Variable Proximities: calculations of closeness | diagrams of distance

Abstract

Does grief have data? Centralizing friendship, this work investigates love and loss through the search for, analysis of , and visualizations from the data embedded in grief. Situated in proximity, what would data science and the grieving process, seemingly incommensurate entities, reveal? Would grief come into relief or recess in such a paradigm? Mining archives collected over a 10-year friendship, the author conducts an intimate and vulnerable forensic investigation into a complex friendship, death, and grief. This work seeks to quantify the impact of friendship and loss and encourages the reader to consider their own relationships and grief through the lens of data and ephemerality.