Living with the dead : Sharkfeed and the extending ontologies of new media

Abstract

This article examines how new media are helping to actualise new forms of “being” and “knowing” by mixing realities of the virtual and the real. The blending of archival and contemporary material in a Web installation called Sharkfeed provides a context for this discussion. Themes such as death, memory, past and present, and mind and body provide the critical fissures through which to move beyond older theoretical paradigms and examine the emerging possibilities of the social particularities and cultural practices engendered in the interconnected time spaces of a digital era.