Morning Prayers I

Morning Prayers I

Morning Prayers I

16-24-year-old adult spend a median of 3 hours on social media each day. Application designer making use of the smallest details of our lives in order to make us become more engaged with our cellular devices. Cellphones are not just a tool that connects us to the virtual society, it became the place where our security settles and anxiety arises. The amount of time we spend on these devices creates a kind of virtual intimacy that could not be replaced by anything else. When people are constantly bombarded by the iteration of new information; when we can’t justify real news and fake news; when there is no point for us to take a stance in politics, cyberspace, this boundaryless, “free speech” zone offers a platform for people to present individual beliefs without being coerced. This virtual space became something more than just an electronic tool, it carries our secret, our identity, our belief. The “internet” of AD 1019 was the church bells for communal services. This gives indication that religion and social network are always in a parallel situation. We check our phones ritually when we wake up and before going to bed. Social media has become the “Contemporary Religion” that we all believe in.

My practice started with the study of how our body engage with cellular devices. By looking at the scans of my body using cellphone, I associated it with the gesture of prayer. The common thing about social media and religion is that they are both not tangible and they both generate a sense of contentment when we become fully immersed. However, the nature of the two is very different. In religion, we revere God and obey the words of God. We cultivate ourselves according to the religious doctrine. Through religious practice we obtain an Apollonian kind of completeness. Social media offers a free space where we could confront our desires. We seek for likeness groups of people for sense of identity; we squander time and energy on the virtual space for relaxation; we “shout” out our ideas so our senses would become settled, relieved, satisfied. When we login to these social platforms we also login to a Dionysian like hilarity.

In order to conduct the relationship between religion and social media, I combined rosary beads and iPhone as the main body of my work. In this work I laid out the 112 Buddhist rosary bead(108 praying beads + 3 dividing beads + 1 mother bead) into the iPhone box. I welded 2.5mm bass sheets together to create the iPhone box. The use of metal creates a contrast in weight comparing to the original iPhone box. This contrast in weight is also a narrative of the weight difference between religion and social media. Religion is considered as a serious, structured subject, while social media is much more light-weight and remote. The rosary beads and the groove is made out of African Blackwood. There are two different types of shape of the beads, one is with straight holes, the other is with angled holes. The angled hole beads are laid out in the end of each row. Magnets and steel bits are placed in the groove and beads for stability.

16-24-year-old adult spend a median of 3 hours on social media each day. Application designer making use of the smallest details of our lives in order to make us become more engaged with our cellular devices. Cellphones are not just a tool that connects us to the virtual society, it became the place where our security settles and anxiety arises. The amount of time we spend on these devices creates a kind of virtual intimacy that could not be replaced by anything else. When people are constantly bombarded by the iteration of new information; when we can’t justify real news and fake news; when there is no point for us to take a stance in politics, cyberspace, this boundaryless, “free speech” zone offers a platform for people to present individual beliefs without being coerced. This virtual space became something more than just an electronic tool, it carries our secret, our identity, our belief. The “internet” of AD 1019 was the church bells for communal services. This gives indication that religion and social network are always in a parallel situation. We check our phones ritually when we wake up and before going to bed. Social media has become the “Contemporary Religion” that we all believe in.

My practice started with the study of how our body engage with cellular devices. By looking at the scans of my body using cellphone, I associated it with the gesture of prayer. The common thing about social media and religion is that they are both not tangible and they both generate a sense of contentment when we become fully immersed. However, the nature of the two is very different. In religion, we revere God and obey the words of God. We cultivate ourselves according to the religious doctrine. Through religious practice we obtain an Apollonian kind of completeness. Social media offers a free space where we could confront our desires. We seek for likeness groups of people for sense of identity; we squander time and energy on the virtual space for relaxation; we “shout” out our ideas so our senses would become settled, relieved, satisfied. When we login to these social platforms we also login to a Dionysian like hilarity.

In order to conduct the relationship between religion and social media, I combined rosary beads and iPhone as the main body of my work. In this work I laid out the 112 Buddhist rosary bead(108 praying beads + 3 dividing beads + 1 mother bead) into the iPhone box. I welded 2.5mm bass sheets together to create the iPhone box. The use of metal creates a contrast in weight comparing to the original iPhone box. This contrast in weight is also a narrative of the weight difference between religion and social media. Religion is considered as a serious, structured subject, while social media is much more light-weight and remote. The rosary beads and the groove is made out of African Blackwood. There are two different types of shape of the beads, one is with straight holes, the other is with angled holes. The angled hole beads are laid out in the end of each row. Magnets and steel bits are placed in the groove and beads for stability.

Year: 2021
Material: Brass, Copper, Silver, African Blackwood, Resin
Technique: Milling, Welding, Casting, CNC Cutting, 3D Printing, Silver Platting
Size: 161 x 180 x 50 mm

Year: 2021
Material: Brass, Copper, Silver, African Blackwood, Resin
Technique: Milling, Welding, Casting, CNC Cutting, 3D Printing, Silver Platting
Size: 161 x 180 x 50 mm

https://2021.rca.ac.uk/students/xiahan-dai

https://www.instagram.com/d.dai_d.dai/