Monuments of Devalued Immortality

One of the changes that Zygmunt Bauman observes in the processes of liquid modernity is the increasing favoritism of immediacy and transience, while permanence transforms from an advantage into a limitation.In such circumstances, a kind of cultural upheaval is indicated, conditioned by the "devaluation of immortality."However, parallelly to Bauman's process of devaluation of immortality, an accelerating inflation of cultural heritage has been taking place in the world since the 1960s.The article explores the possible causes of this inflation, as well as the ways of establishing a new relationship to the material reality of cultural heritage, based on care and repair as part of a broader responsibility toward cultural ecology.Through analysis, the inflation of heritage is linked to the changed perception of historicity in the last decade of the 20 th century, which points to the concept of hyperreality as described by Jean Baudrillard.The question of the meaning of matter, which is at the heart of every material cultural artifact, and its newly established relationship to changed social reality, is the subject of discussion in this article.Considering the aspects of such meaning ranging between the authenticity of matter and its resource properties, the discussion leads to a conclusion outlining the limitations in understanding material cultural heritage through the prism of modern rationality, and therefore suggests the expansion of the framework of its perception, using hybrid concepts of cultural ecology by architect Thomas Will and quasi-objects by anthropologist and sociologist Bruno Latour.