Synopsis

The Religious Lines Sculpture is a large-scale, kinetic art piece that urges the public to interact with it. My goal with this piece is to encourage the user to think about their belief system and how they can use that system to promote peace & religious tolerance instead of hatred & fanaticism.

The Sculpture

The 6.5 meter high
Religious Lines sculpture

In the image to the left, the elements in grey are either ground or are permanently fixed to ground.

All of the other elements are free to rotate around the fixed elements as the user interacts with the piece.

Each of the four main elements of the sculpture play an important role in its thematic and structural composition.

The menu located to the right can help to explain the sculpture in more detail.

Kinetics

With its kinetic elements, the sculpture should urge the public to interact with it. As the user sets the piece in motion, he/she activates a series of gears and mechanisms which, in turn, periodically displays a message.

How a user interacts with the sculpture
and the resulting reaction

The message can change depending on from which side the user chooses to activate the sculpture & in which direction it is spinning.

The image to the left shows the reactions the sculpture's mechanical elements produce with the user's input action.

As the user rotates the sculpture in either direction (A), the +/- bar slides back and forth (B) which periodically presents to the user a plus sign on one end of the bar and a minus sign on the other.

User Experience

The user is free to create different types of experiences with this sculpture. He or she can take an active role by approaching the sculpture and interacting with it in a number of ways. Or, a more passive role can be assumed whereby he or she observes as others approach and activate the sculpture.

These two approaches parallel the two prominent styles of the practioners of each religion. Those who are actively pursuing what organized religion has to offer (a sense of fellowship and belonging, a commitment to a belief system, an open sign of respect to God, etc...) are going to get a different experience from religion than those that take a more passive approach.

Furthermore, each of the two featured religions share a common message to its practioners. The message is simply, and purposely understated here, that the faithful respect and show compassion to: God, fellow man, and all other forms of life on Earth. Unfortunately, a number of actively faithful within each religion may take an extremist viewpoint of what they feel is the message of their religion and begin to distort that view to fit their own agendas which are often diametrically opposed to the basic tenets of their religion. Refer to the Christian-extremist who murders a doctor for performing secularly legal abortions or the Islamic-extremist who murders a woman for not covering herself in public.

The user taking the active role with this sculpture is also presented with this dichotomy. On one side of the sculpture a plus sign is periodically presented as the sculpture is activated to symbolize the positive, or good, things that an organized religion may offer; but a user on the opposite side is periodically presented with a minus sign which represents the negative, or harmful, effects that extremism can bring to organized religion.

Sensible Citation

We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.
               -Jonathan Swift, author