Artist Post

      Jeff Crouse (Eyebeam) is an artist/hacker/creative technologist whose many parodies satirize the role of technology in our society, "tributes to [their] absurdity" he calls his various pieces and collaborations. His work ranges in scope from the playful cheeriness of a witty robotic bartender to a commentary on virtual labor to a video filter that removes corporate logos. They  mostly take on a  grandiose (or thorough) scale to foster a believable reality from which Crouse can comment on a perceived facet society, using technology and concepts from our daily lives. While exploring artists on Eyebeam, I stumbled across a plywood laser cuts by another artist who collaborated with Crouse on the Praying@Home project, leading me to explore Crouse further. Praying@Home, a parody of various distributed computing projects such as Folding@Home, is the name given to a host of various technologies developed by the fictitious Institute for Faith-Based Technologies. Presented as an exposition where the IFBT presents its various technologies, including a prayer booth (attended by a scientist/priest complete with lab coat and priest's shirt and collar) where prayers are digitized, amplified, and sent to God.

      Visible from even a cursory glance at the promotional poster (top) is the satirical nature of this project, at the most basic level this is a commentary on Christianity. As written in our constitution, there is a separation of Church and State; however, in our society commenting on religion or another's religious beliefs is taboo. The topic of religion is hard to approach and once broached can devolve into a baseless argument with zealot-like fervor from the participants and as such is usually avoided by most parties outside of an academic or theological setting. As a parody, this project wants to bring religion to the forefront: to be discussed, to be argued, to critique the institute of religion and its role in this technological era. Sir Isaac Newton revolutionized modern science with his discoveries ultimately moving science towards a mechanistic view of the world rather than a Godly or supernatural view of the world; an unpopular paradigm shift in the eyes of the Church. As time goes on and technology progresses the trend becomes clear: processes deemed tedious or purely mechanical by nature become relegated to technology since the are a waste of human effort. This project highlights this trend within our society to remove human effort from the equation and to instead rely on streamlining them through technology. The IFBT's clever digital prayer amplifier, among other technologies, showcases our desire to replace human effort with the efficiency of computers and technology that takes input and multiplies the output to a degree that no human can (distributed computing allows users to compute data such that they effectively create a large super-computer, adding to whatever is already being computed by the distributor of the software), effectively replacing any effort we would put into the task.

      Conceptually this project makes perfect sense. Applying current goings-on in the technology sphere to an institution that typically shuns technology in order to critique and bring said institution into the public sphere is genius. Crouse could have done this through any manner of techniques, but relegating prayer to a mechanistic - and therefore unnecessary - task is a simple yet effective way to comment on society. Furthermore, choosing the institution of religion allows Crouse to critique not only society, but also affords Crouse the ability to critique and comment on the institution itself. In this time and space people want evidence and scientific backup to any claims, products, or services. If you think about it, the institution of religion provides a service, one that traditionally requires no evidence or merely shrugs off evidence as unnecessary for divine matters. It's actually quite clever to critique the growing trend of scientific investigation into religious matters such as prayer.

      My problem with the Praying@Home project is the aspect of public involvement. I would think that for an interactive project such as this one the public would be more involved in the creative process rather than simply experiencing the finished product. Ultimately the project is a statement by Crouse though, so public involvement outside of interaction to foster discussion about religion may be unnecessary or even a hindrance to the message and final outcome that he may have wanted for Prayer@Home. Furthermore, the blend of art, social commentary, and technology becomes confusing when considering what this project is or what art-form this is considered as besides for the broad and vague spectrum of digital media.