Fishing the net in the online net-work

by Sylvie Shaw

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.
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

Shopping around for Spirit

by Sylvie Shaw

Several years ago I spent time in North-east Arnhemland with the Yolngu. They taught me so many things about community, family, ritual and sprituality. When I got back to the city I wanted to know more about spirituality and set out on a quest to find a connection and explanation to what I had experienced in the Aboriginal community. So I shopped around.

It was the heady days of the new age movement and on offer was a plethora of courses, workshops, personal development processes, healing modalities, seminars covering pathways to achieving personal fulfillment, happiness and altered or enhanced states of consciousness. All these programs and activities carried a price tag. Some higher than others.

There was no way to tell whether the workshop or group leader was qualified or ethical, or whether there was any 'truth' to the information being delivered. The new age did not have a code of ethics, but instead, had many authority figures, a multiplicity of scriptures, and endless DIY guides to becoming a better, happier and more prosperous person.

New age bookstores sprang up selling self-help books, protective symbols, amulets, meditation CDs, crystals and tarot cards, and were fonts of information about workshops and courses. Within the new age, gurus emerged to lead seekers towards a finding that better life and strengthen their inner resources.

Wade Clarke Roof (1999) describes this flourishing of consumer spirituality as a 'spiritual marketplace' where the sales pitch is the dream and plan for one's 'new' life. 

An acute observer of this process of selling spirituality and religion is religious theorist Mara Einstein (2011, 2008). Einstein's observations focus on the way religion and spirituality are purveyed, marketed and branded. Religious products, religious leaders and even the religions themselves are being advertised and sold to the population at large.

Increasingly religious organisations are also using social media for self-promotion. Accompanying this move is a range of sources directed at religious leaders on the best way to sell their product with such texts as: The iChurch method: how to advance your ministry online (Caston 2012); Social media guide for ministry: what it is and how to use it (Smith 2013) and Outspoken: conversations on church communication (Shraeder and Hendricks 2011). 

Other observers of the impact of social media on religion, such as religion and pastoral ministry scholar Elizabeth Dresher (2011), outline religions' growing use of social media which, she states, are also remodelling religious practice. In particular Dresher notes the increasing role of religious organisations and religious practices on Fb, Twitter and Apps. For example, in a list of the top 20 Fb sites visited, religious sites make up more than 50%.

But, with a tough word of warning to less connected religions, Dresher warns:

'Word to religious leaders: just as the local religious building is no longer the normative site for religious practice, neither is your church, synagogue, or mosque Facebook page or Twitter feed likely to be. Click on over to where the people are if you really want to connect'.

Among the social media trends for religion, Dresher lists religious and spiritual 'holy apps' which comprise scriptures, prayers, confessionals and meditation practices, as well as the need for religions to develop ethical and practical 'guidlelines for social media'. She also provides a useful link to guidelines published by the United States Conference for Catholic Bishops which state in part:

'The Church can use social media to encourage respect, dialogue, and honest relationships—in other words, “true friendship”... To do so requires us to approach social media as powerful means of evangelization and to consider the Church’s role in providing a Christian perspective on digital literacy'.

New York Times journalist Jennifer Preston (2011) has researched the online approach to evangelizing and yet questions its effectiveness in contrast to face-to-face religious participation. She outlines the rapid popularity on Fb of religious pages like 'Jesus Daily', and cites Fb itself as saying that over 43 million people follow at least one page they classify as religious. This is affirmed by a recent PEW survey which found that 64% of Americans online used the web for religious or spiritual reasons (Helland 2013).

in the fanfare of Pope Francis 1's selection, the Vatican not only sent smoke signals to notify the world of the new pope, it also tweeted (in caps): “HABEMUS PAPAM FRANCISCUM” – or “We have Pope Francis”. Despite this initial innovation, Christopher Helland (2013) notes that the Catholic Church, compared to evangelical faiths, has been slow on the uptake of social media:

'With a “business as usual” approach, the Church (and others) has failed to recognize the radically different way people interact online. The phenomenon known as Web 2.0 means that people are both consumers and producers of information, not just passive recipients'.

Underlying the 'whether to use or not use' debate, religious institutions which have adopted social media formats are using it to enhance their religious brand, and, as Mara Einstein (2008) reminds us, to make profits. But at an individual level, Einstein also bserves how these brands shape our identity. We identify with products and celebrities who sell them.

Einstein pulls no punches: 'Remember', she says, 'religion is a commodity. Religion is personal and sold the same way as other marketed goods and services' (2008:78). 

References
Caston J. 2012. The iChurch method - How to advance your ministry online. Frisco, TX: Caston Digital Publishing.  
Dresher E. 2011. Five social media trends reshaping religion. Religion Despatches. December 15, 2011, http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/culture/5463/
http://www.religiondispatches.org/contributors/elizabethdrescher/

Einstein M. 2011. Evolution of religious branding. Social Compass 58(3): 331-338. 
Einstein M. 2008. Brands of faith. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.

Helland C. 2013. On a Tweet and a prayer. World Economic Forum blog, March 27, 2013. http://forumblog.org/2013/03/on-a-tweet-and-a-prayer/
Preston J. 2011. Facebook page for Jesus, with highly active fans. New York TImes, September 4, 2011, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/05/technology/jesus-daily-on-facebook-nurtures-highly-active-fans.htm
Roof W.C. 1999. Spiritual marketplace: baby boomers and the remaking of American religion. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Smith N. 2013. Social media guide for ministry: what it is and how to use it. Nils Smith and group.com.
Shraeder T. and K.D. Hendricks. 2011. Outspoken: conversations on church communication. Los Angeles: Centre for Church Communication.

Image source
http://pixabay.com/en/angel-boy-cherub-child-church-21503/

Reflecting on Sacred Embodiment & Engagement Online

by Sylvie Shaw

Blogging, online chat, ebay shopping, religious rituals, each day I wonder if the internet is taking over my life as I ponder - should I go for a walk or walk though my favourite websites? Should I explore the local riverscape or explore the virtual world for information on spirituality and rivers? 

Sometimes, especially when it's raining or even just drizzling, I feel torn - which do I prefer - the shoulds (you should go outdoors and experience the beauty of nature) or the wants (the online engagement and possible seduction).


Sitting on the couch, surfing the world, seems such a passive experience. Looking at the way individuals engage with online religious experiences and religious services also seems to be similar. There's engagement certainly, but embodiment? Religious leaders can beam their message out across the globe, but the practitioners and the leader themselves are often sitting watching their computer screens. The action is taking place in their minds and their imagination. 

Certainly the senses of sight and hearing are being activated but, according to Glenn Young (2004: 104), 'the only way I found myself able to connect with this [Catholic] ritual in any tangible way was through the relation of what I was viewing to my own previous experiences as a participant in this liturgy.' The experience is embodied, he says, but only through the bodymind remembering. 

In his article, Religion and praying online, Young (2004:101) cites Brenda Brasher (2001:42) as observing that cyberspace 'stimulates the imagination but ignores the rest of the body...[and] that sucks attention away from the immediate surroundings in which most traditional religious lift occurs.'

So the quandary remains - why the intense engagement if the 'real' body is left only as a passive participant in the virtual sacred? To help me answer, or at least reflect on the question, I go webwalking and find T.L. Taylor (2002:42) explaining that:

'The body through which presence is being constructed is not simply the corporeal one, but the digital as well. In multi-user worlds it is not just through the inclusion of a representation of self that presence is built. It is instead through the use of a body as material in the dynamic performance of identity and social life that users come to be “made real” – that they come to experience immersion.' 

Taylor refers specifically to online avatars, imaginative creations of alter-egos for participation in the virtual. From Second Life to online gaming, avatars take on a life of their own as they become observably (at least onscreen) real, and real in the minds of the creators. Taylor comments that some individuals regard their avatar as more real or more corporally real than their own bodies or selves. This raises the question - which body is real for the avatar creator and other online participants?

So rather than an avatar, could Skype become an online process for connecting people in religious and spiritual embodied engagement?

Perhaps another way to chart the change is through the amazing and moving virtual choir. Composer Eric Whitacre uses the online vid format in the most imaginative way - by creating a virtual choir with singers, from all over globe and faiths, linked to a central performance online stage.

Whitacre began the project in 2009 after a fan and friend, Britlin, posted a message to him via a vid of her singing on youtube.  He then put out a call to other fans to record themselves singing the same track. Whitacre (2012) writes:

'When I saw Britlin’s video today the idea hit me like a brick: what if hundreds of people did the same thing and then we cut them all together, creating the very first virtual choir?'

Recordings of the Whitacre's virtual choir, especially the sound of beautiful sacred music, Luxe Aurumuqe, emanating from numbers of individual voices so intricately woven together, are evocative, touching, moving - but then I'm brought back to reality with a question raised by Jenny Mackness (2011) on her blogpost: 'Is a virtual choir ...even a choir?' What's missing, she says, is the sensual element and the minute adjustments a chorister would make in a face-to-face choir.

In contrast, there was a sense of spiritual capital or a spirit of togetherness and closeness mentioned by the choristers. In her blogpost Mackness examines Facebook posts by the choir participants and finds one talking about connectivity, emotionality and energy: 'It means that my voice can be heard around the world in harmony with other voices. We are connected through the emotions expressed by Eric’s composure. The energy created cannot be measured and will never die.’

While some comment on the practical difficulties of being alone and finding the right harmonies to sing along with, others exclaim how close they feel to the process, the music and the other singers.

Whitacre's music is so beautiful that I'm persuaded, at least until the sun comes out, to stay and listen online. It moves me. But then I know that the outdoors is calling, not to mention my cat the brown Burmese Merlin, is demanding his walk too.

Which is more engaging and embodied? Perhaps if I took the music I could be in both places at once - but I prefer the thoughts and the walking mashing together, accompanied by the gorgeous carolling of the magpies and the chatter of butcher birds along the riverbank in the early morning. Must dash, nature awaits.


Questions: Over to you

- Are virtual worlds as fun as real worlds? 
- Is religious experience or spiritual experience similar or different and how?
- Would you prefer to be in nature or on Facebook?
- What is more engaging - real worlds or virtual worlds?
- If you are religious from a monotheistic faith, do you feel God is online too?
- How does cyber space become sacred space?

References

Brasher, B.E. Give me that online religion. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Mackness, J. 2011. Is a virtual choir a learning network or even a choir? Oct 16. 

http://jennymackness.wordpress.com/2011/10/16/is-a-virtual-choir-a-learning-network-or-even-a-choir/
Taylor, T.L. 2002. Living digitally: embodiment in virtual worlds. In R. Schroeder, Ed., The social life of avatars: presence and interaction in shared virtual environments. London: Springer-Verlag.
Young, G. 2004. Reading and praying online: the continuity of religion online and online religion on the internet. In L.L. Dawson and D. Cowan, Eds. Religion online: finding faith on the internet. London and New York: Routledge.
Whitacre, E. 2012. Eric Whitacre's virtual choir - history. http://ericwhitacre.com/the-virtual-choir/history

Image Source:
http://pixabay.com/en/drops-drop-leaf-nature-22884/