For the past decade, my work as an artist, witchdoctor and cultural engineer has involved the invention and dissemination of a queer religion and mythological space opera called RELIGIONVIRUS, that has been performed/exhibited/screened/published in over 25 countries worldwide. My work as an artist-researcher has excavated the problem of invented religions in popular culture emerging out of, or in relation to speculative fiction narratives, and the kinds of belief practises they inspire. I am less interested in what a religion is, and more, what a religion does, and if invented religions do what established religions do, if they then function as replacements, or as entirely new paradigmatic structures. I am also interested in the idea of Religion as Medium, or as a form of artistic production, and identifying the transmedial ingredients necessary to inspire belief or produce "religious experience." My RELIGIONVIRUS is a form of Metamodernist [re]construction – following Postmodernisms critique of grand narratives, a number of us have returned to big stories with an added critical lens, utilizing speculative fiction as strategy. In response to this year’s theme of Emergency, which summons urgent proposals for new paradigmatic frameworks, I am proposing a 90 minute presentation/workshop exploring the idea of invented religions and their radical imaginative possibilities as an exercise to test new paradigms through the use of the critical imaginary. The structure I propose is as follows (1) a 40 minute presentation on my own practise [RELIGIONVIRUS] and its relation to the larger phenomenon of invented religions in the information age, followed by (2) a 20 minute exercise wherein participants break off into small groups (or independently) to invent their own religions, to be followed by (3) a 15 minute presentation of the religions invented and then (4) a 15 minute dialogue session about the questions the workshop provokes.

Click here to view the remains of this cancelled presentation on Research Catalogue