Art Review - March Issue - (Page 130)

Warning : session_start : The session id contains invalid characters, valid characters are only a-z, A-Z and 0-9 in /mnt/data/www.nxtbook.com/fx/config_1.3/global.php on line 9 Warning : session_start : Cannot send session cache limiter - headers already sent output started at /mnt/data/www.nxtbook.com/fx/config_1.3/global.php:9 in /mnt/data/www.nxtbook.com/fx/config_1.3/global.php on line 9 Warning : Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by output started at /mnt/data/www.nxtbook.com/fx/config_1.3/global.php:9 in /mnt/data/www.nxtbook.com/fx/config_1.3/global.php on line 10 MIXED MEDIA DIGITAL Ashes to ashes, data to dust WHAT KIND OF AFTERLIFE AWAITS YOUR DIGITAL PERSONA? words REGINE DEBATTY LAST SUMMER EMILY ADDED MY NAME TO HER WILL. In the event of her death, I will inherit her three blogs. At first this sounded like a mere eccentricity, but soon it plunged me into deeper thought: what fate awaits our digital data when we die? Gone are the days when our lovers’ letters were tied with ribbons and kept in a drawer; today we store their emails in a file somewhere on a hard disk. Do they have to disappear with us? The web has modified nearly every aspect of our lives. We don’t flirt, shop, read the news or socialise in the way we used to. But perhaps the most impressive sign of the web’s omnipotence is that it is also engendering new rituals of mourning. As is often the case with anything tech-related, we are taking our cue from teenagers. Most of them publish all sorts of information and images about themselves on the social networking site MySpace. The webspace, founded in 2003, is home to millions of users. Some of them have died prematurely. And given that they were so very young, their relatives and friends have turned the deceased’s MySpace page into something that lies somewhere between a gravestone and that teenage bedroom that never gets touched after the son or daughter has disappeared. A couple of years ago this practice was systematised and framed by Yourdeathspace.com, a website that defines itself as a ‘collection of dead MySpace users’. Another site, MyDeathSpace.com, goes further by aggregating links to the pages of MySpace users, along with stories, obituaries or blogs that detail their lives and how they died. All of the above raises another question: will the web one day become the first place we turn to when we want to pay our last respects? The digital artworld has been fast to react to this phenomenon. Michele Gauler’s Digital Remains project assumes a world in which our data is stored on the network and remains accessible to people who have been bequeathed the right to find solace in the browsing of our virtual memories. Mission Eternity, by etoy, is even more ambitious: the massive body of digital information we leave behind is not only accessible after our death and archived in digital capsules for future generations but it will also find a place in a physical sarcophagus. Now someone like Elliott Malkin reckons that we might not want to forget about stone and earth graveyards immediately. His Cemetery 2.0 networked devices connect directly between a physical burial site and the online ‘presence’ of the deceased. Visitors to the grave can view related online memorials on the device display, while online mourners will recognise that their browsing is associated with the actual grave. I for one have no idea about what should become of my blog were I to disappear, but I know that, whether you believe in the afterlife or not, you’d better make sure that its web equivalent will treat the memories you’ve placed into its care as well as they deserve. from top: Cemetery 2.0, linking headstone to online memorial, courtesy Eliott Malkin; access key for logging on to the deceased’s digital remains, courtesy Michele Gauler p ARTREVIEW 130 Digital AR Mar07.indd 130 31/1/07 11:29:33 Warning : Unknown : The session id contains invalid characters, valid characters are only a-z, A-Z and 0-9 in Unknown on line 0 Warning : Unknown : Failed to write session data files . Please verify that the current setting of session.save_path is correct /var/lib/php/session in Unknown on line 0

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Art Review - March Issue

Manifesto
Dispatches
Consumed
Tales from the City
David Lynch
Marcel Dzama
Future Greats
Art Pilgrimage: Moscow
Mixed Media: Moving Images
Mixed Media: Photography
Mixed Media: Digital
Reviews
Book Reviews
On the Town
On the Record

Art Review - March Issue

https://www.nxtbookmedia.com