HERITAGE AND SOCIAL MEDIA: UNDERSTANDING HERITAGE IN A PARTICIPATORY CULTURE

Finally it is here, the long awaited for book on the emergent field of Digital Heritage. Edited by the ever so talented Elisa Giaccardi.

This book explores how social media is constantly reframing our understanding and experience of heritage. Through the idea of ‘participatory culture’ it begins to examine how social media can be brought to bear on the encounter with heritage and on the socially produced meanings and values that individuals and communities ascribe to it.

My contribution is to this book is the chapter Museums of the Self and Digital Death: An Emerging Curatorial Dilemma. 

Chapter Abstract: This chapter is primarily concerned with exploring the connection between digital legacy of data that people currently leave behind and how this data can begin to form a part of our collective “digital heritage”. By reviewing current practices around online data storage in relation to memory and death, the chapter considers the value of ‘digital memory objects’ for the growing field of digital heritage. It also discusses the significance and implications of designing new contexts and systems for the future management of personal legacy data. By using the transformative properties of the ‘digital memory object’ itself, the chapter presents various strategies concerning how this data could be both (re)used and (re)evaluated, making it a useful asset in our contemporary collective; for both history and heritage.

Heritage and Social Media can be bought directly from the publisher at: www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415616676/ or ordered from Amazon: www.amazon.co.uk/Heritage-Social-Media-Understanding-participatory/dp/0415616670

MyLifeBits meets Harry Potter - Our digital memories will remain forever!

Recently I have been looking at the multitude of implications when storing ones memory in a digital format. I have chosen to include the image of Dumbledore storing his own memories in an external pool (pensive) because I think there is an interesting parallel to be made. It always amazes me how something like the idea of a pensive, so grounded in fiction and magic can now, not only be a possibility but a reality! One can now store their memories in an external pool (computer) and even invite other people to share in some of their experiences. These 'bits' of memories, stored in their 'pools,' are shielded from the danger of natural decay in the physical world (and the human condition of forgetting.)



Microsoft's 'MyLifeBits' is probably the most complete example of a life recorded online.

" Gordon Bell has captured a lifetime's worth of articles, books, cards, CDs, letters, memos, papers, photos, pictures, presentations, home movies, videotaped lectures, and voice recordings... [in his digital pool]. He is now paperless, and is beginning to capture phone calls, IM transcripts, television, and radio. "

(http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/mylifebits/)

However my question, as always, is what is to be done with all this information once we have spent our lives accumulating it. How do we begin to edit down a lifetime's worth of information, making it relevant to both our loved ones and society? I begin to question, is this frantic gathering and saving of information a reflection on our culture's in-ability to deal with loss and mortality? Is 'digital memory,' simply a modern search for the fabled philosopher's stone (immortality) and if our information does get passed down as 'digital remains' then have we in some way achieved this goal? Nowadays we tend to keep information simply for the sake of keeping it (because we can) or because we are afraid of losing something we might need? I question whether this really is a good enough reason for it's existence?

Digital Assets - Perperation for my Digital Self.

A very small number of companies are starting to emerge offering services which consider the safety of a person’s ‘digital assets.’ Mostly, these companies have been designed with the tag-line ‘safety deposit.’ They focus on the storage of one’s digital self and transfer of one’s digital estate to next of kin once you have passed on.



‘Legacy Locker’ is one such fledgling company who states “most of the websites we all use on a regular basis have little-to-no provisions in place for a loved one to transfer account information in a time of need. In some cases you might even need to get a lawyer involved just to access an email inbox. Your digital legacy needs protection, and we've built Legacy Locker to help solve these problems.”

Vitallock is another such company, still in its alpha phase; it is expected to be launched in spring 2009. They promise their service to be the “Swiss Bank Escrow of Digital Assets”. It is stated within a video on the website that “this is just a logical extension of the economic times, the relevant issues that have come out of…us moving towards a knowledge economy.”

DeathSwitch.com claims to be “bridging mortality”. This company works through a ‘death switch’ system. “A death switch is an automated system that prompts you for your password on a regular schedule to make sure you are alive.” If you do not respond after a number of repeated attempts then a predetermined set of actions is undertaken on your behalf, e.g. to inform a member of the family of your death, and about your the transfer of your digital assets.

Afterlife.org, contrasting with highly commercial companies such as ‘Vitallock’ and ‘Legacy Locker’, is concerned with digital heritage. It is a “not-for-profit organization whose mission is to archive Web sites after their authors die and can no longer support them.” The site is run on purely voluntary basis and is “currently being developed so there is very little information at this site. As volunteers help to build AfterLife.org, the Web site will progress in content and design.”

The emergence of these companies highlights the beginnings of awareness, towards the issue of digital death and indeed towards the need to ‘take care’ of ones digital assets.

Thinking about Digital Heritage... does the Digital Afterlife offor immortality?

An area which has recently come to my attention and must be considered when thinking about ‘Digital Death’ (and the potential deletion of digital data) is the relevance of that data to our historical and sociological futures.

Regarding archiving, in the non-virtual world, rubbish and buried bodies are an archaeologist’s bread and butter, so is digital information in the digital world. This information has the potential to provide a detailed account of our present digital society and culture.




Through this we begin to consider Digital Heritage, to do this we will first consider the amount and type of data typically being inputted into social networks, including photos, popular music, films etc. We question whether and where information relating to ones digital life should, or could exist, including after death (in other words what its context should be). Should it be placed in a digital museum, at a funeral or in a historical archive? We will look at methods of how one would begin to manage this mass of data once they have recorded it, and who would be responsible for the collecting, archiving, updating, and curating, of this ‘database’ of people’s social networks. This resource would allow historians, anthropologists or even family members to literally look back in time and examine a specific moment of history, pristine and in perfect clarity.