Digital Spirituality

An immersive audiovisual journey through the phases of spirituality in people’s religious experience in the digital media era.

Year: 2023
Type: RCA school project
Discipline: Experience Design, Art & Research
Tools: TouchDesigner, Cinema4D, Ableton, LiveGrabber

Digital Spirituality is an audiovisual experience spanning sound design, audio-reactive visualisation and composition. It unfolds in four stages, each with its own sounds and visuals, tracing how religious experiences and symbols from Taoism and Buddhism evolve, and evoking spiritual sentiment.

Digital Spirituality screening at the BBC Showreel, White City — **BBC Showreel**Screened at White City, London.

Four stages

Stage 1: cell-like forms dividing — **Stage 1**The genesis of spirituality and identity. Temple bells resonate with visuals of the evolving, many-sided nature of personal identity. Drawing on the Taoist idea “One generates Two, Two generates Three, Three generates everything”, the visuals unfold like cell division, revealing the world from its smallest elements.

Stage 2: audio-reactive lotus — **Stage 2**The era of enlightenment, as religion separates from myth and ritual. Monks’ chants drive an audio-reactive lotus that blossoms with the chanting, a collective image of spiritual awakening and faith.

Stage 3: Buddhist sculpture disrupted by glitches — **Stage 3**How media shapes religious experience. Close-ups of a Buddhist sculpture’s forehead are disrupted by synthetic sound, showing the confrontation with divinity and the breakdown of authority as digital media reshapes imagination and spirituality.

Stage 4: interconnected reactive visuals — **Stage 4**Decentralised ideologies and fluid religiosity. Temple bells turn into synthesised sound, chanting merges with the murmur of people, and reactive visuals show diverse individuals connected in every direction.

Testing with an audience

Audience testing session for Digital Spirituality

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