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Abstract
In an era that celebrates instantaneity and hyper-connectivity, compulsions of networked individualism coexist with technological obsolescence, amounting to a sense of fragmentation and a heightened tension between remembering and forgetting. This article argues, however, that in our era of absolute presence, a netlore of the infinite is emerging, precisely in and through our digital memory practices. This is visible in the ubiquitous meaning-making practices of for instance personal digital archiving through the urges for self-perpetuation; it is evident at sites where the self may be saved for posterity; it is discernible in the techno-spiritual practices of directly speaking to the dead on digital memorials, as well as in the tendency among some users to regard the Internet itself as a manifestation of eternity, “heaven” and the sacred. This article shows that by approaching digital memory cultures existentially, and by attending to the complexities of digital time, we may gain insights into important and paradoxical aspects of our existential terrains of connectivity. This makes possible an exploration into how people navigate and create meaning in the digital memory ecology—in seeking to ground a sense of the eternal in the ephemeral.
Notes
[1] This article outlines key themes (synthesized primarily from previous research in Northern Europe and the USA) and theoretical lines of inquiry within my new research programme “Existential Terrains: Memory and Meaning in Cultures of Connectivity”, which is funded by the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation and The Marcus and Amalia Wallenberg Foundation (2014–2018). Combining approaches in digital memory studies, with existence philosophy and the debate on media, religion and culture, my research focuses on digital memory cultures and specifically the memory practices that relate to the realm of death, the digital afterlife, bereavement and mourning online in contemporary Sweden—allegedly one of the world's most secularized countries. This focus is accompanied by the awareness, however, of the fact that the phenomena I am attending to exist in across many cultural contexts. The studies on primarily Swedish materials will be thoroughly compared to similar studies in other countries, which will allow for discerning what is contextually specific, what is transculturally present and what is medium specific. The importance, in addition, of acknowledging possible differences between people in Sweden cannot be underestimated. Therefore, the project will (as much as the materials permit) take into account the diversity of religions present in the country, the potential differences in terms of participation on the platforms and in the practices of interest in this article—along the lines of gender, ethnicity, religion, age, class, sexual orientation and cultural context—as well as how these dimensions play out intersectionally in these memory practices and practices of existential meaning making.
[3] The European Commission court ruling from May 2014 states that Google is a data processor under European law. The ruling makes it possible for citizens to make an erasure request of personal data to search engines such as Google. The European Commission's “Right to be forgotten” ruling (C-131/12) from 13 May 2014 is summarized in this fact sheet: http://ec.europa.eu/justice/data-protection/files/factsheets/factsheet_data_protection_en.pdf
[4] In discussing the rise of “erase your history” software such as X-pire! and ephemeral apps like Snapchat and Wickr, Dale Lately of the Guardian argues that while we seem “preoccupied with an urge for removal and erasure”, many of us are never read or retweeted and hence have a right to be remembered. He concludes that: “the social web is a place of stark power law distributions—a tiny number of people commanding all of the attention, while the vast majority languish on the long tail, heard, seen and read by almost nobody”. The Guardian, Wednesday, 30 July 2014, “Right to be forgotten? Most of us are still trying to be remembered”, http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/30/right-to-be-forgotten-most-trying-remembered
[5] The current project engages the rich debate on new emerging forms of vernacular religiosity and new ways of relating to transcendent and sacred aspects of life in late modernity. To comprehensively represent this extensive debate falls outside the scope of the present article. For more on these dimensions, see Lagerkvist (Citation2013b, Citation2014).
[6] Following N. Katherine Hayles' (Citation1999) thorough critique of how information “lost its body” in the information age, digital memory cultures need to be embodied. One way to achieve this in the debates on death online, moreover, has been to propose a broad medium concept and to stress that memories are forged and performed across the online/offline distinction (Refslund Christensen & Sandvik, Citation2013, Citation2014). The formidable task for digital memory studies is to further theorize memory transmedially across the modalities of algorithm, symbol (content), matter, bodies and milieu.