CS547 Human-Computer Interaction Seminar (Seminar on People, Computers, and Design)
Fridays 12:30-1:50 · Gates B01 · Open to the public- 20 years of speakers
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Genevieve Bell
Intel The Digital and the Divine: a Critical Exploration of the Intersections of Spiritual Practice and New Technologies November 11, 2005 The Australian Bible Society has recently produced a copy of the bible in text message style and format -- it is designed to be loaded on a computer and blue-toothed to a compatible cell phone and then broadcast to one's bible study or Christian youth group. At first blush, this seems like an odd artefact, the first line to a joke. But in the "West", there is a long and complicated relationship between technology and religion. After all, Johannes Gutenberg's printing press produced the Bible in the 1450s. It was the first book to be thusly mass-produced. Today, the largest online genealogical service is run by a Christian institution, the Catholic church has its own text message service, religiously inspired blogs and chat rooms flourish in the United States and elsewhere around the world. Elsewhere, technology manufacturers are catering to the ways in which computational devices might support religious practices, producing religion-specific technologies and experiences. Indeed given the ways in which religious practices are intimately woven into
the fabric of daily life in many parts of the world, it should not be so far
fetched to imagine that new information and communication technologies (ICTs)
might support a range of non-secular activities. In this talk, I want to revisit some of these instances of techno-fied spirituality,
with an ethnographic sensibility. I want to survey some of the existing practices
and devices, both in the mobile and internet spaces -- I am interested in
both institutional and individual strategies around these various computational
platforms and devices. I am particularly interested in thinking about the
ways in which religious uses of technology suggest a very different path(s)
for technology envisioning and development. |
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