Granny Jackson’s Dead: Our Digital Afterlives

What’s on offer?

Join us for an interactive and educational event complete with live performances, audience discussion and the chance to experience some of the new technology used in the show and contribute to our ongoing research around ‘grief tech’.

This project is supported by the Centre for Cultural Value as part of its 'Collaborate Scheme' and will tour the UK in 2024/25.

What’s it about?

'Granny Jackson’s Dead' is an immersive performance exploring technology, memory and mourning, which asks what’s good and what’s not-so-good about the ways that technology is changing our ritual lives. This project is a collaboration with researchers from Manchester Metropolitan University who are working with Big Telly Theatre Company to understand more about what people think about the issues that Granny Jackson’s Dead raises e.g. how can grief technology (‘grief tech’) help us to remember someone after they die? What are the real-world implications of this technology? And finally how can immersive theatre help us to ask these questions?

Who’s leading the event?

Professor Michael Pinchbeck, Dr Josh Edelman (Art and Performance) and Professor Kirsty Fairclough (School of Digital Arts)

Open to

The event is open to visitors who are interested in either immersive theatre as a form of performance, the use of new technology in performance e.g. VR/AR, and/or the themes of the show e.g. mourning, loss etc. We imagine the topic is more suitable for older audiences e.g. 18+ and there are content warnings for some of the visual material and the live excerpts.

Of particular interest to

Certain groups with an interest in end-of-life care and how we manage family rituals e.g. funerals, wakes.

Hospice professionals, counsellors and colleagues from the NHS

Of particular interest to those engaged in making or attending immersive theatre using new technology.