Designing Virtual Funerals as a Design Fiction: A Film-Based Exploration of Near-Future Memorial Rituals

This paper explores the design and future potential of virtual funerals, enabling both in-person and remote participation, with options to digitally revisit and update the memorial site. While virtual funerals gained prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic and are often seen as temporary, the authors argue that they hold long-term value across different contexts. To investigate future funeral practices, we created a Design Fiction film depicting our concept of virtual funerals in Japan using Diegetic Prototypes—hypothetical technologies that envision a future in which these practices are normalized. Key themes include hybrid attendance, virtual memorial spaces, and technologies that bridge in-person, remote, and revisiting participants. The authors and a professional crew created the film collaboratively to illustrate these speculative elements. This paper details the film’s production, its design rationale, and the broader implications for how HCI design and technology could shape future mourning and memorialization practices.