A dessacralização do corpo morto na pandemia de Covid-19: uma análise a partir de imagens compartilhadas nas redes digitais

Abstract

This monograph analyzes how the circulation of images on digital networks contributed to processes of desacralization of the dead body during the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil. It is based on the understanding that the corpse, historically linked to ritual practices and sacred regimes, has been reshaped by technical, sanitary, and algorithmic forms of visibility. The aim is to examine how these images act as vectors of death desacralization in the pandemic context. The research adopts a qualitative approach, combining bibliographic review and visual analysis inspired by Aby Warburg’s Mnemosyne Atlas, as revisited by Didi-Huberman. The corpus consists of nine images circulated between April 2020 and March 2021, organized into a visual atlas. The findings show that the pandemic intensified historical processes of reconfiguration of the corpse through technical-sanitary management, statistical abstraction, and accelerated image circulation on digital platforms.It is concluded that the algorithmic form, by operating according to the logic of familiarity, has progressively converted images of death into elements of the continuous flow of digital content, producing affective blunting and stripping images and the dead body of their sacred dimension.