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"Thou Will Raise A Temple Of Great Numbers And Dimensions"

All Acting Regiment

01:26 / 19.10.05

I was looking at the altars thread and considering the idea of sacred/special spaces, and thinking about how in some cases (obviously every practice is different) it would be great to build a large structure- the whole temple, if you like, not just the altar- if only one had the land, the money, or the manpower. And this could be a simple votive structure- something you make and don't touch- or something more interactive, a place you can walk around.

And then I hit on two ideas: firstly, VRML, or Virtual Reality Markup Language, a web3d file format viewed through browsers that you can use to create a virtual 3d space- it was once used as a gimmick on certain chatrooms, from whence sprung the idea for Everquest etc. Also, the idea of a website, with different pages representing different rooms.

I think you could use both of these to create a substitute temple space, see? And what's more you could carry it with you on a disk, copy it, send it to different parts of the world etc. I have my VRML temple that I'd gladly show you as an example except I can't find anywhere that'll let me upload non-image files.

So this thread is about creating sacred space in a digital format- what do you think?

04:04 / 19.10.05

I think that equating sacred space with information space is a natural connection to make. Although I am unable to find the original file online right now, I have a screen capture of a VRML ritual construct that Mark Pesce, creator of VRML once did.

Erik Davis, in his essay (and later book) Techgnosis also creates a connection between the two spaces.

08:55 / 19.10.05

Interaction. Stuff to pick up. Candles to light. Liquids to spray. Food to eat. Libations to pour. Drums to play. Rattles to shake, Oils to annoint. Bells to ring. Flowers to see and to smell. Powders to sprinkle.

This sort of stuff is the essence of a good altar - these are things that allow you to connect with it physically and viscerally, not just in a dry intellectual aesthetic sense. It stimulates all of your senses towards a specific end. It's multi-faceted and every aspect of it has meaning.

How would you go about accomplishing this in "virtual space"?

I'm not dissing your project, but these are the sort of areas you should be thinking about if you want it to work as anything more than a novelty occult website.

All Acting Regiment

12:17 / 19.10.05

Good point, GL. Something like the Doom 3 engine could probably accomplish that fairly well.

ORA ORA ORA ORAAAA!!

14:26 / 19.10.05

Other than smells, secondlife could probably handle it, too.

Unfortunately, you need to pay to be able to build things, but it does have the advantage that people could come to your temple and perform rituals/hear teachings/whatever, from anywhere in the world.

06:37 / 20.10.05

On the life of the digital altar/virtual sacred space... this is how I did it.

When I did the camgirl thing (2000, 2001), I first thought to turn my cam on rituals performed under the guise of "cam shows." My audience at the time responded in kind; many treated me as the priestess of just another form of sacred space. A few LiveJournals popped up to store prayers and well-wishes. We wanked together, a la c. late 90's chaos magic. I would perform spells on the webcam to ask for various tool to advance "the work": a laptop (check), more cameras (always came in the mail just in time, gifted from fans), USB hubs, extra storage drives, lingerie, candles, custom-blended oils; a library of books on sacred sexuality; airfare across country and back. It really fucking worked, and I had no idea going in that my fanciful notion of being a digital priestess would work. Then again, so does having tits and a good place to leverage them in the digital media zeitgeist. Go dot.com god!

The digital space we (myself, my "fans") and I shared was bound more by narrative than the concept of landscape/a place to occupy. The flow of webcam images created an iconography, the journal I kept between images the liturgy. Having a referent point in physical reality -- my body, the camera, the temple -- was essential to maintaining the connection over the days, months, years. Some of those folks are still with me, reading, writing back.

I've got a much longer essay on this period of working kicking around, if anyone wants it by PM. You can also still spy on the my archive of the site. I've archived my first four rituals (three live, one captured on DV out in the woods pre-wifi and transmitted later) in my Flickr photostream.