Welcome to The Art of Memorialising (TOaM), Digital Legacy Edition #20.
Whether you’re interesting in exploring the cutting edge of digital afterlife and digital immortality, or curious about the art of preserving your life stories, TAoM is here helping you leave a meaningful legacy online and off.
In This Issue:
How using music can help us connect with our memories, and create a unique digital legacy for life storytelling.
Exploring how #GriefTech and #GriefBots are reshaping our farewells to loved ones.
Can AI truly help end mourning, or does it risk extending grief indefinitely?
What will happen to our parents' social media posts after they pass?
Legal rights for digital twins: are new regulations enough to protect our #Digitallegacy?
Featured Product - Playlist for Life - ‘Moments of happiness and flashes of joy.’
What piece of music can instantly take you back to a particular moment, person, or place in your life?
What song’s opening notes are enough for you to recall a memory from your childhood perhaps years ago? (For me, it’s Rosemary Clooney singing, ‘Me and My Teddy Bear.’)
Here’s an amazing truth.
For those living with dementia, music can reach parts of their world, when spoken words from loved ones cannot.
This is the incredible work undertaken by the charity, Playlist for Life who I want to highlight this month. (I’m grateful for one of the readers of TAoM who introduced me to the charity.)
Music has unique power.
You may know a person or caregiver, who could find their resources of tremendous benefit by creating a personal playlist for someone.
Even for those of us not facing life slowly taking our memories away a day at a time, we can use music to recover a memory from our past. It’s another creative way of digitally documenting our life for the next generation.
Playlist for Life encourages people to create personalised playlists that serve as bridges to their life stories.
Imagine curating a soundtrack that reflects the chapters of your life—from the songs of your childhood, to the anthems of your adolescence, and beyond.
This personal playlist could serve as a unique #DigitialLegacy keepsake, helping you capture your life story in an accessible, emotional way, to share with your descendants.
Not sure which songs were the songs of your youth?
Published by Playlist for Life, and based on the work of volunteer Music Detective Peter Grech, The 100 Year Book lists the top 100 tunes in the UK from 1915 to 2015.
To explore their resources and see how music can bring stories to life, visit Playlist for Life.
On Spotify you can find several Playlists for Life - Here’s a link to Sir Alex Ferguson’s playlist. Looking through the playlists there, you might find the perfect combination of either sports, movies, even faith based lists.
If you would be interested in supporting the work of the charity, you can find details of how to donate to Playlist for Life HERE.
Create Your Own Soundtrack To Your Life with Suno Scenes - AI Music Composition
Want to have you own soundtrack to life song created by AI for your memories? Now you can with Suno Scenes.
Suno Scenes allows creators around the world to inspire new types of songs through captured memories and visual content.
Upload photos or video, choose the genre of the song, and let AI create it for you.
When I first looked at this, I was transfixed by the quality, variation and creativity of A.I to make music. Worth a look and creative experiment.
But make sure you have plenty of time to play. It’s incredible the ways you could use this to create life story memories.
Sponsor Spotlight Opportunity!
Are you pioneering the future of digital legacies or revolutionising how we preserve memories? Do have a non-profit or charity like playlistforlife.org.uk/?
We're seeking innovative companies in the fields of AI, digital immortality, or life story preservation to feature in our next issues.
This is your chance to showcase your product or service to an engaged audience passionate about leaving meaningful digital legacies.
Interested in becoming our next featured sponsor?
Contact me:
5 Memorialisation Morsels
Quick bites of #Deathtech #DigitalImmortality #LifeStory news:
How Is The Rise of #GriefTech and #GriefBots Changing Bereavement? BBC World Service Business Daily. The podcast looks at a growing trend of using artificial intelligence to ‘connect’ people to loved ones who have died. According to TechRound, this business sector is on track to generate £100bn globally. What are the ethical issues when we may never have to say goodbye to those we have loved and lost? (via BBC World Service)
Who Will Win The Race to Optimise Grief and End Mourning As We Know It? In 2023, Sunshine Henle used a ChatGPT-powered “ghostbot” of her late mother to navigate her grief, finding solace in its comforting messages. Henle initially found the AI chatbot more helpful than traditional therapy. Platforms like Replika and HereAfter AI offer us the creation of digital twins and avatars, which could provide future virtual interactions with a deceased loved one. For many people, it’s the ethical concerns around #GriefTech that persist. Questions about consent, dependency, and data privacy after death. What questions does this raise for you? (via vox.com)
Kwillt - A Creative Platform For Digital Life Story Preservation Launches. Kwillt is a new all-in-one platform for digital storytelling and memory preservation. It offers users a digital way to chronicle their lives or honour loved ones. You can use photos, videos, audio, and written stories to create a lasting legacy online. With Kwillt’s two account types—Legacy Patch and Remembrance Patch, you can document your own life milestones or celebrate the memories of those who have passed. Kwillt wants to help in memory keeping and bring families closer during emotional transitions. (via PRN Newswire)
How Could Deceased Social Media Accounts Shape Your Families Future? Do your parents use Facebook? According to Herd Digital, 21.6% of people over 55 have a Facebook account. By 2060 estimated that it will hold 1.2 billion deceased users. Connecting with children, grandchildren, and friends, the platform has been a lifeline for many aging people. In keeping with the featured theme of this issue (playlistforlife.org.uk), what will happen to those accounts as our parents age? Maybe face the challenges of dementia, and eventually pass away? Without a plan, someone could leave these accounts inactive may even even get hacked. Privacy of our life after death is a growing concern for many. Adding a legacy contact is a critical choice to help secure our parents’ wishes. Have your parents added a legacy contact to their Facebook account? Can you help them do it? (via chosun.com) See also: Digital Ghosts: Facebook’s Birthday Alerts for Deceased Friends.
In The Rise of Digital Twins: What Will Be Our Legal Rights Under New EU Regulations? How might legislation answer the developing legal questions about privacy, ownership, and the ethics of legacy AI? Partners at William Fry, Barry Scannell and Leo Moore, consider the rise of unique contemporary legal questions about the ethics of digital immortality AI. In this article, ‘Legal Rights of the Undead AI…’ a Halloween timed post, they consider EU laws, like GDPR, now only offer limited protections for the deceased, leaving digital twins in a grey area. Maybe developing new EU regulations—the AI Act and Digital Services Act—may soon classify legacy AI as high-risk, aiming to prevent misuse and protect users. A concluding question to ponder: Do we have a right to control our legacy in the afterlife, even in a digital sense? (via William Fry)
UPDATE - Eternal You a film by Hans Block & Moritz Riesewieck we profiled last month - is now streaming for free in the UK on BBCiplayer.
The Digital Edition Life Story Writing Prompts.
Here are four life story prompts this month that draw out the deep, often surprising, connections we have with music. Grab a coffee and a journal or blank document and remember.
What is the Soundtrack of Your Life Story?
Was there ever a song that made you see things differently or feel deeply understood? Write about when you first heard it, what it meant then, and how it still resonates with you today.
Consider a major life event—birthdays, weddings, new jobs, or a farewell. Was there music that accompanied that moment? Revisit the scene through the lyrics, melody, and why it became tied to that event.
Reflect on the music passed down to you by parents, grandparents, or close family. Which songs were part of your upbringing? How have they shaped your identity or linked you to family traditions and cultural heritage?
Think of a time when music may have helped you through something difficult. Write about the song or genre you turned to and what it provided—a sense of hope, release, or peace. How has this song remained a support, and what does it mean to you now?
In The Next Issue: The Sundial Series Edition - You Don’t Mess With Memorials!
In the next Sundial Series Edition of TAoM, I’ll share an unforgettable event from my life. It concerns a small Methodist chapel, whose walls are etched with names. Each brick bearing a testament to past lives intertwined with faith, community, and resilience.
I set out to preserve this place. I became its unlikely steward—a guardian of the past for the future. As events unfolded, I learned the importance of ‘Stones of Remembrance,’ not just as markers of history but as living legacies that urge us to pause and reflect.
Because, as Sundial Wisdom’ reminds us while ‘Time Flies,’ our memories and moments can endure.
Heard of a startup in #Deathtech? Please let me know.
Until the next edition of The Art of Memorialising, thanks for reading!
Pete
PS: Whether we're discussing digital memorials or pen-and-paper memoirs, remember: your story matters. Let's make sure it's told, preserved, and cherished for your generations to come.
The Digital Legacy of Sound: How Creating a Personal Playlist Can Keep Stories Alive for Generations