“ … there is a relative impermanence, fragility, and energetic dynamism on the screen, in some sense reflecting rather than denying the impermanence, fragility, and dynamism of the lives marked by online memorials. Whereas cemeteries and their stones aim to resist change in that they seek endurance over time, the screened web memorials embrace frequent change; the affordances of the media allow the content of web memorials to shift from moment to moment and from day to day, and experiences of web memorials are mediated by the hardware and software used to access them, as well as the vagaries of hypertext links that lead to and from them.” (pp.35)
Arnold, M, Gibbs, M, Kohn, T, Meese, J, & Nansen, B 2017, Death and Digital Media, Taylor & Francis Group, London. Available from: ProQuest Ebook Central. [17 May 2022].
The role a designer may play in the milieu of such relative impermanence is interesting. Given that our online social media account are fast becoming markers of our passing, a UI designer may be seen to create the aesthetic of a million such digital memorials. Where once gravestones stood largely unaltered until eroded by time, now the aesthetic of one’s memorial profile comforms to whatever current style guide is being adopted by tech’s big players.
