Exploring the Technological Co-production of Atmospheres in the Liturgical Laboratory

• In Event: Postphenomenology - III: The Boundaries of Humans and Technologies

Abstract

The 21st century has seen the uprising of more and more alternative services being conducted within the Church of Denmark. These might include anything from ambient music in a church room bathed in electric, red light with visuals playing in the ceiling to bean bag chairs scattered around the altar. Most often these new services take place in so-called night-churches. Or in a “liturgical laboratory” – as one of the most prominent night-churches fittingly conceptualizes this experimental urge.
This paper enters the liturgical laboratory and explores the relationship between technologies, priests, and churchgoers. Using Bruno Latour’s theory of technical mediation and postphenomenology enables a firmer grasp of the manifold mediations making up the practices of the liturgical laboratory. However, bringing the aforementioned into the liturgical laboratory also highlights technological aspects that Latour (alongside ANT in general) and classical postphenomenology have left unexplored: The role of technologies in co-producing atmospheres. Primarily inspired by philosopher Gernot Böhme the paper claims that technologies are also co-producing “tuned” spaces; that is, atmospheres that grasp the churchgoers emotionally upon entering the church. Thus, in the liturgical laboratory technologies are not only mediating behavior, they are also generating affections in churchgoers by co-producing atmospheres.

Author

• Andreas Melson Gregersen, Norwegian School of Theology, Religion and Society