Digital legacy: Designing with things

Abstract

This paper explores how theories of things can create new forms of agency for the dead. It considers how meaning is constructed through the use or translation of our diverse collections and environments online. These memorials and rituals offer a plurality of narratives, experiences and esthetics, which have the potential to give a wider scope for constructing a durable biography after death. The paper draws conceptual links between digital and physical materials and aims to expand interdisciplinary discourse around the way design can create new forms of legacy through rethinking the role of digital things in our lives.

Notes

1 Continuing Bonds theory states that after a person dies, the relationship is not severed but continues and evolves after death. It critiques Freud’s (1922) emphasis on the necessity for the bereaved to engage in time limited grief work, which includes coming to terms with the loss, and moving on to form new attachments. In continuing bonds the relationship is renegotiated rather than detached from – continuing as guidance, shared values and advice that become a valued part of the survivor’s own personal biography (Marwit & Klass, 1995; Klass, 2006).

2 Facebooks query page (the legacy contact was introduced in 2015): https://www.facebook.com/help/1506822589577997 [accessed: 26 May 2018].

3 The Johnny Cash Project: http://www.thejohnnycashproject.com/ [Accessed: May 20th 2018].