Suicide effects: designing for death

This paper presents design ideas and suggestions for digital signage systems within the Tokyo transportation system to create and nurture social and community engagement around the phenomena of train suicide. This method of taking one's own life is widespread in Japan and repeatedly cripples the schedules of trains creating delays. The authors of this study have conducted field research and interviewed a number of participants on their perception of suicide in the train system and their observation of other passengers' behaviour. Our analysis has shown that a tragic act, such as suicide, offers multiple views and departure points for design. The outcomes of the paper, aside from analysis of collected data, are ideas and suggestions for designs and design guidance for particular urban spaces and insights into the design of urban systems that foster community awareness and engagement.

[1]  T. Kimura.  Keitai, Blog, and Kuuki‐wo‐yomu (Read the atmosphere): Communicative Ecology in Japanese Society , 2010 .

[2]  M. Pinguet.  La mort volontaire au Japon , 1984 .

[3]  J. Pirkis,et al.  Suicide and the media. Part I: Reportage in nonfictional media. , 2001, Crisis.

[4]  Gillian Rose,et al.  Doing Family Photography: The Domestic, The Public and The Politics of Sentiment , 2010 .

[5]  M. Polanyi,et al.  Knowing and being : essays , 1969 .

[6]  Clay Shirky.  Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations , 2008 .

[7]  H. Baum.  Review of: Mark D. West, Law in Everyday Japan. Sex, Sumo, Suicide, and Statutes, Chicago 2005, 279 S. , 2006 .

[8]  Lev Manovich,et al.  The poetics of augmented space , 2006 .

[9]  THE AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION. , 1905, Science.

[10]  Chikako Ozawa-de Silva,et al.  Too Lonely to Die Alone : Internet Suicide Pacts and Existential Suffering in Japan , 2008 .

[11]  R. Detels,et al.  Comparative Study about Methods of Suicide between Japan and the United States , 2004, Journal of epidemiology.

[12]  Mizuko Ito,et al.  Personal, Portable, Pedestrian: Mobile Phones in Japanese Life , 2006 .

[13]  Chikako Ozawa-de Silva.  Too Lonely to Die Alone: Internet Suicide Pacts and Existential Suffering in Japan , 2008 .

[14]  Kenton O'Hara,et al.  A diary study of information capture in working life , 2000, CHI.

[15]  Melvin Pollner,et al.  Dirty Work Designations: Their Features and Consequences in a Psychiatric Setting , 1976 .

[16]  Kenton O'Hara,et al.  Dealing with mobility: understanding access anytime, anywhere , 2001, TCHI.

[17]  Boris E. R. de Ruyter,et al.  Introduction to this Special Issue * on Awareness Systems Design , 2007 .

[18]  Mirjam Struppek,et al.  The social potential of Urban Screens , 2006 .

[19]  A. Strauss,et al.  The discovery of grounded theory: strategies for qualitative research aldine de gruyter , 1968 .

[20]  Hisaaki Yamanouchi.  Mishima Yukio and his Suicide , 1972, Modern Asian Studies.

[21]  M. Gould.  Suicide and the Media , 2001, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences.

[22]  Bruno Latour,et al.  Politics of Nature: How to Bring the Sciences into Democracy , 1999 .

[23]  Madhu C. Reddy,et al.  Temporality in Medical Work: Time also Matters , 2006, Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW).

[24]  Michael Massimi,et al.  Dying, death, and mortality: towards thanatosensitivity in HCI , 2009, CHI Extended Abstracts.

[25]  A. Strauss,et al.  ANGUISH; A CASE HISTORY OF A DYING TRAJECTORY , 1972 .

[26]  A. Strauss.  A SOCIAL WORLD PERSPECTIVE* , 2012 .

[27]  M. Bassin,et al.  Politics from Nature , 2007 .

[28]  Michael Warner.  Publics and Counterpublics , 2002 .