Let me imagine I can live until 2100, at the age of 106, has grandson who forms a pretty good relationship with me. It is unbelievable to imagine these as an unmarried woman, I still even struggle with having a child or not at present. But I have to do this as a service designer, to imagine if I die, how the livings who love me can heal themselves? So with the unlimited possibilities that speculative design gives me, let’s start with horizon scanning.
In the year of 2100, I am planning my funeral on the cyber world. At that time, the augmented reality and virtual reality technology has become popular. I will have recorded all my words and displayed online. The funeral will not be a place to cry and say goodbye. It will show everyone who I am as a real person, the food I love to eat and cook, the movie I love to watch on Saturday night and the music I will sing when I walk alone on the road. I will leave my spiritual treasure — maybe through the formation of image, video, with my voice to my grandson and even their children.
All of these will be kept on the cyber world, where everyone has a space to be remembered and commemorated by the living people. My friend on social media who I never meet in person will also be invited. They may not know that I was a old Chinese granny when I post the cutest dog and cat pictures everyday. All my data of the social media will be reorganized and managed by my relatives or the professionals I designate. I will sign a contract with them showing the data security and privacy protection.
I will invite all my family to join a family meeting as a workshop. I will ask everyone to talk about death and what our collective memory treasure. We will brainstorm a tool or an idea to memory me if they feel missing me or want to find someone dead to talk with. For the relatives who couldn’t show up in person, they will join by using AR technology. The whole workshop process will be recorded and upload on the family memorial network space.
The death shows some serious sides of life. Some people avoid talking about the topic. Some people think the death problem will be resolved in 100 years, for the soul can be forever existed in some other forms. Some death memorial methods have moral, ethical and legal controversies. Even in different cultural background, people have different attitude towards death. What I imagine for my funeral couldn’t be accepted by Chinese culture at present, while I have no idea if it will have some changes in 100 years. And the cyber space will also meet huge changes with tech develops. But all human have the same missing emotion towards their loving people. For service designer, it is meaningful to relieve people’s pain by understanding death.
