2026-09-18T19:10:57Zhttps://dspace.mit.edu/server/oai/requestoai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/1114682022-01-13T07:53:53Zcom_1721.1_7582com_1721.1_7581col_1721.1_131023
William O'Brien Jr.
Menos, Kristopher G. (Kristopher Gerard)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Architecture.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Architecture
2017-09-15T15:35:31Z
2017-09-15T15:35:31Z
2017
2017
http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/111468
1003321909
Thesis: S.M. in Architecture Studies (Architectural Design), Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Architecture, 2017.
Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. Page 180 blank.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 172-176).
This thesis speculates that common funerary practices do not reflect a wide enough range of contemporary cultural attitudes towards religion, spirituality, and mortality. As human beings increasingly embrace the paradigms of bioinformatics and digital fabrication, this thesis proposes that alternative funerary practices will arise to reflect these cultural attitudes, with individuals taking on increasing levels of both personal and collaborative agency in the design of their own memorial artifacts, and those of their loved ones. Through a series of speculative models, this thesis projects a scenario in which a group of humans embrace their corporeal materiality and its internalized information as precious and sacred, to produce memorial artifacts that are constructed from their own biomatter, and that formally encode streams of genetic information. The artifacts become esoteric 'post-mordial' emodiments of human being, existing as totems of their lineage, and 'momento mori' for remaining humans.
by Kristopher G. Menos.
S.M. in Architecture Studies (Architectural Design)
180 pages
eng
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
MIT theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed, downloaded, or printed from this source but further reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission.
http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582
Architecture.
Post-mordial : esoteric embodiment
Thesis
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