Project Themes

Project Themes

The Long Version: The themes of this project were generated from interests and preconceptions I had coming back into masters, as well as a unique studio material first approach. Every time I present this project in person, I always refer to a short personal anecdote which acted as the thematic catalyst for this project.

This anecdote begins with the use of Facebook. The platform has been present in my life since my early memories, and every major milestone since that point has been processed and logged on its servers. This is true not just Facebook but other areas of the internet such as cloud-based memory storage and third-party data capture (cookies etc.). Not only have fragments of my life been preserved but also that of my friends and family. These fragments have been linked, tagged and algorithmised for the viewing of present and future generations.

Social Media was always the same in the beginning - posting, liking and sharing things with the living. The key word in this intended usage is ‘living’, which led me to think about what happens to this plethora of data when someone passes? When one of my family members did pass around 10 years ago, I thought nothing of the profile left behind, but in recent years I found myself returning to this profile to reference an image posted by that individual. What I noticed was that the profile was still active. Those fragments still accessed and shared by connections of the deceased, returning at key milestones to not just publicly share those frozen fragments but also add to them, another part of the story added in the comments by another.

What we are all observing is the beginning of our digital legacy, a large cultural shift in bereavement and mourning from the physical world to the virtual. When I refer to this ‘shift’ I mean the period following what would be considered the initial ritual process. The looking back. This raises various questions; if these fragments are preserved then how do we protect them? How will this affect mourning rituals going forward? Is there a material change that can aid in this cultural shift? If so, how could this material affect the Virtual?

This project begins with a raw material called Magnetite but begins to add and explore other themes and progress into a cohesive narrative, ready to be expanded and explored architecturally in Semester 2.

The Short Version: Digital Legacy, Material Response, Burial Issues, Ritual Process and how is this changing going forward?