My Scatty notes and slides from the Territories presentation on Monday.

Since last time

• Been looking at objects within belief systems
  • Bread
  • Crucifix
  • E-meter
• The process of these becoming sacred

Found out:

• Problems with idolatry
• Objects cannot act in religion as a savior
  • However statues and symbols etc exist of certain parts of religion
  • E.g. virgin mary

Bread to flesh

• The belief is a mental construct
• Someone/something tells you what object is or becomes
• Like Oak tree try by Michael Craig Martin
• The bread to flesh object at the V&A

Objects must serve as reminders in religion

• Therefore
  • Objects not required to construct belief
  • In the mind
  • Interested in such a democratic artifact- bread becoming holy

Ben Judd

• Started a religion
• Explored his faith and that of others
• Met witches, Scientologists etc.
• Then created his organisation and commissioned designers to brand it etc.

 
Mapping belief

• Quest for meaning results in belief
• A certain promise is made of being saved, or of a greater good
• This gives meaning to people through their beliefs

Objects becoming worshipped

• Objects are manipulated over time- including texts and so on about a belief
• Also built upon
• This means people get to manipulate their beliefs over time, and thus the people who will subscribe to that belief in the future.
• This also means that objects that should not be worshipped or even used become so

How a savior infiltrates society

• Saviors act against common practice
• Disagree with the man
• Solves problems or offers to for a certain group
• Saviors inevitably have to act against what is currently happening in order to establish a following
• This also results in fragments and groups

Objects dictate and demand belief

• Objects are used to manipulate in truth telling
• The truth becomes constructed
• The objects are designed to demand following and belief

Objects become accepted

• This can rise exponentially
• As example:
  • Object makes life better, friend see’s and gets one, and repeats.

Objects also mediate groups of people

• Objects provide group, and act as a thing to bring people onto common ground
• They tell of unity
• Act to advertise to non-subscribers

Belief is a human construct

• almost all objects man believe in are made by man
• However these are often made by people whom are far away in terms of status, time, or space

Objects reassure users

• Objects reassure
• Objects are smarter than us- however are made by us
• Objects are designed to reassure us
• Lack of understanding leads to worship, and placing of object on a pedestal, in the same way we don’t understand miracles

Technology can mediate, (and in examples does) the world for us like belief

• The helmet acts to reassure the user
• It displays pieces of information to the user to give them meaning, for example live pictures of their kids etc.
• It attempts to give meaning through it’s interface, and thus the interaction with the rest of the world.

What does god look like?

• We believe what we see

Persingers helmet

• Persinger created a helmet to stimulate a part of your brain that would make you hallucinate and see god
• Interest in epileptics before a seizure
• It also takes to mean that we have the capacity for belief already built into our brains.
• The machine would not make you see God, it is only stimulating pre conceived ideas of god.

The Brain machine

• If you can provide this mental environment to see god is it believable though; if you saw god would you believe in it?

The other technology

• The e-meter
• It’s not scientific
• Works in a different way
• Uses a machine to open up a part of you that context can then start to manipulate for example the guy sitting across from you can say; this machine says you should join our religion.
• The machine only works through lack of understanding/reason by its subjects, thus belief.

How can I make people believe through machines and technology?

The dreamachine

• The dreamachine is a primitive way of stimulating the brain, and creating hallucinations. 
• I am not saying, or trying to see god, however I am looking at it so see if the way it interacts with your mind, with simple flashing lights can be used to stimulate visions, and if belief can be attributed to such visions

However, machines are not enough

• Machines cannot create belief
• There must be a lack of reason
• Most importantly a context

And anyway how would you know if you saw god

My machine!

• Measures resistance through the body
• Attempts to construct meaning through materiality of object
• gives meaningless value weight with the object
• Can I form a system of belief around object

Next:

I want to put the machine in context

• Allow it build its own context
• Discover how it can be misappropriated by users
• Does meaning become attributed to it

I’m going to look at different systems of belief (obviously not all of the above, I am most concerned with Modernism at the moment.

Map objects that inform Belief systems

I’m looking at how beliefs inform objects and how these then inform beliefs, how this is cyclical and how it relates back to design.

I want to think more about the promise of savior and greater good within the context of design.

Look at the con-man

Read Heidegger

Books i am currently reading…