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SNLab develops projects with academia, public institutions and private industry in order to generate efficient networks that optimize interdisciplinary and creative approaches to innovation. New media, the intersections between fine arts, science and technology, regeneration projects, environmental and sustainability issues, secular society and virtual reality environments are some of the areas explored. SNLab works on the conception and development of creative content for exhibitions and media projects, collaborative synergies and the management of interdisciplinary networks.

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Art, Politics and Religion

Saying that there is a need to rethink in evolutionary terms the way in which we think of religions’ moral stands is pretty revolutionary, particularly if one were to think that religions are based on dogmatic assumptions that are very difficult to shift. Tony Blair just did that asking for a more critical ‘rethinking’ of the moral stand of the Catholic Church on its perception of the gay community. Is society changing faster than we would assume?

Newsweek published an interesting article on postchristianity (the choice of the spelling and small caps are intentional). The idea of a revision of the personal and cultural engagement with Christianity or any other religion is a welcome thought. It challenges the concept of revelation on which the truth of religion is based upon and in some instances also the sacrality of art itself.

A strange thought has suddenly dawned upon me, is art just another religious addiction? The great focus of art for centuries on religious representation - even when we talk of the Greek or Roman pantheons that today are only mythological remnants - brings back the idea of an evolutionary, unstable and always changing concept of art as well as religions. Parmenides with the philosophical impossibility of knowing the truth of the gods comes to my mind. Where is then standing the concept of revelation of ‘truth’ - artistic and/or religious - when the social upheavals determine and shape aesthetic and theological changes?

Perhaps a mix of art and religion as a new postmodern engagement should be sought in the religious aesthetic of pleasure, but that perhaps would be still a bit too Epicurean. Still in such a beautiful day the pleasure of life is more appealing to me that of afterlife: vague, inconsistent and not at all certain in its multiple revelations.

Carpe diem then and let’s hope that the gods, and the politicians, will forgive us a moment of pleasure. 

There has been a change in the West. The debate on multiculturalism, with all of its pitfall and misinterpretations, appears to have shifted. Finally religious and national statements that are intolerant of human life, basic human rights and minorities are no longer cultural expressions but ‘abhorrent’ misgivings.

Too little too late? The change is certainly welcome. From the condemnation of the Catholic Church for its statements on condoms to the no less severe condemnation of a ‘rape law’ in Afghanistan, in these days religious and political figures ( Karzai ) that attempt to infringe basic human rights in name of a loosely defined concept of culture are rebuffed and rebuked.

It will take a bit of time before both the political and religious figure will perceive the strong wind of change that are redefining cultural engagements as having to be necessarily based on the respect of human life and dignity independently from sexual, racial and religious identities of the individual.

To define abhorrent these cultural misconceptions that are sold under the banner of national and religious laws is a first step for engagements that are respectful of everyone’s basic human rights.