The beginning…

Here it is, my (Friso de Hartog, that is) blog. I’ve never been much of a blogger, wasn’t really attracted to the whole online diary thing, but from now on, that’ll change, I guess. The reason that I started this blog is because of the latest project I am involved in: 1ive0n1ine.

I am a student at the Hogeschool van de Kunsten Utrecht (HKU), and since the beginning of the schoolyear of 2007/2008 I do an interimship at a company called Cellspace, lokated in Amsterdam at the NDSM terrain. In October ‘07 I met one of the fouders of Cellspace, Minne Belger, at a project exhibition at school. He asked me to be in charge of a project he had been planning on since 2001. The project would be called Deathlog (later on, we would change the name into 1ive0n1ine, to give it a more positive swing) The goal of the project would be to investigate the possibilities of something that he called Virtual Immortality.

The reason he had began the thinking procces that would eventually lead to the beginning of the 1ive0n1ine project was impersonated in Alex de Jong, Buddhist priest and co-founder of Cellspace. In 2001, he heard the terrible news that he suffered from an incurable form of cancer. He wouldn’t have much time left. Talking about this with Minne, the idea of Virtual Immortality arose. Alex is a frequent internet user, as well as a busy blogger (his blog is at http://scanr.net). For many years he has roamed the internet, visiting sites, leaving comments, posting blogs. “Afer I die, what will remain of me on the internet?” he asked himself. And with that question, it all began. The goal of the project then called Deathlog would be to gather this information, and make it into something that would remain active online, even after one’s death.

That is where I came into the game. My objective would be to try and find out what was needed to pull this seemingly outrageous idea from thoughtspace into reality…

The first problem I encountered was this: Although, until now, I haven’t been much of a blogger, I too, have left a trail of digital footprints. Scattered all over the internet, is the proof of my online existence. But what does this information really say about me?

To be continued…