When I look at this sticker tonight I have two very distinct thought processes come to mind, the first of which is how this is clearly influenced by Frankenstein. Whenever you hear the name Frankenstein, I'm sure the first image you think of is a tall green monster with bolts sticking out of his neck. Obviously the famous movie monster, first brought to life by Boris Karloff in the 1931 film, has greatly influenced our collective consciousness, although it's rather impossible for it not to. It is such an iconic portrayal that I in no way fault people for thinking of his monster first. Even tonight's sticker is using that particular image as the main influence. But if you look at the original nameless monster, it was quite a different creation. He was described as a tall ugly creature whose skin was yellowing and thinly stretched across his body, causing him to shunned by society. While he is in hiding, he comes across a small family and through his eavesdropping he learns how to speak and eventually read. And this is the biggest difference between his original portrayal and the iconic image that everyone has, this fact that he is not a simple minded creature. Eventually he even confronts Victor Frankenstein, his creator, for his tortured existence and loneliness. Yes he is vicious and kills others without too much thought but he is also something that never fully understood what it is to be alive. While his body was brought back to life, he is still very much dead to the world and the sentiments around him. He is embittered by the rejection of others and believes the only way to become truly alive in the world is to remove his loneliness by making a mate like himself. Sorry I could continue to wax on about this favorite character of mine for a while, but I have a feeling that it's time to move on. Besides this year apparently marks the 200th anniversary since the novel was originally published, so I'm sure I'll stumble across more articles like this New Yorker one that will influence these posts again.
The second idea that this image invokes for me is Schrodinger's Cat. Now I'll admit this is a bit of a stretch, since the only thing that really ties this idea to the sticker is the use of the phrase "dead alive." However I can't say I'm alone with this connection, since that was my main Google image result. While I've always been a bit of a science geek, physics was never my forte. There was something about the visualization and the higher theoretical nature of this field that I never could quite wrap my head around. But if there is one thing that ended up sticking with me, and I'm sure a fair amount of you as well, was the idea of Schrodinger's cat. As a brief overview, the thought experiment of Schrodinger's cat was created by Erwin Schrodinger as a way to prove how ridiculous the direction of the current quantum theory discussions were headed. In this experiment it is proposed that a cat is trapped in box with a radioactive material, a geiger counter, a hammer, and some poison. If the radioactive material deteriorates, it will set off the geiger counter which will release the hammer on the bottle of poison thereby killing the cat. However if the material doesn't deteriorate then the cat would "technically" remain alive (I mean it is a cat trapped in a box after all.) So until you open the box to reveal the result, you therefore have to assume that both possibilities exist meaning that the cat is both alive and dead. This goes back to quantum physic discussions because it is generally thought that until you measure an atom, it exists in multiple states and by measuring it a state is then decided. Obviously this brief discussion, using just two sources and my little bit of comprehension on the subject, is certainly hazy but it is still an interesting thought process. Firstly because I love the fact that an the idea that many, including myself for a while, used as proof of the larger physics theory was actually created to disprove it. And secondly because this idea has gone on to create so many other thought processes, like the idea of multiple universes. As a brief conclusion to tonight's theoretical and literary discussions, I clearly didn't find any clear links to tonight's sticker. I did come across a piece of graffiti on Hiveminer that was also located here in Pittsburgh that used the phrase "kids dead alive" though. If I had to guess I'd say they were by the same person, it's not exactly a common phrase to see out there. I just don't have any real links to give credit to the tagger/artist. So if you happen to know who's behind this particular tag, I'd love to hear it. But in the mean time I hope you aren't too throw too much by tonight's thought processes.
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Maggie Ondrey
An amateur photographer and writer capturing a small portion of the city. Archives
August 2017
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