HOLY MACHINE, installation / public space project, 2009
"Holy Machine" is a machine which offers religious service, working as any vending / cash / railway tickets machine. On the sensory screen there is interactive 'Avignon Pieta' (Enguerrand Quarton, ca. 1455). The idea is based on a combination of two seemingly opposite realities - faith and technology. Holy Machine can be perceived as a caricature of rational life, but it can be treated as a new form of religiousness as well: It depends on a receiver, whether the machine is taken seriously or playfully. The both approaches are not to exclude one another.
Conversation with Father Grzegorz Ostrowski
Kamila Szejnoch: The machine with a touch screen which I have designed is a 'catholic machine'. Catholicism is a very tangible religion, there are images, statues and figures. What also inspired me were closed churches in Western Europe; closed or turned into something else. I said to myself: If there are hardly any churches around, let?s do something else instead; like if a bank is closed we have a cash machine.
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Father Grzegorz Ostrowski: I will start with intentions... If we want to order an intention, especially in sanctuaries, the usual thing is that we find a box in a church, where you can put all kinds of intentions. A box, which is similar to a machine. Then we write a request on a piece of paper for a prayer for the dead, for ourselves or somebody else... However, in the Catholic Church, an intention means a request for a mass to be celebrated and it is generally loudly announced. But, for example at the Jasna Gora sanctuary fathers are phisically not able to read everything in front of the Blessed Painting of the Virgin Mary. Then they say: we pray for those intentions deposited today. So, intentions in the machine are not an innovation; in a church we put a slip of paper into a box and do not get a confirmation, but the idea is the same.
The same idea of materialization. In the machine the situation is concrete, they all can be seen on the screen...
In fact, people?s requests are not only directed to Jesus. It depends on their inner lives and the level of their spiritual lives. Some people always present their requests to another person, for example Virgin Mary or Saints. They strongly believe that the saint will carry their problem to the throne of God. However, I think that the biblical event being shown on the screen is not the best.
Why?
Because this is the most painful moment for the faithful ? Jesus was taken down from the cross and put on his mother's hands. According to me, the biblical scene showing Jesus as a preacher or his Resurrection would be more appropriate.
But from the religion's point of view, it doesn't matter because every liturgical year cycle contains resurrection as well. In a sense all the scenes lead to resurrection, so, it is of no importance for me. The painting has a fantastic form, it is story-telling and it is timeless as an icon at the same time. I look at the figures but I treat this image methaphisically.
Of course the artist attaches no importance to the main motif... But let's go on to the more controversial thing which is confession. First of all confession is a holy sacrament. Every sacrament is a personal meeting of a man with God through a person of a priest. If it is a machine and there is no meeting with a priest who can grant absolution on behalf of God, we can't call it a sacrament of penance. Every sacrament requires some form, in this case it is a personal confession, not on a piece of paper, not on the Internet.
What about on-line confession?
This form of confession is impossible. Of course such websites are in operation, but they work similarly to a machine. It is not confession, it is confiding. I personally find it controversial because it is not sacrament of penance. Of course, admitting to being guilty is a first step to overcoming on our weak points... But we have to remember that the machine performs a function of a ?machine of confidence?. A person who needs a real announcement that he/she has been absolved, doesn't put his or her confession into a box, because there is no receiver.
Because the machine puts a stress on a person, it depends on me how I treat the intention I write. It depends on me, if it is serious or just for fun. Apart from that, I intended to comment a certain tendency to an extreme mechanization, and changing social rituals into so called fast food. It seems, that a man starts mechanizing his inner life. In fact I wanted to show a caricature.
I see, but aren?t the conclusions going too far? Mechanization advances, but not in all areas. Maybe we'd better treat the machine not as a caricature but something positive ? as a new way of expressing human faith... If at airports, on railway stations there are chapels where we can pray for a good travel...
So, would Father receive the idea positively?
I would receive it positively, but with a reservation, that it would be placed in certain places, for instance in chapels empty or closed during the day. The priest doesn?t necessarily has to read it in front of an image or a figure, but I am aware that my request was registered in a place of sacrum, not profanum. There is a receiver who takes them to the altar. Intentions aren?t left in a vacuum. A human being needs some sort of confirmation. If he writes a message he needs a confirmation that it was received. A human being needs...
...a receipt
links:
http://wyborcza.pl/1,76842,7873721,Swieta_Rodzina_analizuje_twoj_problem.html
http://fakty.interia.pl/religia/przewodnik-katolicki/news/religia-zamiast-z-automatu,1446727,4255
http://wiadomosci.wp.pl/kat,1342,title,Maszyna-oferuje-uslugi-religijne-To-eksperyment,wid,12275209,wiadomosc.html?ticaid=1a648
http://tygodnik.onet.pl/32,0,42944,1,artykul.html
http://biznes.onet.pl/swiete-maszyny-wzbudzily-opor-watykanu,18598,3194061,1,prasa-detal
http://www.tvn24.pl/-1,1645251,0,1,swieta-maszyna-pokute-ci-zada,wiadomosc.html
