The Funeral Path
Central to the installation’s layout is the funeral path. The dead heroes are placed in a boat like vessel and driven through the temple, passing over several canals. These canals symbolize the spheres of earth and heaven - passing over them represent the passage from one world to another, from the material to the ethereal. Finally they arrive at the crematorium, where the remains are incinerated, and the souls are freed to join Odin in Valhalla.
Grendel’s Mere
Cyberspace is representative of a time long lost to humanity. It is as the world was, long ago. Why the NORNS chose this particular abstraction will be forever unknown to modern humans.
This area of cyberspace reflects the spiritual and free image that the builders of the Hall of Heroes set out to build - lush meadows and a solitary tree in remembrance for those who fell in battle - yet it is also tainted with the presence of the Children of Ymir. The area surrounding the crematorium has become Grendel’s Mere, swampy and infested with corrupt data. Whether the abstraction of cyberspace is influenced by changes in the real world, or the real world corrupted by Cyberspace, humanity will never really know.
Jul 3, 2008
