Memorialisation vs Reanimation

eCommemoration Convention 2023. Exhibition Curation: DIGITAL DEATH – MEMORIALISATION VS REANIMATION. Körber-Stiftung Institute, Design Zentrum Hamburg, Germany.

Leading experts from gaming companies, universities, museums, and civil society initiatives from all over the world met in Hamburg to discuss the technical and conceptual issues of memory culture in the digital age. Over 65 participants from 17 countries.

In the 21st century digital technology has been appropriated, designed and re-designed to integrate death and grieving into everyday life. These practices have been further normalised since the Covid-19 pandemic. Online memorialisation is perhaps one of the most recognized of these. These memorials are now an established part of building community between bereaved persons and for continued interactions with the dead. Alongside this, there is a growth of innovators whose quest is to reanimate digital versions of the self – for immortality or posterity. This curation aims to hold space between: traditional uses of technology for the preservation of memory and memorialisation // to more experimental approaches where we interact with the dead in games, through bots or VR // into dreams of science fiction authors and technologists who wish to create new digital humans or posthumans.

Read the full article associated with the exhibition at Körber Stiftung:
https://koerber-stiftung.de/en/projects/ecommemoration/digital-death/