On rituals of goodbye

Griefwork is oriented around letting go and saying goodbye. In grief counselling, the key focus is to help the living accept the reality of loss, process grief, and transform their relationship to the deceased while beginning a different chapter of life. One of the key things I recognised through the interviews and literature research is that grief counsellors are not huge fans of griefbots, and even warned that perhaps they should come with warning labels that it could increase grief. This is because griefbots are premised upon the semblance of the deceased, and are designed to generate some sense of continuity – you can still text with someone, as if they are still around. This runs counter to the emphasis on transformation – a creation of a new kind of bond that would allow them to stay connected to the deceased while slowly moving on.

In one of the most popular imaginations of grief tech, Netflix series Black Mirror’s Be Right Back episode depicts an isolated Martha talking on the phone constantly with artificially-constructed dead boyfriend Ash, after she uploaded his social media profiles and chat history to a newly available digital service. Immersed in shock and pain after his sudden death, Martha spent most of her days with the digital version of him while ignoring her real-life sister’s concerned messages and calls. This is a real risk that comes with grief technologies – that of isolation and addiction – and a refusal to truly say goodbye.

Digital mourning can turn the grieving process into a solo experience with a screen, when someone needs support and community the most. Traditional rituals, such as wakes, are built around bringing family members together for community-based mourning.

Historically, Buddhist and Taoist funeral rites last 49 days, believed to be the liminal period between lives, until the soul reincarnates in the next life. Prayer and offering ceremonies are arranged during this period, with specific rites at 7-day intervals. In contemporary times, depending on the beliefs and practices of individual families, this process tends to be simplified, and a wake might only last a few days. In traditional village practices in the New Territories, specific reburial rites are carried out 6-7 years after the initial burial, involving processes like bone cleaning and moving the remains to bone urns. Remains might even be buried a third time and moved to a brick-made eternal grave. Even though this practice is dying out, I am fascinated by the extended duration involved in processing dead remains of ancestors. Aside from annual visits to graves and columbaria to pay respects, these rituals suggest a continued relationship that is material in nature, where mourners have to grapple with the physicality of death at marked intervals. Moreover, ancestors are commemorated by name in an altar of ancestral tablets that remain for five generations.

These longer processes of ritual and memorialisation in community allow for ‘contact’ beyond the funeral, and for the family to gather again to organise the reburials. As these traditional practices fade into obscurity, I wonder whether mediated relationships with the dead through digital devices and services fill the lacuna left behind. If traditional practices unfold over decades, what kinds of technology do we truly need in order to facilitate a long, durational process of mourning and healing in community?

In addition, I think about the physical nature of these processes. The sensation of touch is important in the processes of saying goodbye – gently holding the dead in the process of clothing them for the funeral, folding paper offerings of joss paper, burning offerings and lighting incense sticks, the sensations of folding their clothes and putting away their belongings, the warmth of hugs from loved ones in support… in stark contrast to the cold, flattened experience of touching a keyboard, a screen, or a VR controller.

In Meeting You, a documentary produced by South Korean broadcaster Munhwa Broadcasting Corp in 2020, a grieving mother meets her dead child reproduced in VR, pieced together through the concerted effort of 6 studios to create a realistic replica of her voice, body, and mannerisms. Wearing VR gloves that would mimick the sensation of pressure when touching the avatar, the audience watches a devastated mother reaching out to stroke her child’s hair, lamenting the impossibility to hold her once again in her arms. Designed to fulfill the mother’s wish to see her daughter again 3 years after her passing, the experiment is meant to enable a final goodbye, and is co-created with the wishes of the family in mind. How can digital mourning support the otherwise multi-sensorial experience of life itself and the process of saying goodbye?