Post-Mortem Data
Produced an exploratory zine that examines what happens to our digital data after death, reframing it as an inheritance that shapes how we mourn, remember, and imagine legacy in the digital age.
Produced an exploratory zine that examines what happens to our digital data after death, reframing it as an inheritance that shapes how we mourn, remember, and imagine legacy in the digital age.
Role
Product Designer
Product Designer
Tools/Skills
Adobe Illustrator, InDesign
Adobe Illustrator, InDesign
Team
Solo Project
Solo Project
Duration
6 weeks (2025)
6 weeks (2025)
Introduction
Emerging technologies have redefined grief
Death is a deeply personal and difficult topic for me. Beyond fear, it is the loss itself that I struggle to process. After my grandmother passed away, it took years to come to terms with her absence. These feelings resurfaced while working on my previous piece, Lola AI, a short film that explores identity loss after my first visit to the Philippines. In it, I wished I could seek guidance from my grandmother, or lola in Tagalog.
To explore this, I used old audio recordings to recreate her voice and built a chatbot from stories shared by my family. While the process felt cathartic, I was acutely aware that it was not truly her, no matter how much I wished it to be. This experience made me reflect on the lengths people will go to revive memories of loved ones. With AI advancing rapidly, it became clear that this is increasingly possible. This raised a bigger question for me: what really happens to our data after we die?
Death is a deeply personal and difficult topic for me. Beyond fear, it is the loss itself that I struggle to process. After my grandmother passed away, it took years to come to terms with her absence. These feelings resurfaced while working on my previous piece, Lola AI, a short film that explores identity loss after my first visit to the Philippines. In it, I wished I could seek guidance from my grandmother, or lola in Tagalog.
To explore this, I used old audio recordings to recreate her voice and built a chatbot from stories shared by my family. While the process felt cathartic, I was acutely aware that it was not truly her, no matter how much I wished it to be. This experience made me reflect on the lengths people will go to revive memories of loved ones. With AI advancing rapidly, it became clear that this is increasingly possible. This raised a bigger question for me: what really happens to our data after we die?
Sneak Peek
Exploring the ownership of our data and thanatechnology
Memory and Identity: My Personal Connection to the Internet
I wanted to explore how the internet acts as a repository of memory and a lens for identity. I traced my life in a timeline of digital data and revisited the online spaces that shaped my childhood curiosity and creativity. It highlights how our online presence preserves experiences, reflects growth, and shapes how we understand ourselves.
Memory and Identity: My Personal Connection to the Internet
I wanted to explore how the internet acts as a repository of memory and a lens for identity. I traced my life in a timeline of digital data and revisited the online spaces that shaped my childhood curiosity and creativity. It highlights how our online presence preserves experiences, reflects growth, and shapes how we understand ourselves.
Memory and Identity: My Personal Connection to the Internet
I wanted to explore how the internet acts as a repository of memory and a lens for identity. I traced my life in a timeline of digital data and revisited the online spaces that shaped my childhood curiosity and creativity. It highlights how our online presence preserves experiences, reflects growth, and shapes how we understand ourselves.
Grief: How It Appears on the Internet
I also investigated how grief manifests in digital spaces. Online platforms allow for memorialization, mobilization, and shared expressions of loss, creating new ways to process and witness mourning. It also considers the role of AI in bringing back the voices or presence of loved ones, raising the question: is it so wrong to use technology to reconnect with those we have lost?
Grief: How It Appears on the Internet
I also investigated how grief manifests in digital spaces. Online platforms allow for memorialization, mobilization, and shared expressions of loss, creating new ways to process and witness mourning. It also considers the role of AI in bringing back the voices or presence of loved ones, raising the question: is it so wrong to use technology to reconnect with those we have lost?
Power & Law
This theme examines who controls our data after we die and how technology companies monetize our grief. It highlights the tension between personal legacy and corporate ownership, questioning the ethics of digital inheritance and the commercialization of memory. By exploring legal, social, and technological frameworks, it asks how we can ensure that our digital presence respects our intentions and preserves our identity beyond life.
Power & Law
This theme examines who controls our data after we die and how technology companies monetize our grief. It highlights the tension between personal legacy and corporate ownership, questioning the ethics of digital inheritance and the commercialization of memory. By exploring legal, social, and technological frameworks, it asks how we can ensure that our digital presence respects our intentions and preserves our identity beyond life.
Process
Synthesizing my findings to conceptualize themes
Beginning Stage
Research process of where does our data go after we die
In short, the research argues that digital death isn’t just about memory—it’s about power, ethics, and fragility. Who gets remembered (and how) is determined less by families and more by corporations, code, and contested politics of digital legacy.
Beginning Stage
Research process of where does our data go after we die
In short, the research argues that digital death isn’t just about memory—it’s about power, ethics, and fragility. Who gets remembered (and how) is determined less by families and more by corporations, code, and contested politics of digital legacy.
Beginning Stage
Research process of where does our data go after we die
In short, the research argues that digital death isn’t just about memory—it’s about power, ethics, and fragility. Who gets remembered (and how) is determined less by families and more by corporations, code, and contested politics of digital legacy.
Middle Stage
Version 1: Focus solely on the legality of our post-mortem data, felt more informational than personal, what really spoke to me was my own personal experiences, my life has grown being on the internet, how has the internet shaped me and others? Our digital selves and our physical selves are so interwoven, its hard not to talk about digital without mentioning personal experiences and things that might concern us, questions that go beyond just legislation, but emotional stuff too.
Interviewed people about death and data
Middle Stage
Version 1: Focus solely on the legality of our post-mortem data, felt more informational than personal, what really spoke to me was my own personal experiences, my life has grown being on the internet, how has the internet shaped me and others? Our digital selves and our physical selves are so interwoven, its hard not to talk about digital without mentioning personal experiences and things that might concern us, questions that go beyond just legislation, but emotional stuff too.
Interviewed people about death and data
Middle Stage
Version 1: Focus solely on the legality of our post-mortem data, felt more informational than personal, what really spoke to me was my own personal experiences, my life has grown being on the internet, how has the internet shaped me and others? Our digital selves and our physical selves are so interwoven, its hard not to talk about digital without mentioning personal experiences and things that might concern us, questions that go beyond just legislation, but emotional stuff too.
Interviewed people about death and data
Final Outcome
Exploring multiple facets of the digital afterlife
The second version marked a complete revamp of the initial idea. Instead of focusing narrowly on the legality of post-mortem data, I developed a series of themes that all connect to the broader concept of digital life after death. This iteration took the form of a zine that examines the digital afterlife through multiple lenses, blending research, personal reflection, and storytelling.
The zine highlights how our sense of immortality online is ultimately dependent on fragile infrastructures controlled by corporations, governed by law, and shaped by shifting cultural norms. It explores the tension between the permanence we imagine in digital spaces and the impermanence inherent in the systems that store, display, and monetize our data. By framing post-mortem data through these intersecting perspectives, the project emphasizes not only what happens to our digital selves after death but also how this reflects broader questions about identity, memory, and the ethics of technological control.
The second version marked a complete revamp of the initial idea. Instead of focusing narrowly on the legality of post-mortem data, I developed a series of themes that all connect to the broader concept of digital life after death. This iteration took the form of a zine that examines the digital afterlife through multiple lenses, blending research, personal reflection, and storytelling.
The zine highlights how our sense of immortality online is ultimately dependent on fragile infrastructures controlled by corporations, governed by law, and shaped by shifting cultural norms. It explores the tension between the permanence we imagine in digital spaces and the impermanence inherent in the systems that store, display, and monetize our data. By framing post-mortem data through these intersecting perspectives, the project emphasizes not only what happens to our digital selves after death but also how this reflects broader questions about identity, memory, and the ethics of technological control.
Takeaways
Challenging myself to form something out of my typical style and medium
Project outcomes
This project expanded my skills in Adobe Illustrator and InDesign, allowing me to experiment with layout, typography, and visual storytelling in ways I had not before. It pushed me to think critically about how to communicate complex ideas visually and how to balance aesthetics with clarity.
Why this matters
Print media and zine work are important to me as creative mediums that I value just as much as digital work. I also have a strong interest in data visualization, so this project was an opportunity to explore how to present data in engaging and meaningful ways, going beyond words and numbers to convey stories, patterns, and insights.
Looking ahead
I want to continue exploring the intersection of data, storytelling, and print. This includes experimenting further with riso printing styles and refining my skills in data visualization. I am interested in developing approaches that make data both visually compelling and emotionally resonant, bridging the digital and physical worlds.
Project outcomes
This project expanded my skills in Adobe Illustrator and InDesign, allowing me to experiment with layout, typography, and visual storytelling in ways I had not before. It pushed me to think critically about how to communicate complex ideas visually and how to balance aesthetics with clarity.
Why this matters
Print media and zine work are important to me as creative mediums that I value just as much as digital work. I also have a strong interest in data visualization, so this project was an opportunity to explore how to present data in engaging and meaningful ways, going beyond words and numbers to convey stories, patterns, and insights.
Looking ahead
I want to continue exploring the intersection of data, storytelling, and print. This includes experimenting further with riso printing styles and refining my skills in data visualization. I am interested in developing approaches that make data both visually compelling and emotionally resonant, bridging the digital and physical worlds.
Project outcomes
This project expanded my skills in Adobe Illustrator and InDesign, allowing me to experiment with layout, typography, and visual storytelling in ways I had not before. It pushed me to think critically about how to communicate complex ideas visually and how to balance aesthetics with clarity.
Why this matters
Print media and zine work are important to me as creative mediums that I value just as much as digital work. I also have a strong interest in data visualization, so this project was an opportunity to explore how to present data in engaging and meaningful ways, going beyond words and numbers to convey stories, patterns, and insights.
Looking ahead
I want to continue exploring the intersection of data, storytelling, and print. This includes experimenting further with riso printing styles and refining my skills in data visualization. I am interested in developing approaches that make data both visually compelling and emotionally resonant, bridging the digital and physical worlds.
made with hojicha.
