Hybrid Cemetery Culture: Making Death Matter in Cultural Heritage Using Smart Mobile Technologies

This paper discusses the urban cemetery as a site of intangible cultural practices and ubiquitous computing as an approach to enhance heritage sites. The paper introduces an experience assessment tool as a mobile phone application that audio-visually augments a heritage interpretation programme, using a contemporary Danish urban cemetery as case. It discusses a number of emerging digital platforms for mourning, heritage and online remembrance that influence the use of the urban cemetery today, and show the potentials of learning and experience from tethering burial sites with augmented mobile mediations of historic heritage information and cultural practices of remembrance. The paper concludes, that an augmentation of the urban cemetery culture points to a high significance amongst citizens, and that experience design through mobile technologies promises an enhanced meaning in an often overlooked urban site. Due to the sensitive subject matter of death and mourning, the participation of the public in general faces challenges that need attention when planning a cultural heritage programme.