What do we leave behind?
HORAI began with two questions: how do we remember someone who has died, and what would we like to leave behind ourselves? The service brings these questions together around a personal digital archive. Diaries, achievements and everyday records become material that loved ones can return to and use to create keepsakes.
Two different experiences of loss
Desk research and interviews explored attitudes toward death, mourning rituals and ways of expressing grief. Two personas gave the project its direction: a younger person dealing with a loss, and an older person thinking about their own death. Their journeys stay separate because their needs begin at different moments.
Early ideas ranged from physical keepsakes to digital assistance and access to professionals. Comparing existing services helped extend the proposal beyond funeral arrangements. A personal archive became the common starting point, allowing several forms of remembrance to grow from the same records.
An archive with several uses
The archive would hold diaries, achievements, questionnaires and other personal records. People could build it during their lifetime and decide how it could be accessed later. Relatives could use the records to make physical keepsakes or revisit memories. The concept also explores more speculative forms of companionship through digital representations of loved ones.
Providing these services would bring families, manufacturers and professional service providers together. The service structure connects their responsibilities with the movement of information, objects and payments, and includes oversight of privacy and ethical concerns.
Access, consent and care
The service blueprint follows both journeys from finding HORAI to using the archive and receiving a keepsake. Account access and permissions are part of this experience, especially when responsibility for an archive passes to someone else. Privacy, consent and the emotional effects of a digital representation remain important questions for further development.
