This image from the Australian Museum depicts an artwork created out of 'ghostnets', the huge spreading fish nets that commercial operations leave to wash up on beaches along Australia's shores and out at sea. So large are these nets, they can form a vertical underwater wall hundreds of meters long which continues to catch and entrap creatures such as turtles, dugong, shark and a host of other significant marine species.
The idea for using the image of the enwrapped turtle is to link the transformation of the destructive ghostnet into a memorialisation and validation of the role of sea creatures within the global ecosystem or eco-network, currently under threat from multiple pressures. To highlight the devastating effects of discarded and abandoned fishnets, Indigenous women from northern Australia are re-creating or recycling the nets into beautiful artworks and other useful objects (Ryan 2008), as well as performing in community rituals such as the evocative ghostnet 'Puppet Show' devised by the community on Mua Island in the Torres Strait.
The ghostly or metaphorical meaning of the ghostnet transformation is intended firstly, to consider the role of the internet for bringing news of grassroots activities which do not gain parlance in mainline media but which are making inroads and raising awareness about the need for 'caring for country'. The image of the turtle enshrouded in net-work is part of a larger environmental cleanup project taking place around the north of Australia, among the Torres Strait islands and the Gulf of Carpentaria. The Gulf has become a repository for these nets which are swept into the area on currents and tides. They swirl and gather doing damage as they go. But once in, they don't often flow back out to the wider ocean and unless collected, will remain doing damage indefinitely.
The second reason for using the image of a ghostnet and its transformation for the spirit of creative community and environmental activism is its use as a metaphor for the creative transformation in web-based networks which promote religion and spirituality online. The image is designed to mirror the spread the virtual or 'ghostly' networks within the online world which gather religious and spiritual practitioners together in the promise of spiritual interconnectedness and renewal. It is this notion of change and reclaiming the network from the ghostly or virtual to the embodied, sensory and real, building relationship across interactive spaces, that underscores this short discussion.
One of the most interesting aspects of online religion or religion online is wondering whether practising faith, engaging in online rituals or sharing anecdotes of religious experiences is as real as the real itself. Current research is mixed, so I am wondering if there is an age or generational dimension that distinguishes those who find virtual worlds remain virtual, and those for whom virtual experiences are embodied and expressed in a similar way to offline world experiences. Certainly the filmed Puppet Show performance helps unravel the net-work into a startling reality of desecration and yet, at the same time, a reality of hopeful change.
Ritual such as the Torres Strait re-enactment of the ghostnet story, and religious and spiritual rituals online, are defined by Casey (2007:80) as 'acts of believing because they make references to, and preserve trust in, unseen realities'. Citing Goethals (2003), Casey offers an insight into the theory of ritual explaining that:
'First, it entails entry into specifically designated zones of time and space. Second, religious ritual requires the attentive, dynamic engagement of persons in a participatory event. Thirdly, community emerges from shared attentiveness and participation in these symbolic temporal and spatial zones. Finally, individuals taking part in the religious ritual experience a renewal of spirit.'
By taking part in live chat on religious questions, spirited playing in online gaming worlds, or participating in worship services and sacred rituals, participants move into an inbetween liminal space, setting aside time to seek insight and community. Casey considers these virtual spaces as, following Benedict Anderson, 'imagined communities' which join people together in fellowship. The network and net-work are relational and the goal, creating meaningful and communal relationships and bringing ideas and ideals to prominence.
To emphasise this citing of 'imagined community', Campbell (2010) states that religious communities and religious identities are affirmed by inter-web-connections. In these imagined yet felt 'otherrealms', religious practitioners can be located anywhere across the globe but are connected spatially through a communal religious adherence. Those engaging in these 'unseen realities' (Casey 2007:80) gain a shared sense of values and experiences, a sense of finding where they belong, an emotional connection with religiously-minded others, and a vibrancy usually associated in the offline world of ritual practice (Wagner 2012).
As an example of such practice, Wagner, in her insightful book Godwired: religion, ritual and virtual reality, refers to the 'e-vangelical' website 'fishthe.net', whose aim is to foster relationships and evangelical involvement. The website states that 'sharing the Gospel has never been easier'.
Fishthe.net is quite an unattractive website, but dubbed as an 'evangelistic tacklebox', it presents a practical guide to individual salvation. It offers links to a range of possibilities for personal reflection and beliefs to share with others. While some religious adherents might argue that an online presence is not authentic, and for real religious engagement one needs to be face-to-face with others in ritual and reverence, fishthe.net takes a pragmatic tack and assumes that its virtual site can bring meaning and conviction to the practitioners' lives, despite its ungainly website approach.
But that's not the view of those who have fished the religious net widely. They regard their online religious immersions as being no different to their offline life and experiences (Helland 2005). Helland likens online religious practice and spiritual experience to the notion of 'lived religion', stating that these everyday encounters with the sacred do not take place in 'some place 'other’' but become part of people's daily lived experience and veneration.
While Helland locates a vibrant lived religiosity online, Wagner is more playful, arguing that the sometimes 'ghostly' virtual realm can be a place of 'self-expression' where the real in the virtual 'unseen realities' are embraced and relished both online and off. Both are real.
References
Campbell H. 2010. When religion meets new media. Hoboken: Taylor and Francis.
Casey C.A. 2006. Virtual ritual, real faith: the revitalization of religious ritual in cyberspace. Online-Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet 02.1.
Goethals G. 2003. Myth and ritual in Cyberspace. In J. Mitchell and S. Marriage, Eds., Mediating religion: conversations in media, religion and culture, 257-269, New York: T and T Clark.
Ghostnets.com.au. 2011. Mua Island (Torres Strait) puppet show from ghost net,
Helland C. 2005. Online religion as lived religion. Methodological issues in the study on religious participation on the internet. Online-Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet 1.1. Ghostnets.com.au. 2011. Mua Island (Torres Strait) puppet show from ghost net,
Ryan S. 2008. A ghost net story. Craft Australia.
Wagner R. 2012. Godwired: religion, ritual and virtual reality. Hoboken: Taylor and Francis.
Image source
Ghost net art Turtle # 1, Rebecca Fisher, ©Australian Museum, http://australianmuseum.net.au/image/Turtle-1/
© Australian MuseumAustralian Museum
Rebecca Fisher © Australian Museum
Rebecca Fisher © Australian Museum
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