This artwork is part of the artist Saks Afridi’s ‘SpaceMosque’ series. This project exists in a genre the artist terms as ‘Sci-fi Sufism’. Here he explores the idea of ‘Spiritual Machines’ that fuse mysticism and technology, bringing humanity closer to understanding itself.
The ‘SpaceMosque’ project has been exhibited in galleries and institutions such as Aicon Gallery and the Ford Foundation in NYC and the Asian Arts Initiative in Phaladelphia, as well as the Off Biennale in Cairo, Egypt and most recently in the Wrong Biennale 2021-2022.
Website: http://www.saksafridi.com/spacemosque
Video of exhibition: https://youtu.be/hf3Wv-gO6gE
SPACEMOSQUE NARRATIVE:
“If all your prayers were answered, would it change the world, or just yours?” - Unknown
In the near past, a global phenomenon occurred which has since been erased from our memories. Due to the arrival of a strange vessel from the future, a Spiritual Machine from outer space, each human being on the planet got one prayer answered every 24 hours. The Vessel was a spiritually conscious spaceship, energy station and a prayer gateway. Its divine algorithms and foresight technology determined the selection of prayers it chose to answer.
The vessel appeared in countless forms. We later learned that the vessel uniquely manifested itself depending on the personal biases of the individual witnessing it. It was first seen in Pakistan and news reporters saw a Mosque-like hovering object and dubbed it SpaceMosque. The moniker stuck through the course of the phenomenon.
During its time here, the vessel answered billions of prayers. Our global reality was changed overnight. The impact of this arrival led to both great miracles and great tragedies. Greed and morality were at constant war, and prayer eventually became the de facto universal currency.
As abruptly as it appeared, The vessel vanished. Along with any memory of its existence, save for a few remnants of glitched stories and artifacts spread around the globe. We do not know the reason for The Vessel’s arrival or its departure, but our findings reveal that global riots due to the commoditization of prayers may have led to it. A popular theory among researchers of the phenomenon is that enough people on the planet prayed for it to leave and all to be forgotten. Or perhaps it was just a divine experiment.
