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Applying Psychogenealogy to media and theorising Techanastasiology

The paper applies the core concept of Psychogenealogy, a synthesis of Psychoanalytic analysis and Genealogical tracing, to evaluate digital media development — speculated to stem from death’s trauma and anxiety — within a Thanatechnological framework. Contrary to conventional perspectives that confine Thanatechnology within pedagogical software and hardware, this study re-contextualises it as “any technological recording and reproduction device, acting as a ‘container’ — consciously or unconsciously — for otherwise overflowing anxieties arising from death and loss”. By acknowledging the contemporary virtual space as a (neo)physical regenerative territory, the paper dissects the reconstruction of lost subjects through recorded multisensory data. It extends the genealogical discourse to past recording devices, categorising them as proto-Thanatechnologies to evince analogue processes in digital media and unfold archetypal traumata shaping their evolution. The first part of the text substantiates these ideas through two case studies. The first examines the Plastered Skulls and Victorian post-mortem photography by drawing parallels with contemporary virtual technologies. The second analyses the Titus Carvilius Gemello ring as a primitive virtual space, paralleling it with modern AI companions and the (neo)Crypt concept. The second part introduces Techanastasiology, distinguishing it from Thanatechnology. The new term, Techanastasiology, describes the intricate process of reproducing multisensory data and creating “Hybrids of Truth”, inhabitants of the virtual space. Inspired by Latour’s theories, this investigative practice wants to engage with individuals’ paradoxical ontology in virtuality, where subjects and objects blend and examine Digital Necromancy implications within society and its unconscious.