The Grief Machine
Anyone have any thoughts on this?
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2 comments
Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.The only one it matters to is the griever, the living, the dead neither know or could care.
Mermaidfantasy
Level 7
Sep 17, 2019
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Well, it certainly is strange, but then again so is his argument that somehow inconvenience makes grieving more acceptable and sacred. Really? Also, there is certainly nothing new about these items being marketed and sold for profit to take monetary advantage of our grief. Do we really need a stranger there to sell us such items to make such a purchase sacred instead of secular? Really? I think it is more a matter of what we are used to. If this were common, and had been for a while, no one would really think anything of it.
Heraclitus
Level 8
Sep 9, 2019
0
I think the point of the artwork is to point out that people profit from grief, and the most efficient way to make that profit is through a machine. It's the commodification of death itself. I personally don't see a problem with it either, at the end of the day people will be able to get things they want for money, nothing evil there. What bothers people is how this implies that our lives never really mattered to begin with if people are willing to get what they want to honor the dead from a soulless piece of plastic and steel.
@Happy_Killbot Yes, I see the point. It is just that I think that death has already been commodified. Some people spend a small fortune on funerals which certainly isn't for the benefit of the dead. In the end, does it really matter if you have monetarily "honored" the dead from a soulless machine or from a soulless salesman? At least the machine does not sell its soul for money. The guilt-manipulative salesman does.
@Heraclitus Except the machine was set up by a person who is no longer there, meaning someone is making money from people's misfortune without having to deal with those people.
@Happy_Killbot Yes, and if the salesman is not there to "deal" with me, then he is not there to manipulate my sense of guilt and public shame to spend more and more on a corpse for show.