Zombies, memories made of decaying flesh. Their hauntic presence a material realism. Sarah Lauro writes a Zombie Manifesto in which “The zombie exists somewhere between the ontic and the hauntic”. She describes an evolution of the undead in terms of the living, Hence an ‘evolution from the Haitian zombi to the Hollywood zombie.
She proposes the zombii: a conflation of David Chalmer’s p-zed with a Benjamian/Derridian zombie. An über-zombie. Zombii: ‘a zombie that does not yet exist’.
From this we learn that zombies do in fact exist. She identifies some for us: we have capitalist zombies (Dawn of the Dead), communist zombies (Invasion of the Body Snatchers), viral zombies (28 Days) and we might add vampiric zombies (I am Legend) or more recently auto-zombified legends of pop (MJ, as per Ian Penman).
The zombii Lauro proposes will canabalize the future. This Über-Zombie, a u-zed, is a spectral post-human swarm organism. Its lack of consciousness is what instills horror. Its Achilles heal is its brain, the cognitive center of our humanity and the zombii’s un- or a-humanity.
The zombii, neither living nor dead, neither subject nor object, is an in-between creature of negativity. It is suspended in a negative dialectical tension without the possibility of release. The zombii cannot be sublimated, it is the undead aporetic appearance of horror in human form.
But we can take Lauro’s evolution one step further. A zomby is the material realization of the perpetual postponement of humanity. Its not post-human like Lauro’s zombii modeled after Haraway’s cyborg. It has no use for humanity except for nourishment. It’s neither conscious nor unconscious, it has no need for consciousness. It is a thing among things. To some that's the most horrifying prospect possible.