Life in Limbo - Iron Age to Information Age

lim-bo [lim-boh]

• neither dead nor alive
• an intermediate, transitional, or midway state or place.
• a place or state of imprisonment or confinement.

Bog bodies, also known as bog people, are preserved human bodies found in sphagnum bogs in Northern Europe, Great Britain and Ireland. Unlike most ancient human remains, bog bodies have retained skin and internal organs due to the unusual conditions of preservation.

A few nights ago I watched a fascinating Timewatch documentary on the Iron Age bog bodies found in Ireland in 2003. The brutal murders of Clonycavan Man and Old Croghan Man were both carbon dated to around 300 BC and theorized to be have been carried out as sacrifice to the gods of fertility. Not only were the twenty-something victims physically tortured before death but also, ghoulishly, subjected to the ultimate in metaphysical torment - their bodies were tied down in the shallow water of the bog where they would be preserved for all time in a state of limbo, neither in the land of the living nor of the dead but imprisoned between.

I doubt that in 300 BC the grieving relatives of Clonycavan Man and Old Croghan Man had any portrait or physical image of their loved ones to hold on to. Other than a brooch or item of clothing perhaps, the murdered men had vanished off the face of the earth and with them, essentially, all traces that they'd ever lived.

Fast forward two millenia. In August 2006 I lost my father to a short battle with cancer. In the weeks and months before Dad's passing I took dozens of photos and videos on my mobile phone during days out, birthdays, family get-togethers and random non-events. I know that Dad features in many of those digital records but 18 months on I still can't bring myself to review them. I treasure them but I can't look. I've stored them on a hard drive, archived to CD and backed up to the web because I know sometime, I'll want to share them with the whole family. But not for now. It would only torment me.

Fast forward again. Steven Spielberg's sci-fi thriller Minority Report stars Tom Cruise as a futuristic policeman driven by guilt and the memory of his kidnapped son Sean to prevent similar crimes befalling other families. Cruise's character, John Anderton compulsively plays back holographic home movies of Sean, in order to relive happier times. Ironically, reliving the pain of losing Sean as each movie comes to an end. Tormenting himself.

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A year ago my nighttime dreams were dominated by memories of my father. I frequently woke up with his face and voice still vividly in my mind. And then, as the realization set in that it was only an illusion a deep and unsettling despondency enveloped me followed by a desire to return to sleep and replay the dream. I didn't want to let go.

Letting go. It's one of the final stages in the process of grieving - (1) emotional numbness, (2) deep yearning, (3) anger / guilt, (4) sadness / loneliness, (5) letting go / acceptance, (6) hope. John Anderton didn't want to let go either. His anger and guilt were overlapping with sadness and loneliness. So he held onto Sean by projecting his dreamlike hologram, or avatar, in mid-air and reliving the past. Over and over again.

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Avatar is the name of James Cameron's new movie, now in production, due for release in December 2009. In Cameron's original script treatment of Avatar a man tries to make his way as a miner by combining with an alien during an interplanetary war in which aliens can manifest themselves by possessing human bodies — avatars.

Cameron will use his own Reality Camera System to film Avatar in 3-D and plans to shoot exclusively in 3-D going forward. He's not the only one. When Wired reported on Beowulf, it explained that 3-D is staging a big comeback in Hollywood as it battles against new media and home theater systems. "[Hollywood is] struggling to dazzle a moviegoing public accustomed to multimillion-dollar computer-generated effects. This time around, a handful of blockbuster directors are driving the action: Steven Spielberg, Peter Jackson, Robert Zemeckis, and James Cameron. 'They're all feeding off each other,...they're all pushing for [3D]'."

Inevitably of course this 3D technology will also, as with digital camcorders, large size screens and surround sound, trickle down to the consumer market. And we'll be filming our home movies in High Definition 3D. Wired subsequently reported on a new technology for 3D holographic movies - "Made by Quebecois company RabbitHoles, the advertisements feature one of the film's characters tearing up the dance floor in an eight-second clip that can be "played" in 3-D by walking from left to right of the poster. Despite the images' slightly transparent quality, what you see is pretty close to the real thing."

So how long will it be before we're producing holographic home movies? Not long. Not long until we're recording, lifestreaming and projecting phantom-like images of ourselves and our loved ones. Like John Anderton reliving joyful moments with his son Sean. Like John Anderton being tormented by a digital ghost.

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'Avatar' is derived from a Hindu word referring to the incarnation, or bodily manifestation, of a higher being onto planet Earth. As we move ever closer to the capability of holographic home movie-making is there a danger that vulnerable minds will freeze frame the grieving process by grasping at the illusion of virtual reincarnation? Will we be possessed by avatars? Will it be harder than ever to let go? Not accepting the death of a loved one. Leaving them neither in the land of the living nor of the dead, but imprisoned between?

In the Iron Age it was the dead who were sometimes left in limbo. In the information age it could well be the living.