1.1 Archived Proposal

Previous I did a project about computational-designed digital ashes from people’s social media data:

⚪ With the prevalence of digital technology, virtual presence is no longer the mere mirroring or counterpart of our reality but has become an integrated part of our beings. Just like real objects and assets in the physical world, we create digital content in virtual space, such as texts, messages, images, videos, and sounds. While we eventually rest in peace as ashes underground, our digital selves do not seem to end properly. What happens to our digital remains once we cease to exist physically? How should we announce our digital death? How would we be memorized? Instead of a plain obituary, could we be represented as something unique and beautiful at the end? Keeping these questions in mind, we developed Bits of Ashes, a project that ceremonially concludes one's digital presence. With sculptural representations made of digital ashes, we aim to top the digital presence with something abstract yet expressive. With consent, we pull Instagram information as parameters to generate sculptures of digital death. The information is cremated into digital ashes that are abstract yet personal. The ashes are then sculpted in the trace of one's online activities, such as posting, liking, following, and commenting, impressing online identity with comprehensiveness and expressiveness. To extend from this project, I would like design and make a physical interface which can allow people to interact with the still-exiting digital data of the passed ones that includes:

1) The form will be generated by data from the person’s social media account 2) The artifact includes an interactive interface that can - indicate activities and changes from the person’s social media account (visiting, liking, commenting, etc) - Allow friends and relatives to interact with online activities in person (posting, liking, managing, etc)

(Crazy idea)

I was thinking about making an urn from digital data whose form will change in response of the activities online so that the artifact, so that the physical ash can have a form. (Thinking about after you passed away you ash can be in a unique, beautiful sculptural form) People got freaked out by this idea a lot so I need to think more about this…