solely for your information: two extracts from old FARAWAY texts: 2

SYMBOLIC PRESENCE

Projects like ‘The Bed’ and ‘Lumitouch’ and partially also ‘Bench’ and ‘Sloganbenches’ play with the cultural connotations of certain objects in order to augment them with technology. These projects build on a mechanism that can be defined as ‘symbolic investment’: objects conventionally invested with either cultural existing meaning or personal new meaning, can act as vessels or vehicles for another person’s presence. Thanks to particular and diverse rules, specific items can become virtual ‘traces’ of something or someone that is not present, or not present anymore. In other words, these objects become symbolic surrogates of presence in time and space.

In the classic definition of Charles Sanders Pierce (1931-1958) a symbol is the kind of sign that has an arbitrary link with its object. In other words, a symbol stands for something else by virtue of a convention. The degree of conventionality of the link relating the object with its meaning is variable; it can be represented on a continuum going from the fully codified to the completely open.

A domain full of strongly codified objects is religion. The Eucharist is probably the most classic example of a symbol of presence with a strictly codified meaning. The New Testament gives a precise definition on what the Eucharist is:

While they were eating, Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, "Take and eat; this is my body." {27} Then he took the cup, gave thanks and offered it to them, saying, "Drink from it, all of you. {28} This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins."
(Matthew 26:26-28 NIV)

"And when he (Jesus) had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me."
(1Corinthians 11:24)

And Christian ceremonial provides us with strict rules and procedures concerning the context and the modalities for the host to acquire its symbolic power. The Eucharist has the same meaning and the same ‘mode of use’ for everybody. The choice is between believing and not believing.

The same kind of codified routines applies to other kinds of religious symbols of presence.
A voodoo doll consecrated and named after a person with an artefact of their body or writing will affect that person when a spell is induced. Money used and energized in a spell will bring more money to the person encapsulated in the voodoo doll, and so forth. Herbs, incense, and other components of a spell are also effective. They are different symbols that emphasize the desired outcome of the spell.

Most objects combine both cultural and personal meaning in varying proportions. In the case of symbols for love and friendship, the objects are partially culturally codified; however they are always embedded with strong personal and private meaning. Wedding Rings are usually symbols of marital agreement, fidelity, and love. The power of these objects can be very strong.

Let's take my wedding ring as a simple example. If I were to regard this object merely as a sign of my status as a married person, then the ring itself, as an object, would not be very important to me. [ ] However, because I regard my ring as a symbol of my commitment to love my wife as long as we are alive, the ring itself actually participates in my marriage. To lose it or even to decide not to wear it would be a tragedy, since part of my marriage would thereby be lost.
(Palmquist)

Different from the Eucharist, the wedding ring has more opportunity for personal investment, in the sense that there is not a fixed relation between the object and one unique entity. The sense of presence that the wedding ring conveys as well as the values associated with it changes based on the person.

Even though friendship bracelets and lockets have similar characteristics, they offer broader possibilities for meaning attribution. Although their function is conventional, these symbols can be both associated with za person as well as affording more freedom in terms of context.

Within the body is both the heart and the heart's content - the other ...The locket creates an additional secret recess of the body. Such recesses, which depend upon the protective functions of clothing, are always vulnerable to exposure.
(Stewart 1993)

At the extreme edge of the continuum there’s a variegated and infinite set of tokens with a functional or aesthetic value that can become personal objects of affection. Souvenirs are items taken from a given time and place symbolizing not only a point in time but often the person with whom the time was shared with. Thanks to our personal and idiosyncratic rules of ‘consecration’ they acquire the very special power of conveying a presence. Like imprints testify someone’s past presence by virtue of a physical sign, souvenirs suggest someone’s presence by virtue of an emotional association. Souvenirs come in many forms; some of them like photographs, postcards, etc. are more ‘classical’ and conventionally identified as such. However any kind of object can be included in this category, which is therefore the most open one.

The souvenir distinguishes experiences. The souvenir is not simply an object appearing out of context, an object from the past incongruosly surviving in the present; rather, its function is to envelop the present within the past. Souvenirs are magical objects because of this transformation.'
(Stewart 1993)

Understanding how the symbolic investment occurs and is shared over distance opens interesting possibilities to design tools that convey presence.