In most parts of the USA, graves are visited for funerals and then by the family for a bit on anniversaries. In my other cultures, we have annual visits and celebrations for _everyone_. Personally, the way the passing of the soul through the veil is embraced and integrated along with opportunities for continued dialogue and engagement, is critical to me. I do not know that technology is the key to further the experience in the USA, but as a thought experiment on ways to bring about a new attitude toward death and graves, for a culture with a very opposing attitude and a long history of disgust/disinterest, I wanted to think about an engaging, joyful, artistic approach to encourage an individual to create for their passing and then for others to participate more frequently and with a positive outlook thereafter. Hence INGA.

INGA: Intelligent Networked Grave Archive — Black box to hold the hologram displays. The idea of artist retrospectives and then public and private persona [that woman outed as a lesbian after death and andy warhol’s hospital coat pockets], authority, authored, control, authenticity, credibility — what we lose after death and burial.

At our burial / memorial place, we may use a stand-in for ourselves but it could be one more in-tune with our psyche and one which we may have greater confidence in. we could even have a hand in its creation directly such as programming it. Also, since we are in fact made up of all the influences of our experiences, but our experiences are left as traces and memories, and we become a part of all the others with whom we interact, share experience — we become aspects of their memories, we become traces in their personalities. And so a storytelling or interactive gravesite, one that at first tells our stories, our memories, would go on to evolve our trace like other humans, but also could capture engagement with it at the gravesite, thus incorporating experiences with visitors into future engagement with later visitors, Similar to a memory book, but more abstracted and more interactive, to maintain authenticity but also inspire a sense of wonder and ‘magic’. Reinforce beautiful propagation, interconnectedness.

Graveyards: memorials but not often archives. They can make for interesting material if we think of famous ones, public space, re-visitation like replayability.

Decaying bodies and shifting ashes — science, reliquaries, truth, voice after death — live-stream of decay (death-stream)

Autonomous Voice after death — Self archive rather than relying on ancestors, history, serendipitous chance

Network — we are connected now in life through networks AND we have the Internet of Things, natural evolution could be a network after death