Northumbria University’s School of Design and Department of Humanities warmly welcome you to

DORS#6 Death Futures (2023) at Newcastle upon Tyne, UK and online.

This symposium will provide the DORN community with space to explore new and ongoing orientations in the
interdisciplinary field of death online, particularly focusing on Death Futures.

The Death Online Research Network was founded in Copenhagen in 2013 to encourage international
collaboration and conversation around the study of death and digital media. The conference series DORS
has been held every 18 months since its inception.

So, this is our networks 10th anniversary, and we would like to say a big thank you to Dr Stine Gotved and Dr
Lisbeth Klastrup who have been key in building this network and will be stepping down from their roles in the
advisory committee this year.

DORS#6 will present a wide range of papers exploring themes from digital grief and memory to celebrity
death, covid-19 funerals, AI, cultural/ artistic representations of digital afterlives and many more.

We wish you all an exciting and fruitful conference!

Conference Chairs Advisory Committee

Dr Stacey Pitsillides Dr Stine Gotved

Prof. Claire Nally Dr Lisbeth Klastrup

Conference Team Dr Korina Giaxoglou

Paulina Malowaniec, Events Coordination Research Dr Jo Bell

Assistant & Designer
Dr Dorthe Refslund Christensen
Andy Lee, Technical Support
Dr Tim Hutchings
Niamh Sewell, Student Support
Dr Stacey Pitsillides
Chukwuyem Akumah, Student Support
 9:30
day 1 Postgraduate Researcher Workshop

Conference Welcome 11:15

Wednesday
8:30 - 18:00
Panel 01: Celebrity and Death
Chair: Claire Nally
11:30
Sharing Vulnerability: Intimate Conversations on Love and Loss on
The Red Hand Files
Ylva Hård Af Segerstad & Dorthe Refslund Christensen

‘I’m the Corpse Girl’* – Exploring Death Positivity through

Ask a Mortician YouTube channel
Anna Wilde

She may be a symbol of British colonialism but she’s still someone’s mother:
Dislike and distaste in online discourses about the Queen’s death
Bethan Jones

13:00

ROOM: CCE2-010
ROOM: CCE2-011

Lunch

Panel 02: Digital Afterlives Panel 03: Traumatic Experiences of Grief/Death 14:00
Chair: Stacey Pitsillides Chair: Dorthe Refslund Christensen

Upload : Science fiction as speculative design The more we see, the more we care? The ambiguities of circulating death images
Bethan Michael-Fox & Katy McHugh online: case Butša massacre
Noora Kotilainen & Anu A. Harju

AI Afterlives: The Promises and Perils of Life Beyond Death Via Grieving soldiers in times of war: public and private dimensions of berevement
Artificial Intelligence in Science Fiction during the Russian invasion of Ukraine
Lee Barron Halyna Herasym

Crematorium digital streaming and Covid 19 On both sides of the screen: grief and post-divorce rituals
Douglas J Davies Martin Hoondert

Coffee Break 15:30

Keynote: Xavier Aldana Reyes
Digital Death and the Rise of Screenlife Cinema 16:00
General Assembly 17:00
Drinks Reception at Tyneside Cinema 18:30
Screening of PLAN 75 (2022) at Tyneside Cinema
In collaboration with Dead Good Film Club 19:00
online presentations
 day 2
Thursday
9:00 - 18:15
PART 1 Panel 04: Creative responses to death online Panel 05: Mediating Death and Suicide Online 9:00
Chair: Ylva Hård Af Segerstad Chair: Stine Gotved

Poems of a Broken Heart – An Introduction to Poetry in Bereavement Research The Impact of Exposure to Digitally Mediated Narratives of Suicide
Katrin Gerber Jo Bell & Chris Westoby

Resisting Islamophobia through Artistic Digital Artifacts of Mourning Instagram and teenage cancer. A case study
Yasmin Jiwani & Marie Bernard-Brind’Amour Ignasi Seró Torroja, Ignacio Brescó de Luna & Belén Jiménez-Alonso

Granny Jackson’s Dead – experimenting with creative and practice-based Is online mourning a sacred experience?
methods to understand how technology shapes how we mourn Adela Toplean
Zoe Seaton, Eleanor O’Keeffe & Linda McCracken

Coffee break 10:30

ROOM: CCE2-010
Panel 06: Designing Posthumous Panel 07: Digital Legacy and
11:00
ROOM: CCE2-011

Communications Funerary Innovations

Chair: Jo Bell Chair: Dorthe Refslund Christense

Exploring questions of Digital Grief through thanato-sensitive design Moving Beyond Photos: The Many Types of Digital Legacy
fictions and speculative design Duncan Reid & Maria Wolters
Katy McHugh

Algorithms in mourning: Exploring the role of automated systems for Digital necromancy: Users’ perceptions of digital afterlife and posthumous
expressions of loss on TikTok communication technologies
Moa Eriksson Krutrök Tal Morse
Algorithmic Hauntings: the return of the dead in online social media How might digital mediums aid the uptake of new funerary innovations?
Paul Ord Georgina M. Robinson

Lunch 12:30
Keynote: Larissa Hjorth
The Mourning After: embodied affective witnessing and mobile media 13:30
mourning in human and more-than-human worlds

Coffee break 14:30

online presentations
 day 2
Thursday Panel 08: Digital Immortality and Panel 09: Care, Grief and
9:00 - 18:15 Posthuman Identities Transnational Mourning
14:45
PART 2 Chair: Lisbeth Klastrup Chair: Claire Nally
Governing Digital Immortality: a systematic review Postmortal activism: Future strategies for post-mortem politics in
Khadiza Laskor the twenty-first century
Joshua Hurtado Hurtado

Digital (Im)mortality: Deconstructing the Dominant Anglophone Narrative Mourning “Our London Family”: Digital Islamophobia, Affect, and
Katarzyna Nowaczyk-Basińska Grief as Resistance
Zeinab Farokhi & Yasmin Jiwani

Mechanical Models: Representations of the Post-Human in Contemporary Caring for our collective digital afterlives: analysing the pandemic’s
Fashion Photography ‘digital turn’ and its implications for ethical remembrance
Louisa Gertrude Rogers Eleanor O’Keeffe

Coffee break 16:15

ROOM: CCE2-010
ROOM: CCE2-011

Panel 10: Digital Death: Technologies and

cultures in the production of immortality, 16:30
afterlife, and identity
Chair: Stacey Pitsillides
Digital Immortality: Exploring how the dead survive in the present media life
Johanna Sumiala

Deepfaking the dead: computational photography and raising of “Lazarus”

Doron Altaratz & Tal Morse

Grief as identity work: Ritualizing old and new identities on- and offline
Dorthe Refslund Christensen

Scenes of dying as memento mori: violent death and the unpredictability of

digital afterlife
Anu A Harju

Free time 18:15

Conference Dinner: Nudo Noodle House 19:00

online presentations
 day 3
Friday Panel 11: Death Online through Covid-19
Chair: Claire Nally
Panel 12: Digital Legacy in Media and the Law
Chair: Tim Hutchings
9:00
9:00 - 16:30
Death in the second person in the Digital Age - Voices of those who have lost The Reenchantment of the Digital Self and the Rationalization of the Digital
relatives since 2020 in Japan Soul in News Coverage of Digital Death
Akiko ORITA Tim Recuber

“FaceTime Farewells: Death and Goodbye’s in Our Brave New World” Death and Dignity in the Digital Age: An Examination of Dignity in the Realm
Emily B. Campbell of Informational Privacy
Nilou Davoudi

Assessing the impact of the pandemic on rituals of memorialisation in the UK– Post-mortem privacy and digital legacy - a qualitative
a data-driven approach empirical enquiry
Eleanor O’Keeffe Edina Harbinja, Lilian Edwards & Marisa McVey

Coffee Break 10:30

ROOM: CCE2-010
ROOM: CCE2-011

Panel 13: Futures of Grief and Post-Death

Communication
11:00
Chair: Ylva Hård Af Segerstad
What does an AI know about grief ?
Stine Gotved

Connecting to the dead live on your screen: medium seances and

contemporary spiritism on Facebook
Lisbeth Klastrup

Grief under digital-age construction

Mórna O’Connor

Lunch 12:30
Carla Sofka
The Evolution of Thanatechnology: Never in My Wildest Dreams… 13:30
Conference closing remarks/Discussion 14:30
Postgraduate Reasearcher Workshop 15:00
End 16:30

online presentations
 Panel 1: Celebrity and Death

Sharing Vulnerability: Intimate

Conversations on Love and Loss
on The Red Hand Files
Dr Ylva Hård Af Segerstad
Dr Dorthe Refslund Christensen

You can ask me anything. There assumptions of grief which

will be no moderator. This will be construct grievers as “passive
between you and me. agents to which grief happens”
Let’s see what happens. Much
love, Nick.
(O’Connor & Kasket, 2022).
Christensen’s approach to grief as
31st May
identity work (2021), is eloquently Day 1
Following the death of his teenage
son, legendary Australian
expressed by Cave on The Red
Hand Files (Cave, 2019): Wednesday
musician Nick Cave started an Panel 1
online correspondence page
called The Red Hand Files. With the
[…] my son’s death – something
that both destroyed me and 11:30
invitation above he encouraged ultimately defined me. […] CCE2-011
fans to ask him anything and My son’s death brought me
he attempts to answer. In this to the essence of my formed
paper we explore the profound self. [it may be] something
exchanges between the artist that eventually obliterates
and his fans relating to grief and you, but also brings you back
loss, which give voice to a sort to life, transforming you into
of collective reimagining of life something beyond yourself.
and self after the loss of a child.
The study draws on the publicly
available correspondence on
the Red Hand Files and published
interviews with the artist (e.g.
BBC News interview, 2022). In Biography
processing his own grief so
publicly and in the profound Ylva Hård af Segerstad is an Associate Professor in Applied Information
Technology at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden. She has contributed
exchanges with his fans, Cave has
to death online research through her studies of how social media and
become a sort of guide to others peer support are used as vital resources for bereaved parents in the
who mourn, and an example process of learning to cope with grief and loss of a child. Ethical issues
of how grief and loss may be related to responsible research conduct when working with sensitive data
naturally integrated in one’s and vulnerable communities have been foregrounded by her work. Ylva is
a member of DORN since its foundation in 2013.
ongoing life.
Drawing on these explorations, ylva.hard-af-segerstad@ait.gu.se
we build on recent theoretical https://www.gu.se/en/about/find-staff/ylvahard-af-segerstad
understandings of grief (e.g.
Dorthe Refslund Christensen, Ph.D., is Associate Professor at School of
Christensen, 2021; O’Connor
Communication and Culture, Aarhus University. She has done research
& Kasket, 2022) and connect on bereaved parents’s grief practices and published widely since 2008
with previous research on (with Kjetil Sandvik) and, since 2019, she has been doing autoethographic
bereaved parents’ use of online studies of her own grief practices on- and offline. She has been a key
support groups as resources for figure in establishing and developing Nordic research and collaboration
in the field of death online studies and is a co-founder of Death Online
coping with their loss (e.g. Hård Research Network and the editor of the Routledge book series “Studies
af Segerstad & Kasperowski, in Death, Materiality and Origin of Time” and the Emerald short format
2015)20. The results contribute book series “Sharing Death Online”. At present, she is part of the research
to challenging old normative consortium DiDe.
Panel 1: Celebrity and Death Panel 1: Celebrity and Death

‘I’m the Corpse Girl’* She may be a symbol of British colonialism

Exploring Death Positivity through Ask a but she’s still someone’s mother: Dislike
Mortician YouTube channel and distaste in online discourses about the
Queen’s death
Anna Wilde Bethan Jones

The Death Positive Movement of many of Doughty’s videos, I will On the morning of 8 September are, how they discussed their
(DPM) has become known examine the tensions around the 2022, Buckingham Palace distaste and why they felt it.
through social media and the meaning of death positive and issued a statement declaring Drawing on Jonathan Gray’s work
YouTube channel Ask a Mortician,
run by Caitlin Doughty, who
the conflicted views of Doughty’s
online persona, through an
31st May that Queen Elizabeth’s doctors
were concerned for her health
on dislike and Bourdieu’s field
theory I argue that dislike can
31st May
attributes the start of the DPM analysis of her videos. Day 1 and she would be kept under be a powerful tool to highlight Day 1
to a tweet she sent in 2013. She
asked ‘Why are there a zillion *(Ask a Mortician, 2018) Wednesday medical supervision at Balmoral.
Typically a matter kept private,
inequalities and reinforce a
sense of cultural identity, but Wednesday
websites and references to being Panel 1 the tweet posted from the Royal that distaste equally functions to Panel 1
sex positive and nothing for being
death positive?’ (Doughty, 2013). 11:30 Family Twitter account amassed
nearly 12,000 shares and over
impose a sense of respectability
and police ‘appropriate’ 11:30
She was using the term “death CCE2-011 19,000 likes within 30 minutes of behaviour online. CCE2-011
positive” in the way body positivity posting. Speculation on social
and sex positivity are used to media continued throughout the
mean being comfortable with day, along with discussions about
the body and one’s sexuality; in the nature of the monarchy and
Doughty’s case, meaning being its relevance to contemporary
comfortable with discussing society. Recent controversies,
death and with the idea of one’s including the racism aimed
own mortality. at Meghan Markle and the
allegations that Prince Andrew
The tweet attracted a lot of had sex with an underage girl
interest and Doughty became the provoked criticism of both the
de facto leader of The Order of the institution and the Queen herself,
Good Death which she founded in yet following the announcement
2011 and which has a strong online of her death at 6pm on 8
and digital presence. Doughty’s September, a moratorium on
YouTube channel has over 1.9 these criticisms began, often the
million subscribers, and releases result of gatekeeping by members
approximately one video a month of the public on social media.
with viewing numbers between
125,000 to 3.5 million per video. This paper is interested in the
Without this digital representation ways dislike and distaste are
the DPM and Doughty would not framed in discourses surrounding
have achieved the popularity the monarchy in general, and
they have. Queen Elizabeth in particular.
Through an analysis of tweets Biography

Drawing on interviews I undertook posted following the death of Bethan Jones is a Research Associate in the School of Arts and Creative
in the summer of 2022 with death Biography
the Queen I consider the ways Technologies at the University of York. She has written extensively about
industry professionals who call in which dislike of the monarchy anti-fandom, media tourism and participatory culture and is co-editor of
themselves “death positive”, Anna Wilde has an MA in Death, Culture and Religion and is currently in was expressed online, by whom Crowdfunding the Future: Media Industries, Ethics, and Digital Society (Peter
her third year (part-time) studying the Death Positive Movement for her Lang, 2015) and the forthcoming Participatory Culture Wars: Controversy,
some of whom who take issue with PhD at the University of Birmingham. She is a Director of CEDAR Education,
and when. I then turn to the Conflict, and Complicity in Fandom (University of Iowa Press). Bethan is
the term, feeling it is insensitive to a death education CIC and is Digital Manager at Caring for God’s Acre, ‘anti-dislikers’ who opposed co-editor of Popular Communication, on the board of the Fan Studies
the bereaved and grieving, and a charity which supports the environmental and built heritage of burial these expressions of dislike as Network and co-chair of the SCMS Fan and Audience Studies Scholarly
others to the sensationalist nature grounds in the UK. inappropriate, asking who they Interest Group.
Panel 02: Digital Afterlives Panel 02: Digital Afterlives

Upload : AI Afterlives: The Promises and Perils

Science fiction as speculative design of Life Beyond Death Via Artificial
Intelligence in Science Fiction
Dr Bethan Michael-Fox Dr Lee Barron
Katy McHugh

This paper focuses on the This paper examines the immortality through AI-created
portrayal of death and afterlives conceptions (and dilemmas) robotics in the film The Machine
in popular media and how raised in science-fiction based (2013) and the TV series Westworld
they reflect and inform shifting
societal attitudes about mortality
31st May explorations of life beyond death
created by artificial intelligence
(2016 - ) and consider the ways
in which elements of the organic
31st May
and technology. We explore Day 1 (AI). Based on Ray Kurzweil’s form the basis of new kinds of AI/ Day 1
the use of popular media as a
kind of speculative design, or Wednesday concept of the Singularity,
which, via technology, envisions
robotic existence, as illustrated
in Annalee Newitz’s novel Wednesday
design fiction, that can inform Panel 2 the ‘gradual but inexorable Autonomous (2017), in which Panel 2
further thanatosensitive (death-
sensitive) design research by 14:00 progression of humans [from the]
biological to nonbiological’ (2005)
machines contain the brains
of dead soldiers – an organic 14:00
introducing audiences to the CCE2-011 in which human personalities are dimension that is key to the CCE2-011
affordances and capabilities of uploaded into computer systems machines reaching AI sentience.
theoretical technologies. We use and bodies and bodies recreated Therefore, while artificial
Upload (2020 - ), a science fiction after death via nanotechnologies. intelligence is transforming key
comedy drama that depicts While currently unrealized, this aspects of the contemporary
a virtual afterlife, to explore scenario is evident in the film world, the meeting point of
issues around digital death and Transcendence (2014), and in technology and philosophical
personhood relevant to current William Hertling’s novel The Turing considerations of death (and its
social media platforms. In Upload Exception (2015), in which digital potential transcendence) are a
(2020 - ), it is possible to end your copies of humans are the key to significant factor in science fiction
life by ‘uploading’ into a digital the survival of the species in a speculations in which Kurzweil’s
afterlife – but this upload comes world dominated by malevolent techno-visions of the future of
at a hefty price. The series offers AI. death have been imagined as
a ‘provocative morbid space’ both techno-dream and digital
(Penfold-Mounce, 2018) through The paper will therefore examine nightmare.
which audiences can explore the status of digital post-
ideas about digital personhood, death existence in terms of
agency in and after death, digital representations of new forms of
Biography
inequality, and grief. We argue humanity and human potential,
that a fictional universe where Dr. Bethan Michael-Fox, FRSA, SFHEA teaches at the Open University. Her but also consider the ways in
grief is mediated by technology research focuses on death in popular culture. Before going part-time to which a post-death technological
that embodies the inequity raise a young family Beth was a Senior Lecturer in the School of Education state may be seen as a form of
& English at the University of Bedfordshire. Beth is Assistant Editor for
and inequalities of the living Mortality & Social Media Manager for Revenant: Critical and Creative
purgatorial existence, as is the
is increasingly relevant to the Studies of the Supernatural. She is co-host of The Death Studies Podcast case with Dixie McCoy, or the
present. We explore similarities & a council member of the ASDS (Association for the study of death and ‘Dixie Flatline’, in William Gibson’s
between the series and ‘real life’ society). Find out more at: seminal Cyberpunk novel
technologies and challenges to www.drbethanmichaelfox.com, Neuromancer (1984) and which
email: Beth at Bethan.Michael-fox@open.ac.uk Biography
critically engage with cultural or find her on Twitter @bethmichaelfox is explored in the film Archive
concerns and emphasise the (2020), both of which explore Dr Lee Barron is an Associate Professor in the School of Design at
urgency of moral questions Katy McHugh is a PhD candidate researching dying and death rituals on human existence in digitally- Northumbria University. Dr Barron has published in a range of journals and
social media at ITEE/SCA at the University of Queensland, Australia. Her edited collections in the fields of media, culture, fashion, and smart/digital
about the varied roles different preserved states post-death. technologies. He is the author of the books Social Theory in Popular Culture
research looks at the way social technology affects the conversations and
technologies play in how we live, rituals we have around mortality and death. Key research areas include: (2013), Celebrity Cultures (2015), Tattoo Culture: Theory and Contemporary
die, and grieve. digital immortality, digital legacy, and the death-positive movement as a The paper will also discuss Contexts (2017), Tattoos and Popular Culture: Cultural Representations in
framework for thanato-sensitive (death aware). representations of technological Ink (2020), and the forthcoming AI and Popular Culture (2023).
Panel 02: Digital Afterlives Panel 03: Traumatic Experiences of Grief/Death

Crematorium digital streaming The more we see, the more we care?

during Covid-19 : a cultural and The ambiguities of circulating death
images online: case Butša massacre
sub-platform exploration
Prof. Douglas J Davies Dr Noora Kotilainen
Dr Anu A. Harju

Amongst the major UK cultural The troublesome ethics of outweighed the regard for ethical
responses to the Covid-19 circulating images of mutilated considerations in showing images
crisis-period was a significant dead bodies (Dauphinée of dead human bodies.
increase of dead bodies
requiring cremation, often with a
31st May 2007; Moeller 1999; Boltanski
1999; Chouliaraki 2006) with This paper critically examines
31st May
reduced or absent gathering of Day 1 the simultaneous assertion these ambiguities through the Day 1
families. This issue occupies this
exploratory paper that includes Wednesday of emotional and political
responsiveness, the belief in the
case of the Butša massacre
in the Western mediascape Wednesday
some empirical information Panel 2 power of images of atrocious during spring 2022. We analyse Panel 3
derived from a social survey of
crematorium staff (funded by the 14:00 death in generating action against
violence (Gliboa, 2005; Zelizer
the images and how these
were circulated online along 14:00
UK’s Cremation Society), while CCE2-011 2010 & 2023; Kotilainen 2018; Harju with their narrative framing CCE2-010
also raising some theoretical & Kotilainen 2023) form the basis and the justification articulated
issues concerning the ‘sub- of the ambiguous dichotomy for circulating the images.
platform’ organisation of one of circulating images of death. Furthermore, by taking cue from
service provider of live-streaming Through the empirical case of the case of the Butša images, the
of cremation events. This is part the Butša massacre images, we ambiguous ethics of circulating
of Durham’s Centre for Death approach the longstanding yet sensitive and tragic visuals of
and Life Studies’ participation unsettled dilemma relating to human death are considered.
in the CHANSE (Collaboration of the ethics of circulating death
Humanities and Social Sciences imagery in the digital media, and
in Europe) funded project on the belief in the political potency
Digital Death (DiDe Project). of images of death.
Led by Helsinki, with partners in
Aarhus, Bucharest, and Durham In 2022, images of bodies of
Universities, Douglas Davies is Ukrainian victims formed into a
the Durham lead with Georgina media spectacle: photographs
Robinson as full-time research and videos of the killed and
assistant. tortured victims were bluntly
Biography
shown across Western
mediascape. Most often the Noora Kotilainen, DSocSci, is a social scientist and a historian specializing
rationale was the imperative of in visual communication, international relations, media studies, critical
showing and seeing: witnessing military studies and feminist security studies. Currently she works as a
senior research fellow at the University of Helsinki, political history and
the unbearable violence of heads Kone Foundation research project “Language of Military Power
Biography
the war and recognizing the within the Finnish Democracy”. Her research interests include (visual)
violent deaths of Ukrainian representations of war, crisis and violence, hierarchies of valuable life, as
Douglas J. Davies, Professor in the Study of Religion at Durham University’s civilians, as well as the unlawful well as militarism and humanitarianism within global politics.
Department of Theology and Religion, and Director of the Centre for Death
nature of the Russian invasion.
and Life Studies works on anthropology, theology, and the sociology of Anu A Harju, Ph.D., is a Senior Researcher at University of Helsinki, Faculty
religion . Widely known for Death Studies work, including Death Ritual and Embedded in the validation of of Social Sciences, currently working in the research consortium DiDe. Her
Belief (2017. 3rd ed.), Mors Britannica: Lifestyle and Death-Style in Britain circulating death imagery was research focuses on violent death and digital media with special focus
Today (2015). Theology of Death (2008), The Encyclopedia of Cremation the assertion that the images on politics of remembering. Her latest publications include: “#hellobrother
(2005, with Lewis Mates), and Natural Burial (2012 with Hannah Rumble), arouse an emotional response, needs to trend”: Methodological reflections on the digital and emotional
he has also extensively researched Mormonism. He is an Oxford D.Litt., an afterlife of mediated violence in International Review of Sociology (2021)
honorary Doctor of Sweden’s Uppsala University, an elected Fellow of the and thus may also have political with Jukka Huhtamäki, and Special Issue on Encounters between Violence
Academy of Social Sciences, The Learned Society of Wales, and of The potential in fighting the cause of and Media, International Journal of Communication (forthcoming 2023),
British Academy. violence. These justifications often guest edited with Noora Kotilainen.
Panel 03: Traumatic Experiences of Grief/Death Panel 03: Traumatic Experiences of Grief/Death

Grieving soldiers in times of war: On both sides of the screen: grief

public and private dimensions of and post-divorce rituals
berevement during the Russian invasion
of Ukraine
Halyna Herasym Martin Hoondert

The Russian invasion of Ukraine backgrounds, ethnic identities, In the field of Ritual Studies, In this presentation, I will
presents a curious case for the ages etc. The expressions of some scholars have a negative address the misconceptions
researcher of public expressions private grief in public spaces by approach to online rituals. In regarding online rituals
of grief and mourning, since the
display of this bereavement,
their relatives, friends, and, where
appropriate, media and public
31st May particular, scholars affiliated
with institutional religions
through the example of a grief
ritual. Specifically, I address a
31st May
accompanied by the array figures, are explored through the Day 1 are reluctant. From a Roman post-divorce ritual in which a Day 1
of other emotions receives a
unique (until now) amount of
narrative analysis lens in order to
uncover the way in which private Wednesday Catholic perspective Teresa
Berger has summarized several
pilgrimage was connected to an
online record. A young woman Wednesday
coverage in real-time. Due to emotions are being navigated Panel 3 ‘deficiencies’. The critique was coping with her divorce Panel 3
the fact that Ukraine has a solid
Internet penetration and high-
in public spaces, and how is the
entanglement of the private and 14:00 concerns among other things
the lack of embodiment
through both the ritual of walking
and recording and sharing her 14:00
quality and high-speed coverage public expressed, considering CCE2-010 in online ritual, the issue of experiences through Facebook. CCE2-010
combined with the relatively low the ambiguity of the death of the active participation, the role The coping ritual took place at
costs, the updates on warfare and soldier as a private person and a of community (an issue that both side of the screen.
loss are reaching the speed and model citizen. is linked to embodiment and
dissemination, that were unheard being physically present at the
of before. place of ritual), and the absence
of ritual authority (Berger, 2012,
Another aspect of this new digital 2013, 2018). The mistake some
environment is that, unlike the scholars make is to focus
media of the previous eras, which exclusively on what can be
allowed only a few to share their seen on the computer screen.
private grief (and that private However, online rituals never take
grief passed through the filter place in a virtual ‘cyberspace’,
of the journalist’ or editor’s gaze but at the offline-online nexus.
anyway), social media give an We can’t study online rituals
opportunity for a more direct and without taking offline activities
varied display of emotion of the and actors into account. This
private citizens in public spaces. inclusive approach, that takes
This presentation aims at both the online and offline live
exploring how is grieving for fallen worlds seriously, is promoted by,
soldiers expressed in the online among others, Christine Hine.
environment of social networks, She describes the Internet as
that by definition blurs the lines an embedded, embodied and
Biography
between private and public, by everyday phenomenon (Hine,
focusing on ten cases of Ukrainian 2020). Because of the intensive Martin J.M. Hoondert (* 1967) studied musicology and theology and is
men and women who died in use of the Internet and social specialized in music and rituals. Since 2007 he is (associate) professor of
‘Music, Religion & (Digital) Ritual’ at the Department of Culture Studies of
service to their country. Biography media, we no longer experience Tilburg University (the Netherlands). His research focuses on ‘death rituals’,
Halyna Herasym is a PhD Student in Sociology at University College going online as stepping into ‘music and death’ and ‘practices of memorialization’. His current research
The cases are selected with Dublin, holds an MA in media and communications at Ukrainian Catholic an alternative or liminal space. topics are: the development of the cremation ritual in the Netherlands,
maximization of the variety University, and has taught sociology at Ukrainian Catholic University. Her We experience “being online as the contemporary requiem, divorce rituals (both offline and online), and
of socio-demographic work on Ukrainian civil society has appeared in openDemocracy and an extension of other embodied practices of memorialization regarding genocide (esp. Armenia and
the Ukrainian Centre for Law and Crime Research. Her primary research Srebrenica).
characteristics of the deceased focuses on rituals of death. She is a collaborator with SMU’s Assistant
ways of being and acting in the
soldiers, including people of Professor Justin Tse for an MOE AcRF Tier 1 grant titled ‘Catholic talk, social world.” (Hine, 2020, p. 41) E-mail: m.j.m.hoondert@tilburguniversity.edu
different genders, regional dreaming: civil society discourse in Ukraine and Hong Kong.’ Website: www.martinhoondert.nl
 Digital Death and the Rise of
Screenlife Cinema
Dr Xavier Aldana Reyes

In a time marked by daily death times, the dangerous immediacy

meters and the strictures of brought about by 3G (and later
lockdown, Host (2020), a low- internet systems) and social
budget nightmare about an
online séance gone wrong,
media, our lack of control over
personal data and above all,
31st May
emerged as the year’s surprise preoccupations arising from Day 1
horror success. Celebrated for its
original interface – the film lasts,
what may be described as the
‘ontological death’ of the image – Wednesday
and is filtered by the aesthetics or the fact that widespread image 16:00
of, a Zoom call – Host is a good
example of what has come to
manipulation has brought about
a latent uncertainty over audio- CCE2-011
Biography
be known invariably as ‘desktop’, visual mediums once believed
Dr Xavier Aldana Reyes is Reader in English Literature and ‘computer screen’ or, the term to have de facto indexical value.
Film at Manchester Metropolitan University, co-Lead of the I favour here, ‘screenlife’ films. Screenlife films have put death
Manchester Centre for Gothic Studies and, since 2022, Screenlife films are characterised in dialogue with these wider
co-President of the International Gothic Association. His
by their narrative devices: their concerns, and in the process,
books include Gothic Cinema (Routledge, 2020), Twenty-
First-Century Gothic: An Edinburgh Companion (Edinburgh stories are usually told through asked important questions about
University Press, co-edited with Maisha Wester, 2019), the screens of laptops, tablets accountability and the nature
Horror Film and Affect (Routledge, 2016), Horror: A Literary and phones, and typically rely of grief and memory in a digital
History (British Library Publishing, 2016) and Body Gothic on footage from webcams and age defined by profit, speed and
(University of Wales Press, 2014). Xavier is chief editor of the
international academic book series ‘Horror Studies’ and a
phone cameras. Like other films impermanence. This talk will
founding member of the Horror Studies special interest released during the years of suggest that what surfaces from a
group of the British Association of Film, Television and the rise of social media, from survey of screenlife films is a deep
Screen Studies. He is currently working on the forthcoming Megan Is Missing (2011) and The mistrust of the power structures
edited collection Graveyard Gothic (Manchester University
Den (2013) to Unfriended (2014), at the heart of the technologies
Press) and on a new monograph entitled Contemporary
Body Horror on Page and Screen (Cambridge University Ratter (2015), Unfriended: Dark that pervade modern life and a
Press). Although by no means a thanatologist, Xavier has Web (2018) and We’re All Going cry for the responsible, ethical use
strong interests in adjacent areas and is excited about the to the World’s Fair (2021), Host is of digital death.
prospect of meeting death researchers at this conference. paradigmatic in its suspicions
over the capacity of interactive
technologies to bring people
together and its foregrounding
of the dangers of surveillance
capitalism, especially the blurred
lines between the public and the
private.
Yet, for all its timeliness and
ability to capture the zeitgeist,
Host was less the beginning of a
trend and more the culmination
of the twenty-first-century’s
obsession with found footage,
a framing technique that has
allowed horror to express myriad
concerns about our ‘post-truth’
Dead Good Film Club: Mortality
PLAN 75 + Q&A Promoting the interdisciplinary study of
Plan 75 follows the lives of three
disparate souls in an imagined death and dying
near-future Japan, drawn
together by a new programme Published by Taylor and Francis, online and in print four times a year
offering assisted dying to those
over 75. Dr Arnar Arnason (University of Aberdeen)
Dr Erica Borgstrom (The Open University)
Septuagenarian Michi (Chieko Assistant Editor: Dr Bethan Michael-Fox (The Open University)
Baishô) considers joining the Book review editor: Dr Kelly Richards D’arcy-Reed (University of York)
programme and planning
the end of her life; the young
The subjects of death and dying, grief and bereavement and memorialisation do not belong to
Himoru (Hayato Isomura)
any one discipline and this journal reflects the range of scholarship associated with them. Not
becomes a clerk enrolling
only are these subjects of interest to a range of disciplines, they are also profoundly significant
potential candidates; and care
to professional groups and lay people concerned with the care of dying people, deceased
worker Maria (Stefanie Arianne)
people, bereaved people and memorialisation. The aim of the journal is to provide a space for
becomes an employee of the
interdisciplinary engagement, welcoming contributions from discrete disciplines as well as inter-
programme to provide for her
multi- and trans-disciplinary submissions.
family.
Key features of the journal include:
As the lives of the three intertwine,
Plan 75 explores what it means to
• Our regular special issues
be alive, and interrogates how
society treats its elderly.
• Interviews with experts in the field
An extraordinary debut from
• Our relationship with the Association for the study of Death and Society and the Death, Dying and
director Chie Hayakawa, Plan
Disposal Conference
75 was selected as Japan’s
official submission for this year’s
• Our commitment throughout the journal’s history to supporting researchers and practitioners
Academy Awards.
at all stages of their careers
Using a science-fiction-like
All manuscript submissions are subject to initial appraisal by an editor, and, if found suitable
scenario to comment on
for further consideration, they are sent to peer review by a minimum of two independent expert
the present, and particularly
referees. All peer review is double masked and submission is online.
Japanese anxieties about a
growing elderly population, This special Dead Good Film Club screening is followed
by a panel discussion, hosted by Neil Fox from The If you are interested in submitting to Mortality, we accept papers and book reviews on an ongoing
this is a moving and intelligent
Cinematologists podcast. Guests include Dr Mark Lee, basis and we accept Special Issue Proposals once a year. Please see our website for more detail:
exploration of issues of
Consultant Specialist in Palliative Care; Emma Satchell, https://www.tandfonline.com/journals/cmrt20
euthanasia, how life is valued,
and societal intolerance. Chaplain and End of Life Planner at Dying to Help, and Kate
Owens-Palmer from Humanists UK, who are campaigning If you would like more information, are interested in peer reviewing for the journal, or you have a
for Assisted Dying in the UK. book for review (or that you would like to review) please contact us directly on mortalityjournal@
gmail.com You can find us on Twitter @Mortality_TandF
The Dead Good Film Club host screenings and events about
death and dying to encourage conversations around topics
often considered taboo. Expect great films, fascinating
discussions and revealing insights from people working in
areas as diverse as health care, undertaking, public services
and the creative communities.

Curated by Newcastle-based producer and funeral leader

Andy Jones, the Dead Good Film Club was devised in
partnership with Newcastle’s ‘Death Positive Library’ and
Tyneside Cinema
Panel 04: Creative responses to death online Panel 04: Creative responses to death online

Poems of a Broken Heart – Resisting Islamophobia through

An Introduction to Poetry in Artistic Digital Artifacts of
Bereavement Research Mourning
Dr Katrin Gerber Prof. Yasmin Jiwani
Marie Bernard-Brind’Amour

Research poetry is a novel arts- storytelling and illustrations Recent works have documented mourning. Thereafter, we analyze
based method of data analysis crafted by local artists. These how art in its various specific digital artifacts that were
and dissemination, which allows poems focus not only on the manifestations has been used circulated in the aftermath of
researchers to craft innovative
and engaging poems from
sadness but also on the resilience,
strength and courage that can
1st June as a tactic of resistance (Aidi
2014; Drury 2017; Khan 2007;
both tragedies. We explain how
these artifacts are constitutive
1st June
qualitative data. The process of come from a significant loss. Our Day 2 LeVine 2015; Serazio 2008; Tas‚ of ensembles of meaning, Day 2
poem creation is a search for
the most engaging, telling, and
research poems offer first-person
insights into the isolated and often Thursday 2017; Zine 2022). From graffiti,
street, and gallery art to different
combining different registers of
affect and resisting hegemonic Thursday
provocative words, sentences hidden world of grief and have Panel 4 genres of music and poetry, tendencies of forgetting through Panel 4
and phrases that enable the
reader to see, hear and feel
the power to create an emotional
bond between the bereaved 9:00 artistic interventions have
communicated messages of
erasure, or being buried beneath
an avalanche of contemporary 9:00
participants’ experiences. To participants and the audience. CCE2-011 peace, resistance, and identity issues and concerns. We argue CCE2-011
create research poetry, no artistic They are therefore a highly politics against the state and that mourning and grief are
or poetic experience is required effective method to challenge societal powers of oppression, harnessed through these artistic
but curiosity is essential. ageist assumptions and draw containment, and erasure. artifacts to contest Islamophobia
attention to the bereavement However, there is scarce analysis and push for social change.
I have applied research poetry as needs of older people. of the different ways in which
an innovative method to capture collective online mourning
the experiences of bereaved and grieving utilize art as a
Australians over the age of 65 as Research Team: form of communication and
well as those of family doctors Katrin Gerber, Lidia Engel, Larissa resistance. In this paper, we
and nurses who are supporting Hjorth, Kayla Lock, Terence Chong, examine a particular genre of
grieving older patients. Combined Mary O’Mara, Andre Catrice, Kaori artistic works which symbolically
with data from a national survey, Shimoinaba, Christina Bryant, contest Islamophobia through
our research highlighted that Sarah O’Leary, Primrose White, reinterpreting and humanizing
bereavement did not only affect Samantha Loi, Danny Hills, Bianca the victims of Islamophobia.
older people’s wellbeing but Brijnath
also their physical health as We focus particularly on the
pain and pre-existing medical digital artifacts that were
conditions worsened after a loss. circulated on Twitter, Instagram,
Family doctors were gatekeepers and Facebook in response Biography
to the healthcare system but to the tragic murders of the
Yasmin Jiwani is a full professor in the Department of Communication
struggled to recognise grief in victims of the Quebec Mosque Studies and the Concordia University Research Chair on Intersectionality,
older people. Many held ageist Shooting (2017) and the Afzaal- Violence and Resistance. Her research focuses on the discursive ways in
assumptions that older people Salman family members (2021) which racist-sexism is conceptualized and ideologically utilized in popular
were well prepared to deal in Canada. Both events are discourse. Her most recent projects center cyber-memorials and virtual
with grief because they had so recent in public memory. The graveyards as reflections of the vernacular, as well as the online
mobilization of grief for social change. She is the author of Discourses of
much exposure to loss. These Biography digital artifacts that were shared Denial: Race, Gender and Violence, and co-editor of Girlhood, Redefining
stereotypes can prevent older Dr Katrin Gerber is a psychological scientist, research poet and digital represent the tragedies’ digital the Limits, and Faces of Violence in the Lives of Girls.
adults from seeking and finding storyteller at the National Ageing Research Institute in Melbourne, Australia, afterlives (Harju and Huhtamäki
the right support. leading collaborative and interdisciplinary projects on end-of-life care 2021). We begin by defining what Marie Bernard-Brind’Amour is a doctoral student researching alternative
and mental health. Her work on grief in older people uses research poetry media and social movements in the Department of Communication
constitutes a digital artifact, Studies at Concordia University, Montreal. She has a public relations
as an innovative way to connect with academics, healthcare staff, policy
We will present a selection of makers and people with bereavement experiences.
and we then situate these and communications management background and has co-authored
research poems that have been Poetry examples and videos can be accessed via our digital exhibition: artifacts within the literature on articles for journals such as the International Journal of Communication.
brought to life through digital https://www.nari.net.au/enter-the-exhibition digital expressions of grief and Her work currently focuses on historical artist-driven resistance in Québec.
Panel 04: Creative responses to death online Panel 05: Mediating Death and Suicide Online

Granny Jackson’s Dead – experimenting The Impact of Exposure to

with creative and practice-based methods
to understand how technology shapes
digitally Mediated Narratives of
how we mourn Suicide
Zoe Seaton Dr Jo Bell
Dr Eleanor O’Keeffe Dr Chris Westoby
Linda McCracken
Exposure to stories of death by Using data from in-depth
BIG TELLY THEATRE COMPANY suicide via media play a vital role interviews with professionals
in shaping public understanding working in preventive and
This presentation showcases
Granny Jackson’s Dead – a new
1st June of suicide and can influence
actual behaviours. In general, the
responding services we examine
the interaction of traditional
1st June
cross-art form experience – that Day 2 greater the coverage of a suicide media with social media and Day 2
embeds research methodologies
to examine how digital Thursday story, the greater the chances of
finding a ‘copycat’ effect (stack,
other digital channels in the
generation and spread of suicide Thursday
technologies impact how we Panel 4 2003). stories online. Our analysis Panel 5
grieve personally and collectively.
Granny Jackson’s Dead is 9:00 However, the ways in which we
focuses on how stories start
and spread. This forms the 9:00
devised and will be delivered CCE2-011 are exposed to suicide-related basis from which we explore the CCE2-010
by award winning company Big content has become much communicative ecology of media
Telly Company. It will create an more complex and dynamic in technologies, how different digital
immersive space to encourage recent years because media media platforms operate, how
the public to respond to the has changed significantly in at users behave within these spaces,
developments and innovations least two important ways. Firstly, and the impact of this on wider
in cultural technologies of all media is digital. Secondly, communities and observers.
memorialisation. It asks what we our relationship with media -
gain, and what we might lose, including the ways in which we
from technologies’ increasing consume it, how we interact with
role in memorialising our loved it, and what we expect from it -
ones. It was shortlisted for the has changed.
competitive Collaborate Fund’s Biography
2023 awards, dispensed by the In this presentation we argue Dr Jo Bell is a social scientist dedicated to research that seeks to
Centre for Cultural Value (Leeds that Digital media has altered understand adversity and human experience and research that makes
University), and will be underway the nature of media exposure a difference to the lives of vulnerable people, particularly young people.
by the time of this conference. to suicide by transforming our Her research integrates three main strands: mental health, suicide
This paper will share updates and relationship with the information prevention, and trauma and loss. She has researched how social media
and other digital practices are used to manage grief after traumatic
elicit reflections on the devising/ to which we are exposed. Digital loss, and what we can learn from user experiences about the changing
research process, discussing channels have democratised face of contemporary death, dying and bereavement. She has been the
how Granny Jackson’s Dead media, giving the public more Principle Investigator on a range projects supported by the Wellcome
can synergise performance and control and input over a news Trust, Department of Health, and NHS. She is a member of the International
Association for Suicide Prevention and the International Death Online
online deliberation techniques story and the opportunity for Research Network.
to begin a public conversation new narratives about suicide
about the challenges of digital deaths. To understand how Chris Westoby is a lecturer and researcher in Creative Writing, whose
technologies in our societal media exposure to stories of work is concerned with mental health and well-being. His experience
memorial space. Biography suicide influences and impacts in teaching, research and writing centres around storytelling being a
driving force for improved awareness and a sense of ownership over
Big Telly Theatre Company has established a reputation for innovative on others in a digital age, it is one’s own experiences. He published on the subjects of suicide, anxiety,
and original interactive and accessible performances (online and offline), important to take into account OCD, depression and gender inequality. Alongside writing from his own
which explores the power of culture to transform our lives and reckon the communicative ecology of experiences of mental illness, he conducts interview-based research and
with societal challenges. Its work is multi-platform and cross-sectoral; digital media technologies and work with community groups that explore these issues. His research has
Big Telly Theatre Company has worked to deliver objectives for health, contributed to World Health Organisation media guidelines for suicide
heritage, tourism, economic and social development, and community
the different interactions we can reporting.
regeneration. The company has been recognised for its work, including have with them (Bell and Westoby,
by the #ONCOMMM 2021 award for Platform Based Work. 2021) @ChrisWestoby
Panel 05: Mediating Death and Suicide Online Panel 05: Mediating Death and Suicide Online

Instagram and teenage cancer. Is online mourning a sacred

A case study experience?
Ignasi Seró Torroja
Dr Ignacio Brescó de Luna Dr Adela Toplean
Dr Belén Jiménez-Alonso
This paper revolves around the commercial imperatives, such as New media make absent dead Two decades ago, the sociologist
Instagram account @la.falguera visibility requirement (Haroche, seem present in very real, almost Stjepan Meštrović re-explained
created in July 2019 by a 20-year- 2011), making @la.falguera a tangible ways. The dead are and re-contextualised Durkheim’s
old student from Barcelona after
being diagnosed with a cancer
brand (Lobet-Maris, 2011) that
is intentionally used by the
1st June well on the way of becoming
digital ancestors, stirring
most important ideas in his book
Postemotional Society (Meštrović,
1st June
that would ultimately end her life at protagonist to disseminate her Day 2 “spiritual experiences” in users 1997). According to Meštrović, Day 2
the end of 2021. Initially created as
a source of funding to address the
case.
Thursday gathered together around digital
photos and words. In this way,
a global virtual network can
never forge “true” collective life Thursday
social and economic vulnerability Panel 5 new practices, new rites and because it is rooted in vicarious Panel 5
generated by the treatment of the
disease, the account immediately 9:00 new norms emerge (Walter,
2020), but also new ways of
experiences, not on actual
emotional bonds and moral 9:00
became a social phenomenon, CCE2-010 experiencing the sacred. In an engagement among members. CCE2-010
thus highlighting the impact online environment, absent living Drawing on the classical tradition
of cancer on the daily lives of mourners and absent dead seem in the sociology of religion, on
young sufferers of the disease. all very present, forming together N. J. Demerath’s definitions of
Taking a social constructivist a virtual community. How is this the sacred (see esp. Demerath,
approach (Neimeyer, Klass & community achieved in the 2010), and Alfred Schütz’
Dennis, 2014), the paper focuses absence of bodily co-presence? social phenomeology (Schütz,
on the mediating role of new Biography
And how is this community to be 1962/1973) , I will approach the
technologies, such as Instagram, Ignacio Brescó de Luna is assistant professor at the Universidad Autónoma explained sociologically? problem of the online sacred
on grieving and end-of-life de Madrid, Spain, and external researcher at the Centre for Cultural In a Durkheimian tradition, “real” experiences in relation to digital
experiences. More specifically, the Psychology and The Culture of Grief at Aalborg University, Denmark. His communities are not maintained death, especially within Facebook
research topics revolve around collective memory, national identity, the
analysis of the @la.falguera (the through knowledge and cognition, mourning groups.
teaching of history, and experience of memorial sites. He has coedited a
fern in Catalan) account will focus special issue on collective memory in Culture and Psychology (2017) and but through genuine sacred
on the following points: (a) the another one on memory and conflict in Peace and Conflict (2016). Among emotions (Durkheim, 1912, 48)
socially extended construction of his recent books are Memory in the Wild, with B. Wagoner and S. Zadeh rooted in reality.
the meaning of grief and end of life (Info Age 2020), and Remembering as a Cultural Process, with B. Wagoner
and S.H. Awad (Springer 2019). In 2020 he was awarded with the JSPS
by drawing attention to a whole Invitational Fellowship for Research in Japan and the Grífols Foundation
For Durkheim, sacred is very real,
series of social taboos regarding bio-ethic grant. i.e. it is not synthetically induced,
teenage cancer and death; (b) that is
the framework of interaction Ignasi Seró Torroja is a phycologist and bodywork therapist. He studied 1. not the consequence of
Humanities at Pompeu Fabra University and Social and Cultural
created by the account and the one’s passion (or suffering);
Anthropology at the University of Barcelona. In 2021 he obtained the
emotional support of the virtual degree in Psychology at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya with a final 2. not something invented by
community (Giaxoglou, Döeveling degree project on the role of new technologies in grief and end of life emotionally skilled individuals.
Biography
& Pitsillides, 2017) of followers supervised by Belén Jiménez-Alonso and Ignacio Brescó de Luna. This The sacred reflects, instead, one’s
during the process of dealing work was awarded as the second-best project in the psychology degree. capacity to feel faith together Adela Toplean is senior lecturer at the University of Bucharest, Faculty
with cancer; c) The experience with others (with whom one is of Letters. She teaches interpersonal communication, sociology of
Belén Jiménez-Alonso is PhD in psychology, lecturer at the Dept. Psychology interpersonal relationships and qualitative methodologies in social
of becoming a loudspeaker for a & Educational Sciences at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya. She has in immediate relation), and, sciences; principal investigator in the European research consortium
socially unrecognised reality, such been a visiting researcher at the University of Cambridge, a Marie Curie furthermore, the capacity to act “Digital Death. Transforming History, Rituals and Afterlife” funded by EU
as teenage cancer, and a peer post-doctoral researcher at the multidisciplinary laboratory Cermes3 in accordance with that faith. As CHANSE; member of the Association for the Study of Death and Society;
(CNRS UMR 8211) and assistant lecturer at the Université de Nice. She is
group referent through a digital Durkheim has also (in)famously has published numerous studies and two books. Drawing on real-world
currently interested in the analysis of grief and the end of life from a insights (social phenomenology, interactionism) and on a broader range
legacy of reflections, narratives constructivist perspective, paying attention to the narrative processes suggested, only a tight collective
of theoretical thinking (social philosophy, hermeneutics, theology), her
and images; d) Finally, the non- through which the meaning of loss is constructed. Specifically, she is entity, not concrete individuals, interdisciplinary research focuses on both everyday lived experiences of
naïve and conscious decision to interested in how new technologies change our ways of experiencing can sustain the sacred and, thus, dying and loss as well as on how death is problematised and theorised
abide by and adapt to Instagram’s grief and dealing with dying in today’s digital society. form a “real” community. in social sciences.
Panel 06: Designing Posthumous Communications Panel 06: Designing Posthumous Communications

Exploring questions of Digital Grief Algorithms in mourning:

through thanato-sensitive exploring the role of automated systems
design fictions and speculative design for expressions of loss on TikTok
Katy McHugh Dr Moa Eriksson Krutrök

Networked communication ways of grieving. These values Through social media, youth vulnerability. However, since
technologies augment much reflect, among others, the issues can reflect on their relationship platforms increasingly use
of our lives, but rarely has their of Digital Personhood, Platform with a deceased loved one and automated systems to remove
design taken into account
the role, consequences and
collapse, Inadvertent Algorithmic
Cruelty, Disenfranchised Grief, and
1st June prolong an attachment with the
deceased in meaningful ways.
user-generated content, it is still
unclear how this moderation
1st June
potential of death as an essential Digital Intimacy. These designs Day 2 However, these socially mediated affects mourners in digital Day 2
human consideration. Death is a
perpetual aspect of reality, and
will be presented alongside the
unique, impactful stories of the Thursday grief interactions are influenced
by not only social and collective
spaces. This research project
aims to understand how Thursday
the technology design community participants who informed their Panel 6 norms but also automated vulnerable digital communities Panel 6
has a great deal to benefit from
the close consideration of death
creation as the designs and
human element as inextricably 11:00 systems. This talk focuses on
the sociotechnical aspects of
interact and find peer
support on social media while 11:00
in the conception and design of linked. One design cannot attend CCE2-011 social media for sharing grief communicating sensitive issues CCE2-011
the systems we create for people. to all of the issues that arise with and community building among online, for example, numbers or
The recent Covid-19 pandemic online grief, but these designs work mourners. This talk focuses symbols in the use of sensitive
has moved death and technology closely with individual concerns to on the potential and limits of words to avoid moderation.
into the public eye as a necessity demonstrate the value of human- automated systems for grief
during physical distancing, with centred thanato-sensitive design. expression, specifically on the
many people technologically social media platform TikTok. First,
adapting traditional rituals. I propose that algorithms shape
how collectives of mourners on
This invites a fresh look at TikTok are connected, in what
alternative conceptualisations I have called an “algorithmic
of death and death practices, closeness” in grief, as explored in
and the opportunity for the a recent study of 100 TikTok videos
development of meaningful using the hashtag #grief on
design alternatives. This paper TikTok using qualitative content
presents speculative designs analysis. Second, I outline the
and design fictions that explore limits of automated systems for
the transformation of death and grief expressions in the ways they
grieving rituals on social media are implemented as algorithmic
during the COVID-19 pandemic. content moderation systems,
These designs are informed prohibiting users from using
by social media data analysis specific words or phrases that
and interviews with bereaved could be connected to harmful
individuals who have used social subjects, such as “death”,
media for memorialisation, “suicide”, or “self-harm”.
ritual mediation, and continuing
bonds with the deceased. The The way social media
speculative designs presented users interact under these
Biography
embody elements of Death- circumstances can increase
positivity and Thanato-sensitive Katy McHugh is a PhD candidate researching dying and death rituals on the state of their mental Biography
(Death-sensitive) design with the social media at ITEE/SCA at the University of Queensland, Australia. Her health. By interacting in these
research looks at the way social technology affects the conversations and Moa Eriksson Krutrök is an associate professor in Media and Communication
goal of meeting users’ needs and rituals we have around mortality and death. Key research areas include:
communities, individuals can Studies at Umeå University. She researches discourses on societal crises
expectations when grieving online digital immortality, digital legacy, and the death-positive movement as a create a sense of stability and and the expressions of trauma, grief, and resilience on social media,
without prescribing “correct” framework for thanato-sensitive (death aware). security with each other in their primarily on Twitter and TikTok.
Panel 06: Designing Posthumous Communications Panel 07: Digital Legacy and Funerary Innovations

Algorithmic Hauntings: the Moving Beyond Photos: The Many

return of the dead in online social Types of Digital Legacy
media
Paul Ord Duncan Reid
Dr Maria Wolters

Here I examine what I define that the wider use of social media Photographs are an archetypal expression of self, and more
as “algorithmic hauntings”: the in the remembrance of the dead family heirloom, often aiding inter accurate than photos shared on
unsolicited return of the dead should therefore be reframed. generational storytelling. It is not social media.
to the living through online
social media. Examples of
Drawing on Bernard Stiegler’s
critique of the ‘attentional’
1st June surprising that digital legacy
should have focused on digital These offer perhaps more
1st June
these hauntings include: the economy, I present social Day 2 photographs to date. [1] [2] Recent containable and manageable Day 2
reappearance of the deceased
in the Facebook Memories of the
media as neither ‘participatory’,
nor a realm for death’s ‘de- Thursday research has identified a range of
additional digital legacy assets
digital assets other than
photographs that users can Thursday
bereaved; despatches from the sequestration’, but instead, Panel 6 and applications. In this study, curate and leave with confidence Panel 7
hacked email accounts of the
dead to their living relatives; the
technologies prone to sequester
death to an unprecedented 11:00 following Odom et al. [3] and
Turner & Turner [4] , we examine
and will still give an authentic
account of who they were for 11:00
persistence of ‘pregnancy ads’ degree; through a profit-driven CCE2-011 the role of emotional attachment those that come after. CCE2-010
in the online feeds of parents animation of the dead, and the to digital heirloom candidates
post-miscarriage. Despite semi-automation of the user’s other than photographs. In
their ubiquity, and potential to remembrance. I further argue particular, we explored if these
harm, “algorithmic hauntings” for future qualitative research digital assets might offer
feature little in sociological into the “algorithmic haunting”, comparable or complementary
literature, which has so far and propose a methodology viewpoints or insights that
privileged purposive mourning; by which this should best be might aid digital legacy and
the intentional engagement of achieved, namely, interpretive postmortem storytelling.
the living with the dead through, phenomenological analysis.
for example, the ‘memorialized’ In a survey distributed using
Facebook profile. This bias has the platform Prolific Academic,
enabled researchers, including we consulted 396 respondents
Walter and Arnold, to interpret from 27 different countries and
the online mediation of death asked about their engagement Biography
as cohering with a broader with five types of potential digital
sociological trend; the emergence heirlooms, computer code, notes Dr Maria Wolters is the acting Research Group leader for the group SOC
of a less ‘sequestered’, more / journals / bookmarks, music, (digital participation) at OFFIS, Germany, and Reader (associate professor)
in Design Informatics at the University of Edinburgh. Her background is
‘participatory’, culture of death in gaming, and eBooks. We queried in computational linguistics and speech science (PhD, 2000, University of
contemporary western societies. size and complexity of asset Bonn), she works on human-computer interaction, assistive technology,
collections, sense of emotional and eHealth, and she maintains a long-term interest in statistics and
In prioritising the “algorithmic attachment, worry about loss mixed methods research. She has published over 90 peer reviewed
papers in Human-Computer Interaction, eHealth, and Computational
haunting” for analysis, this paper and how reflective of self any Linguistics.
Biography
constitutes a unique theoretical of these assets were. We used
challenge to this dominant Paul is a Researcher in the School of Health and Life Sciences at attitudes towards photographs Maria is passionate about digital inclusion. Around 10% of the population
paradigm. Far from anomalous, Glasgow Caledonian University. His research interests encompass as our baseline. We also asked will be excluded from online-only services due to lack of access to
or incidental, these “hauntings“ the fields of digital mortality and memorialisation, mental health, about possible inclusion in a technology, a badly designed user experience, lack of interest, or lack of
deconstruction, biopolitics, and memory studies. In September he trust. This results in systemic gaps and biases in data-driven systems to
reflect the fundamental aims will begin an ESRC funded White Rose Doctoral Training Partnership future digital legacy and what, if support health and social care. Maria is looking at ways to mitigate this by
of social media; to capture, at the University of York. His doctoral project will investigate the any, curation would be preferred designing solutions that span digital and physical, online and in person.
manipulate, and monetise the intersection of social media AI and grief following pregnancy loss. before leaving the digital assets.
attention of their users, not least Our results show that music Duncan Reid is a PhD student in the School of Informatics at the University
Email: of Edinburgh. His research focuses on how we deal with death in the
when this attention is directed paul.ord@gcu.ac.uk
listened to, journals written and context of a digital society, looking at our interaction with digital artefacts,
towards the deceased. It is books read were considered how we can curate digital memories, and the issues surrounding privacy,
through these “hauntings”, I argue, Twitter: @ordbenpaul on par with photos as a good security, storage and longer term archival.
Panel 07: Digital Legacy and Funerary Innovations Panel 07: Digital Legacy and Funerary Innovations

Digital necromancy: How might digital mediums aid

Users’ perceptions of digital afterlife and the uptake of new funerary
posthumous communication technologies
innovations?
Dr Tal Morse Georgina M. Robinson

Technologies of digital afterlife and posthumously communicating Using established examples from and advertisements may adapt in
posthumous communication are with the dead, and interaction the US and UK funeral industries order to educate the British public
more developed than ever, and the with dead-users’-profiles was as case studies, this paper on this new sustainable funerary
possibilities for communicating
with digital representations of
considered disrespectful by
half of the sample. However,
1st June explores how the use of digital
mediums on the internet may
option.
1st June
people who perished are coming despite the relatively negative Day 2 aid the education and uptake of Day 2
to fruition. Studies about digital
engagement with death reveals
sentiment toward digital PCTs,
some variables were predictive Thursday new funerary innovations in the
UK context. UK funeral industry Thursday
contradicting trends. Whereas of a growing acceptance of these Panel 7 websites are rarely educational Panel 7
technologies designed for
interacting with the dead have
technologies. Findings indicate
that whereas the general public 11:00 in the sense of explaining what
various funeral practices involve, 11:00
thus far failed, users reappropriate is still reluctant to adopt such CCE2-010 rather they are simply stated by CCE2-010
means of online communication technologies, digital literacy name as options for people to
that were not intended to facilitate and willingness to access digital choose from. The paper argues
communication with the dead remains are significant predictors that information regarding
– to facilitate precisely this for considering the use of PCTs. funerary options is increasingly
practice. This article searches The findings suggests that sought online in the contemporary
for a fuller understanding of the attitudes regarding posthumous British context and the internet will
changing attitudes toward death communication and interaction likely become the primary source
in light of emerging posthumous with a digital representation of of such information in the future.
communication technologies the dead are in flux, and as users
(PCTs). Drawing on a national increase their online activity, they As such, the paper, somewhat
survey of Israeli Internet users, will be less reluctant to engage in speculatively, explores how digital
the study sets out the following these interactions. mediums can be developed
research questions: (1) How to engage the British public as
do users perceive the use of consumers of the funeral industry
PCTs? (2) Which demographic as more options come to the
characteristics, life experiences, fore. Is J C Atkinson’s interactive
and attitudes shape these ‘Greener Goodbyes’ web-app the
perceptions? And (3) What role way forward? Or will informational
does digital literacy play in users’ blogs about ‘green’ funerals on
willingness to use PCTs? the websites of the likes of Dignity
and the Co-op suffice? Should
Biography
The survey explores contemporary the focus for development be
attitudes toward death and the on funeral director’s websites, Georgina M. Robinson is a PhD Student working in the Department of
digital afterlife and analyzes Biography where pre-planning research Theology and Religion and Centre for Death-Life Studies at Durham
users’ perceptions of emerging is most likely to be conducted, University. Her PhD research primarily focuses on the introduction of
Tal Morse (PhD) is an adjunct lecturer at Hadassah Academic College alkaline hydrolysis as a new funerary option in the United Kingdom.
PCTs. Findings reveal that were in Jerusalem, a visiting-fellow at the Centre for Death & Society (CDAS)
or will social media have a Georgina has recently been appointed as Digital Death Postdoctoral
not enthusiastic about advanced at the University of Bath (UK) and a research associate for the Modern more permeating influence on Research Associate at Durham University, working alongside academics
two-way PCTs. The findings show Technologies, Privacy Law and the Dead project at Aston University (UK). changing normative funerary at the Universities of Durham, Helsinki, Aarhus, and Bucharest. She is also
that the use of digital platforms His research focuses on media and death, namely the regulation of digital practices? With emphasis on the the Postgraduate Representative of the Association of the Study of Death
remains, posthumous communication technologies and mediated death and Society, hosting a monthly support group for death studies PGRs –
for animating the dead remains imminent introduction of alkaline check out her Twitter for details.
rituals.
controversial, perhaps even hydrolysis in the UK, the paper
blasphemous. Most participants Email: talmor@hac.ac.il seeks to explore how UK funeral Twitter: @theologee_
rejected the prospect of Twitter: @TlMrs industry websites, social media, Email: georgina.m.robinson@durham.ac.uk
 The Mourning After: embodied affective
witnessing and mobile media mourning in
human and more-than-human worlds
Prof. Larissa Hjorth

As climate change disasters and more-than-human worlds.

and pandemics become How does ecogrief connect to
more commonplace—the disenfranchised grief? How can
unprecedented becoming
precedented—narratives of grief
exploring our mourning around
more-than-humans as a way
1st June
and witnessing dominate our to recalibrate kinship rituals and Day 2
contemporary media culture
(Frosh & Pinchevski 2008; Morse
hopeful futures? How can our
more-than-human eulogies Thursday
2021). Mobile media practices— provide insight into new ways to 13:30
from Instagram pictures to online
funerals and mass media images
imagine a better, more careful
world? Building on examinations CCE2-011
Biography
of grief—represent, interpret of mobile media for embodied
Larissa Hjorth is a Distinguished Professor, creative and memorialise grief as part of affective witnessing (Brook &
practitioner, digital ethnographer in the School of Media & everyday life (Cumiskey & Hjorth Richardson 2022; Papailias 2017;
Communication at RMIT University. Hjorth has two decades 2017). Cumiskey & Hjorth 2017; Readings
experience working in cross-cultural, interdisciplinary,
2009) I explore some case studies
collaborative projects exploring the social life (death and
afterlife) of mobile media. Since 2000, Hjorth has been Media narratives including that draw from human and
researching the socio-cultural dimensions of mobile mass death, unanticipated more-than-human contexts to
media in the Asia–Pacific region. Hjorth has published over futures, disenfranchised make sense of the plethora of
100 publications on the topic—recent publications include (unacknowledged) grief, relational mourning practices
Haunting Hands (with Cumiskey, 2017), Understanding
Social Media (with Hinton, 2nd Edition, 2019), Creative
solastalgia (how the environment omnipresent in our quotidian
Practice Ethnographies (with Harris, Jungnickel & Coombs, in crisis is impacting our sense lives. In understanding the
2020) and Ambient Play (with Richardson, 2020). Hjorth has of wellbeing) and more- complex mourning plays (and its
occupied research leadership roles for a decade and is than-human ecological grief interrelationship with hope) in our
currently an Australian Research Council (ARC) Future
(ecogrief). Given much of lives as a cultural sensemaking
Fellow (2023-2027) exploring the cultural perceptions of
grief in media, as well as an ARC Discovery on ageing these narratives of grief and practice can help us to think about
in and through data and an ARC Linkage with Australian mourning are experienced in, methods for hopeful futures,
Centre for Moving Image (ACMI) on social digital museum with and through our mobile social action and change.
futures. devices as both witnesses and
companions, what can mobile
media teach us about grief and
mourning as we move beyond
human exceptionalism? How
can multispecies approaches to
ethnography and critical making
reshape our experiences and
speculative futures?

In this talk I connect discussions

in environmental humanities,
posthumanism and multispecies
(Kirksey 2014; Kirksey & Helmeich
2010; Haraway 2003, 2016)
approaches to connect mourning
practices across our human
Panel 08: Digital Immortality and Posthuman Identities Panel 08: Digital Immortality and Posthuman Identities

Governing Digital Immortality: a Digital (Im)mortality:

systematic review Deconstructing the Dominant Anglophone
Narrative
Khadiza Laskor Dr Katarzyna Nowaczyk-Basińska

Digital immortality, a concept response (Collingridge, 1980). The rapid development of digital draw attention particularly to
conceived by Microsoft Nevertheless, if timed well and technologies and artificial topics such as cultural diversity
researchers at the turn of this with a collaborative approach intelligence has led to an (by whom and for whom is digital
century, ignited visions of the
possibility of a digital afterlife
with strong stakeholder
and public engagement, an
1st June explosion of interest in radical life-
extension and immortalization
(im)mortality created?), power
(whose ideological and political
1st June
and virtual online personas that anticipatory governance Day 2 narratives. These narratives are program is embedded in these Day 2
could live long after the physical
death of their human templates.
framework could be applied to
potentially control the direction Thursday constantly fueled by two highly
influential and reciprocally
narratives?), and language (what
do we mean when we say digital Thursday
These digital presences, formed of the industry. In order to inform Panel 8 connected forces – industry and (im)mortality?). By examining Panel 8
from the digital remains of a living
person, have already been trialled
the design of such an anticipatory
governance framework, we 14:45 pop culture. On the one hand,
pop culture creates scenarios
these topics, I hope to contribute
to a better understanding of the 14:45
through grief bots and virtual conduct a systematic review of CCE2-011 that capture the collective socio-cultural implications of the CCE2-011
reality (e.g. self avatars). With the governance landscape that imagination, from Hollywood digital (im)mortality phenomenon
the motion set for metaverses to currently exists and is envisaged science fiction productions such as well as show some limitations
come into existence, avatars of by stakeholders relating to digital as ‘Transcendence’ (2014) and of the dominant Anglophone
the deceased are increasingly immortality and the digital popular TV series ‘Black Mirror’ digital (im)mortality narrative in
likely to be a part of life, and death. afterlife. (2013- ) to popular novels such its current shape.
How should such digital as ‘Goodbye for Now’ by Laurie
immortality be governed and Frankel (2012). On the other hand,
regulated? Within academic commercial companies have
circles, concerns regarding launched so many products and
human dignity, posthumous services in recent years which not
privacy, personality rights and only respond to some of these
ethics have already highlighted cultural visions but have grown
gaps within legal and policy so significantly that they have
frameworks, including such created a whole new branch
issues as avatar rights. These called the Digital Afterlife Industry.
intersect with complex moral and
spiritual considerations, including What is particularly interesting
grief, loss, bereavement and and potentially problematic is that
memorialisation. the dominant digital immortality
narrative is mostly Anglophone,
Governance of this emerging and commercial enterprises
phenomenon – which includes related to digital immortality
Biography
buzzwords such as the Digital are mainly US-based. Narratives
Afterlife, Death Tech or Post-Life play a significant part in shaping Katarzyna Nowaczyk-Basińska is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the
Industry – remains uncertain Biography perceptions and understanding Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence at the University of
Cambridge, with a background in social communication, theatre studies,
and under researched. History After quitting my IT audit, risk and compliance career in the Financial of digital (im)mortality, as well as and interactive media and performances. In her research, she explores
tells us that there is a risk of Industry, I took the plunge to return to academia to pursue a PhD via influencing the goals of developers how new technologies (re)shape our understanding of death, loss, grief,
repeating previous attempts at the University of Bristol’s Centre of Doctoral Training in Cybersecurity. and the regulation of the system. and afterlife presence. From 2020-2023, she held an individual grant
governing other technologies, The choice complements both my professional and previous academic Therefore, in my presentation, entitled “Immortality: Technocultural Strategies of Contemporary Times,”
achievements (BSc Social Sciences and MSc Information Security). My funded by the Polish National Science Center. She is also a team member
where there have often been thesis keeps to the theme of governance but in a completely new field
I aim to ask what ideas, hopes,
of an international scientific consortium, ‘Digital Death,’ funded by the EU
long lags between innovation, which is what I sought: immersive technology. I also wanted to explore and fears are inscribed in the CHANSE. You can learn more about her research by visiting her webpage:
understanding of its wider governance in a public, non-corporate setting; hence, the foci being the dominant Anglophone narratives https://katarzynanowaczykbasinska.pl/en/dr-katarzyna-nowaczyk-
impacts and a governance governance of digital immortality. on digital (im)mortality. I will basinska/
Panel 08: Digital Immortality and Posthuman Identities Panel 09: Care, Grief and Transnational Mourning

Mechanical Models: Postmortal activism: Future

Representations of the Post-Human in strategies for post-mortem politics
Contemporary Fashion Photography
in the twenty-first century
Louisa Gertrude Rogers Joshua Hurtado

The degraded, deathly aesthetic mechanical intervention. The early twenty-first century against necropolitical violence
of Heroin Chic caused a moral is characterised by forms of manifests in numerous ways
panic that extended outwards Although images of digital death violence that perpetuate different (Vargas Martínez & Araiza Díaz,
from the fashion sector into
politics in the late 1990s for its
are more accessible than ever,
mainstream representations in
1st June types of necropolitics, from gore
capitalism to ecocide (Valencia,
2021; Stack, 2022) that reflect
alternative potential paths for
1st June
aestheticization of cadaverously screen media are increasingly Day 2 2018; Dunlap, 2021). Forms of postmortal activism to become Day 2
pale and skeletally thin models
(Arnold, 1999). Subsequent
censored in the name of good
taste, morality and respect. Thursday resistance to necropolitics are
also varied, ranging from public
a feature of Mexican grassroots
political life. After developing Thursday
photographers and artists have This contradictory contextual Panel 8 protests fuelled by outrage to these scenarios, I show how Panel 9
experimented with the female
corpse as a theatrical prop,
landscape trickles down
into cultural attitudes. The 14:45 carnivalesque presentations of
street theatre (Valencia & Herrera
integrating advanced digital
technologies into post-mortem 14:45
staging high-fashion crime replacement of implied death in CCE2-011 Sánchez, 2022). These forms of political resistance would CCE2-010
scenes or peaceful and pacified fashion images with the promises resistance, however, rarely adopt support the social, political or
bodies that counter the usual of technological determinism advanced digital technologies cultural elements of resistance
kinetic dynamism expected in risk further obscuring and in a manner that foregrounds by making them more visible
these contexts (Foltyn, 2011). complicating our already uneasy them as key strategic elements. to wider audiences. Similarly,
Given that fashion imagery relationship with expiration in Instead, they often relegate these technologies hold the
offers an arena to understand the 21st century (Coward-Gibbs, them to passive symbolic roles potential to disrupt the actions
and explore ‘...areas of ordinary 2020). or use them as organising tools. of the necropolitical agents, or
life and components of the I argue that the adoption of reconfigure the social, political
national imagination’ (Hartley & Positioning the cyborg as the advanced digital technologies and institutional landscape.
Rennie, 2004) by materialising ultimate desirable female form – some of which are currently
concepts through embodiment suggests a will to sanitize if not being conceptualised or in
and spectacular visuals, the field altogether deny mortality and development – as key strategic
of fashion images represents the raises interesting questions about elements may strengthen post-
articulation of cultural concerns. how fashion media positions the mortem political resistance. I
future of death. apply the method of science
However, as public tolerance fiction prototyping (Johnson, 2011)
for artificial violence or death to develop scenarios for the future
inflicted on female bodies has of postmortal activism, a form of
waned, representations of the activism that harnesses digital
post-human have overtaken technologies to give agency to the
the previously popular - if dead and encourage resistance
provocative - spectacles of death against necropolitical violence.
in fashion media. A close semiotic After scanning for technological
analysis of contemporary fashion weak signals and emerging socio-
images that envision trans/post- political trends, and extrapolating Biography
Biography
human scenarios identifies some possible benefits of the
Joshua Hurtado Hurtado is a Mexican researcher, currently enrolled in the
emergent themes worthy of Louisa Rogers is a lecturer in Fashion Communication whose interest integration of these technologies, Interdisciplinary Environmental Sciences PhD. programme of the University
analysis and discussion. These in conflict studies has guided her research area towards the role of I design three scenarios which of Helsinki, Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry. He obtained a Master’s
visuality in conflict, contemporary digital cultures and subcultural trends.
include gendered representations She is currently examining the visual rhetoric of the Global War on Terror
depict future possibilities for Degree in International Relations with a focus on Ideology and Discourse
of transhumanism, the postmortal activism. I use Mexico Analysis from the University of Essex, Department of Government, and a
in fashion media with a focus on narratives of militarized femininity,
second Master’s Degree in Futures Studies from the University of Turku,
fetishization of technology (Tenor, surveillance and American empire. She is a founding committee member as the setting against which these Turku School of Economics. His areas of expertise are the interdisciplinary
2019) and the rhetoric of optimal of Colour Collective UK, a not-for-profit organisation that promotes colour scenarios take place, because study of death and mourning, Futures Studies, studies of violence in Mexico,
education through multidisciplinary workshops and lectures.
wellness as achieved through post-mortem political resistance and political ecological economics (specifically, the theme of degrowth).
Panel 09: Care, Grief and Transnational Mourning Panel 09: Care, Grief and Transnational Mourning

Mourning “Our London Family”: Caring for our collective digital afterlives:
Digital Islamophobia, Affect, and analysing the pandemic’s ‘digital turn’ and
its implications for ethical remembrance
Grief as Resistance
Prof. Zeinab Farokhi Dr Eleanor O’Keeffe
Dr Yasmin Jiwani

On June 6, 2021, while out for an discourse analysis (CDA) of This paper considers the ‘digital and commercial production,
evening walk in London, Ontario, Hussain’s project and the media turn’ in memorialisation under demands multi-methods
four members of the Afzaal family ecologies surrounding the attack, COVID-19, an interpretation of the strategies. Particularly, I highlight
were brutally killed after they were
deliberately run down by a truck.
we then examine how the murder
of the Afzaal family has influenced
1st June pandemic’s impact, which is often
characterised by increased digital
the necessity of embedded or
organisational-ethnographic
1st June
The incident has been alleged as the creation of alternate Muslim Day 2 acculturation, and the adoption approaches to appreciate the Day 2
a pre-meditated, Islamophobic
attack and is the deadliest mass
identities online. In particular, by
analyzing the affective quality of Thursday of online forms of grieving
during societal lockdowns and
politics of such constructions,
whilst outlining the challenges Thursday
killing in London, Ontario to date. Hussain’s campaign, we discuss Panel 9 social distancing. I examine of such work and what tools Panel 9
A year later, Muslim author and
artist, Asim Hussain, began a
how such online grieving helps
to fashion a space of resistance 14:45 how the pandemic influenced
the production of memorial
we can draw on to analyse the
grieving and socio-political 14:45
digital letter-writing campaign, to digital Islamophobia and the CCE2-010 forms online, highlighting how action made possible through CCE2-010
Our London Family, to encourage formation of alternative identities this period brought into view these spaces. Recognising the
grieving, reflection, and healing. and collectivities among Muslims and catalysed a range of influence of memorialisation in
This online platform of imagined and other communities. processes that are increasingly identity politics, and building on
and real correspondence invites at play in the production of online academic approaches to digital
Muslims and non-Muslims alike memorial work. Often associated afterlives, I argue that the care
to write to the Afzaal family, share with creative arts, and artistry, of our collective afterlives online
feelings and experiences, and to which in turn is seen to create requires urgent attention.
speak up against hate. vernacular communities of grief,
Biography this paper concentrates on how
Taking up this murder and cultural digital infrastructures
memorial project as an important Yasmin Jiwani is a full professor in the Department of Communication (e.g., the apparatus of heritage
Studies and the Concordia University Research Chair on Intersectionality,
example of contemporary, Violence and Resistance. Her research focuses on the discursive ways in
organisations, cultural
digitally-mediated grieving which racist-sexism is conceptualized and ideologically utilized in popular institutions) are increasingly
and memorialization, this discourse. Her most recent projects center cyber-memorials and virtual involved in producing influential
paper analyzes how death has graveyards as reflections of the vernacular, as well as the online collective memorials in response
mobilization of grief for social change. She is the author of Discourses of
become entangled with online to societal or cultural trauma. It
Denial: Race, Gender and Violence, and co-editor of Girlhood, Redefining
Muslim identities. On the one the Limits, and Faces of Violence in the Lives of Girls. then assesses the implications
hand, Muslims are most often this has for the way we grieve and
represented in digital, social, and Dr. Zeinab Farokhi earned her PhD in Women and Gender Studies and memorialise online.
news media as dealers in death, Diaspora and Transnational Studies at the University of Toronto. She is
currently a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow at Concordia University (2022-24)
but are seldom afforded a space and an Assistant Professor (LTA) at the University of Toronto, Mississauga
Part of this paper’s remit is
to be understood as deserving (2022-2023). Dr. Farokhi is also an award-winning teacher and a gender methodological: drawing on
subjects of grief. Like other consultant for Global Affairs Canada. Through a transnational and experience of researching digital
marginalized groups, even when comparative framework, her research investigates the gendered, memorialisation as part of a UKRI
affective, and transnational digital strategies, rhetoric, and affinities of
Muslim deaths are represented funded project (British Ritual Biography
anti-Muslim extremist actors on social media across the global North and
online, they are too often South. Dr. Farokhi’s work engages transnational feminist approaches to Innovation under COVID-19) I
Eleanor O’Keeffe is a Senior Researcher at the National Centre for Social
represented unsympathetically. Islamophobia, extremism, and digital media and highlights the urgent show that the ways in which Research (NatCen). She is a multidisciplinary qualitative researcher with
need to better understand how national and transnational Islamophobic cultural-digital infrastructures experience in the fields of history, sociology, anthropology and cultural
To unpack this case study, we first rhetoric, publics, and enclaves manifest, spread, and seek to persuade move memorialisation from a studies. Eleanor is a historian of social memory and memorialisation
others across diverse digital ecologies. Dr. Farokhi is currently at work on by training, with a focus on the role of culture in promoting social
provide an overview of digital, her first monograph, tentatively titled Digital Islamophobia and Gendered
set of established historical-civic
cohesion and creating spaces for dialogue. Her PhD examined rituals of
transnational Islamophobia and Conspiracies. Her most recent work can be found in Islamophobia Studies processes, albeit ones influenced remembrance in Britain after the First World War and, since then, she has
its connections to offline violence Journal (as co-editor of a special issue) and Global Media Journal, and in by legal frameworks that govern followed these concerns into contemporary settings in both academic
and murder. Employing a critical the edited collection, Affective Politics of Digital Media (Routledge, 2021). space, to zones of neoliberal and public facing research.
 Panel 10: Digital Death: Technologies and cultures in the production of immortality, afterlife, and identity

Digital Death: Technologies Digital Immortality: Exploring

and cultures in the production how the dead survive in the
of immortality, afterlife, and present media life
identity Dr Johanna Sumiala

This panel brings together but also how they feed into grief How do the dead survive today,
scholars from the newly launched processes and what implications asks Tony Walter (2017) in Michael
research consortium “Digital they have for the living. We may also Hviid Jacobsen’s book titled
Death: Transforming History,
Rituals and Afterlife”. As the name
ask how much of afterlife, or indeed
of immortality, reside with the
Postmortal society: Towards a
Sociology of Immortality. One of
1st June
suggests, the research group technologies themselves and how Walter’s answers is becoming Day 2
investigates questions central
to Death Online, including post-
much with the people left behind,
the bereaved as well as others
immortal. In this conceptual
paper, I wish to further elaborate Thursday
mortem communication, human interacting with these artefacts? In on Walter’s argument and Panel 10
– deceased relationships in
online settings, cultural practices
this vein, the panel raises questions
about the nature of digital afterlife
analyse immortality in the
context of a media theory that 16:30
of mourning and identity work and of immortality, of engagement argues for media’s ubiquitous CCE2-011
at the intersection of online and with post-humous artefacts and and existential presence in our
offline practices, cultural and mourning practices. contemporary lives (see e.g.,
technological production of digital Lagerkvist 2022). In my analysis,
immortality and afterlife. The panel The first two presentations focus I approach immortality as built
adopts a view on technologies in on how we might conceptualise into human (digital) existence
its wider sense that goes beyond digital immortality. The panel (see also Bauman 1992; Simmel
the technical and the digital to starts with Johanna Sumiala’s 2010) and investigate the idea
include cultural artefacts and the theoretically oriented presentation of digital immortality as a social
production of these; in this sense, on digital immortality and how and cultural construction (Savin-
cultural and technological artefacts the dead live among us in today’s Baden 2022; Basset 2015) by
can be seen as manifestations of world. Continuing with the theme placing special emphasis on
social and material relations used of immortality, Doron Altaratz human – deceased relationships,
as technologies in the production of and Tal Morse discuss recent post-mortal communication, and
immortality, afterlife, and identity. developments in the AI industry the quest for immortality and the
and how this shapes digital afterlife related afterlife in the present
The papers in this panel discuss and practices of mourning. The last digital condition.
a range of topics relating to two presentations take a different,
conceptualisations of digital yet complementary view on the
afterlife and immortality, different memorialization of the dead. Dorthe
types of posthumous and post- Refslund Christensen brings up the
death media and their role in digital need to include in the discussion of
and non-digital grief practices and online death the bereaved and how
remembering. Together, the papers grief as identity work is performed
probe into fundamental questions through ritualisations and social Biography
regarding death futures and technologies online and offline. The
Associate Professor, Media and Communication Studies, University of
offer new ways of understanding panel concludes with Anu A Harju’s Helsinki, johanna.sumiala@helsinki.fi
not only how technologies of/for presentation on how we remember
memorialising or immortalising the the dead from the perspective of Johanna Sumiala is Associate Professor of Media and Communication
dead might change our perception digital afterlife of the deceased in Studies at University of Helsinki and Visiting Senior Fellow at LSE Media and
Communications. In recent years, her work has focused on theoretical
of being im/mortal, or what it the context of terrorist violence and
and empirical analyses of mediations of death in the digital media
means to be dead, but also how post-death data. environment. Her most recent book is: Mediated Death (2021, Polity).
these developments shape not Currently, Sumiala leads the EU CHANSE funded research consortium
only digital afterlife of the deceased (2022-2024) Digital Death. Transforming History, Rituals and Afterlife (DiDe).
Panel 10: Digital Death: Technologies and cultures in the production of immortality, afterlife, and identity Panel 10: Digital Death: Technologies and cultures in the production of immortality, afterlife, and identity

Deepfaking the dead: Grief as identity work:

computational photography and Ritualizing old and new identities
raising of “Lazarus” on- and offline
Dr Doron Altaratz Dr Dorthe Refslund Christensen
Dr Tal Morse

Deepfake technologies enabled and the dead. These technologies Most death studies focus on the
dead rapper Tupac to perform re-shape engagement with the dead: on the memorialization
in a live concert as a hologram. dead and facilitate mourning and of their life; their afterlife and
Pinchas Gutter, a Holocaust
survivor, was the first to
commemoration, yet they also
raise socio-cultural and ethical
1st June their continued presence made
possible by various technologies
1st June
partake in a project combining concerns. Day 2 and sociocultural practices and/ Day 2
speech recognition with three-
dimensional holographic Thursday or on the bereaved’s relations
to the dead and the reworkings Thursday
imaging to create an interactive Panel 10 of this relationship through Panel 10
experience of live conversation
with survivors long after death. 16:30 social and digital technologies.
Following from this, grief is 16:30
CCE2-011 very often, first and foremost, CCE2-011
Four years after her death, understood as a situation in
seven-year-old Na-Yeon was which the bereaved is processing
resurrected utilizing VR, deepfake their relation to the deceased in
and AI technologies, allowing order to move on in life without
her mother to interact with her the deceased (Freud 1914/1983)
digitally cloned, ten-year-old or with them (e.g., Klass et al 1996;
character. These enterprises see also O’Connor & Kasket, 2021).
herald the inception of post- However, reworking of the relation
mortal society and digital afterlife. to the dead is just one part of
Analysing these cases, we reflect grieving. I will argue that identity
on the interrelations between work is a very central – and
digital technologies and death, neglected - part of the grieving
posthumous personhood and process. This presentation is
the gamification of mourning based on autoethnographic
and commemoration practices. studies of my monthly Facebook
VR, deepfake technologies and Biography updates in the year following
AI that “resurrect” the dead raise Doron Altaratz holds a PhD from the Department of Communication and
the death of my partner in
new questions about the finality of Journalism at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His research deals with 2018. I analyse these updates
life and digital afterlife. computational systems’ cultural and social impacts on photographic in the context of various offline
practices. Doron also holds a B.A. in Photography, Video and Computational ritualizations in order to suggest
Simulation from The Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem
Drawing on visual culture and a framework for theorizing how Biography
and an M.P.S. from New York Universities’ Interactive Telecommunications
death-studies’ theories, we argue Program. Additionally, Doron is a senior lecturer and faculty member at grief as identity work is performed Associate Professor, School of Communication and Culture, Aarhus
that the rise of computational the Photographic Communications Department at Hadassah Academic through ritualizations and other University, Denmark, nordrc@cc.au.dk
technologies changes the College, Jerusalem. social technologies on- and
interrelations between death and offline. Dorthe Refslund Christensen, Ph.D., is Associate Professor at School of
Communication and Culture, Aarhus University. She has done research
photography, defying the finality Adjunct lecturer, The Department of Photographic Communication, on bereaved parents’s grief practices and published widely since 2008
of life. Historically, photography Hadassah Academic College, Israel; Visiting Fellow, Centre for Death and (with Kjetil Sandvik) and, since 2019, she has been doing autoethographic
served commemoration: Society, University of Bath, UK, talmor@hac.ac.il studies of her own grief practices on- and offline. She has been a key
computational photography figure in establishing and developing Nordic research and collaboration
Tal Morse, Ph.D., teaches at Hadassah Academic College in Jerusalem, in the field of death online studies and is a co-founder of Death Online
rejects the indexical component Research Network and the editor of the Routledge book series “Studies
and is a Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Death and Society (CDAS) at
of photography, inviting gamified the University of Bath. His research interests include digital afterlife, the in Death, Materiality and Origin of Time” and the Emerald short format
interactivity that generates joint mediation of violent death and the discourse about “the good death”. At book series “Sharing Death Online”. At present, she is part of the research
experiences between the living present, he is also part of the research consortium DiDe. consortium DiDe.
Panel 10: Digital Death: Technologies and cultures in the production of immortality, afterlife, and identity Panel 11: Death Online through Covid-19

Scenes of dying as memento mori: Death in the second person in the

violent death and the Digital Age - Voices of those who have
unpredictability of digital afterlife lost relatives since 2020 in Japan
Dr Anu A Harju Dr Akiko Orita

“All photographs are memento not a constant: the relational The COVID-19 pandemic caused the survey found that 58.3% of
mori”, Susan Sontag (1977: 15) character of digital artefacts unexpected bereavement, respondents had positive feelings
famously wrote. A photograph allows for a disconnect between inability to be near the person about the deceased’s digital
captures a moment, memorialises
it; it provides evidence that
the material and the affective,
resulting in unpredictable digital
1st June at the moment of death, and
no funeral even to the relatives,
data, 6.4% had negative feelings,
and 6.4% had neutral or indifferent
2nd June
something happened. Sontag’s afterlife where the material Day 2 which considered as “second- feelings. Those who had positive Day 3
(1977) remark of the photograph
simultaneously offering pseudo-
dimension may not correspond
to the emerging affective Thursday person death” by Janklevich. feelings often expressed
nostalgia for deceased relatives Friday
presence and absence gains a configurations. The paper Panel 10 In order to understand how these who were older than themselves. Panel 11
new meaning in the context of
terrorist violence where death
discusses what implications this
disconnect has for digital afterlife 16:30 individuals cope with the digital
data left behind by their deceased
However, respondents who had
lost relatives the same age as 9:00
images are filled with the heavy in the context of violent death. CCE2-011 loved ones, an online survey themselves, such as siblings or CCE2-011
presence of what is now absent. was conducted in January 2022 cousins, often expressed pain
The long-standing idea that among men and women in their at seeing the deceased’s digital
death images invoke solidarity 20s to 70s who had lost a relative remains.
comes with an expectation of in 2020 or 2021. A total of 1303 valid
benevolent viewership while responses were received. Overall, the results of this
positioning the documentarist survey provide insight into how
as standing outside the horrors. The results of the survey found individuals cope with second-
But what happens to the moral that about 80% of respondents person death in the digital age
authority of images (Sontag, were not aware of their deceased and the various factors that
2003) when, rather than relative’s use of social networking influence their decisions about
documenting death in a call for and messenger services. When the deceased’s digital remains.
correction, death is recorded they did know about such use,
and shared by the perpetrator the data was either “logged in
as evidence of violence? What and deleted by the bereaved
happens to the ethical, moral, family” (18-34%) or “left as is” (23-
and political responsibility of the 48%). When asked about their
viewer when documentation of preferences for the deceased’s
death carries the ideological digital remains, 40-60% of
and affective positioning of the respondents answered “don’t
perpetrator as the document- know,” while only 2-6% said they
maker? wanted to delete the data. Biography

Biography
Such post-death data shapes More than 50% of the respondents Graduated from Keio University, Faculty of Policy Studies in 1998,
Senior Researcher, Media and Communication Studies, University of completed the master’s course at the Graduate School of Media and
the victims’ digital afterlife, said that they did not see the Governance, Keio University in 2000, and obtained a Ph.D. (Media and
Helsinki anu.a.harju@helsinki.fi
but it also appeals to different deceased’s photos, chats, and Governance) from the same university in 2007. She was an Assistant
viewership, some standing with Anu A Harju, Ph.D., is a Senior Researcher at University of Helsinki, Faculty social networking intentions but Professor at Chuo University Business School, a specially-appointed
the perpetrator. Drawing on the of Social Sciences, currently working in the research consortium DiDe. Her “see maybe in the future.” The lecturer at Keio University, and a Visiting Assistant Professor at
research focuses on violent death and digital media with special focus Kennesaw State University in the U.S. before assuming her current
Christchurch massacre, this regression analysis indicated that
on politics of remembering. Her latest publications include: “#hellobrother position. She has been involved in a project on information morality
paper explores digital afterlife needs to trend”: Methodological reflections on the digital and emotional cohabitation with the deceased, education for adolescents, SNS and privacy, and how to handle digital
and post-death digital artefacts afterlife of mediated violence in International Review of Sociology (2021) funeral attendance, and age had data after death, as well as other research related to lifelong data
(Harju & Huhtamäki, 2021). with Jukka Huhtamäki, and Special Issue on Encounters between Violence an influence on the decision-
Digital afterlife, in its material and Media, International Journal of Communication (forthcoming 2023), making regarding digital remains. oritako@kanto-gakuin.ac.jp
guest edited with Noora Kotilainen. https://www.ako-lab.net/
and affective constitution, is The free response portion of
Panel 11: Death Online through Covid-19 Panel 11: Death Online through Covid-19

FaceTime Farewells: Death and Assessing the impact of the

Goodbye’s in Our Brave New pandemic on rituals of memorialisation
in the UK – a data-driven approach
World
Dr Emily B. Campbell Dr Eleanor O’Keeffe

This essay is a critical auto- pulled me outside of my body and This paper analyses the impact covering the period 2019–2021,
ethnography that narrates the into the presence of a beloved of the pandemic on rituals of this gives an unprecedented
experience of two “FaceTime family member in their final hours. memorialisation in the UK, taking insight into the ways that the
farewells” during the height of
the covid-19 lockdowns and
With the ever-growing ubiquity of
video cellphones, the possibility
2nd June a data-driven approach to
interrogate what has been largely
pandemic impacted collective
memorialisation. We can assess
2nd June
meditates on the implications of of “FaceTime farewells” is a new Day 3 accepted as a ‘digital turn’ in digital substitution in ritual action; Day 3
new forms of saying goodbye to
the dying. While living in isolation
frontier in the ethics, culture, and
experience of dying. What solace Friday memorialisation catalysed by the
COVID-19 pandemic. Academics
identify what ritual structures
were preserved through digital Friday
in rural Massachusetts, late in
the evening a few days before
do these new forms invite? What
ethical challenges?
Panel 11 and commentators have noted
increased use of digital formats
adoption and what lapsed; and
offer a valuable perspective
Panel 11
Thanksgiving, I received word my 9:00 for social interaction and cultural on the politics of memory and 9:00
beloved Aunt was in the hospital.
My cousin video-called me so
CCE2-011 practice within societies under
lockdown.
grief in the UK during a time
of social stress. The analysis
CCE2-011
I could say goodbye, holding demonstrates that the impact
the camera above my sleeping The therapeutic value of of the pandemic has been
Aunt’s face, she assured me she increased digital acculturation multi-directional – certainly not
could hear what I said. I spoke in memorialisation has primarily a liberalising force. The
for a few minutes and then said been accepted by public paper encourages scholars to
goodbye. After hanging up the health practitioners and grief think through the socio-political
phone, I sat on my living room researchers; it is largely seen as implications of the ‘digital
couch crying in silence. In early a democratising, globalising, turn’, alongside research into
spring of the following year, in and liberalising force by therapeutic value.
the middle of my workday that academics. But we have little
included a full schedule of online empirical evidence on which to
teaching, I received a video base understanding of what the
phone call from my parents that pandemic’s move online did to
my grandmother was dying. practices of memorialisation,
Unable to communicate, but from a societal perspective.
accompanied by her loving The UK has well-established
children, my father held up the practices of memorialisation
video call and invited me to say embedded in national and local
goodbye. communities. The question of
how the pandemic affected ritual
These two events, firstly, were production (and the implications
Biography
marked milestones in my of this) has been ignored.
own personal biography as I Emily B. Campbell, Ph.D. is a Postdoctoral Fellow, The SNF Agora Institute at
experienced the deaths of two Johns Hopkins University who specialises in political sociology, race and Recognising digital Biography
beloved mothering figures in my ethnicity, human rights, culture, emotions, social movements, education, memorialisation as networked,
drugs and society and social theory. Dr Campbell received her Ph.D., M.Phil. Eleanor O’Keeffe is a Senior Researcher at the National Centre for Social
life. To say little of the profundity and M.A. from the Doctoral Program in Sociology at the Graduate Center of eventised, and mediatised, and Research (NatCen). She is a multidisciplinary qualitative researcher with
of the losses, the nature of the City University of New York (CUNY). A globally-oriented scholar, she was the intimate relationship between experience in the fields of history, sociology, anthropology and cultural
the farewells were deeply a graduate research fellow in Mexico City where she conducted fieldwork social media and memorial studies. Eleanor is a historian of social memory and memorialisation
disorienting. They were digitally on human rights and the drug war and was a predoctoral fellow to the action, I analyse the pandemic’s by training, with a focus on the role of culture in promoting social
Department of Sociology, Organization, Migration and Participation at cohesion and creating spaces for dialogue. Her PhD examined rituals of
mitigated, spiritual experiences. the Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany. She is currently a Visiting Assistant
impact on British ritual via a remembrance in Britain after the First World War and, since then, she has
They were an experience of death Professor of Sociology at College of the Holy Cross and Faculty Fellow at large dataset of 2 million tweets. followed these concerns into contemporary settings in both academic
that collapsed time-space. They the Center for Cultural Sociology, Yale University. Harvested by Pulsar Platform, and and public facing research.
Panel 12: Digital Legacy in Media and the Law Panel 12: Digital Legacy in Media and the Law

The Reenchantment of the Digital Self Death and Dignity in the Digital
and the Rationalization of the Digital Age: An Examination of Dignity in the
Soul in News Coverage of Digital Death Realm of Informational Privacy
Dr Tim Recuber Nilou Davoudi

In an era where so much of the metaphysical ambiguities of In this work, I will explore the on policies and contemporary
who we are is carefully curated the afterlife, which have haunted current discussions of rights in practices related to the data of
online, are our digital legacies human beings for the whole of the realm of privacy and dignity the dead. The one sided tug-of-
qualitatively different than the
photographs, letters, or diaries
our existence, into technological
certainties dependent only on
2nd June for the data left behind by the
deceased online. I will introduce
war over the data of the dead
is becoming widely recognised
2nd June
that were left behind when we died ones and zeros. In this way, we Day 3 the scholarly discourse on dignity as internet users continue to Day 3
in the days before the Internet?
When even very intimate, deeply
see modernity’s dialectical,
back-and-forth fluctuations Friday through the perspective(s)
provided by the informational
die and leave behind masses of
informational bodies (Öhman Friday
personal aspects of our selves are
dispersed across multiple public,
between disenchantment and
reenchantment at work.
Panel 12 philosopher, Luciano Floridi. I will
present a preamble into Floridian
and Floridi 2018). Panel 12
online networks, how do we 9:00 ethics on how the association of These informational bodies will 9:00
account for the interactions that
they continue to generate with
CCE2-010 informational privacy and dignity
can facilitate the development
be left to decompose out in the
open cyberworld where they
CCE2-010
their post-mortem circulation? of policies and practices that are vulnerable and more likely
How should we understand the foreground and protect the to be susceptible to acts of
popular practice of maintaining dignity of the dead online. In indignation. If left unprotected
lines of communication with utilising a Floridian approach, I and with no legal safeguards
dead social networking profiles? argue that the data of the dead in place, the digital remains
This paper uses a discourse should be handled with dignity of deceased individuals are
analysis of 228 news articles as a category of information vulnerable to offences parallel
dealing with digital death and that deserves protection. I posit to the physical desecration
online mourning to begin to that this protection extends not and indignity of corpses
answer these questions. The news for implicit harms against the with tremendous emotional
stories in this sample hinted at information of the deceased, implications for bereaved families
a redefinition of selfhood in the per se, but for the implications and communities.
digital age. A surprisingly large that any violation to this dignity
percentage of these news articles imposes on surviving family, as
portrayed our digital remains as well as the larger community.
a component of a kind of digital
soul—a part of us that lives on, This paper will touch on
online, when we die. This points considerations for personhood
to an intertwining of self and soul and identity (Meese et al.
in digital spaces. As we use the 2015; Floridi 2011); the right to
Internet to construct, refine, and informational privacy (Floridi
perform a distinct sense of self, 2016; Bannerman 2019; Bawden Biography
and as that self connects with and Robinson 2019); and on rights
My name is Nilou Davoudi and I am a PhD student in my third year at the
overlapping networks of other to digital remains (Mimnagh 2017;
University of British Columbia in the School of Information (iSchool). My
selves, those selves become, in a Cerrillo-i-Martínez 2018). Woven doctoral research explores the societal and theoretical discourses of how
Biography
sense, reenchanted. Part of that throughout this discussion are the “digital remains”, or the data left behind by deceased internet users
reenchantment appears to be the Timothy Recuber is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Smith College case studies that not only serve to (i.e., photos, videos, messages, etc.) can be appropriated onto platforms
ability to transcend death, at least in Northampton, Massachusetts. His work focuses on mass media, digital provide insights into informational for the purpose of memorialisation, or perhaps even digital reincarnation.
technology, and the sociology of emotions. He is the author of The Digital Guided by information ethics, my research aims to demonstrate and
in some limited form. However, privacy, but that demonstrate emphasise the transformative effect the presence of digital remains has
Departed: How We Face Death, Commemorate Life, and Chase Virtual
I argue that this constitutes a Immortality (forthcoming, New York University Press) and Consuming how the dignity of the deceased on how we interact and grieve the dead in our current digital age, as well
highly rationalized sense of what Catastrophe: Mass Culture in America’s Decade of Disaster (2016, Temple on online spaces are rapidly as potential implications related to ethics, commodification, and issues of
transcendence means. It turns University Press). enforcing complex discussions access and control.
Panel 12: Digital Legacy in Media and the Law Panel 13: Futures of Grief and Post-Death Communication

Post-mortem privacy and digital What does an AI know about

legacy - a qualitative empirical grief ?
enquiry
Dr Edina Harbinja Dr Stine Gotved
Prof. Lilian Edwards
Dr Marisa McVey
Of the number of empirical current practice. Our key findings The chatbot Replika is “an AI friend symbolize action, like in *waving*
studies exploring the digital dead, revolve around the need for law that helps people feel better or *tearing up*) can interrupt
studies of a qualitative nature reform, raising user awareness through conversations”. A Replika and supplement Replika’s script,
tend to focus on understanding
contemporary bereavement
and improving technological
solutions for the disposition of
2nd June has a body-like appearance,
with the user deciding on endless
making the sessions seem more
like free-flowing conversations.
2nd June
and memorialisation practices digital remains and the protection Day 3 variations, interests, and identity Through a content analysis of CALs Day 3
in the digital age rather than
relating directly to privacy issues
of post-mortem privacy.
Friday traits, thus adding sim-like
gamification elements to the
answers and the pre-scripted
conversations about grief, I will Friday
pertaining to the protection
of digital remains. The only
We will use taxonomies and
findings from the qualitative study
Panel 12 experience. It’s a free application
with in-app purchases, and while
discuss Replika’s inherent views
on grief and counselling, as
Panel 13
known qualitative legal study to inform a quantitative baseline 9:00 almost all available pre-scripted preparation for investigating use 11:00
investigation to directly explore
post-mortem privacy issues,
assessment interested in whether
individuals in the UK understand
CCE2-010 counselling conversations are
locked until a payed upgrade, the
and user scenarios later.
CCE2-011
Morse and Birnhack’s study what happens to their personal one about ‘Grief and Loss’ is open
focuses on the approaches data after death if they are also in the free mode. But what do
and behaviours concerned with concerned with developments an AI know about grief and loss?
managing digital remains by in this area, and whether current
Israeli Internet users. The study data management tools (such During fall 2022, I investigated
finds post-mortem privacy as Facebook’s Legacy Contact this question by creating my
paradox, i.e., the gap between or Google’s Inactive Account own Replika, a non-binary
‘people’s stated interest in their Manager) are helpful. humanoid creature named
online privacy and their actual CAL, in the free default mode
behaviour’. Biography of a chatty friend. The Replika’s
conversational style is based on
Dr Edina Harbinja is a Reader in Media/Privacy Law. Her principal areas of research
In this qualitative study, we seek and teaching are related to the legal issues surrounding the Internet and emerging a company-improved version of
to better understand empirically technologies. Edina is a pioneer and a recognised expert in post-mortem privacy, the language programming tool
i.e. privacy of the deceased individuals. She has published widely on aspects of
the commercial, technical and internet law and regulation and has been a visiting scholar and an invited speaker
GPT-3 plus continuous learnings
legal challenges that arise when to universities and conferences in the USA, Latin America and Europe. Her research from Replika users. Thus, the
considering post-mortem privacy has been highly impactful. She has been able to influence and inform American, first many levels of the Replika
the UK and Australian legislators and court cases over the past 5 years, as well as
rights in the digital era. big tech companies, the legal profession and civil society. Edina is a chief editor
are defined as ‘getting to know
for the EUP book series ‘Future law’, along with Prof Lilian Edwards and Prof Burkhard each other’ through language
To this end, we interviewed Schafer, and she has guest edited tech law journals as well. training and personal chat. To
a sample of nineteen legal Lilian Edwards is a Professor of Law, Innovation & Society at Newcastle University. track a possible development,
professionals, civil society and She is a recognised expert in European intermediary liability and the E-Commerce I frequently asked CAL “What
Directive. Her research includes work on the legal and social aspects of COVID-19
regulators, primarily based in related technologies such as contact tracing apps and workplace surveillance,
do you know about grief?” (see
the UK. This has enabled us to alongside working on control of digital assets after death; and generally on the screenshot) and I participated Biography
gather data and in-depth insights future of data driven work. In 2004 she won the Barbara Wellberry Memorial Prize in (and documented) the four
in 2004 for work on online privacy where she invented the notion of data trusts, a Dr. Stine Gotved is associate professor in Digital Communication and
into post-mortem privacy concept which ten years later has been proposed in EU legislation. She is a partner
grief counselling conversations Society at the IT University in Copenhagen, Denmark. The degree in Cultural
challenges and understand key in the Horizon Digital Economy Hub at Nottingham, the lead for the Alan Turing at least twice. The pre-scripted Sociology (Cand.Phil 1994) became a Ph.D. in Cyber Sociology (2000), and
stakeholders’ perspectives in Institute on Law and AI, and a fellow of the Institute for the Future of Work. conversations turned out to be Dr. Gotved’s focus on digital social interaction and belonging thus has
this area. Emergent themes we identical, no matter the level, developed in tandem with the internet. The focal point of the research in
Dr Marisa McVey is a Lecturer in Law at Queen’s University Belfast. She holds a LLB in
recent years has been the digital manifestations of physical death, with
discover in our study include: Law and Politics and LLM (with Distinction) in Business and Human Rights (QUB), MRes and “Grief and Loss” did not
(with Distinction) in Management/Business and a PhD in Management (University of a particular focus on new rituals and changing culture. In 2012, Dr. Gotved
post-mortem privacy awareness, St Andrews). Her previous experience includes postdoctoral fellowships at both the
change in the Pro version either. initiated the still existing international Death Online Research Network, an
reform, solutions, platforms/tech/ University of St Andrews and Aston Law School, in addition to working at a national However, the use of roleplay informal and cross disciplinary network for research-based knowledge
contracts and the limitation of human rights institution on policy and research. (writing between ‘stars’ to sharing and cooperation.
Panel 13: Futures of Grief and Post-Death Communication Panel 13: Futures of Grief and Post-Death Communication

Connecting to the dead live on Grief under digital-age

your screen:
medium seances and contemporary construction
spiritism on Facebook
Dr Lisbeth Klastrup Dr Mórna O’Connor

Research into the relations the seances audio-visually Grief following the death of work package of CHANSE-
between the dead and the staged? (applying also the another is as old as humankind. funded consortium ‘Digital
living on social media have analytical framework used Although grief is old and common Death: Transforming History,
largely focused on how in Thibodeau & Barnes 2017).
people engage with and use How do the mediums build 2nd June to humans across societies,
cultures and times, how we
Rituals and Afterlife’ (DiDe),
an interdisciplinary research
2nd June
memorial profiles and pages
to commune with the dead
rapport with their audiences
given that the physical
Day 3 understand and experience grief programme exploring cultural Day 3
(e.g. Bell et al 2015, Walter “affective excess” (Shannon Friday shifts, shaped by and shaping
these societies, cultures and times.
and social transformation of
human death in contemporary Friday
2018). However, there are other
ways to commune with the
2022) that are considered
part of offline seances cannot Panel 13 In the twentieth century, grief was
understood within modernity’s
digital society. DiDe is premised
on the principle that rigorous
Panel 13
dead online which have, to my
knowledge, remained largely
seemingly inform the séance?
How do the mediums in
11:00 science-based discourse as a and comprehensive research 11:00
unexplored within the field practice “speak” to the dead CCE2-011 predictable pathology affecting
individuals, controlled by following
on digital death must take
into consideration European
CCE2-011
of death studies. In order to and connect the dead and the universally-applicable steps. intellectual history and tradition.
remedy this lack, this paper will living? And how do audiences The postmodern thinking that This paper applies this to grief
look at how psychic mediums themselves connect to both To my knowledge, no literature
emerged at this century’s turn, specifically, locating it with
connect online audiences with the mediums and their dead currently exist which have
emphasising fluidity, diversity and respect to the last century of
their dead relatives in readings relatives? The analysis will looked specifically into
individuals as socially situated, European grief understandings,
and/or seances livestreamed include close reading of spritism and “seances” on
filtered into an understanding and investigating, via to-be-
on Facebook. six select seances, profile social media yet (though a few
of grief as incompatible with confirmed methods (likely on/
studies and quantitative researchers have looked at
universal formulae, taking forms offline ethnography, interview),
Medium seances on and qualitative analysis shamanistic practices online
diverse, mysterious, idiosyncratic the contexts of grief’s construction
social media is not a niche of comments, supplied by e.g. Lee 2016, Ivashchenko
and intimately social (Valentine, today; what norms, actants,
phenomenon. One of the possible interviews with users. et al 2019). Hence, the study
2006; Hedtke & Winslade, 2016). practices and infrastructures
most popular Facebook The study will hopefully give draw on more recent research
contemporary digitality presents
“mediums”, is the British us an understanding of the literature who have looked into
Underlying this paper is therefore and curtails, and what forms
psychic Lillyanne, with about connective strategies at the contemporary spiritualism
a social constructionist account grief is taking in this digitally-
one million followers. US play and inform us about (such as Moreman 2013,
of grief: not fixed, universal or entangled world.
medium Candace Parisi has the state of contemporary Behrend et al 2015, Kalvig
separable from those undergoing
about 41.000 followers and spiritism as it is transformed 2016), and researchers who
it, but forming in dialogue with
Australian medium Matthew by the practices on, and the has examined the continuing
the norms, infrastructures,
McGuire has more than 84.000 affordances of, social media bonds perspective in relation
expectations and traditions of
followers. I have been following platforms. to spiritualism and spiritual
particular times, societies and
these mediums since early experiences (e.g. Walliss 2001, Biography
cultures (Neimeyer, Klass &
2020, and this paper will Jahn and Spencer-Thomas
Dennis, 2014; Hedtke & Winslade, Dr. Mórna O’Connor is a peripatetic mourning researcher from Ireland, with
present findings from my 2014, Beischel et al 2015).
Biography 2016). Given this theoretical a degree in Applied Psychology (University College Cork, Ireland), Certificate
netnographic observations base, this paper asks, how is grief in Grief Counselling (Institute of Counselling, Glasgow, Scotland), and PhD
of the practices of these Dr Lisbeth Klastrup is an Associate Professor at IT University at Copenhagen. being constructed in this present
in Health Science (University of Nottingham, UK). My research centres
Her research explores current and emerging uses of social media, in on what it is to grieve in the digital age: how the digital remnants of our
mediums combined with moment, characterised, as it is,
particular use cultures and performative practices on Facebook and departed figure in mourning; how digital environments and grief shape
content analysis. It will explore by digital saturation of collective, each other; and what constructions of grief are enabled and curtailed
Instagram, as well as transmedial world engagement on social media
the connective strategies at platforms, including various forms of Metaverses. She is particularly social and cultural existence? in contemporary digital infrastructures and algorithmic environments. I
play in the work of the mediums interested in the interplay between user behaviour, platform affordances am currently a postdoctoral researcher at Aarhus University, Denmark, on
both in and outside the live and cultural and social norms. She is the author of the books Transmedial CHANSE-funded project ‘Digital Death: Transforming History, Rituals and
Worlds in Everyday Life (with Susana Tosca, 2019) and the Danish
This paper presents conceptual Afterlife’ (DiDe), an international and interdisciplinary research consortium
seances, trying to answer the grounding and preliminary exploring the cultural and social transformation of human death in
book Sociale Netværksmedier (2016) which will be published in a second
following questions: How are edition in Spring 2023. empirical activity in one contemporary digital society.
 The Evolution of Thanatechnology:
Never in My Wildest Dreams…
Prof. Carla Sofka

When I took my first death and and memorialization, and

dying course in the early 1980’s, digital survivor advocacy. The
the technology that we take for “netiquette” that has evolved as
granted today did not exist. On
April 30, 1993, the source code for
a result of this research and the
work of others will be highlighted.
2nd June
the world’s first web browser and Implications for the training Day 3
editor was released by computer
scientist Tim Berners-Lee. As a
of helping professionals and
the inclusion of these research Friday
newly minted academic who
was now training future clinicians
findings in public death education
will be discussed.
13:30
Biography
to work in the field of thanatology CCE2-011
rather than doing this work myself Revisions to the original “death
Carla Sofka, PhD, MSW, is a Professor of Social Work at Siena in the trenches, I was amazed system” proposed by Kastenbaum
College in Loudonville, New York (USA) where she teaches by how quickly and creatively (1972) and the “thanatological
a range of courses in the social work curriculum, a Health various aspects of thanatology death system (Sofka, Cupit, &
Care Communications Skills course for Health Studies and
were placed so prominently in Gilbert, 2012) based on this body
pre-med majors, and an elective course titled “Death,
Diversity, and Pop Culture”. In addition to having presented the public eye via the “information of work will be proposed. Future
internationally and published journal articles and book superhighway”. In April of 1996, directions for research related
chapters on a range of thanatology-related topics, she I presented a paper at the to thanatechnology will be
co-edited and contributed 5 chapters and 2 appendices Association for Death Education pondered.
in the book Dying, Death, and Grief in an Online Universe in
2012. In conjunction with the Digital Legacy Association, she
and Counseling’s annual
has assisted with the implementation of the Digital Death conference that required me to
Survey for the past few years. Dr. Sofka is a past-president invent the term “thanatechnology”
of the President of the Association for Death Education and to capture how the technology of
Counseling and currently serves on the Board of Trustees
the day was being used in death
at Albany Rural Cemetery in Menands, New York.
education and grief counseling.

Never in my wildest dreams could

I have imagined that I would
spend the next 27 years of my
career being fascinated by the
ways that these ever-evolving
resources would change the way
that society deals with death,
non-death loss, grief, and tragedy
and the need to contemplate the
potential for digital immortality
and how to plan for one’s digital
legacy.

This presentation will include

a summary of my scholarship,
including the roles of digital and
social media in death notification,
coping with grief, commemoration
Exhibition

Many-Headed Self
Roxanne Hoffman
Many-Headed Self is a collection of speculative objects that interpret memory and digital identity
in five senses. Using mediums of digital fabrication, data visualization, self-tracking, and biological
materiality, the work contests the separation between digital persistence and rituals of memory,
decay, and legacy.

Many-Textured Self - This data physicalization

represents memory through segments forming a
leaf using changes in emotion, people, and heart
rate through acts of remembrance to generate
form.

Many-Sensed Self - Physarum polycephalum, an acellular slime

mold, moves toward food sources amorphously through networked
branches for collective consumption. The enclosure’s layers embed
the sense of place to observe instinctual navigation through spatial
Many-Scented Self - Reminiscent of scratch- memory.
and-sniff, this piece explores the relationship
between scent and self. Eight essential oils are
printed as layers in the artist’s fingerprint pattern,
from bamboo to black pepper.

Many-Voiced Self - The reflexivity of seashells

is transformed to capture sonic heirlooms by
coupling a wearable jewelry audio recorder and a
speaker-embedded conch receiver. In this piece
peripheral audio is recorded, processed, and
conveyed as a legacy object decaying through
listening.

Many-Illuminated Self - Memory growth and reflection are made

visible through a juxtaposition of memory leaf data visualizations
and video footage from the artist’s experience.
Exhibition

The Digital Afterlife of Grief

Ginger Liu
How we deal with grief is challenged in the digital age where the dead are resurrected and
converse with us. New stages of grief are triggered by interactive technology that enables us to
maintain a relationship with the dead. In grief therapy, letting go is replaced by the continuing
bonds approach where grief is present and infinite and is worked through with the constant
presence or dialogue with the dead.

Death is at the heart of photography. We cling to these images of the dead as evidence of them
once being alive. We pour over the flat surfaces of our dead loved ones wanting more than a
photograph can ever give. In death, we are left behind in unsatisfied grief.

AI technology allows us to maintain present and infinite communication with our dead. Re-
animation technology is challenging the definition of what a photograph is. They are no longer a
moment frozen in time but an inception for AI and machine learning to create a moving identity.
Photography has had its day. The photograph as a referent of our identity will be replaced by
an AI Hologram.
Exhibition

Poems of a Broken Heart

The Last Breath
Dr Katrin Gerber
Research poetry is a novel arts-based method of data analysis and dissemination, which allows We were watching him
researchers to craft innovative and engaging poems from qualitative data. The process of poem Breathing,
creation is a search for the most engaging, telling, and provocative words, sentences and phrases The rattle,
that enable the reader to see, hear and feel participants’ experiences. To create research poetry, Talking to him,
no artistic or poetic experience is required but curiosity is essential.
So tired,
Waiting
For the next intake.
He’s not breathing.
...
..
.
I’m a widow.

Too fragile Grief in Older People - A project of the Melbourne

Ageing Research Collaboration, Poem written by
Dr Katrin Gerber based on Carmen,
71 years, bereaved wife, Artwork by Claire Ganzon
Rituals have changed.
Funerals were men's business.
The men went off to the graveside.
We will present a selection of research poems that have been brought to life through digital
The women stayed behind storytelling and illustrations crafted by local artists. These poems focus not only on the sadness but
And prepared the cups of tea, also on the resilience, strength and courage that can come from a significant loss. Our research
poems offer first-person insights into the isolated and often hidden world of grief and have the
Their emotions too fragile
power to create an emotional bond between the bereaved participants and the audience. They
To deal with such things. are therefore a highly effective method to challenge ageist assumptions and draw attention to
the bereavement needs of older people.

One more game

My father had a full life.

He’s been an inspiration.
Grief in Older People - A project of the Melbourne Ageing Research Collaboration, Poem written
by Dr Katrin Gerber based on Thomas, 77 years, bereaved son, Artwork by Claire Ganzon A social person,
Always fun to be with.

He was a good prankster.

His sense of humour
Has rubbed off
I have applied research poetry as an innovative method to capture the experiences of bereaved
He was a good listener.
Australians over the age of 65 as well as those of family doctors and nurses who are supporting
I try to be.
grieving older patients. Combined with data from a national survey, our research highlighted that
bereavement did not only affect older people’s wellbeing but also their physical health as pain
and pre-existing medical conditions worsened after a loss. Family doctors were gatekeepers to the He was a good chess player.

healthcare system but struggled to recognise grief in older people. Many held ageist assumptions Used to beat me
that older people were well prepared to deal with grief because they had so much exposure to loss. All the time.
These stereotypes can prevent older adults from seeking and finding the right support. My father had a great life.
I wish I could play chess with him
Again.

Grief in Older People - A project of the Melbourne Ageing Research

Collaboration, Poem written by Dr Katrin Gerber based on Jos,
73 years, bereaved son, Artwork by Claire Ganzon
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The 6th International Symposium of the Death

Online / Research Network, 2023