Post-mortem photography: notes on memory and modes of representation

Abstract

This article seeks to investigate, in the analogical and digital context, the meanings of the presence of deceased people in photographs, based on bibliographic and analytical methodology. In the bibliographic studies, we approach the talismanic uses of photos, the metaphorical relations between photography and death, the photographic memorial function and its role in contemporary times. In the analysis, we associate the semiotic concepts of the values of images through the plane of expression and content with those of cultural interactions to which these images mediate. Expanding the analysis, we assimilate anthropological considerations about images, collective mourning and society. It was found that post-mortem images have semantic patterns capable of a vast expansion of the idea of the dead person in the heart of social life, still conquering an important place of mourning in today’s culture.