A new heterotopia: Reconfiguring presence and absence between life and death in an era of liquid modernity

Examining the emerging epistemic shift in Western society’s relationship with death, this article contends that contemporary cultural-technological practices are reconfiguring life–death binary experiences. Drawing on Foucault’s concept of heterotopias and Bauman’s theory of liquid modernity, we explore how the boundaries between the living and the dead are reconfigured through hybrid spaces of posthumous proximity. Through three illustrative practices—holographic performances of deceased artists, AI-generated avatars that simulate conversations with the dead, and tattoos incorporating cremated remains—this article traces how time, space, and ontology are reconfigured and entangled. These practices constitute heterotopic configurations in which the dead are not merely remembered in their absence but woven into the fabric of the present, reframing dominant conceptualizations of a clear-cut binary between living and dead. This proposition elicits renewed theoretical and empirical inquiry into heterotopic spaces as they relate to mourning practices, lived experiences of grief, and evolving perceptions of death.