True Faith, 2008
Discussions on laicism, like the most recent one on the so-called German "Kopftuchurteil" [headscarf ruling] from 2003, show, on one hand, the potential for political conflict that can open up out of nothing more than wearing particular clothing. On the other, clothing has always expressed social attachments and been a visible medium of philosophical convictions. Wearing the uniform vestments of an order, as, for instance, a nun’s habit, emphasized the communal adherence to that order, does not express individuality and is meant to serve as a sign of a simple life devoted to God. So the prescribed clothing was a costume devoid of colour and decoration and made of humble material like cotton or linen.
Miuccia Prada, a qualified political scientist and the head designer of her renowned italian fashion house, went on to combine elegantly luxurious haute couture materials like fine lace and brocade with formal idioms drawn from religion. Her staging of six nuns for the cover of the British fashion magazine POP is equally an avant-garde device as a symptom of the current trend towards a fashionable piety. The fashion photography of the British stylist, Katie Grand, links into that and she stands in the tradition of the blasphemous use of religious elements by pop stars like Madonna or Boy George.
Miuccia Prada, * 1949 in Mailand (I), lives and works in Mailand (I)
Miuccia Prada, True Faith, 2008
Concept, Styling and Casting: Miuccia Prada
photographs by Sebastian Faena
Sittings Editor: Katie Grand
POP Magazine, issue 19, Sept. 2008, 6 covers, pp. 201–209
Katie Grand, Nun Head, 2008
photographs by Sebastian Faena
fashion editor: Katie Grand
POP Magazine, issue 19, Sept. 2008, pp. 210–239
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Gospel Aerobics with Paul Eugene, ca. 2005-2008
The American fitness coach and choreographer, Paul Eugene, is noted for his home Aerobics-courses distributed on DVD and on American breakfast television. Eugene thereby finds himself within the tense scenario of a hedonistic body cult elevating the body itself to a fetish worthy of worship while, at the same time, making it a temple to the human spirit. The intimate gymnastics exercise in front of the television set replaces morning prayer, the aerobics course church service. One no longer pays homage to the invisible, instead, keeping one's own body in shape becomes praise to God's creation. As Eugene himself put it: "Praise You!"
Gospel Aerobics with Paul Eugene, ca. 2005-2008
video (colour, sound)
19:30 min., 21:50 min., 32 min., 24:30 min., 24 min., loop
http://de.youtube.com/results?search_query=gospel+aerobic&search_type (15.10.2008)
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God's Generals, 2008
What we can see here are extracts from historical documentations of American itinerant preachers and faith healers. These charismatic personalities, who filled complete halls and circus tents with people at once hopeless and expecting salvation, reveal themselves here in their gestures and actions as being curious to grotesque, as preachers, saviours and manipulators of hysterically devout masses.
These self-declared "God's Generals" style themselves in the spectacle of mass events as direct agents of God, as the way to healing and redemption.
God's Generals, 2008
documentary video material, found footage (color, sound)
15 min., loop
Production ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, 2008
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UC Berkeley Journalism Project: Faces of Faith, 2008
With the project Faces of Faith, journalists of the Graduate School of Journalism of the University of California, Berkeley enter the virtual world of Second Life. The panel discussion involves both spiritual leaders and scientists from the "real world" and experts and practitioners in matters of Second Life as avatars in exchanges on experiences of spirituality in the virtual space and illuminates the most varied aspects of the relationship between religion and the new media.
UC Berkeley Journalism Project: Faces of Faith, 2008
Second Life panel discussion
recorded 3-D-animation (colour, sound)
76 min., loop
a UC Berkeley Journalism Project
funded by the Carnegie-Knight Initiative
http://slcn.tv/faces-faith
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