endure in the living community. By examining interdisciplinary practices of representing the dead body in law, criminology, art and forensic medicine, the thesis engages with the conundrum of death and dead bodies in culture. The paradox identified is one of visibility and invisibility, of acknowledgement and denial, which constitutes cultural relations of remembrance and retrieval of dead bodies by way of the image. Of critical concern throughout is the problematisation of visual truth, which repeatedly gives rise to questions of indexation and faith in the sights and sites of the dead. Focussing on the imaging of the dead body in diverse cultural spaces (such as mortuaries and art exhibitions) highlights the way in which these bodies disappear, are indexed to 'evidence', and how cultural practices perform their return. In the panic and disquiet that erupts at the representation of the dead, there remain places of palliation and commemoration, filtered through both forensic and aesthetic pictures and practices. Rather than claiming the body for definite conclusion, the research argues towards the rupturing of the evidentiary. Correspondingly, of crucial importance is the levelling of critical room for forensic images to encourage alternative visions. That is, to outlive evidential concerns. In addition, by revising aesthetic documents created in spaces of formal summary (such as forensic mortuaries), the thesis embraces the aesthetic translation of the dead body for its clues of the real. This thesis traces the imaged dead body to establish a challenge - to reframe notions of evidence both in forensic address and aesthetic display