{"id":862,"date":"2019-03-27T11:41:00","date_gmt":"2019-03-27T15:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/death19\/?p=862"},"modified":"2019-03-27T11:49:53","modified_gmt":"2019-03-27T15:49:53","slug":"what-will-you-leave-artist-statement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/death19\/2019\/03\/27\/what-will-you-leave-artist-statement\/","title":{"rendered":"“What Will You Leave” Artist Statement"},"content":{"rendered":"

A few weeks before we even broached the subject of the digital afterlife industry in class, I was conceptualizing what it might look like for my haunted media project. In short, I wanted to investigate what a company looking to \u201c[capitalize on] digital remains\u201d might look like, while producing new questions and implications from the creative process (\u00d6hman & Floridi, 3). Enter <\/span>What Will You Leave<\/span><\/i>, my version of a digital will start-up in the near future. <\/span><\/p>\n

In this imagined world, <\/span>What Will You Leave <\/span><\/i>puts the management of digital assets into the consumer\u2019s hands. Through a simple online portal, WWYL provides everyone the chance to bequeath their own digital inheritance to their family and loved ones. The business model is as follows: before a person passes away, they upload whatever content (such as social media accounts, playlists, photo albums, etc) they want in their digital will and specify who it will go to, much like the process of creating a traditional will. Then, when the person dies, the company sends a postcard to the inheritor with a QR code they can scan to access whatever their loved one left for them. Additionally, a the bottom of each postcard, recipients are invited to create their own digital will through the company website. <\/span><\/p>\n

After conceptualizing this fake company, my project turned toward fleshing out the narrative behind each of the three postcards I created on the free graphic design software, Canva. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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I ended up producing three postcard recipients, a teenaged boy who lost his grandparents, a college student who lost her younger sister, and a young man who lost his older brother. The QR codes on each postcard lead to whatever each of the deceased characters chose to bestow upon their family members.<\/span><\/p>\n

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One QR code sends users to a fictional \u2018finsta\u2019 page created by Jodie, a tween who died of cancer. Another links to a Twitter bot that \u2018resurrects\u2019 a highly opinionated and contentious older brother named Levi. Lastly, one unique QR code (provided by Spotify\u2019s own QR creator) grants access to a playlist of songs as well as an old voicemail left by two grandparents.<\/span><\/p>\n

Initially, I wanted to design a company website with WordPress as well. This page would host \u2018user reviews\u2019 of the service, as well as provide more info on the company through an about page. Unfortunately technological difficulties on the back-end of Davidson Domains made that unfeasible, but I found a work around. Because I wanted to generate as much paratext and \u2018believability\u2019 surrounding the project as possible, I made an <\/span>Instagram page<\/span><\/a> for the company. In addition to a short bio about the company, each user review has been uploaded there as a graphic. <\/span><\/p>\n

If I were to do this project again, I would have liked to create even more postcards and narratives behind them to better highlight the potential ubiquity of this company in the digital afterlife industry. Although I believe I achieved a well-rounded demo with the initial three, I recognize how expansive the digital realm is, and think there are many more interesting things that could potentially make their way into a digital will. While testing the QR codes, I also noticed discrepancies between the mobile and desktop version of the Spotify playlist. On the mobile version, the grandmother\u2019s voicemail isn\u2019t available (possibly because the file is only hosted on my desktop), and the playlist description isn\u2019t accessible. This isn\u2019t ideal, because the QR code is only scannable on mobile, leaving out valuable paratext. If I could go back, I would like to try and rework my idea for a playlist on another platform like Apple Music. <\/span><\/p>\n

In thinking about how to situate this project within the context of our class materials, <\/span>Carl \u00d6hman and Luciano Floridi\u2019s \u201cAn Ethical Framework for the Digital Afterlife Industry\u201d immediately comes to mind. The framework of <\/span>What Will You Leave<\/span><\/i> combines what \u00d6hman and Floridi categorize as \u201cinformation management services\u201d and \u201conline memorial services\u201d (2). WWYL eases \u201cdigital asset management\u201d by encouraging users to be specific in what they decide to leave behind. Additionally, the service bridges the gap between the departed and the living by providing a digital space for \u201ca deceased individual or group to be mourned and\/or remembered\u201d (2). <\/span><\/p>\n

Unlike the \u201cunanticipated memorial spaces\u201d platforms like Facebook have given rise to, <\/span>What Will You Leave\u2019s <\/span><\/i>model is about creating fully <\/span>anticipated<\/span><\/i> spaces for grief and remembrance (Brubaker, Jed R., et al, 163). Regardless whether or not recipients know they are receiving a digital will, once they have access to it, the contents stay in their compartmentalized place, ready to be engaged with whenever one is willing and ready. This model also helps to facilitate the kind of \u201ccontinuing bonds\u201d Brubaker, Hayes, and Dourish describe, in opposition to the typical \u2018let-go\u2019 approach to grief (153). By maintaining that compartmentalized space, whatever bond the living had with the deceased becomes revitalized, dynamic, and somewhat ongoing. <\/span><\/p>\n

In her article, \u201cWho Wants to Live Forever? Living, Dying and Grieving in Our Digital Society\u201d, Deborah J. Basset introduces the concept of \u201cdigital zombies\u201d, beings who are physically dead but virtually \u2018alive\u2019, and \u201ccrucially still being socially active\u201d (1134). <\/span><\/p>\n