Digital Séance: Fabricated Encounters with the Dead

Doron Altaratz () and Tal Morse ()
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Doron Altaratz: Department of Photographic Communications, Hadassah Academic College, Jerusalem 9101001, Israel
Tal Morse: Department of Photographic Communications, Hadassah Academic College, Jerusalem 9101001, Israel

Social Sciences, 2023, vol. 12, issue 11, 1-11

Abstract: Digital afterlife is becoming increasingly possible due to advancements in VR, deepfake, and AI technologies. The use of computational photography for mourning and commemoration has been re-integrated into practices of remembrance, farewell, continuity, and disengagement. Two case studies, the Shoah Foundation’s Dimensions in Testimony and the TV production Meeting You , are analyzed to explore these new possibilities. We show how photography’s new affordances enable interaction while maintaining its essence as a representation of reality and argue that this socio-technological transformation habituates contemporary practices of mourning and commemoration, adjusting images to serve the individual needs and interests of the bereaved and the community.

Keywords: digital immortality; photography; mourning; commemoration; death; AI (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A B N P Y80 Z00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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