The Final Journey.

I watched a body carried off the train tracks between Sion and Geneva. Zipped into a bag the person was now reduced to a masked body. The train slowed like car drivers on the motorway as they pass the aftermath of an accident.

The final act of life had vanished, zipped into a body bag. Perhaps no one had even seen it happen. It was as if the journey had superseded death, the destination that had now passed. The train continued.

I couldn't separate this sight of death from our recent Ouroboros performance (and the entire exhibition). The mass of energy and preparation that had led to three days of performances had ended. To some degree I felt as if this process was an embodiment of the journeying represented by the performance itself, not dissimilar to feelings experienced after Existere. This time the journeying seemed to have swallowed the endpoint or the performance.

The body on the train track punctuated the moment of death, the point at which the person separates from the body. I imagine the museum chancellery as the last performer left the room similarly emptying of sound and life. The vacant room, like the body, now taking on a different meaning.

This departure from life signified by death is often thought of, as the soul’s final journey, a journey on which it needs protection.

In ancient Egypt the dead pharaohs had death masks made to cover their faces, to protect them from evil spirits on their path to the afterlife. In other traditions black mourning ribbons are hung over mirrors or paintings of landscapes, people or the fruits of the field, so as not to distract the soul on its final journey.

Perversely the act of masking can be used to protect the living from death. I read a while ago that the government had bought a stock of ‘incident screens’. The idea behind the use of the screens is to conceal an accident from passing motorists and thereby reduce the possibility of further accidents.

It is surprising that for different reasons two antithetic approaches to death employ such similar tools for protection.

I found these concepts of the final journey and masking interesting. I was wondering what the significance is of this idea of a final journey and what the motivations are behind masking death and what it is that is being protected?

Guys, I had to collect my thoughts and reflecting on Sion seemed the best place to begin. There are other thoughts but I guess we need to begin somewhere.