Ecologies of Care x Natalia Sánchez Querubín | The haunting digital - Workshop I

Living in a connected world also means grieving in a connected world.

Losing someone generates a materiality of absence, be that letters, photographs, and a person’s belongings, and now of late, digital objects such as photos on one’s phone and clouds, WhatsApp messages, voice messages, social media accounts, and emails.

These objects (and data) evoke comfort and connection as well as a sense of haunting. Digital things exist between the material and immaterial, always present in mobile devices while vulnerable to deletion. Losing the last WhatsApp messages sent by loved ones because of an app update, losing a phone with precious photos and videos, visiting the social media accounts of people missing, and texting with the dead are all contemporary grief-related experiences.

In this workshop, Natalia Sánchez Querubín invites you to discuss the concept of the haunting digital, share theoretical or personal examples, and speculate (and perhaps design) rituals for caring, conserving, translating, and letting go of digital objects.

If you feel related to this topic and would like to attend, sign up via THIS LINK.

Location and time TBD

Natalia is a member of the ARIAS thematic line Ecologies of Care and Assistant Professor at the @uva_amsterdam