The Moment of Death is an interactive art installation, produced by Gjino Šutid & Tanja Minarik as co-authors.

Fear of death is something that all living beings have in common. Perhaps, it is the biggest and most complicated fear of all. Most people spend their lifetime trying to manage and in many cases ignore the fear of the unknown and nonexistence. Even though it causes bad emotions that we actively try to avoid, this fear has been a driving force behind a vast number of monumental cultural achievements. Individuals who were brave enough to embrace this fear were those whose creativity gave humanity innovations in the fields of medicine, religion, and art. Imagine what else could be gained if we tapped into that fear more intensely.

The moment of death is a complex biomechatronic interactive installation that can help us with a closer understanding of the process of death-related fear. It brings a glimpse into the unknown world – the live sensory experience of material death – gathered real-time from a decomposing corpse with the use of E.R.O.S. (an intelligent environmental probe developed at the UR Institute by the same authors). Transferring the material data to digital data, material death can be streamed to The moment of the death chamber, where it will again be materialized and give the user a sensory experience of death. Tapping into all human senses, the chamber will provide the user with a moment in which one cannot distance oneself from the closest possible encounter with death. What effect will this experience have on the user? How will this perception affect the user? Will the fear eventually be productive, or it will remain just a fear? These are all the important questions that need answers. We plan to find out some of the answers, by conducting forensic and behavioral research, with the help of our installation.

The installation was produced during Touch Me Festival 2014 (an event produced by Kontejner) in Klovidevi Dvori Gallery (Zagreb, HR).