Ctrl + Art + Divine
Spiritual Revival in the Digital Age
Lee Hunter, Snake Quilt; A time of Pandemic; To steady oneself; Temple of Light Collection (detail), 2020-24. Fabric, batting, and thread, 96 x 85 inches.
Courtesy of the artist & the Buffalo Institute for Contemporary Art. Photo: Nando Alvarez-Perez.
In the current landscape of art and pop culture, there appears to be a resurgence of spiritual motifs and religious iconography. Of course, there is the fair argument that these themes have always lingered in the Western cultural subconscious, but the present moment seems to represent a unique convergence of spirituality, technology, and the human quest for meaning. Patagonia-clad tech bros on electric scooters serve as prophets from the supposed epicenter of innovation, Silicon Valley, where notions of salvation and transcendence intertwine with those of technological progress. High tech can save us from ourselves — if we buy the right gadget or follow the right online creator. When, at the beginning of Ramadan, activist Shaun King announced his conversion to Islam in solidarity with Palestinians, it surprised some. Even the bohemian layabouts of Dimes Square are embracing Catholicism as a tool for restraint and survival in our culture of consumption. Moral and spiritual concerns have adapted themselves to frame this collective contemporary backdrop of societal turbulence, political conflict, warfare, and apocalyptically rapid technological change. We might do well to reflect on previous religious resurgences such as the Great Awakening: a movement of spiritual fervor and increasing conservatism in early eighteenth-century British American colonies that challenged established institutions and encouraged spiritual pluralism by promoting one’s own pursuit of truth as the route to salvation. There are many truths readily available in our post-information age. Today, two people can live on the same street but in very different worlds, thus challenging the potential of any sort of collective revelation, let alone action. We are not collectively woke. Quite to the contrary, we are collectively exhausted. As one navigates this cultural landscape, it would appear obvious that there is some sincerity to these expressions of our current human experience with technology, spirituality, and the timeless pursuit of existential understanding. But is everyone really Jesus-pilled and moral-maxxing, or are we just LARPing virtue?
Shyanna Merced, Testimony, 2024. Pigment stick and paper on unstretched and unprimed canvas, 84 x 72 inches.
Courtesy of the artist & Agatha Falls. Photo: Maggie Novak.
*** The following paragraph has been altered from its’ print version due to an unfortunate misrepresentation of the imagery in this piece "Testimony" by artist Shyanna Merced. Our sincerest apologies. ***
Buffalo-based painter Shyanna Merced exhibited her 2024 painting Testimony at Agatha Falls’s inaugural group show False Idols, which opened February 23. Testimony is an eight-by-six-foot painting on unstretched canvas suspended by chains. In this painting, Jesus Christ’s outstretched arms both reference the Crucifixion and extend dominantly over a collage of figures, scenes, and objects. As blood falls from his palms, it streams into two showerheads positioned on either side of the canvas in a riff on traditional religious imagery of purification and redemption. On the left, water cascades onto the heads of a joyous brunette girl and [the artist’s mother]. Lyrics from "You Are My Sunshine” appear superimposed on their hair, and a box of Franzia wine pours into a golden chalice before them. On the right, another showerhead pours water onto a woman in a peach-colored dress, who is defiantly raising a middle finger. Oddly, she is accompanied by an anthropomorphic fox wearing a red robe with Arabic script. In the heart of the composition, a vignette on Jesus's chest shows a young girl in a classroom holding a sign that reads "Fatherless." Affixed to the canvas are a written check and an art school rejection letter, tangible reminders of the artist's personal struggles and the harsh realities of the art world. In an Instagram post documenting the progress ofTestimony, Merced writes, “After many disappointments as an artist, I cried out to God, ‘Where will this go? If I’m meant to be an artist truly, something has to give, God.’ ... I just showed up to the basement every day to paint. A week later the LORD blessed me with my first art studio to continue painting this piece. It was a dream of mine come true. In honesty, I was scared I was unable to sustain this blessing . . . The LORD then blessed me not with one exhibition, but TWO in one month . . . It wasn’t until I fully surrendered that I finally became the artist I always strived to be. I’m still a work in progress, but I’m God’s.”
Merced's sincerity in embracing her faith stands out in the world of contemporary art. On an initial look at the painting, one could think it’s a parody. Her unironic incorporation of religious imagery prompts viewers to confront their own beliefs and assumptions and boldly invites questions; Merced even offers to pray for you. This sincerity is particularly striking and catches one off guard in an industry that has largely secularized since the Renaissance. The protagonists of twentieth-century Euro-American modernism are largely left-leaning artists who subscribe to a loosely Marxian view of organized religion as an "opiate of the masses." An obstacle with any truly and frankly personal religious work is that the viewer is left with little space to separate the art from the artist. This potentially hinders conversation about the work if the viewer doesn’t want to offend, be judged themselves, or get caught in a sales pitch for salvation. In a time when much art is measured by the morals it messages and whether one agrees with them, Merced’s work offers a provocative challenge: given the historical complications wrought by Judeo-Christian religions, is there space to reclaim their virtues? Merced's work forces us to grapple with the idea that perhaps there is still room for genuine faith and spirituality in contemporary art, despite the prevailing skepticism of much of its audience.
Julia Dzwonkoski, Shyanna Merced, Paul Knopf, AF #1: False Idols, 2024. Installation view, Agatha Falls.
Photo: Maggie Novak.
In the pursuit of an earthly utopia — heaven here on earth — secular ideologies, social reforms, technological advancements, and activist movements strive to create societies characterized by harmony, justice, and prosperity. For instance, consider the June 2, 2020, phenomenon of #BlackoutTuesday: posting a black square became a symbol of solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement and allowed individuals to signal their alignment with certain ideological beliefs regarding racial justice and social activism. By posting the black square, individuals sought to demonstrate their commitment to fighting against systemic racism, their allyship, and their desire to promote social equality. In this way, the act of posting the black square can be seen as an expression of secular devotion: individuals engaging in a symbolic ritual to align themselves with a movement aimed at a larger goal. Posting the black square was, if I may, a prayer. Moral judgment is a guiding principle for conservative Christians as it is for secular progressives. Both groups level moral judgments in the pursuit of a better existence; the definition of this end, however, is largely determined and shaped by the frequently divergent social conditions of their members. Conservative Christians place their faith in religious doctrines and the promise of an afterlife, trusting that their righteous actions will be rewarded in the divine realm. Meanwhile, those leaning toward leftist politics hold faith in the power of collective efforts, believing that their work today will contribute to a more equitable and just society in the future. Despite their ideological differences, both groups grapple with the uncertainty of immediate results. Christians endure life's challenges with the hope that their steadfast adherence to moral principles will yield eternal rewards. Advocates of left-leaning politics, who endure the earthly battle against systemic injustices, trust that their endeavors will eventually pave the way for a more inclusive and harmonious society for future generations. Heaven, for both left and right, seems always to linger just over the horizon.
When Donald Trump was elected, the United States’s veil of moral leadership, if any remained at all, was finally stripped, and the nation’s political instincts were laid bare. What happens when a profound sense of moral responsibility, faith in a brighter future, and commitment to shaping a better world for generations to come do not pay off? What happens when you find yourself, and the culture with which you identify, in a nightmarish feedback loop? With no finish line, anxieties arise. “Do all my virtue-signaling reposts die in vain?” “Where is my late grandmother?”
To address these anxieties, some artists use science fiction to imagine a radically different future. Their art serves either as escapism, a hopeful gateway to alternative realities, or a cautionary tale. Two artists, Lee Hunter and Christopher Michael, take different approaches.
Lee Hunter's recent exhibition Hermetic Drift at the Buffalo Institute for Contemporary Art showcased the artist’s ongoing worldbuilding project Cosmogenesis. This project involves the creation of an extensive archive of multimedia works that speculatively focus on the material culture of Transdimensional Travel Groups (TTGs) in a postcapitalist future. Hunter states that the project explores nature, belief systems, rituals, cosmology, and time from an intersectional and transfeminist perspective. The exhibition featured ceramic objects, mainly vessels and busts of nonhuman anthropomorphic creatures, arranged in the shape of a cross. Other ceramic works affixed to the walls resemble networks of interconnected geometric shapes. Esoteric-looking textile works and depopulated] photographs add to the mystery of the loose narrative. Two standout works are quilts — one featuring two big snakes made from fragments of different fabrics and embroidered with symbols and the other a “map” that mirrors Hunter’s ceramic works. These objects, while symbolic, can be understood as having once held practical value in a fictional world, and their hidden meanings offer an optimistic glimpse into the future. “High” technology seems to be nearly absent from Hunter’s fictional, speculative timeline, but it remains a latent narrative device: the TTGs travel back in time for resources due to the unlivable conditions of their own time, a consequence of our contemporary lifestyle.
Lee Hunter, Hermetic Drift, 2024. Installation view, the Buffalo Institute for Contemporary Art.
Photo: Nando Alvarez-Perez.
Christopher Michael, a current PhD candidate in the University at Buffalo’s Department of Media Study, on the other hand, explores our anxious times head-on in search of restitution. His 2023 film In the End We Become Our Avatars explores the relationship between immortality and artificial intelligence. The film, which features AI-generated imagery, poses probing questions about the evolution toward acceptance of loved ones re-created as AI replicas. The narrative and questions appear as text captions and are read by an AI voice-over, and they accompany aesthetics inspired by, in the artist’s words, “retro science fiction films, YouTube conspiracy theory videos, and video game ‘cinematics’.” ¹ AI-driven digital afterlife programs offer comfort and solace to the bereaved but raise ethical, privacy, and accessibility concerns. They blur boundaries between the living and the dead and reshape our understandings of death and identity, which have been historically shaped by religious institutions. Michael summarizes his thoughts in the video’s epilogue, “Life in the Cybernetic Meadow.”
“The singularity is nearing. Someday, possibly
soon, human and machine will become one
and the same. Extending and advancing our
biological lives. Someday we will have to make
the choice: Do we want to live in the Cloud or die
a natural death? Perhaps there will be great wars
between luddites and transhumanists over the
fate of our humanity. For now, these concerns are
still far off, and the only chance at immortality
we may get is an AI-generated chatbot that can
regurgitate our data to our loved ones to help
them through their grief.” ²
The “cloud,” here, is likened to a modern-day heaven, and our data acts as offerings for eternal existence. Each post becomes a prayer to the divine algorithms, seeking an answer. We are then rewarded for our prayers by receiving messages akin to celestial revelations: suggested media and ads that further reinforce our beliefs. While the material infrastructure of our technological world is tangible, its inner workings often remain mysterious to the average citizen. The shared ritual of posting is being institutionalized, and the exchange of these rituals from the masses to the elite for profit is becoming more transparent. The awareness of this unequal exchange is, I believe, increasingly permeating into the consciousness of many, and unknowingly or knowingly, works or conversations offer a response.
Christopher Micheal, In the End We Become Our Avatars (still), 2023. Video, 19:31.
Courtesy of the artist.
Recently, a TikTok user posted a video of themselves holding a candle while at mass in a Gothic church. They shared a sincere yet sardonic sentiment through their caption: “life got so bad i’ve turned to religion to remind myself there is a greater good and therefore nothing is really my fault. i’m a victim in all of this really,” with tags #godcore #hopecore. This spiritual resurgence prompts us to question the possibility of collective revelation or action in our post-information age, when diverse truths coexist in close proximity, particularly in the cybernetic realms profiting off our isolation and indulgence. This is our new paranormal, where discerning between genuine moral exploration and mere virtue signaling is as futile as seeking distinctions between water and its reflection. Through nurturing authentic connections and prioritizing human experience, we can navigate the tumultuous terrain of technology, class antagonisms, and our expiring planet with grace and insight to the best of our abilities. The timeless pursuit of existential understanding remains anchored in the rich and honest tapestry of human existence, even if we are sold downloadable angel wings.
1
Christopher Michael, “Video Premiere: ‘In The End We Become Our Avatars’, seeking to answer some of the questions plaguing our strange present,” CLOT Magazine, October 18, 2023, https://clotmag.com/news/video-premiere-in-the-end-we-become-our-avatars-seeking-to-answer-some-ofthe-questions-plaguing-our-strange-present.
2
ibid
Christopher Micheal, In the End We Become Our Avatars (still), 2023. Video, 19:31.
Courtesy of the artist.
by Gabriella Victoria
Gabriella Victoria is a visual artist and cultural observer residing in Buffalo, NY who explores online identity and the nuances of performativity, profilicity, and sincerity. Her work is primarily interested in locating the essence of the human experience in our digital age.
