(Credit:
Digital Praise)
If you've been champing at the bit to play some Guitar Hero, but have found that the music contained therein just doesn't meld with your Christian values, you may be in luck.
Digital Praise, a maker of Christian computer games, has released Guitar Praise, which is basically a Christian rock version of Guitar Hero.
The game replaces such Guitar Hero staples as Primus, Rage Against the Machine, and Butthole Surfers with artists including Nate Sallie, Petra, and Jonah33. As far as I can tell from the promotional video there is no other difference.
The complete package retails for $100 and includes a wireless guitar and a Windows- and Mac-compatible game.
So if you like to picture your deity "with like giant eagle's wings, singing lead vocals for Lynyrd Skynyrd with like an angel band" (you know, minus the Skynyrd), then this game might be worth checking out.
Ever gotten a text message from the pope? Well, to commemorate the Catholic Church's annual World Youth Day this July, thousands of young Catholics in Australia will be able to say that they did.
ZOMG HAVE U SEEN MY NEW HAT? Text messages from Pope Benedict XVI.
"We wanted to make (World Youth Day 2008) a unique experience by using new ways to connect with today's tech-savvy youth," Bishop Anthony Fisher of the Archdiocese of Sydney said in a statement provided to Reuters on Wednesday. Pope Benedict XVI will be in Sydney for the six-day celebration, which starts on July 15, and Australian youth will be able to connect on a very familiar level: daily inspirational text messages, "digital prayer walls" throughout Sydney, and a social-networking site.
I spent 10 years in Catholic school and we definitely never had anything like this. Guess the digital age does change everything.
According to Reuters, the broadcast, mobile, broadband, and other tech-related services surrounding the event will be provided by the Australian telecom company Telstra, which is preparing for 225,000 pilgrims, 8,000 volunteers, 2,000 clergy, and 3,000 members of the press in Sydney for the celebration.
When it comes to paying tribute to deities--or invoking them for unsavory political purposes--mankind hasn't exactly been slacking. This makes life especially rewarding for San Francisco conceptual artist Jonathon Keats, whose work often focuses on conflicts between religious precepts and science. Operating under the cover of agnosticism, Keats devises projects that force-fit theology, nature, and technology into weird forms of cohabitation. He has attempted to create God in a petri dish and has created abstract art for extraterrestrials and pornography for houseplants. Keats knows the projects are nutty. But there's just enough rationality in them to get you talking about the points of friction between religion and science, and between art and technology.
A solar system here, a solar system there. Pretty soon you've got a whole galaxy.
(Credit: Jonathon Keats)His latest source of amusement is "Miracle Works," in which he licenses to mortals the rights to perform divine miracles such as the creation of solar systems (seven in all--good luck with that!). He also has developed a musical composition based on constellations of stars that is intended to be performed by the deities. The actual work resonates at about 30,000 octaves below human hearing range, but Keats has released a digital simulation of the piece, called " Sonata for Astral Organ," through GarageBand that mortals can hear.
Keats says this project is meant not only as a salve for deities who've lost some of their luster in the age of tech, but also as a diversion for skeptics. "I'm sympathetic to deities, who must compete to be noticed and are constantly at risk of being debunked," he says. "I'm also sympathetic, even more so, to the cynics amongst us who have lost their sense of wonder. Perhaps awe can be rediscovered through art."
"Miracle Works" opens with a public reception from 5:30 to 8 p.m. on November 14 at Modernism Gallery located at 685 Market Street in San Francisco.
There's been a lot of buzz recently about USB flash drives as an art form--these days, it seems like the gadget and design sectors of the blogosphere are all about Mimoco's kind of cute, kind of creepy Mimobots, and now Notcot is showcasing what it jokingly refers to as "Saint USB." But you won't find them in stores (or churches). These high-tech devotional statues are part of "Oh Maria, Keep My Data Safe," a project by Spanish graphic designer Luis Eslava. He considers them a statement about our "adoration" of computers.
It doesn't appear that Eslava wants to turn his design pieces into mass merchandise, but I wouldn't be one bit surprised if some entrepreneur somewhere decided to capitalize on the concept of religious-themed USB drives. They'd probably have the same user base as the cross-shaped MP3 player.
(Photo: Luis Eslava)
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