Love After Death - an interactive installation for Redbridge Library’s The Final Party [18th - 19th May]

Following its debut at NESTA’s FutureFest16 (as part of Future Love) – Love After Death returns to reinvent itself for Redbridge Library’s The Final Party during Dying Matters Week on the 18th - 19th May. 

Love After Death invites you to explore your own legacy with experts in the field of death and bereavement. They will help you chart the myriad of choices in the future showing how death can be approached as creative affirmation - of love and loss.

Venue

Redbridge Central Library, 

Clements Road, 

Ilford, 

IG1 1EA

Timings

Friday 18th May: 10AM - 5PM

Saturday 19th May: 10AM - 5PM 

Expert Talks at 11AM / 2PM/ 4PM on both days. 

11AM – Andréia Martins  – Talk: The Virtual Wake in Brazil 

Andréia Martins is a journalist, anthropologist and a PhD student at the University of Bath’s Centre for Death and Society. Her netnographic research focuses on Virtual Wakes/ Funeral Webcasting in Brazil and the ways in which the Internet can help us deal with death and dying. 

2PM – Susana Gomez Larranaga  – Talk: The Agency of Online Personal Legacies

Susana Gomez Larranaga is an artist working with print, time-based media and installation. Her work recreates human manufactured imprints that merge and decay in nature. Derelict sites, turn into sites of intervention as archaeological repositories. When installing artwork, parallel dystopian realities are projected over the physical realm. In contrast to the ruin, the virtual world challenges the boundaries of human interaction and life-spans. Susana's practice-based PhD investigates the agency of online personal data over a physical space.

4PM – Audrey Samson – Talk: Digital Data Funerals

Dr Audrey Samson is an artist-researcher, resident at the Somerset House Studios and a Senior Lecturer in Digital Arts at the University of Greenwich. She has an active research profile, a thriving art practice and industry experience in digital media and network culture. She has developed numerous interactive installations, workshops and academic publications in the field of digital art in the context of death online, including Digital Data Funerals and has extensive experience thinking through the implications of digital technologies and translating this to engaging experiences for audiences.

11AM – John Troyer – Talk: The Future is Always Death

Dr John Troyer is the Director of the Centre for Death and Society at the University of Bath.His interdisciplinary research focuses on contemporary memorialisation practices, post-mortem bioethics, and the dead body’s relationship with technology. Dr Troyer is also a theatre director and installation artist with extensive experience in site-specific performance across the United States and Europe. He is a co-founder of the Death Reference Desk and the Future Cemetery Project, and he is a frequent commentator for the BBC.

2PM – Elaine Kasket  – Talk: All the Ghosts in the Machine: The New Immortality of the Digital Age

Dr Elaine Kasket is a psychologist who writes and speaks to practitioners, academics and the public about death and the digital. She is passionate about telling stories that show how the digital age affects how we live and how we die and has an upcoming book called All the Ghosts in the Machine: The New Immortality of the Digital Age that will be published in early 2019 (Robinson/Little Brown). It aims to get us all thinking differently about death and the digital.

4PM – Stacey Pitsillides  – Talk: Death, Design and the Digital 

Dr Stacey Pitsillides is a Lecturer in Design at the University of Greenwich. Her research actively inquires into how co-design can engage publics to speculatively explore their own mortality and legacy. Stacey's research is grounded in breaking down hierarchies between designers, institutions and users. Through a mix of ethnography, cultural probes and participatory design methods, she has collaborated with hospices, festivals, libraries and galleries to curate a range of interactive events aimed at specific communities e.g. tech innovators, educators and bereaved family members. She is also a public advocate for designing human-centred technologies with death in mind and has written broadly on the topic of death and digitality.

We wouldn’t want you to miss The Final Party!

Death Online Research Symposium (DORS4): The University of Hull, UK, August 15 – 17 2018

The 4th Symposium of the International Death Online Research Network will take place at The University of Hull, UK, August 15 – 17, 2018. It will consolidate links between existing and new network members and provide opportunities for the discussion of ongoing and new orientations in the interdisciplinary field of death online. The meeting will explore the ways in which online connectivity is changing how, when and where we engage with death and dying and how we invest death-related practices with meaning in the online environment. We warmly welcome new members to the network as well as old friends. 

Confirmed Keynote Addresses: 

Professor Charles Ess, University of Oslo, Norway 

Dr Elaine Kasket, psychologist and author of forthcoming book: 

All the Ghosts in the Machine 

Themes and perspectives of the symposium 

For this 4th Death Online Research Symposium we invite abstracts for oral presentations of new, recently completed, or ongoing research or ideas for future academic research on all kinds of death related online practices. We welcome qualitative and quantitative work which expands our understanding of the current and future trends in death online research from a variety of disciplines, addressing any of the following themes: 

Digitally mediated dying and narrative 

Digitally mediated grieving and memorialising 

Death online and embodied experience 

Digital afterlife, post-mortem identity and digital legacy 

Technological developments in the death care industry 

Digital immortality 

Online vs offline experiences 

Theorising online life and death 

Ethical challenges for studying death online. 

The conference will host a special workshop for participating Post Graduate students and early career researchers. We particularly welcome submissions from these groups. All submissions will be peer-reviewed, and we envisage publication of selected full papers in a special issue of an academic journal in the field as well as a collection of writing from the symposium in an open-access online platform. 

Important information 

Submission format: 300 word abstract 

Submission deadline: March 15th, 2018 

Submission feedback: April 15th, 2018 

Registration open: May 1st, 2018 

Registration fee: £125 (£75 students). This will cover morning and afternoon refreshments and lunch for the 3 days and conference dinner on day 2. 

All submissions and enquiries should be submitted to Dr Jo Bell: j.bell@hull.ac.uk marked “Death Online Research Symposium Submission” in the subject field. Abstracts should be no longer than 300 words. Please include full contact info (name/s, institutional / organisational affiliation and email address) in the submission. Submissions will be anonymised before review. 

The online registration and payment site will be open from 1st May 2018. There will also be information available here for booking options for accommodation. You can stay on The University of Hull campus at The Courtyard for £50 per night (including breakfast) or £45 per night (excluding breakfast). We will make cheaper options such as ‘air b & b’ available where possible. 

If you are interested in joining the Death Online Research Network, please contact Dr Stine Gotved: gotved@itu.dk. 

Love After Death - FutureFest

Love does not end when someone dies. 

Love evolves and takes on new forms, 

living on through technology, 

through the earth cradling our bodies and the memories, 

which we keep in our hearts and on our devices.

At FutureFest you will be invited to explore your own legacy with experts in the field of death and bereavement. They will help you chart the myriad of choices in the future of Love After Death showing how death can be approached as a creative affirmation – of love and loss. By considering your own mortality and what you would like to happen to your body and legacy, our experts will help guide you in setting up your own Legacy Document, detailing the future of your body and extending your presence beyond death. Mortality has always been of fascination to human beings; a curiosity, an artistic endeavor but always a mystery. For generations to come design and technology will play a vivid role in these spiritual matters that speak of our very humanness. However as technology forces us to face what bodies, minds and souls mean to us, will we prefer to live on in reanimation, or continue to live through those we love?

Book your ticket for Saturday 17th & Sunday 18th FutureFest2016

DORS2015: Full Programme & Poster

The 2nd International Death Online Research Symposium is fast approaching and we are all feeling the buzz of excitement and looking forward to meeting all the people we have been in contact with over the past months!

Here is the conference poster and full conference programme.

DORSA1_poster_web

We also have a facebook page & Twitter @death0nline

Register for this conference via Eventbrite

Feel free to share it!

2nd International Death Online Research Symposium

Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Kingston University London
Monday, 17 August 2015 at 09:00 - Tuesday, 18 August 2015 at 18:00 (BST) Kingston upon Thames, United Kingdom

Symposium Information

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.

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. It will consolidate the links between existing and new members of the network and provide opportunities for the discussion of ongoing and new orientations in the interdisciplinary field of death online.

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.

To Attend this event CLICK HERE

2nd International Death Online Research Symposium

Call for papers

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.

Following the successful first Death Online Research Symposium at the University of Durham, which marked the formation of the network, the second two-day symposium to be held at Kingston University London in August 17^th-18^th 2015 will consolidate the links between existing and new members of the network and provide opportunities for the discussion of ongoing and new orientations in the interdisciplinary field of death online.

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.

We invite abstracts for oral presentations of recent or ongoing research addressing any of the following themes:

-       digitally mediated dying and narrative

-       digitally mediated grieving and memorialising

-       digitally mediated mourning and flows of affect

-       death online and embodied experience

-       digital afterlife, post-mortem identity and digital legacy

-       technological developments in the death care industry

In addition, we welcome expressions of interest for the screening of short films or the performance of creative pieces related to the themes of the symposium. All submissions will be peer-reviewed, and we envisage publication of selected full papers in a special issue of an academic journal in the field as well as a collection of writing from the symposium in an open-access online platform.

Important information

Submission format:  300 word abstract

Submission deadline:   March 20^th, 2015

Submission feedback:  April 20^th, 2015

All submissions and enquiries should be submitted to: deathonline2@gmail.com

marked “Death Online Symposium Submission” in the subject field. Please include full contact info (author name, university affiliation and email address) in the submission. Submissions will be anonymised by the organisers before review.

Review Committee

Dr Korina Giaxoglou, Kingston University, London

Stacey Pitsillides, University of Greenwich, London

Associate Professor Lisbeth Klastrup, IT-University of Copenhagen, Denmark

Associate Professor Stine Gotved, IT-University of Copenhagen, Denmark

Associate Professor Dorthe Refslund Christensen, University of Aarhus, Denmark

Call for Chapters [Digital Death: Mortality and Beyond in the Online Age]

 

Call for Submissions
Digital Death collection

(10/1/13; 12/1/13)

We invite proposals for a collection of essays on the subject of Digital Death: Mortality and Beyond in the Online Age. This proposed book, co-edited by Christopher M. Moreman and A. David Lewis, will consist of 12-15 chapters representing a diversity of perspectives and approaches to the subject. We are seeking submissions for new writing from scholars across a spectrum of fields, including religious studies, theology, media studies, digital humanities, and any other area that explores the topic of death and dying in a digital environment, with reference to religion and/or the study of religion.

Digital Death includes analyses of mortality, remembrances, grieving, posthumous existence, and afterlife experience via a variety of digital media (e.g. Facebook & social media, World of Warcraft & video games, YouTube & video services, internet memorials, etc.). We invite proposals for papers of excellent academic merit on any topic and from any academic perspective or discipline.

Proposals should include a 200-300 word abstract, a one-page C.V., and potential titles for the chapter, submitted to cmoreman@gmail.com by Oct. 1, 2013; complete 5000-7000-word drafts in Chicago format of accepted abstracts will be due by December 1^st, 2013.

For full PDF invite please visit: http://odyssean.site.aplus.net/site/?p=1406

An Insight into Digital Death Day London!

Digital Death Day 2012 was an exciting collision of people from different backgrounds, with vastly different experiences and perspectives on the concept of death and digitality. 

We started the day by setting the agenda (translation: writing in that moment what we felt like discussing with the various experts/ interesting people that were in attendance). As a PhD student/academic I am currently putting together a chapter on the relationship between the physical body and technology, including what happens to this relationship when a person dies, so my session was called: Embodiment, Authenticity and Technology (this title was also inspired by Sherry Turkle's recent book: Alone Together). Whereas Andriana (my fellow co-organizer) being an entrepreneur and designer wanted to conduct her session as a kind of mini-focus group discussing various aspects of Announcing Death and Mourning Online as she is in the process of developing a platform which would aid people in this process (further notes/ audio of sessions will appear shortly on www.digitaldeathday.com). 

Photography by: Vered (Rose) Shavit: http://digital-era-death-eng.blogspot.co.il

 

Myself and Andriana getting excited about our our discussion topics!

Photography by: Vered (Rose) Shavit: http://digital-era-death-eng.blogspot.co.il

As a side note: Digital Death and privacy seem to go hand in hand as a main concern of this community. I don't think we have ever had a Digital Death Day where this was not a central theme and it certainly gets discussed as a part of other sessions as well. There are mounting concerns regarding what will happen to our data after we die including the lagging legal framework, the conflicting terms and conditions of major players in the industry and the lack of education for young people in relation to understanding what it means to post something (public) online. 

Photography by: Vered (Rose) Shavit: http://digital-era-death-eng.blogspot.co.il

After some coffee and breakfasty stuff its time to construct the agenda by placing the sessions we want to run on the wall and designating a time and place where that conversation will take place. This is also when the four guidelines of unconferencing make their appearance (the below were very well phrased by The Usual Suspects so I borrowed and adjusted their explanations):

1. Whoever shows up is the right people… reminds participants that they don’t need “world-famous death expert guru X” and 100 people to learn something, or to have an interesting time. What we do need are people who care (world-famous or not :) )
2. Whenever it starts is the right time …reminds participants that “spirit and creativity do not run on the clock.”.
3. Whatever happens is the only thing that could have …reminds participants that once something has happened, it’s done. Spontaneity and ‘going with the flow’ are important, and this is one of the guidelines which creates a space in which unexpected things can happen.
4. When it’s over, it’s over …reminds participants that we never know how long it will take to dive into a topic, once raised, but that whenever the discussion or work or conversation is finished, move on to the next thing.

Photography by: Vered (Rose) Shavit: http://digital-era-death-eng.blogspot.co.il

So with these guidelines in mind and a relaxed attitude we begin our conversation about Annoucing Death and Mourning Online: How to strike a Personal/ useful balance, in the comfy chair space ;-)

Photography by: Vered (Rose) Shavit: http://digital-era-death-eng.blogspot.co.il

As a second side note: we also had BBC Radio 4 there during the day conducting interviews for the final part of 'The Digital Human' series, presented by Aleks Krotofski, which will focus particularly on the topic of Digital Death. 

  

Photography by: Vered (Rose) Shavit: http://digital-era-death-eng.blogspot.co.il

As the day progressed and we felt ourselves losing energy Kaliya (identitywoman) started a doodling session to run alongside our conversation about how terminally ill patients engage with the idea of what happens to their data after they die and how the hospices and old age homes deal with (or don't deal with as the case may be) internet access and patients blogging. 

Photography by: Vered (Rose) Shavit: http://digital-era-death-eng.blogspot.co.il

The day ended with pages of notes and colors, some new ideas, collaborations, contacts and lots to think about and process. Unconferencing is definitely my favorite form of work gathering, as it is really a working event that feel like a social event, made up of people talking about the things they are interested in and passionate about. 

As I was told on my first attendance of an unconference in San Fransisco (the Internet Identity Workshop): the most useful things that happen at a conference do not usually occur while listening to people present their papers. They are generally the strange conversations and serendipitous encounters that happen during the coffee breaks, the lunch and the after party. So we decided to create an event that was like one long coffee break!

Happy Unconferencing!  

Digital Death Day: London 6th October 2012

Digital Death Day is a series of Unconferences which have been running twice annually since May 2010 in Europe and North America. We are very excited to be bringing this event once again to London! In the past this event has received high profile international press (such as http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8691238.stm and http://obit-mag.com/articles/life-after-death-in-digital-form). 

Digital Death is the term used to describe the growing issue of what happens to your personas, ideas, feelings and accounts online after you die. This workshop is open to professionals and amateurs alike. Anyone who wants to learn, discuss, ask questions or even display a working product.

Like death in the real world, Digital Death promises to be ever-present in our increasingly digital world. Despite the topics relative newness this is an issue which has already touched the lives of many people who understand its relevance, whether they themselves have experienced loss or whether it is simply through observing the multiple online tributes, RIPstatus's and memorial sites. However systems are slow to change and the companies that house our data often need the pressure of their users demands to alter current practices. We invite you to be part of that change!  

To register for Digital Death Day please visit: eventbrite