“TAKE US TO A PLACE”: Using found, hosted online camera feeds and the technology introduced through our workshops, take us to a “place.”
Techonology used: OBS, After Effect
The digital place I take you to is a chatting room where you can chat with AI characters. The character I chose to chat with is Buddha, the “Awakened One” in Buddhism culture.
The reason why I chose Buddha is because of my curiousity about the intersection between technology and religion:
How does AI learn religion?
Can AI have a religious/spiritual belief?
My feed is more of a personal storytelling piece that narrates my virtual encounter and conversation with an AI Buddha and my later on physical experience in a physical Buddhist Temple. In a way, my trip to the temple resembles meeting an online friend in person, and I’m inviting you to witness my trip. However, I didn’t get to see the Buddha in person because the main hall was closed for all visitors.
How do physical rituals adapt to the digital environment? Is it possible to expand our personal/communal spiritual relationship to the divine through the use of technology?
In my case, I felt a more intimate connection to the Buddha when it is personified and I’m able to chat with him as a friend in such a virtual space, whereas in a physical temple, it feels much more distant and even inaccessible. And this distance is actually a man-made structure/hierarchy so that we could show worship to the divine. However, an AI Buddha interrogates such distance and brings a formal physical ritual into an informal and personal setting.
