From Remote Space to Remote Time

• doi:10.1145/3772363.3790071

Proceedings of the Extended Abstracts of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

We explore a design vision that reimagines human connection not only across distance but also across time, extending even beyond physical lifespans. While Telepresence was developed to connect remote spaces, this panel shifts the focus to remote time—the desire to be remembered, to reconnect with the past, and to speculate on possible futures. We bring together perspectives from generative AI, cultural heritage, and HCI to examine how connection across time can be mediated and reinterpreted. AI researchers develop synthetic agents “ghost bots” that reconstruct identities from fragmented data. Scholars in archaeological heritage investigate how artifacts carry memory across centuries, offering insight into how cultural traces become embodied knowledge. HCI researchers study interactive systems that honor the presence of absence. Together, this inter-disciplinary dialogue across digital reconstruction, archaeological preservation, and practices of cherishing material traces raises broader philosophical questions about how emerging technologies shape relationships across past, present, and future.