The memorial photos shown here are just of the (what I'm calling) "somber" part of the memorial. It's hard to capture the capabilities of the "digital" part with just a static photo. The golden crest on the floor announces to the person walking over it that this room is "In memory of the sons and daughters of Indiana University who have served in the wars of the Republic." The large tome under glass on the carved wooden desk has the name of every student calligraphied, along with their death date, which war they fought in and, as much as possible, the reason for death. As is evident from the photo, each student is provided with a good amount of space for their written memorial. The space between each name seems to provide the reader with a natural pause - a written moment of reflection - before preceding to the next name.
As a side note, this memorial is in an interesting place in the IMU. When we were talking about Kelly's post on graffiti today in class and the different signification depending on the space the graffiti occupying, it made me start wondering why this campus memorial is where it is. It's tucked away to some extent and it would be easy to pass right by it if you weren't looking for it. But it's also only about twenty paces from the main front entrance and right across from the Starbucks. In fact, the Starbucks line often snakes around and passes right by the door, which is actually just an iron gate and, therefore, the room is always both visually and audibly accessible (you can always see into it and any noise from the outer hallway would always echo within it). It's interesting me to that this becomes the chosen space for such a memorial. I wonder if the memorial or the Starbucks came first. Like the graffiti, it seems to raise an interesting question about the decisions that go into carving out space for a memorial and what those decisions entail.As I left the room on my most recent visit, I noticed the digital display along the back wall that I didn't notice on my first visit. It seems ridiculous that I overlooked it the first time, but I feel like there's a real possibility for that if you imagine the room to be a kind of sacred, memorial space. Imagining that one is in such a space, the mind may find it easier to overlook the digital screen by the back door, almost because it becomes too intrusive. But, I was being a bit more careful with my observations of the room this time and had to look at it on my way out. On closer inspection, I realized that I could click on a small icon for each war and immediately (well, after 10 seconds of a "Loading" bar and notification) bring up a list of the names of every student who had died in that particular war. And these names are not given the decorous space for pause that the names in the book are. They are written in script, but listed one after another, more in catalogue form. As Jess mentioned in class, there's something very disturbing and disjointing about trying to reconcile this kind of digital display with a commemoration of the dead. It's as if my mind couldn't subject the names in the book to the kind of artificiality the digital display's touch screen asked me to participate in.
Consequently, I could only bring myself to click on one icon and see the list before I was too disgusted to continue. As I think about it more, though, I suppose it's possible that the catalogue list of names could be hyperlinks that lead to a page about each student. But, I don't think that's actually the case and I wonder if that might even be more disturbing....although, perhaps more thorough and successful of a memorial in the sense that we would get a broader sense of who these students really were?
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