Following the successful first Death Online Research Symposium at the University of Durham, the second two-day symposium will be held at Kingston University London in August 17th-18th 2015.This is the collection of abstracts that will be presented within the symposium. The meeting will explore how we invest death-related practices with meaning in digital convergent media, social media artifacts and networks with a focus on familiar, reconfigured and emergent types of content, contexts, new (mass media) audiences, usage patterns, and embodied forms of experience and expression.
DEATH ONLINE RESEARCH SYMPOSIUM-BOOK OF ABSTRACTS-17th-18th
August 2015Death Online Research Network Kingston University London
DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES OF COMMUNICATION CONSTITUTE INCREASINGLY
OMNIPRESENT TECHNOLOGIES OF LIFE AS WELL AS DEATH THAT STRUCTURE
CONTEMPORARY FORMS OF SOCIABILITY, FLOWS OF AFFECT AND
MEANING-MAKING. THE MEETING WILL EXPLORE HOW WE INVEST
DEATH-RELATED PRACTICES WITH MEANING IN DIGITAL CONVERGENT MEDIA,
SOCIAL MEDIA ARTIFACTS AND NETWORKS WITH A FOCUS ON FAMILIAR,
RECONFIGURED AND EMERGENT TYPES OF CONTENT, CONTEXTS, NEW (MASS
MEDIA) AUDIENCES, USAGE PATTERNS, AND EMBODIED FORMS OF EXPERIENCE
AND EXPRESSION. Death Online Research is a network of international
researchers with a background primarily in the Humanities, Social
Sciences and Law studies interested in the study of how dying,
death and the afterlife is mediated and expressed online. This
includes research into memorial sites online; new ways of grieving
though social media; the use of mobile technologies in graveyards;
the digital afterlife and peoples digital legacy; as well as a
variety of other perspectives on the impact digital technology has
on everyday practices in the context of death. The network was
initiated by Stine Gotved, and the first assembly took place in
January 2013 at the IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark, co-funded
with Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark.The network statement from
our first meeting is unchanged:When an increasingly large part of
life, from the most intimate to the most officious is manifest
online, it should be of no surprise that death is there as well. We
are able to relate to death online in different ways, e.g., before
and after an actual physical death, or in more metaphorical ways
within online forums, gaming environments and so on. Alongside the
social media conversations, we have sites for mourning and
remembrance as well as for legal advice, casket sale and funeral
service. As the median age of the internet population continues to
go up, matters connected to the physical death will have increasing
importance. However the case, managing the death online involves
interesting elements of identity performing, social bonding, legal
matters, and business opportunities. In order to establish a strong
research network and thus influence the field of research, the
following goals are articulated:To gather the sparse work already
done in theareaTo support the necessary interdisciplinarity in
dealing with death onlineTo support a digital platform for network
communication and text sharingTo have subgroups cooperate on
projects, papers, panels, and publicationsTo arrange physical
seminars to encourage knowledge sharing andcooperation.Between
events, the network interacts mostly on the online collaboration
platform Podio. Contact Prof. Stine Gotved (gotved AT itu.dk) to
become member of the Podio network. Please be aware that the
network is for people involved in some kind of academic research;
right now we are not open to, e.g., journalists, authors, or
digital entrepreneurs. Dorthe Refslund Christensen Aarhus
University, DenmarkKjetil Sandvik University of Copenhagen,
DenmarkIn this paper we analyze how bereaved parents make use of
various media-strategies on online memorial sites and on childrens
graves when performing processes of grief and commemoration for
their stillborns and infants, and how these processes are not just
linked to one particular media but take place across media. We show
how the death of an infant can lead to mediation, remediation and
mediatization strategies which involves both the uses and
arrangement of objects on memorial pages and on childrens graves as
well as uses of new social technologies, that produce, negotiate
and develop social relations, belonging and coherence that are both
individual and relational and that are made possible by ritually
establishing online memorials and graves as heterotopic interfaces
that opens certain communicational flows and accesses specific
communicative spaces concerning most prominently the ongoing
relations with the dead child and the (re)negotiation of
parenthood. We understand media as a function of an object
reflected in human practices and embedded and structured by the
different materialities they are intertwined with. We argue that
the use of media and materiality online and on the graves are, in
various ways, a remediation of everyday parental practices and we
demonstrate how such practices and relations are structured in some
basic social matrices of how to perform parenthood, both in
relation to the dead child and in relation to achieving social
appreciation of the missing child and the role as being parents
even when the child has died. HETEROTOPIC RELATIONS BETWEEN MEDIA
AND MATERIALITY IN CHILDRENS ONLINE MEMORIALS AND ON CHILDRENS
GRAVESDaniel Miller University College London, UKMy study in an
English village found a surprising amount of loneliness and
isolation amongst hospice patients. I argue this is not because of
the decline in English sociality, the problem is English sociality.
One of the results of our study is a definition of social media. As
it happens this is especially important in the English context
because the prior dualism between public broadcasting and private
chat corresponded closely to the traditions of English sociality
which also tended to split between being friendly in public while
defending the sanctity of the private home. Social media has
radically changed this from a duality of media to what we call
scalable sociality which can bridge between the private and the
public through the group. I look at the implications this has for
hospice patients both now and in the future. Partly through the
stories of two particular patients and their use of Facebook, which
amongst other things, revealed how a mirror selfie can be
extraordinarily profound.SOCIAL MEDIA AND THE ENGLISH DEATHWendy
Moncur University of Dundee, Scotland, UKWe are increasingly living
out aspects of our lives digitally. But what happens when we die?
In this keynote, Ill explain what I mean by adigital life,
comparing it with physical and social human lifespans. Ill explore
the reasons why it is so difficult to completely terminate your
digital life, before describing the options for a continuing
presence after physical death, both in the memories of others and
as a rather more active, even vocal, digital entity. The material
is based on a chapter in the forthcoming book, which also features
contributions by Will Self and AS Byatt:Wendy Moncur. Forthcoming.
Living Digitally. In Memory in the Twenty-first Century: Critical
Perspectives from the Sciences and Arts and Humanities, Sebastian
Groes (ed.). Palgrave Macmillan.LIVING DIGITALLYSession Chair:
Stacey Pitsillides University of Greenwich(RE)MEDIATING DEATH AND
BEREAVEMENT ONLINEONLINE EMOTION REGULATION: WHY THE KIND OF LOSS
DOES (NOT) MATTER IN COPING IN ONLINE BEREAVEMENTKatrin Dveling
University of LeipzigIn todays digitalized global village (McLuhan
1964) online communication garnishes a vast amount of information,
opinions and attitudes, at the same time yielding considerable
potential for emotional (ex)change. Online bereavement platforms
provide opportunities for emotional communication within a group of
like-minded, yet anonymous grievers. The domain of
online-bereavement still leaves many questions unanswered. Not only
young adolescent mourners, who are familiar with the many options
social network sites offer, use the internet to share their
emotions (Rim et al. 1991), but in a digital era, all age groups
can be part of virtual interaction processes (Dveling 2014).
Bereavement as a deeply socially embedded process is closely
related to a multitude of emotions. In this vein, previous research
discloses that online sharing engenders transformational emotional
regulation (Gross 2008), which incorporates empathic interactions
(Dveling 2014). Emotion regulation patterns disclosed similarities
as well as differences in online bereavement of children,
adolescents and adults. Extending the analysis, this investigation
of digitally mediated grieving and memorializing goes one-step
further. The research questions are:1.Does online grief depend on
the kind of loss? Does this type of loss (bereaved parents grieving
over the loss of their child; bereaved children suffering the loss
of a parent; widows grieving over losing a spouse) engender
different forms of emotion regulation processes?2.Does age or
gender matter as much as presumed?3.If so, what forms of emotion
regulation come into play? From 2014-2015, four different
bereavement platforms, addressing different kinds of mourners, were
examined qualitatively as well as quantitatively in a two-step
content analysis (N postings = 1028), generating insight into
online-shared grieving processes. The findings reveal differences
and similarities in interactive communication patterns. Motives and
meaning structures in online emotion regulation are unveiled.
Implications and suggestions for further research in this highly
relevant media psychological domain are explicated. BUILT AND
RECEIVED IDENTITIES IN VIRTUAL MEMORIALSAnna HaverinenUniversity of
TurkuThe action of creating an online memorial is a ritualized act
of remembering and honoring, which consists of symbolism concerning
the relationship between the deceased and the bereaved as well as
their community and other extended social networks. What is
particular about official memorial websites compared to other
online memorials is their constructed nature, where they resemble
traditional burial sites the most. The websites do not only reflect
the social relation between the deceased and the creator of the
memorial, but also the relationship between the individual and
society. Since all memorials are always subjective constructions of
identities, highlighting specific aspects of their personalities,
gender and social and cultural status, the memorials can often even
be almost like caricatures highlighting only one or a few aspects
of the individual. Through their constructed nature, they are also
representations of culture, ideology and religion and reflect a
specific time in history. They become social narratives of a
socially contextualized individual (Wu 2010, 130). In this
presentation I will discuss the notions of built and received
identities when creating a memorial website. Identity as a concept
is used in this presentation as something a person is or wishes to
be in the eyes of others (see e.g. Ricoeur 1991; Cohen 1993; Hall
1999; Bauman 2004), but also, in this case, how the deceased is
perceived by others through the memorial website. I will use two
case examples from my PhD work (Haverinen 2014), conducted in
2007-2014, where I analyzed the way memorial websites portray the
identity and the life of the deceased, the way the memorial creator
perceived the identity of the deceased, how the personal taste of
the bereaved is displayed on the memorial visually and, finally,
the options the website providers provide to the users in
customization and personal layouts. The memorial websites were
analyzed using narrative identity theory (Ricoeur 1991; see also de
Mul 2005), where the focus is on the life narratives of the
bereaved and the deceased.BEREAVED PARENTS ONLINE GRIEF
COMMUNITIES: DE-TABOOING PRACTICES OR GRIEF-GHETTOS?Ylva Hrd af
Segerstad Gothenburg University Dick KasperowskiGothenburg
UniversityKjetil SandvikUniversity of CopenhagenDorthe Refslund
ChristensenAarhus UniversityThe death of a child is a near taboo
subject in most contemporary societies. This limits bereaved
parents means for coping with their loss. However, with the
introduction of social media, this has changed. In this paper, we
present preliminary results from case studies of a number of
different types of Danish and Swedish online grief communities for
bereaved parents. The main differences between these communities
are related to the conditions for participation and sharing: open
or closed, moderated or non-moderated communities. The main
questions focus on how development of practices and norms for
grieving and mourning online are related to the particular
conditions for participation. The different types of grief
communities under study are a closed and an open group on Facebook,
an open dedicated memorial website and open discussion groups such
as Libero/Pampers etc. We aim at analyzing which kinds of practices
are performed and shared in the different forums and how norms and
traditions are performed, challenged and negotiated in the various
formats. Furthermore, we discuss how these practices are related to
dominant ideas of grief in society as such, for instance, in
relation to intensity, length etc. Do these practices lead to a
softening of prejudices against mourners, i.e. de-tabooing the loss
of a child, or do they lead to new biases and misconceptions as
displayed in popular media, casting them as grief-ghettos? Finally,
we want to reflect on the unique character of these different kinds
of empirical material in the study of parental grief work.WE DO IT
TO KEEP HIM ALIVE: THE USE OF FACEBOOK IN THE AFTERMATH OF A
SUICIDEJo Bell & Louis BaileyUniversity of HullFacebook is a
place to share and connect with family and friends online.
Increasingly, for many it is also a place to remember and honour
the deceased, including those who have died by suicide. When a
person passes away, their Facebook account can become a memorial
and digital legacy of their life, experiences, personality and
friendships. This paper presents findings from recent qualitative
research in the UK which focuses on the online memorialisation of
those who have died by suicide. It draws on data from ten
individuals who have experience of creating and maintaining
Facebook sites dedicated to the memory of loved ones a child, a
sibling or a friend - who have died by suicide. Data indicated that
Facebook enables the deceased to be an on-going active presence in
the lives of the bereaved, with many examples of participants
saying that they continue to communicate with the deceased via
their Facebook accounts as if they were still alive. Our
presentation explores the various ways in which Facebook has been
used in the aftermath of a suicide and highlights the frequency of
communication, what sentiments are expressed and how activity
changes over time. In this paper we discuss the potential of
Facebook as an avenue for digital afterlife and the generation of
post-mortem identity. We look at the ways in which Facebook
transforms human mortality providing new ways for people to
experience, negotiate and represent death by suicide and stay
connected the deceased.is or wishes to be in the eyes of others
(see e.g. Ricoeur 1991; Cohen 1993; Hall 1999; Bauman MOURNING IN
BITS AND STONE: UNDERSTANDING THE MATERIALITY, SPATIALITY AND
TEMPORALITY OF DIGITALLY AUGMENTED MEMORIAL SITESJakob Sabra &
H.J. Andersen Aalborg UniversityWe mourn our dead, publicly and
privately, online and offline. Cemeteries, web memorials and social
network sites make up parts of todays intricately weaved and
interrelated network of death, grief and memorialization practices
[1][5]. Whether cut in stone or made of bits, graves, cemeteries,
memorials, monuments, websites and social networking services (SNS)
all are alterable, controllable and adaptive.They represent a
certain rationale contrary to the emotive state of mourning (e.g.
gravesites function as both spaces of internment and places of
spiritual and emotional recollection). Following this theoretical
offset the study proposes an alternative and nuanced discourse on
the interplay of novel media technologies in relation to their
perceived impact on materiality/rationality and
incorporeal/emotionalstates in mourning and remembrance processes.
We argue that novel media technologies bridge the dividebetween
states of rationale and states of sentiment and augment the loop of
exchanges between the two. We switch interdependently between these
states by a seemingly coincidental structure, when subjected to
involuntary memories or episodic reminders afforded by trigger
parameters such as space, artifacts, situations or sensuous
representations. In this paper we build upon present research on
grief and proposal a methodological contribution to the study of
progressions of digital mourning and remembrance practices. We
present a generalized structure of online mourning and
memorialization by discussing the publicly and privately digital
and social death from a spatial, temporal, physical and digital
angle. Further, the paper will reflect on how to encompass shifting
trends and technologies in traditional spaces of mourning and
remembrance.Session Chair: Anna HaverinenUniversity of
TurkuTECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENTS IN THE DEATH INDUSTRYTHE LIVING
DEAD? THE AUGMENTATION OF GRAVEYARDS, MEMORIALS AND MONUMENTSPhilip
WaneNottingham Trent UniversityThis research examines the potential
of Augmented Reality (AR) applications to enhance the experience of
visitors to cemeteries and other memorials. AR allows users to
overlay an augmented reality image onto a physical object when
viewed through a mobile phone. AR applications, unlike some over
other approaches, do not require any physical additions to existing
physical artefacts and the technology permits a multiplicity of
interactions, for instance a family member might view one image and
a member of the general public might view another. The technology
can be applied to both family headstones and historic monuments or
markers of interest such as war memorials and the English Heritage
Blue Plaques scheme
(http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/blue-plaques/). The
author has successfully used augmented reality in situ with both
family headstones and war memorials. The author began to
investigate AR following the death of his own parents at separate
times in 2009. The modest cremation headstone seemed insufficient
(but was all that was permitted) so the idea of using an AR
application to allow family members to see without having to
physically change the headstone was compelling. This presentation
would build upon a presentation at the first Death Online Research
Symposium (see clip from that event:
https://youtu.be/JNfYaAPYjoI?t=1m38s). The session would include
(new) live demonstrations of AR in action. Since the first
symposium the author has developed strong ties between the
technology and the sociology of death and remembrance, including
sociological concepts of aura (MacIntryre, Bolter & Gandy,
2004; Atherton & Morgan, 2011), pluralisation of the function
of monuments (Atherton & Morgan 2011; Niven, 2008) and
contested spaces (Castells, 2006; De Certeau 1984, Urry 2007).
DESIGNING FOR FUTURE LOSS: NEW DIGITAL MEMORIALS IN DENMARKStine
GotvedIT University of CopenhagenThe traditions and rituals around
a physical death are changing due to the ubiquitous state of
digital communication technology. The dying as well as the
relatives hold a number of new choices regarding the rituals
connected to the remaining life, the funeral, the legacy, and the
process of mourning the loss. This project is primarily related to
the latter and centers around a business initiative to construct a
new Danish memorial platform. Currently, there are few options of
Danish memorial platforms for the descendants to choose between.
There is an early web solution for memorials in general (mindet.dk,
with about 1600 active memorials) and a small score of more
specialized sites for the loss of for example infants or siblings.
As Haverinen (2014) points out, the differences in national
mourning cultures make the big US based memorial platforms
unsettling places for other nationalities; from the symbol design
to the default language it is unfamiliar territory. The actions and
rituals connected to death and mourning are embedded in longheld
national traditions, religious and otherwise, and the design of a
digital memorial platform is thus a challenge also in relation to
cultural knowledge and sensitive design.The platform and the
connected research are works in progress, and the research design
span three perspectives: 1) users & experiences,2)
techo-ethical issues, and 3) changes in ritual practices. This way,
the research project will cover the micro level (the new memorials
test pilots and first movers), the meso level (practical and
theoretical challenges posed by the intersection between digital
technology, traditions, and sensitive issues) and the macro level
(the digital transformation of national death culture). My
presentation at the second symposium will give a status on the
actual platform development, share experiences about the
construction of the research project, and explore possibilities for
transcending the national
perspective.---------------------------------------------------Join
the co-creation of a new digital memorial Get a sneak peek at our
prototype for a next generation digital memorial, developed in
Denmark 2014-2015 through extensive involvement of potential users
and relevant experts. The digital memorial is designed for the need
of remembrance and sharing among those left behind, and aims to
enable a rich and co-constructed narrative of the deceased. We are
happy to share this with you - drop by our stand and join the work
in progress.Katharina Sture Kristensen & Nana Scheibel
Hoej.dk---------------------------------------------------BOARDING
A NEW JOURNEY Moran ZurSafeBeyondThroughout our lives we mark the
passage of time with significant life events such as birthdays,
graduations and weddings. While a person can predict where and when
these future events will take place with relative certainty, he
cannot guarantee that he himself will have the chance to attend.
The digital inheritance market is fragmented. With so much of our
lives being lived online, digital inheritance has become a complex
issue, especially since the average person has multiple on-line
accounts. Once a person passes away, various hurdles arise,
including those with respect to privacy and intellectual property
rights regarding the persons on-line data. SafeBeyond simplifies
the complexity, process and management of digital media inheritance
and virtual legacy for data heirs. SafeBeyond provides a unique and
user friendly platform for the management and distribution of a
users digital data and virtual legacy after he passes away. With
SafeBeyond, a user can guarantee that his words of wisdom,
encouragement, and love will fill the void left by his absence at
the moments and places they are needed most. The platform aims to
empower multiple beneficiaries, not only the user by preserving and
delivering the users messages with pre-selected recipients at the
time or place of future life events. This ensures the users virtual
legacy and presence long after his passing. Importantly, the
platform enables the user to predetermine what will happen to his
digital data, and how his on-line foot print will be handled by his
loved ones. By designating online account custodians, the user
ensures the preservation of the sentimental value of his digital
data and virtual legacy. For more information please visit our
website - www.safebeyond.com1984 1984 19841984 1984 19841984
19841984 1984 19841984 1984 1984 1984 1984Vered ShavitIndependent
Researcher and DigitalDust BloggerDIGITAL DEATH AND US: WHAT MORE
CAN BE DONE?2.An active audience-participation-based roundtable
session aimed at sharing existing solutions and suggesting new ones
(30 minutes). 3.A clear conclusion of this brainstormings outcomes,
hopefully providing all symposium participants with ideas that they
can take home, and perhaps utilise to bring the wings of change to
their various communities and countries of origin (15 minutes).In
2013 an online survey titled What Shall We Leave Behind? was held,
regarding the digital legacy we and our loved ones shall leave
behind. Some of its results were presented in a paper titled Online
Legacies: Online Service Providers and the Public a Clear Gap
(2014, Tzezana & Shavit). The paper focused on the current gap
as portrayed through the results of this survey between the wishes
of families of modern deceased to gain access to their beloved ones
online legacy posthumously and the websites, platforms and online
service providers policies and practices in this regard. The unique
opportunity of DORS 2015: Death Online researchers and experts of
various disciplines gathered together at the same time and place
could be used for sharing ideas and knowledge. A brainstorming
regarding what more can be done? - practically and in all sectors:
business, governmental, private, non-profit: raising awareness,
finding solutions, creating a change. In the previous symposium
Astrid Waagstein shared a Danish solution in her presentation which
was un-known to most of the attendees and curiosity arises towards
the possible outcomes of the next symposium. The suggested format
is: 1.An oral presentation by Vered (Rose) Shavit (15 minutes):
a.Detailing existing Digital Death issues, difficulties and
dealings, including a presentation of some of the results of the
survey and paper. b.Presenting existing solutions. c.Presenting
ideas for future solutions. 1984 1984Session Chair: Korina
GiaxoglouKingston University LondonPRACTICES OF DEATH, DYING AND
MOURNING ONLINENETWORKED EMPATHY AND THE ART OF DYING.BLOGGING
WITH, AND ABOUT, CANCERYvonne Andersson Stockholm UniversityIn
media debate the blogosphere, especially diary blogs, is sometimes
criticized for contributing to the superficiality of society as the
subjects discussed in blogs tend to be rather trivial, such as
trends in fashion, food and home decoration. In social media
research Miller has argued that blogs have shifted from providing
substantive texts and dialogue to pathic exchange with the only
purpose to maintain connections (Miller, 2008: 393). Blogs have
therefor become parts of a rising pathic media culture
characterized by individualization, pure relationships (Giddens,
1992) and commodification of information and social relations
(Miller, 2008).This presentation however, will describe blogs
written by terminally ill persons and discuss how these offer new
opportunities for communication about existential experiences as
well as opportunities for people to approach their existential
(in)security (Lagerkvist 2013) through exchanging empathy in a
networked society (Lvheim 2012). This ongoing research both draws
on and moves beyond Zygmunt Baumans (1992) theory of the
rationalization of death in modern society. It does so by adding
Lvheims (2012) theory of empathic communication a communication
between bloggers DISCUSSING DEATH AND DYING ON FACEBOOK WHILE
WATCHING THE VIRTUAL WAKE OF A STRANGERAndria Martins University of
BathThis paper aims to show the main interactions between users of
a Brazilian Facebook group that often use the viewing of Virtual
Wakes of strangers to discuss death and dying. The Virtual Wake is
the real-time streaming of the period of 12 to 24 hours the family
normally spends with the body before burying or cremating it, and
is an extremely important part of the Brazilian death rituals,
interpreted as the last chance to say goodbye to a loved one. The
Virtual Wake is now a thriving business for the funerary companies
and consists in placing a camera in the rooms where the regular
wake happens. The online community, called Dead people profiles is
a space dedicated to listing the profiles and causes of death of
Facebook users, similar to an obituary, and today has more than
thirteen thousand members. Their points of view and general
community interactions were analyzed during participant observation
and private interviews in 2013 as part of a Nethnography work for a
Masters Thesis in Anthropology, introducing this less explored
feature of virtuality as a possibility to deal with death and
dying. and readers where the value and forms of empathy and
mutuality are collectively maintained and transformed balancing the
pathic media culture found and described elsewhere in Internet
research and at the same time providing insights into, what Seneca
calls, the art of dying in the 2010s.UN-CONTROLLED PRESENCE:
POST-MORTEM DIGITAL INTERACTIONPaula KielLondon School of Economics
& Political ScienceThroughout modernity, the social
construction of death was characterised by a tension: on the one
hand a desire to eliminate and remove death from everyday life,
while on the other, a continuous and ever-lingering presence of the
deceased in daily life. In between these conflicting desires,
communication technologies have repeatedly triggered fantasies of
dismantling boundaries between death and everyday life. Most
recently, digital platforms such as www.deadsoci.al,
www.lifenaut.com and www.livesn.org open up new possibilities of
post-mortem forms of interaction that potentially allow an active
participation of the dead in users everyday lives through digital
media. For example, by allowing the dead to send emails, post on
social networking sites and even engage in conversations. In so
doing, these platforms arguably challenge conceptions of death as
stillness, and the association of the dead with silence and
absence. In this paper, a concept of controlled presence is
suggested for studying death in our current moment and
conceptualising its distinctive characteristics. For this end, the
paper examines post-mortem interaction websites as a site in which
social meanings of death and the dead are formed, negotiated and
modified in contemporary Western cultures. Employing a multi-modal
analysis of websites dedicated to post-mortem interaction, this
study explores the characteristics of practices of post-mortem
digital interaction, and highlights the changing constructions of
death from an excluded and confined experience to one which can be
potentially embedded within everyday life. This paper argues that
practices of post-mortem digital interaction are potentially
reshaping the content, materiality and temporality of contemporary
practices of controlling and managing the presence of death,
deadness and the dead. #RIPROBINWILLIAMS DIGITAL MEMORIALS AS
MEDIATORS OF A LIVED LIFEAnu Harju Aalto University School of
Business, Helsinki, FinlandWe live in times of affect economy.
Death brings us together through mediated participation in online
mourning rituals (Sumiala, 2013) where belonging is achieved
through emotional identification with distant others. Mediated
rituals have the capacity to evocate a sense of communal belonging
(Pantti & Sumiala, 2009; Couldry, Livingstone & Markham,
2007). Exploring social media as mediated public space (Couldry,
2012), the study focuses on the meanings assigned to the lives of
deceased celebrities. Combining a social constructionist approach
(Berger & Luckmann 1991/1966; Gergen 1997, 2009) with systemic
functional linguistics (SFL) analysis (Halliday & Matthiessen,
2004; Martin & Rose, 2003), this study examines how a lived
life is (co)constructed in online memorising and embedded in
digital memorials. Actor Robin Williams died in August 2014, and
Philip Seymour Hoffman in February the same year. Celebrity death
disrupts normality, peaking also in social media. Perhaps due to
the untimeliness of most famous deaths, they remind people of what
really matters. This study looks at what kinds of meanings are
assigned to the lives lived and lost, how celebrities gain meaning
in and by death as these meanings are discursively and collectively
constructed in social media and anchored in digital memorials. The
study extends our understanding on, first, how digital memorials
come to mean, and second, the role of online memorising in a sense
of belonging. Analysis is carried out using the analytical
framework provided by SFL (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004;
Martin, 2004). The empirical material consists of YouTube memorial
videos as well as #RIPRobinWilliams and #RIPPhilipSeymourHoffman
tweets.The results suggest meanings originate from the lives and
needs of the mourning audience more than the actual lives of the
celebrities, suggesting that digital memorials, while having a
collective function, also harbour deeply personal
meanings.post-mortem interaction websites as a site in which social
meanings of death and the dead are formed, A DIGITAL ARCHAEOLOGY:
NAVIGATING THE POST-MORTEMAriana MouyiarisIndependent researcherIf
to live and to die are abstract, existential questions, the digital
remnants and artifacts of a life become increasingly present
reminders and spaces for the post-mortem exploration of loved ones
and friends. How is this new territory accessed, mediated,
manipulated and, ultimately, understood? In the wake of my brothers
premature death last November, these issues along with a plethora
of legal, moral, bureaucratic obstacles arose. Questions of access,
passwords, privacy, public memorializing, sociopathic manipulations
of truth and relationships became increasingly amplified and
exposed in the public domain. Usage of social media platforms, in
particular Instagram and Facebook, as a means of reaching networks
to inform and share expressions of the deceased became primary
tools and sites for emotional and digital exchange. In a society
that seeks to keep death on the margins, uncomfortable with
accepting and creating rituals to integrate it more fully into the
psychology of life, how can the digital allow for a more
considered, reflective and positive movement towards catharsis and
collective mourning: to create an (in)tangible space for the
digital afterlife? This paper seeks to explore an increasingly
relevant domain in post-materialist studies and contemporary
mourning. Ultimately, what holds meaning and how are memories
constructed and reconstructed based on shared digital repositories?
How does ones kin preserve and archive the documents,
correspondence, photographs and media (whether music via soundcloud
or email accounts) once notifying digital providers of ones death?
What are the services that should be offered to help access and
trace the activity in the run up to the loss? If there are
unresolved details and questions surrounding the death, what new
services can arise to help piece together the digital evidence
proceeding and surrounding trauma whether for
preliminary/pre-criminal investigation or personal grieving? I will
largely focus the paper on primary evidence and experience and draw
on wider academic and intellectual writings, such as Derridas The
Work of Mourning, Socrates and Epicurus.REMAINS IN THE
SYSTEM:RECOUNTING THE LIVES OF DATA IN MOURNINGSelina Ellis
GrayLancaster UniversityWhat happens if we think about our digital
legacies, not as a static collection of data that people abandon in
death, but as a mass of remains that live on within a range of
digital networks?This question has underpinned my doctoral research
and methodological approach, prompting the development of a PhD,
which looks towards what Remains in the System. In this doctoral
study I engaged in a multi-sited ethnography online in order to
empirically follow the lives of data across a three year period.
These observations of data included a range of photographs, status
updates, videos, poems, audio files, biographical accounts and so
forth, from their early inception, through to their decay. In this
presentation I want to recount core findings from a chapter called:
When Loss Remains, which overviews a 25 year history of mourning
online. The work begins in 1990 and outlines the first known
example of death online, accounts of mourning and the issue of data
within a Virtual Community. I will then discuss the early practices
of loss that transitioned onto the World Wide Web and developed
within the first free user generated sites in the mid 1990s. Moving
to reveal a multitude of sites which are still active 18 years
after they first emerged. Finally I discuss the transition of data
from these first user generated sites onto contemporary social
networks in order to give an insight into the diversity of
practices online. Accounting for the lives of data amongst a
historical frame of mourning online, will not only bring a
different perspective to the issue of digital legacy, but also,
prompts us to think about the materiality of data. How it can
persist, become entangled or lost in unexpected and surprising
ways.ERASURE AND THE DATAFIED SELFAudrey Samson City University of
Hong KongThe following research is concerned with what kind of role
the materiality of Internet technologies plays in post-mortem
digital legacy (also called digital death), and how digital data
bleeds into our mourning practices. It explores these questions by
examining how Facebook and Google deal with digital death, and what
kind of consequences the materiality of the network entails. The
notions of materiality are understood here as a space of
interaction between code and hardware (Hayles 2005) and perceived
materialisation of phenomena iteratively configured by dynamics of
intra-actions (Barad 2007). In the examples considered I look at
how terms of conditions apply to memory in the form of externalised
tertiary retention in the process of grammatization (Stiegler,
2012). I also consider how the technical infrastructure and code of
these frameworks contribute to what Wendy Chuns calls undead media
(Chun, 2011), and therefore how the persistence of media affects
how we remember. The research also looks at the biological human
memorys materiality and its need to forget (Kirschenbaum, 2008).
Ultimately I propose digital data funerals as an artistic strategy
to make data tangible and to explore how these layers of stockpiled
data constantly re-configure our identities. Digital data funerals
offer a symbolic gesture that draws attention to the materiality of
data through tangible and physical degradation, in an attempt to
surpass post-mortem datafication, and surveillance.THE MEDIA END:
THE DIGITAL AFTERLIFE AND THE ENDING OF SOCIAL MEDIA-CONTOURS OF
OUR DIGITAL THROWNNESSAmanda Langkvist Stockholm UniversityIn
reiterating the nitty-gritty of a classic article in death studies
by Tony Walter Sociologists never die (1992), one may propose that
for media studies proper, there is no proper end. Due to its
limited modernist and rational foundations, death itself has only
recently become focused in the field, and remains marginal
(McIlwain 2005; Hirdman et al 2012; Sumiala 2013). For a certain
strand of media studies improper on the other hand there is nothing
but the end, as it is preoccupied with posthuman fictionalizations
of a fossilized media future, and a memory of our civilisation,
after we have died out (Parikka 2014). Suspending these
alternatives, this paper launches an existential approach and
argues that the digital has become a cultural form wherein we face
endings, death, as well as phenomena of the digital afterlife.
These entail our fundamental thrownness (Heidegger 1927) through
those defining and eternal limit-situations (Jaspers 1932) that
have assumed a partially different shape in digital culture. Much
attention has been paid to online memorialization in the death
online context (Brubaker et al 2010, 2013, Moreman ed. 2014, Gotvid
& Refslund-Christensen eds. 2014). A less discussed
countertendency is the prevailing need of closure and ending of
social media. In zooming in on two contrasting cases: the market
rhetoric of a digital afterlife actant, and the invisible market
strategy of a company that offers the service to entirely end the
social media life of the dead, I will sketch out the contours of
our digital thrownness (Lagerkvist forthcoming) and how it, despite
or because of our posthuman condition, both demands our agency and
triggers a register of affective engagement. This will result in a
typology of the digital afterlife, and in an outline of key
features of its structure of feeling, entailing 1) meaningful
memorialization and the quest for existential security 2) a spooky
intermediary realm of reflex bodily engagement and affect (cf.
Frosh 2015) 3) a space of temporal crisis of returnings and of the
enduring ephemeral (Chun 2010) and 4) a space managerial reasoning
(Bauman 1992) 5) and finally a case of re-enchantment at play, even
in the most unlikely of places in the posthuman archive.make data
tangible and to explore how these layers of stockpiled data
constantly re-configure our identities. Digital data funerals offer
a symbolic gesture that draws attention to the materiality of data
through tangible and physical degradation, in an attempt to surpass
post-mortem datafication, and surveillance.THE DEVELOPMENT OF AN
INTERACTIVE LEARNING TOOL ON DIGITAL REMAINS FOR THE BEREAVEMENT
SUPPORT COMMUNITYMrna O ConnorUniversity of NottinghamThe last
decade has seen an explosion in the use of digital tools and the
internet as mediators of all aspects of life. The online
publication of personal content, the storage of personal data
online and on digital tools, and the use of digital technologies in
every facet of modern life mean that individuals are now creating
vast digital footprints that span entire lifetimes. In the wake of
a death, these digital remains can represent sources of great
interest and value to the bereaved. Digital content relating to the
deceased is now playing a role in mourning, bringing related
challenges for professionals who support the bereaved. This paper
reports on the development of an interactive, online learning tool
(Reusable Learning Object or RLO) on the topic of digital remains,
aimed at raising awareness of the issue amongst the bereavement
support community. Using established RLO-development methodology,
the tool was co-developed by representatives from bereavement
support organisations, a lay expert in digital-era mourning, death
studies academics and a learning technologist. Through an iterative
process ON SHOWof co-design and peer review, the tool has been
developed to reflect the expertise and values of these
interdisciplinary stakeholders. The tool has the objectives of:
highlighting amongst the bereavement support community the extent
of and challenges posed by digital remains; raising the profile of
this issue as a prominent, complex and burgeoning area of required
support; and encouraging proactivity and kindling interest about
the issue amongst by the bereavement support community. The
bereavement support agencies involved in co-developing the tool
will integrate it into staff training and disseminate it via their
professional links and conferences. This is the first in a suite of
three such tools aimed at supporting the bereavement support
community in more ably guiding the bereaved through new and
changing bereavement contexts.make data tangible and to explore how
these layers of stockpiled data constantly re-configure our
identities. Digital data funerals offer a symbolic gesture that
draws attention to the materiality of data through tangible and
physical degradation, in an attempt to surpass post-mortem
datafication, and surveillance.MEDIUMSHIP/COMMUNICATINGTal
Alperstein and Maayan Boni Independent ArtistsOur collaborative
performance is a cellular-virtual seance ritual, where we call many
kinds of presence. Living, dead, real, fiction, near and far, all
are invited to take part. During the show, we invite different
figures, dead or alive, to communicate with us. In this ritual, the
audience are welcome to leave their cell-phones on, and share any
sms or incoming call. These become part of the seance. We as
performers become mediums, haunted by the figures we invite. In
this performance piece, we raise new questions of presence. Live
presence, in the history of performance art, is a main issue within
the art piece. In performance art today the question of live
presence should be raised again, as we can be virtually present as
well. The time perspective changes as we jump from past to present.
The identity also shifts as we wear other characters- virtual or
material.The work refers technology in the context of metaphysics
and mysticism. We found a humorous connection between the spiritual
concept of the New Age, and the 3G cellphones. The idea of
technology as a manifestation of a superpower accompanied our
growing up into a world, where technology lost its charm and became
a conventional everyday routine. In this performance we use again
our little piece of technology, our cellphones, as magical
instruments. YouTube, Tinder, Google and Facebook all take part in
creating a gathering of entities. We improvise in each performance
and call to presence, in many ways, those who are not with us. We
communicated with Maayans father, who is alive but didnt come to
the performance and Tals dead grandmother; we gave a call to a
friend and tried to reach dead Franz Kafka. The audience used our
powers to initiate their own calls.The work was first performed at
Zaz international performance art festival and was later invited by
Print Screen, Israels International Digital Culture Festival.FLYING
LANDSusana Gmez LarraagaIndependent ArtistThe notions of identity
and space are constantly evolving with the appearance of new media,
technology has caused a disruption in the self, as identity lives
beyond natural time and space. There is a gap between the physical
and the virtual existence. Flying Land explores the boundaries of
virtual and physical presence through the lens of self-identity and
digital technology. Ideas of reproduction, repetition and
simulation are embedded in the historical and contemporary contexts
of printmaking are taken to another level through notions of the
hyperreal, in the spatial and temporal exploration of a futuristic
landscape.In the film a flying 3D body spins restlessly over a
hybrid land, it seems like an echo. Nature, old machinery and
virtual human debris coexist in this vision, the ruin and the
sublime. It is almost an animation of a post-apocalyptic future,
human kind is gone and the only remains left of our existence are
these holograms floating in the space alongside some
machines.THIEVES AND SWINDLERS ARE NOT ALLOWED IN PARADISEJasmine
JohnsonIndependent ArtistIn the 9 minute video, THIEVES AND
SWINDLERS ARE NOT ALLOWED IN PARADISE, a camera pans impossibly
smoothly from a computer screen through the uninhabited but active
central Moscow office of a collector of naive art and a campaigner
for life extension. Outside the window, stands The Church of Christ
the Saviour, where we are informed Pussy Riot protested. The
anthropological tools of the artist - sound recorder and
headphones, notebook andpens, sit amongst high end furniture and
glassy finishes, hinting at the means of production. The walls are
festooned with paintings including those by the utopian nave artist
Pavel Leonov, who himself referred to his paintings as rooms or
film sets. The jarring perfection becomes identifiably digital, and
moments of synchronicity between a disembodied voiceover and image
fix an otherwise outwardly expanding narrative. We see an
intricately rendered wood floor and hear that you can spot an
imitation artwork because it has a lack of heart. Collecting
becomes synonymous with the realm of digital images, capturing
every detail becomes fastidious, but also lifeless. The visibly
oppressive economic, political and social power structures weigh
heavily against the dissident qualities of activism and the
outsider. Then we cut to a handheld camera in the riverside home of
a British collector where the rural Russian paintings have a
different resonance. As the edit and framing of the monologue moves
from propaganda, through news broadcast to radio play, context
shows itself to be vitally important in the telling of stories. The
video has been screened in Russia as part of the Moscow
International Biennale for Young Art and has been selected for the
New Contemporaries touring exhibition this year. If you think there
could be a place for this work in the next conference I would love
to be a part of it. Another artist that I would want to point you
towards is Lucy Beech whose recent work deals with the subject of
death, but focusses more on the kinds of performance that can
surround death and the funeral industry itself.DR KORINA
GIAXOGLOUDr Korina Giaxoglou is Senior Lecturer in English Language
and Communication at the Department of Linguistics and Languages of
Kingston University London. Her research lies at the interface of
linguistic anthropology, sociocultural linguistics and the
sociolinguistics of narrative with a special interest in verbal art
poetics, discourse entextualization, narratives of loss and
mourning and digital sharing practices. Her PhD thesis forges an
analytical framework for the study of lament as narrative, while
her current research focuses on discourse practices of mourning in
social media, digital stories of grief and the politics of hashtag
mourning. Her work has been published in Special Issues of
peer-reviewed journals, including Pragmatics, Thanatos, New Review
of Hypermedia and Multimediaand Discourse, Context and Media. She
is currently writing a monograph on Narratives of Loss.Contact
details:[email protected]@anthrostreamSTACEY
PITSILLIDESStacey Pitsillides is a PhD candidate in Design at
Goldsmiths, University of London. Her PhD topic considers creative
responses to the digital archive framed through the question of
what happens to our data after we die? (For further information on
this please see www.digitaldeath.eu). Her research interests
include Digital Death, Digital Identity and Memory, Collaboration,
Personal Archiving and Digital Heritage. She is also a Lecturer in
Design in the Creative Professions and Digital Arts Department at
the University of Greenwich, a freelance writer/ consultant for
Stromatolite Design Research Lab and has been the co-facilitator of
three unconference events discussing issues of death and
digitality.Contact
details:[email protected]@RestInPixelsACKNOWLEDGMENTSSpecial
thanks to: Stine Gotved, founder of the International Death Online
Research Network for her unfailing support and enthusiasm in this
years symposium organisationLucy Williams, Marketing & Events
Officer, Kingston University London for her invaluable assistance
in the organization of this conference Hannah Brown, Alyssa Hurtig,
and Magdaleine Mbonimana, students in Linguistics & Languages,
for volunteering their time as conference assistants. SafeBeyond
for sponsoring the conference reception Kingston University, the
School of Humanities and the Department of Linguistics &
Languages for hosting the symposium DEATH ONLINE RESEACH-An
International Research Network-
