Considering the presences and social agency of the deceased in our design processes for loss and bereavement

1. Remains in the System
Recounting the Lives of Data in Mourning
Selina Ellis Gray
Lancaster University
U

2. %Exploring and drawing out ethico-political
dimensions behind designing for loss and
bereavement
% Thinking about commitments to design
intervention through working with material
feminist notions of care
%Address the political nature of the design
process
%Who and what is currently included within
how we currently frame sociotechnical
design in bereavement
o
Designing for Loss & Bereavement

3. c Capturing and analysing practices of loss with data & the material ‘lives ‘of data in networks
c What these practices and lives of data are saying to designing for bereavement and loss
Data, Entanglement and Remediation

4. Social presence and agency of the dead

5. The ghostly online traces
z
Steve Jones (2004) Rich history of technologies channelling the dead
Jed Brubaker & Janet Vertesi (2010) ‘ghosts’
Elaine Kasket (2012) ‘Facebook as a Modern-Day Medium
Clive Seal (1999) Social life and presence dying before physical death
Hallam, Hockey & Howarth (1999) Troubled binaries and otherness
Tony Walter (1999) Continuing bonds and presence of the dead
Douglas Davis (2002) Sociological life after death
Hallam & Hockey (2001) Memory and material culture
Margaret Gibson (2008) Objects invoking the presence of the dead
Susan Leigh Star & Ellen Balka (2009) ’Shadow bodies’

6. Making Brief Introductions

7. Created in Loving Memory
Data emerges ‘post-mortem’ through data created by the bereaved
Data serves to invokes the ‘social lives’ of the deceased
With detailed eulogies and epitaphs
Personalised and highly contextualised media
‘Regular’ updates and caretaking. Guestbook actives. Dialogue
Social networks being appropriated and data mobility
Social death

8. The Memory Remains
In 2014, an estimated 100,000 ‘content moderators’ – twice
the headcount of Google – were thought to be at work on
monitoring and regulating online services and social
platforms (Chen, 2014).
Emerge autobiographically through day to day engagement
–Accidental or sudden death
Turning to early and contemporary social networks in the
time close to death – Suicide
Public capture or sharing of material at the time of death –
Murder or violent deaths

9. ‘Being Dead Smart’

10. Constellation of Affect & Agency
A nuanced consideration of agency which
acknowledges unforeseen consequences of the day
to day engagements with networks and agency of the
computational ecology itself
The social presences and data of the deceased
recognised as an outlier or ‘extreme ‘ user
which needs to be taken into account within
design processes
Data and presences of the dead don’t just emerge, but can live
on through data practices and long term relations
Data and presences of the dead can also be a source of distress

11. Thank You