Zombies as Communication Tools - Research Paper Example

?Henry Nabea English 22 Sept. Research Paper: Zombies as Communication Tools Zombies are imaginary creatures are quite often represented in form of reanimated human fresh that is neither fully living, nor fully dead. Zombies are the borderline between the living and the dead (McCarthy, 6). As such, zombies are scary representations that are used for a variety of purposes. Zombies are commonly used in literary and communication worlds where they are used to pass across subtle and oftentimes apocalyptic messages that would otherwise be difficult to communicate using the other conventional imageries and other figures of speech. Zombies therefore are quite effective and efficacious tools for communicating subtle and intractable realities, simply because of their versatility; zombies are neither living nor dead, they gravitate between life and death. Consequently, zombies are able to be employed in a wide range of arena to communicate powerfully to people, especially because of their appeal to people’s emotions and their ability to capture subtle realities that other figures of speech are unable to capture well. This paper explores the phenomenon of zombies as effective tools of communication. To achieve that end, a critical review of McCarthy Gallery exhibit, “You cannot kill what is Already Dead’’, is done. After the review of the article, a focus is made on three individual pieces of art from the exhibit. At the end of the paper, a conclusion is made based on the findings in the paper and in line with the thesis of the paper which is, zombies are effective and efficacious tools of communication. A critical Review of McCarthy Gallery Exhibit According to Suzanne Carte, Zombies illustrate problems about consciousness and its relation to the physical world. Carte goes to argue that zombies are ‘’never just one thing, but a stand-in for an assumed lack of agency.’’, (McCarthy, p.6). This means that since our consciousness sometimes is unable to find, in the physical world, realities that conforms to its awareness, the consciousness sometimes refuses to conform to the realities in the physical world, which do not match with its awareness, and instead conjures up imageries that conforms to its awareness. As such, zombies therefore are imageries that stand-in for realities that do not actually exist in the real world; zombies make up for realities that are not in the physical world, but they are in our consciousness. Zombies therefore are undead realities, i.e. that which is both dead and alive simultaneously. Due to their rather fluid and hazy position between life and death, zombies constitute a powerful metaphoric device of critiquing various aspects of our lives including our economic structures, politics and various forms of corruption. Carte goes on to argue that zombies are untimely projections of our fears, dark desires, and imperfections. She goes on to argue that due to their fluid and luminal position, zombies allow for a wide variety of interpretations. A critical look at this account of the nature of zombies by Carte shows that the main purpose of zombies is to powerfully express realities within our consciousness, which are not quite expressible using imageries of things that actually exist in the physical world. By claiming that zombies are projections of ourselves, our fears, desires, and imperfections, Carte in other words is saying that zombies as metaphoric tools allows us to kind of transcend the physical realities in that they enable us to express and to communicate what is not expressible through the medium of physical realities. Carte goes on to show how zombies as tools of communication provokes us to think more deeply and to get deeper meaning of realities that we are going through in our lives. She argues that what the zombie wants is to eat human brain. In other words, what zombie wants is what it does not have, i.e., the ability to be human again. As such, a zombie is a pure drive and that is why it is represented as having an insatiable desire to devour human beings. But although zombies are thoughtless, they can provoke us to think; the image of a thoughtless half living-half dead zombie, craving for human brain, should provoke us to think what it actually means to be human. The imagery of zombie should stir in us thoughts of what actually it means to be human, especially when faced with the spectre of aggression, a monster not outside of us but rather inside of us. A critical look at this Carte’s account of the phenomena of zombies also shows that zombies are quite effective and efficacious tools of communication. The imagery of zombies provokes us to think more deeply about the realities around, zombies act as catalysts in provoking us to think more deeply about the realities around us. Carte goes on to claim that Zombies also are quite effective metaphoric tools in expressing apocalyptic messages and realities. Generally, human beings have a lot of interest in apocalyptic realities. But, more often than not, human beings fail to find, out of the existing physical realities, a sufficient enough metaphor to express their thoughts and their feelings about what will happen to them after death. But in zombies, they find rich metaphors to express their thoughts and their feelings about the life after death, post-apocalyptic life. Zombies are so effective in expressing this kind of subtle realities because of its infinite flexibility in application to different situations. Again, zombies allows for a different ways of interpretation. As a result, zombies have been used to express different apocalyptic realities. In nutshell, a critical analysis of Carte’s analysis of the phenomenon of zombies shows that the prime purpose of zombies lies in their metaphoric usage as tools of communication. Although zombies are naturally terrifying, they at the same time evoke thinking and this makes them quite effective tools in communicating a message that requires people to think more deeply. Individual Pieces of Art from Doris McCarthy Exhibit Patrick Lundeen Artistic Work Patrick Lundeen specializes in making faces and masks. He normally uses collaged elements, traditional canvas and paints to conjure up images of monsters, zombies, and also freaks. Lundeen combines these three elements, i.e. collaged elements, traditional canvas, and paints, in different ways so as to come up with different zombies, monsters and freaks. Through this kind of combinations, he comes up with very beautiful images. A look at a zombie made by Lundeen shows a great artistic work. A look at the zombie first, evokes a lot of fear. The zombie looks like a corpse that has some life in it; it is difficult to tell whether the zombie is dead or living. The zombie is painted in a variety of colours. Its teeth are painted in pure white colour but one of its teeth is painted in yellow and another one is painted in yellow colour, the mouth and the nose of the zombie are painted in black colour, which makes the zombie look so scary. The eyes of the zombie are painted in white colour, and the eyelids are painted in different colours, blank, red, blue etc. The nose of the zombie is painted in pink. Lundeen’s zombie, actually, fulfils all the descriptions of a zombie that we have looked above. Through this zombie, Lundeen is able to perfectly pass across whatever message he intended to pass across. The zombie can be interpreted in a variety of ways and therefore it can be used for a variety of purposes. Mario Schambon Artistic Work Mario Schambon specializes in making images of zombies and monsters that depict apocalyptic realities. Schambon mainly uses collage and paintings in her artistic work. In one of his masterpieces, Schambon has an image of a Zombie; the image shows only the head of the zombie. The light behind the head of the zombie is actually brighter than the face of the zombie. The head of the zombie is painted in white colour with some brown colour around it. The lips, the nose and the eyelids of the zombie also are painted in brown colour. The zombie does not look so scary but it actually delivers the intended message perfectly. The bright colour behind the zombie is meant to show that where the zombie is coming from is brighter than where it is heading. In other words, this means that it is indeed difficult to know what it will happen in the future, i.e. knowing the apocalyptic realities with certainty is so difficult. The face of the zombie is actually darker than the light behind the zombie, this means that it is by far easier to know the past than it is to know the future. The chief message that Schambon wants to pass across is that the apocalyptic realities are shroud in mystery and that it is easier to know our past than it is to know what will happen to us when we die. This zombie helps Schambon to be able to pass across this subtle truth, without this kind of powerful imagery; it is actually difficult to pass across this kind of knowledge. This is because apocalyptic knowledge lies beyond the physical realm and therefore in order to be able to access this kind of knowledge, we must of necessity have recourse to a mean that is beyond the natural realities. The imagery of zombie therefore is quite effective and efficacious in passing across this kind of knowledge. Nadia Moss Artistic Work Nadia Moss’ artistic works mainly depict fear, mortality, disease, and infection. In one of his artistic works, a man is surrounded by lethal serpents and the man is fighting for his life. The man seems to be in terrible fear and he seems to be in dilemma because he is surrounded by the serpents from all sides. The painting represents the man floating in the air and surrounded by serpents. A look at the artistic work evokes a lot of fear. The painting seems a perfect representation of fear, mortality and infection. Although at first glance the Moss’ painting looks like an image of a real person, a closer look at the painting shows that the painting is indeed a zombie. This is because the image is represented as that of a supernatural human being who is able to float in the air. But under normal circumstances, it is not possible to a normal human being to float in the air. The painting therefore is a classic example of a zombie. Through the painting, Moss is able to communicate, clearly and powerfully, the messages of fear, mortality and infection. The painting is actually a representation of fear, mortality and infection. It represents fear by showing the zombie in the painting as being helpless and unable to escape from the serpents; on the other hand, it represents mortality by representing the zombie in the paint as being unable to escape death, no matter what the man does, he cannot escape death. On infection, the painting represents the zombie in the painting as being unable to escape contact or infection from the serpents. Through this zombie, Moss is able to represent very subtle realities that are not presentable using the natural means. But because zombie is a being that transcends the realm of the physical reality, Moss therefore is able to ingeniously employ it to communicate these realities of fear, mortality and infection. As we have seen in this research paper, zombies are quite effective and efficacious means of communicating very subtle realities that cannot be communicated directly through the use of conventional means of communication. But the main setback of using zombies as metaphoric imageries is that they evoke a lot of fear and some people cannot stand their sight. This makes zombies usage not so common. However despite this limitation, zombies are quite effective metaphoric imageries. The strength of zombies as metaphoric imageries lies in the fact that they are a borderline between the living and the dead. This enables them to be interpreted in many ways. The above analysis of the phenomenon of zombies shows that we cannot avoid using zombies in one time or another in our lives. This is because there are realities in our lives that we cannot express using the conventional metaphoric imageries. For instance, we cannot express the transcendent realities of what will happen to us after death, by use of natural phenomenon. This fact therefore forces us, as it were, to result to supernatural means of expressing these kinds of subtle realities. Also, zombies help us to express even the physical realities and other daily events of our lives in a very powerful way. For instance as we have seen, through the use of zombies we can represent, as it were, the realities of fear, mortality, infection, and many other realities in our lives. We cannot therefore completely avoid using zombies as mediums of communication. But the artist should be more cautious and they should try, as much as possible, to come up with zombies that are not so scary. By doing this they would make zombies usage as communication tools quite common. In conclusion therefore, zombies are quite effective and efficacious means of communication. Work Cited Doris McCarthy Gallery “You Cannot Kill What is Already Dead.”. University of Toronto, Scarborough Campus, 2013. Web. November 5, 2013. Read More