A Robotic Chaplain?
June 27, 2012 12 Comments
Gentlemen, we may soon be out of work at hospitals.
Off to oblivion. The way of the world. A world devoid of Christ… and hope…
TAC Priest in South Africa.
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Wow! Now this is certainly ‘out there’! I would rather be “alone” in the presence of the invisible God at death, than have this man-made thing/”presence”? which is really “nothing”! Maybe my time will come however standing and ministering “Christ”, to one of His people’s body, soul-spirit? I hope so!
Please, this is a form of cowardice on our part. If it was Jesus Christ who was lying there, would you leave Him at the hands of some machine? God did not send a machine for us. God Himself became Man, a flesh-and-blood Man who was born and was killed at his prime for us. If you compare God coming down for us, and more importantly in the form of His agents, his holy priests, this -toy- is worthless!
It should be made clear that this was an art installation, not any kind of proposed medical/pastoral option.
Poor art, eh!
Modern art. Blah. As a graduate of an Arts college, Modern Art is 90% rubbish and 10% ego. It reminds me of that “Transubstantiation” art installation, which was a glass of water, claimed by the “artist” to be a tree. It’s supposed to be ironic and is a critique independent of our Christian beliefs. Considering how liberal, leftist, and anti-Christian the mainstream art world is, I don’t believe that it’s not a slap against Jesus Christ.
I remember reading a poem by Fr S J Forrest that began ‘Our automatic vicar is the very latest thing’. I think the message from the poet was that many people would like to have a vicar just like that, which would do exactly what they programmed it to do and nothing more.
This installation, like the poem Sandra mentions, forces the viewer/reader to examine assumptions about ministry in a consumer-driven society, personhood, many other important and interesting issues. Isn’t that one of functions of art?
Problem: art becomes political by the “forcing” of the viewer, and so the artist cannot completely detach his opinion upon the matter, and so a part of his politics would color the work. If the artist is apolitical, than his apoliticalism would be apparent. If it does indeed force the viewer to do what you have said, yes, it can do that, but the subjectivity of the work makes one personally agree or disagree with the position or statement made by the artist through his medium, and it is reduced to nothing more than a sort of sterile, voyeuristic endeavor at best or intellectual masturbation at worst. This relationship between the artist, his work, and his viewers (and by extension, his critics) They all either agree, disagree, or consider the work irrelevant. By itself, it seems to have little or no value, because it is dependent upon the artist and his concepts. A sort of nod to the “There is no objective truth” stance that many people seem to adopt nowadays.
But that’s only because modern art in general has been influenced and dominated by Western-centric experience, let’s say, starting from the Renaissance and Baroque, all the way through both World Wars, and post-colonial/imperial world. (part of it is the assumption that in order for art to be “modern” it has to be “Western” because it has to draw forth from western traditions and perceptions.) Art certainly becomes less functional or even aesthetically pleasing as much as it becomes about people owning a part of an artist’s spirit, who for some reason is held up higher above all others despite post-modern insistence that anything and everything can be art and anyone can be an artist. The overall result, in my own opinion, is mediocrity and lack of devotion to discipline and technical knowledge in exchange for the emergence of self-important “personalities” whose worth can only be evaluated by how shocking he is, or the connections he has within the moneyed elite who has the ability to commodify artwork as luxury items. Us non-elites would have to settle for mass-produced kitsch, after all.
I would very much like for the Church to be the source of great art again, to be the trend setter, very much in the same role it has provided at the end of antiquity. But part of what I see now is the Church trying to “catch up” as if the Church is trying to be secular. The only things that lose their novelty are the new things; old things are either forgotten because they’re worth forgetting, or they become “classics” because there is a purity in them which make them transcend any temporal notion of age and is not so ego-centric as pander to the participant in the experience provided by the artist through his medium. Here’s an example: Bach and his cantatas can be obscure, but Bach’s work transcends Bach’s personality because his faith in God rebels against the notion that Bach’s work is all about Bach. and after 300 years, his work is not forgotten and it still holds firm. Meanwhile, you have Britney Spears and the Spice Girls playing the same 3-chord songs and whose worth to the world was only their novelty and whatever their corporate sponsors believe is marketable to us novelty-worshippers.
I can’t help but think why I love the Traditional Mass than the Mass of Paul VI. How it compare to, say, the Liturgy of Saint James? That Liturgy has been around since A.D. 60! St. Peter was still alive at that point! And then there’s the Sarum Rite which is 1,000 years younger than the Liturgy of St. James, and 1,000 years older than the “Novus Ordo” mass. And from what I’ve seen of the Sarum Rite, IT IS BEAUTIFUL, I TELL YOU! No amount of modern, hip, cool mass will convince me otherwise!
Pardon my rambling, but I have a lot to get out of my chest with regards to “Modern Art” In fact it was a factor in my rejection of trying to fit with what the world demands I do. I’d rather belong to eternity, to God, for anyone who is married to a spirit of an age will quickly find themselves widowed.
I have no standing as an art critic and probably should not have used the word “forced”. But every work of art has a point of view. When it is more or less shared by artist and viewer it is transparent, but still there, as when a 14th C Madonna is surrounded by saints of many different eras, St Stephen in a nice dalmatic and St Peter Martyr with a hatchet through his head, plus a few miniature donors in the corner. I don’t think that it is symptomatic of the collapse of civilization that a 21st C viewer inevitably responds differently than the original audience.
I look at those old works, and I see things that are so underappreciated. Let us consider how much of those images of holy men and women mean to us. I am reminded of an interview that Peter Hitchens, brother of the atheist Christopher Hitchens, relate to us of his conversion. He looked at the work of a Burgundian master, and he did not see the work of brutes, bigots, and crudity, but something that moved him to his eventual conversion. This, to me, is an example of the proper effect of art, something that “artists” nowadays dismiss for one reason or another.
Thank you for putting me on to another stimulating and thought-provoking video. If I were more knowledgable I would try to reconcile the points we have both been making, but in any event I will keep thinking about it. Don’t totally give up on Modern/ Contemporary Art. The Spirit bloweth where It listeth.
Now, that’s a mite creepy…