Digital Remains 2006

Der Gedanke

Was passiert mit unseren Daten, wenn wir sterben?

Die Form

Digital Remains setzt sich mit der Rolle von Daten bei der Erinnerung an verstorbene Angehörige auseinander. Es ist eine konzeptuelle Arbeit, die eine Welt annimmt, in der Daten in digitalen Netzwerken in generationsübergreifenden Archiven gespeichert sind. Diese Daten werden über physische Zugriffs-Schlüssel (digitale Urnen) erreicht, so dass diese zu Objekten der Erinnerung an die Verstorbenen werden.

Mit den digitalen Urnen loggen sich die Hinterbliebenen in den digitalen Nachlass der Verstorbenen ein.

Paula Antonelli, Kuratorin der ‚Design and the Elastic Mind‘-Ausstellung spricht über Digital Remains:

„You are looking at three beautiful round artefacts. They are very nicely crafted, possibly by hand, and you will notice that they carry a name and two dates: One is the date of birth and the other is the date of death.

This is a beautiful and very poetic work by Michele Gauler, called Digital Remains. It’s based on the idea that as more and more of our lives become digital, our loved ones will want to keep not only our physical but also our digital effects after we are gone.

Each disk contains someones digital remains – images, music and documents, compiled from the various hard drives, networks and webpages created during a life time. When you move a disk close to a computer it can connect to that computer via bluetooth and share the deceased’s digital remains. A programme inside the disc can even search for the media that are most appropriate for the viewer. For a friend, it might show pictures of a party that that friend attended with the deceased, but for relatives it might show a video of a family vacation.

It is a response to the digitisation of our world. To the increased central role of electronic media in storing not only the minutia of our lives but also our ideas, inspirations, aspirations and memories.“

Digital Remains in Veröffentlichungen

• LiQin Tan (2018): Singularity Art: The Evolution of Future Art Under the Impact of Singularity of Science and Technology, News Center, Jinan University
• Tim Parsons (2008): Thinking : Objects – Contemporary Approaches to Product Design, AVA Academia Advanced, 2008
• Paula Antonelli, Hugh Aldersey-Williams, Peter Hall, Ted Sargent (2008): Design and the Elastic Mind, Thames & Hudson