What are bits?

What are atoms?

What do you gain when you convert from atoms to bits?

What do you lose when you convert from atoms to bits?

What makes a person want to visualise their death, or the

death of a loved one in a virtual space?

Do virtual graveyards provide a space for long distant families to grieve together?

Can we create a place of mourning which is non-site specific?

What happens to our digital information when we die?

What happens to our personal computer when we die?

Is it possible to remove all information on a computer and return it to a pristine state, rebirth? Could we assist a computer in committing suicide?

Is there room for a profession of computer auditing? What would the security issues be behind this profession?

In the future will people have a section of their wills that deals with their digital selves?

Do all our virtual identities die with us?

Can digital information become a form of immortality?

What happens when our information dies before we do?

Ashes to Ashes. Dust to Bits.

What are the virtual ashes of a person's digital life/ persona? What happens to your computer when you die? Who has the passwords? How is the information divided? Are there areas of your computer you would never want anyone to see? I am looking at the idea of a computer mortician which would come in after a person had died and construct a post mortem on their computer. Dividing and categorizing the information in order to pass it on to the family in a form of digital ashes, or bitdust.

In order to experiment with these ideas i have set about exposing all the information on my own computer. I have questioned what opinion people would have of me if all they had to go on was my digital self? Does the digital self lie? For example my movie collection is not a representation of me as it was taken directly from my friend Mark. Is i-tunes a better representative, well no because the majority of most people's i-tunes is an amalgamation of all their friends music.

However it is not just the information on your computer that you have to think about, it is also all the information about you online all your virual identies your Facebook, My Space and Flickr accouts, what will happen to them when you die? Would you want them to be closed immeadiatly or left open as a tribute?

This begins to question, why do we not have a section in our will that deals with our digital selves?