WANTED: The digital pieces of your shattered relationships

A new exhibition will feature digital souvenirs of heartbreak

All it takes to start a relationship these days is the swipe of a thumb.

You’re officially a match. Then you’re messaging and before you know it you’ve been romantically involved, in a sense, for weeks and you’ve never even met! 

On the other hand, breaking up in the digital age is nowhere near as quick, or as easy. The tear-soaked online footprints we leave behind are strewn across a range of devices, desktops, browser histories and social media profiles.

Which makes erasing someone from your life harder than ever.

This is the inspiration for a new project that’s collecting digital souvenirs of relationships past, such as phone snaps and sentimental texts, in an effort to explore the impact of technology on modern love.

Researchers at the University of Dundee have teamed up with Croatia’s Museum of Broken Relationships, external, a space filled with the physical mementoes of failed relationships, to chronicle our romantic tribulations in the internet age. 

Among the submissions already received from the broken-hearted are smartphone pictures of romantic gifts, poetic Tumblr posts, bitter breakup emails and even videos of arguments.

One of the most heartstring-tugging exhibits is this photograph of a ‘Magic Sakura Tree,’ a miniature cherry blossom tree that is made of paper but still blooms when watered, that was sent in by a 26-year-old Italian woman.

Carrie was only with her partner for a short time, but “really loved him". He went off with another woman shortly after Carrie accidentally got pregnant and decided to keep the baby.

The tree was a gift he bought her on their first date and which she has left to rot since they broke up. Now, on the one year anniversary of their split she plans to burn it.

Daniel Herron, a PhD researcher on the project who contacted the Croatian museum to suggest a new digital collection of break-up souvenirs, told BBC Three that he hoped the initiative would help those who participate gain closure by giving them a place to offload their digital keepsakes.

“All of the chat threads, Facebook posts, Instagram photos, and Netflix watch histories that partners create publicly announce them as being ‘in a relationship’ in a way that wasn’t possible 20 years ago,” says Daniel.

And while these days there’s plenty of technology to help people connect, whether through Tinder, Grindr or sliding into someone’s social media DMs, when relationships turn sour, technology can make it harder to move on.

Wendy Moncur, Professor of Digital Living at the University of Dundee, who came up with the idea for the project, says that staying friends with your ex on Facebook, external can "increase sexual longing" and encourage you to do "a bit of stalking".

This latest project provides a very millennial sequel to the original collection of the Museum of Broken Relationships, based in Zagreb.

Established in 2006, this consists of physical memorabilia including an Exe Axe, which was once used to chop up the furniture of a past lover. 

Three volumes of Proust, which were read together by a now-divorced couple on successive holidays.

The last 200 pages, seen here separated from the volumes to save on luggage weight, remain unread.

And these kinky handcuffs.

Which remind us that however exciting you might find online romance, the real-life equivalent can be a lot more fun.