for this we pray - installation
2007
Part of opening exhibition "Before Letters: After Words" at the Reading Digital Literature conference at Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, October 4-6 2007.
Download Arduino souce code (txt)
Download the prayer cards text (PDF)
Inspired by the tradition of lighting candles during prayer, for this we pray brings the experience of reflection to the everyday world of the jaded digital generation. Users select one of several prayer cards, and place it on an "altar" reminiscent of a church's candle stand. The prayer card is recognized via RFID, and a light is turned on. As more prayers are "read" the altar will fill with light.
The technology employed brings something new to reading, it ties the writing to an action that enriches the experience. Writing becomes performance. The use of cards is inpsired by the prayer cards I would receive after special Catholic masses as a child, cards with an image of a saint on one side and a lyric or prayer on the other side. These cards are kept in your bag or in your prayer book, wherever you would be likely to happen upon them and reflect once more on the essence of the thought the prayer card communicates. Each of the cards in for this we pray are devoted to a specific intention, each is a fragment, a musing on the role of prayer in the life of a hyper-digital urban atheist such as myself.
technology + making of the prototype
