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Answers to all questions are, in our globalised world, available within seconds through the internet. Effortlessly and like on angel wings we can reach almost every spot on earth, just by Google Earth or Google Maps. Satellite images make it possible. One mouse click away videos, photos and endless amounts of information are waiting eagerly for us, available all the time and from all places. Slowly but surely the world wide web keeps replacing analogue knowledge, as it offers more detailed, more efficiently archived, and esthetically appealing answers than any print-based encyclopedia can. So we surf through the digital universe, thinking ourselves to be liberal-minded and well informed about all the important global issues ... the return of religions for example.
In the past the church had a monopoly on information. It was the institution that gave the only valid answers. Today the Internet has this monopoly, and thus, the decision power over the right to exist: Nowadays only what appears on Google, seems to really be serious and credulous. Even the global management owes its triumph to the Internet. Something like the omnisignificant and omnipresent economy could only emerge by means of the internet. The global management promises us salvation of humanity and gives us new answers to old questions. Thus economy has took over the world reign of religion by adopting its' colonial philosophy.
"Now is come salvation, and strength - With these words proclaimed Christianity the reign of Christ. The same words proclaim today the promise and the power of the globalized economy. This simple message has the entire planet in its grip.(...)" Gérard Caillat
The World Wide Web has mutated to an empire where the sun never sets.
The last bell has not chimed for religions yet. They have revived themselves and are making leeway. Islam was the first to start a comeback, Judaism and Christianity followed suit. Islam made the first move by sending out a declaration of war against the Global Players - the unbelievers. The other two, use this situation, to show themselves in a more favourable light, in contrast to such extremist tactics . Buddhism, laid-back, a gentle smile on its face, is still waiting for the others to discredit each other, in order to take all the dissapointed on board.
The Return of Religion, as it is talked of, can be seen in the way it is using the digital and visual Media as well as its spreading into public areas. Thus religion has left it's old, analogue, inefficient and therefore slipped off into the private position and now has gone into the offensive. The representatives of contemporary religious groups use pictures etc., that are, thanks to mass media, available almost instantly all around the world.
However it is not the first mass medium that has been used by religions. Luther translated the Bible from Old Greek into German, by means of book print, at the time a revolutionary new mass media, in order to give truthfull religion access to the homes of true believers. The new mass medium of today, the Internet, brought with it a translation into HTML language. And through the internet, the Religions are creeping their way into the homes, trying now to move the people back to Religion.
The status quo of today is: we have a theosophical religion and an atheistic one struggling for the world monopoly. The product of this is a human being with a split personality. On the one hand we would like to benefit on modern economy, to leapfrog our way to success and to have a full bank account. We use matter-of-fact science and technology and believe strongly in progress. On the other hand, we want to live for ever. We are not as self confident and independent as we pretend to be. We get married in religious ceremony, we let our children undergo an initiation ceremony such as baptism or circumcision and in the end we let ourselves be buried in a religious funeral ceremony. At the same time we call ourselves non-practicing believers.
QUERY would like to provoke a controversy about this cleavage of modern society.
With this project we are trying to examine the subject in a cubistic manner, that is to see all sides, shades and shadows. To that purpose Google Maps will be taken from the virtual into real space: big balloons, shaped like Google marks, floating above two churches in Munich (St. Anna and St. Lukas) , visible day and night, with question marks on them, querying the churches below such as:
What is concealed behind the religions?
Where are they positioned in our lives?
Which place are we ready to give them?
Are only supernumeraries in the battle of giants?
Do we still need houses of God such as churches, mosques or temples?
Are we giving the Internet and economics too much authority once again?
Didn't the presidential elections in Iran prove, that the internet, with its state of secularism, can be used as a resistance, too?
And what role does atheism play in our society, bringing with it a naturalistic world-view. Or agnosticism with its' secular, evolutionary-humanistic ethics?
Is God only a delusion?
"We will never be able to prove, that something does not exist. But there are many things, such as unicorns, fairies or goblins, we don't believe in, though we cannot prove they don't exist. God is the same. We cannot prove his existence. But that fact does not make him more probable." Richard Dawkins
This platform was created to enable answering these and further questions by people all over the world. It contains a Google map with the same marks as in Munich. The visitors in Situ and online can literally visualize their opinions and are encouraged to comment and upload images depicting and describing their opinions on the matter.
Thanks to all the tools provided by Google Maps, we can add images, videos and comments to the maps (see "apply"). Artists, cultural workers and anyone else interested in this discussion concerning confessions. Believers, atheists and agnostics from all over the world are invited to share their point of view.
The Query-Project starts as a part of ORTwechsel, which starts September 12th, 2009 in Munich.
To Ecumenical Church Congress at 2010, St. Luke Art Committee initiated a cooperative project: Together with the Genius Loci eV, the Catholic Parish of St. Anna, and a network of cultural workers and artists, which started already at 2009 with the project "ORTwechsel" (PLACE exchange) and then take place again at 2010 with further project "WORTwechsel" (WORD exchange).
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