SACROTION PROJECT
Designing digital media to celebrate our relationship with computing.
The Story
From the myth of Prometheus to AI
The exponential growth of technology seems inexorably to be ratifying the scientistic doctrine by elevating computer science to the rank of a new confession. Yet we still lack symbols powerful enough to transform this relationship into a true spiritual bond. The Alt Institute designed introspective media invoking the telematic sacred.
Rethinking today's initiatory architecture
The project drew on the traditional figure of the Mandala, born in India, to define new “ritual areas”. As an inner landscape, the circular diagram is also found in the rosette in Christianity, and as a pentagram in the Jewish and Muslim religions. From a psychoanalytical point of view, these architectural archetypes reconcile the conscious and unconscious through the movement of circles, spontaneously translating the psyche's descent towards a spiritual core. The motherboard of our new deities quickly became the substrate for the project, so perfectly does it reflect the idea of an inner world governed by information.
TALISMANS IN THE AGE OF DEMATERIALIZATION
Our team asked the AI to design Buddhist patterns, based on the matrix of central processing units (CPUs) - the brains of computers. The symbolic patterns were then written in standard digital format (in the form of “pits” and “lands”) on the photosensitive layer of disks, then laser-etched on the reflective layer. So, every computer equipped with a reader is able to physically “read” the information revealing its internal structure, but also the owner of a machine is now able to meditate on its spiritual representation. All common notions such as protection and stability are subtly present there.
Spirituality 2.0
If our species' original deprivation seemed at first sight to be a flaw, the ingenuity we can demonstrate has become a chance to transcend our humanity. The discs imagined here are hieratic supports oriented towards a computational power whose mantra could be “It from bit”. In this original way, the project invites to reconsider the notion of introspection and to maintain an unprecedented link with our electronic idols.