Cemetery Concept
This cemetery concept aims to address unsustainable cemetery practices, exploitation in the funeral industry, and a shift towards digital media in memory-keeping. It is essentially a “liquid columbarium” with a new media framework. With a shared space(s) for visitation, this design depriotizes conspicuous consumption as an expression of care from the grieving. By incorporating AR, VR, and digital media, this concept takes heed of the significance of each individual loss and impact of grief.
Space is limited, not only for the living but also for the dead.
Many are trying to solve this problem already, but death is a multifaceted experience. With so many different aspects to address (logistics, religion, finances, grief, medicine), death is further complicated by the diminishing real estate.
Components
The memorial consists of two bodies of water: a concrete waterfall, and a stream that frames it.
The water from the sculpture falls into the stream and glides over an array of tombstones, each containing one person’s remains. Each of these blocks are engraved with a name, and a place for flowers.
Interaction
Visitors can say a few words or learn more about the departed under the sculpture, where their phones or keys trigger a projection of their loved one’s portrait and obituary.
Visitors may also choose to visit the actual burial site, along the stream framing the sculpture. The physical tombstones containing remains could light up when adorned with flowers or interacted with.
Features to Explore
Recordings
The waterfall could potentially record visitation messages, creating an ancestral record of the memories and messages from visitors. Each person’s legacy would develop through the memories of them left behind by loved ones.
Personalization
Many elements could be customized to fit preferences/identity of the departed (e.g. the color of lights emitted, the light pattern, engravings on the tombstones, materials of the tombstones)
Shifting Tombstones
Is there a way to further maximize the amount of tombstones contained by the stream? Could there be a conveyer belt? Or modular units to extend storage capacity while preserving a sense of importance?
As life becomes more digital, we must consider how to mesh analog and digital worlds in the after-life. Emerging technology could enhance many aspects of the experience of death and dying, including visitation.
Through VR, visitors could learn about the departed immersively. Our legacy is in places and things we leave behind. VR technology could allow visitors to see Grandpa’s old college garage back in the day, or hear him tell the story behind his lucky pair of dice from when he used to play street craps.
Digital Implementation
“These were my lucky dice. I won thousands of bucks with these two things. Uncle Joe tried to steal them from me once and I found them years later in his closet...”
Further Exploration
Similar to a tree burial, this memorial concept moves visitation from each grave to a common place, or perhaps a couple common places (the waterfall), affording visitors a beautiful, meaningful experience that perhaps feels more significant than what they could afford through a more individualistic architecture. However, there are still aspects of this concept that could benefit from research insights and further development:
Decentering Conspicuous Consumption at the Cemetery with New Media
Multimedia archives could replace palpable visible class difference at the cemetery, and consequently monetary exploitation in the funeral industry. With this framework, larger financial investments could go towards (less visible) digital storage space, as opposed to expansive real estate & expensive features. This could mean services such as: antemortem packages for digital memorial services (recording stories, places, etc) or extended storage memory for visitation recordings. Those in mourning can then invest in multimedia memorial practices rather than exotic wooden caskets and big plots of land. What would these practices look like? How would individual multimedia memorials relate to each other, like in a family tree?
Network Implications of New Media Memorial: How to Protect Tech Sovereignty?
With new media at the center of this concept, interrelated family networks becomes an interesting opportunity while data privacy becomes central concern. If each of the departed has their own virtual memorial, how can the relationships and family trees be shown and referenced in their memorials? How can accounts of multiple loved ones be linked through a virtual network? What are the implications of server networks in context with a family tree? How can we protect the privacy of these networks?
Implementation with Existing End-of-Life Frameworks
How can this concept be implemented effectively into existing contexts and factors of end-of-life? How can new methods be integrated with hospice, funeral homes, and churches?
Sustainable Burial
In addition to saving space, this format could potentially normalize alkaline hydrolysis (AKA “liquid burial”), a much more sustainable option than cremation. The aquatic motif of the cemetery could ameliorate some of the hesitation behind “liquid burial.” What are ways liquid remains could fit into this cemetery (e.g. used towards a botanical end)?
Rituals and Ceremonies
What rituals could accompany burial and visitation? How can these rituals allow the grieving to express devotion and feel closure? This could look like knot tying, artifact donation, or voice recordings. How can existing burial rituals be implemented in a new media context? How can this cemetery offer culturally relevant mourning rituals? (What do joss papers mean in a virtual context? How can a sky burial be applied to the cloud? What could ‘spreading ashes’ look like with liquid remains?)
Promoting Earlier Preparation through Cemetery Offerings
The business model of the cemetery could expand the window of preparation with death. How can this cemetery encourages people to think about the memories and relationships they want to memorialize, instead of deciding on how big of a plot they can afford? How can this framework encourage people to start their family history archive?