RIP Kurt.

Final Scores headstone → Unfortunately this is the only image I have of this. It’s a real headstone I had made for an imaginary service called ‘Final Score Headstones’. The offering was simple; when a person dies, their lifetime data is calculated and engraved on their headstone.

Made for the Science Gallery in 2015, this idea hoped to gently nudge people to consider new questions about death, data and our digital identities. Questions such as; Does this data accurately represent my life? What data would I be OK with being remembered by? Who owns this stuff when I go? Is this data of any value to the people I leave behind?

To track the online conversation, and to avoid being sued, I invented a fake person and Twitter account (@kurtmarkoneill) to have engraved on the headstone.

I think you’ll agree Kurt lived a full and varied life.


The headstone got some nice attenion here, here, here and here.