Religious art in the Digital Domain

Abstract

In the light of my digital artistic reproduction of an original titular (in my case Our Lady of Graces - Capuchin's Church Victoria, Gozo), I will be seeking, through a theoretical review of contemporary writings on the subject and popular response, to ascertain whether this reproduction retains the same aural spiritual value of the original when exhibited in the same location (the church) as the original. The relevance of this issue is connected to the declared religious beliefs of almost the entire population of the Maltese Islands, of whom ninety seven per cent are professedly Roman Catholics. For centuries, it was the baroque style that attracted the Roman Catholic faithful, whether Maltese or otherwise. Its complex and rich stylistic attributes being in line with the outward signs of religion as practiced in Malta (but also elsewhere, particularly in the Latin Roman Catholic Mediterranean countries). Being a Roman Catholic myself and also. working in the fields of graphic and digital art, I set out to investigate whether a society which is deeply conservative and traditional allows any infiltration of traits of the mechanical and digital world, without losing its spiritual aura. In any case, the Maltese public is well conversant with digital realities: the Internet, mobile phones, tablets and didactic devices being ubiquitous by their presence. It is the meeting point between the two that lies at the basis of my writing (and my artistic work). Can religious artwork created by digital and mechanical objects attract the general public to worship? And if so, how relevant is the place in which a digital reproduction is found? The fact that so far digital art has been kept separate from the current religious artifacts on the Maltese Islands makes my research all the more interesting.