skip to main content
10.1145/3639701.3656326acmconferencesArticle/Chapter ViewAbstractPublication PagesimxConference Proceedingsconference-collections
research-article
Open access

Sacred Spaces in the Digital Age: Perceptions of Lutheran Christian Priests on Augmented Reality at Holy Sites

Published: 07 June 2024 Publication History

Abstract

The concepts of sacred places and spaces appear throughout religions globally. Places such as churches, cathedrals, temples, mosques, synagogues and graveyards are given special meanings, both functionally and spiritually, and separated from the ordinary. Recently location-based augmented reality (AR) technologies and applications have become widespread, and this raises questions regarding how AR content relates to sacred places. In this study, we approached this complex topic by asking clergy of the Lutheran Christian Church (N=47) to reflect on associated phenomena. We approached the data via reflexive thematic analysis and uncovered tensions related to (1) connected vs detached from sacredness; (2) supporting the spiritual purpose of the space vs conflicting with it; and (3) maintaining tradition vs embracing innovation. Overall, our findings suggest that AR technologies and products impact sacred spaces on multiple levels, but currently there is no consensus among the clergy on the impact of these changes.

References

[1]
Oihab Allal-Chérif. 2022. Intelligent cathedrals: Using augmented reality, virtual reality, and artificial intelligence to provide an intense cultural, historical, and religious visitor experience. Technological Forecasting and Social Change 178 (2022), 121604.
[2]
AppleInc.2023. Apple Vision Pro.
[3]
Manuel Baer, Thomas Tregel, Samuli Laato, and Heinrich Söbke. 2022. Virtually (re) constructed reality: the representation of physical space in commercial location-based games. In Proceedings of the 25th International Academic Mindtrek Conference. ACM, Tampere, Finland, 9–22.
[4]
Anatolii Belousov, Terho Ojell-Järventausta, Mila Bujić, Joseph Macey, and Juho Hamari. 2023. Digitally-Induced Altered States of Consciousness and Playful HCI: Future Research Agenda of a Novel Perspective. In Companion Proceedings of the Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play. ACM, Stratford, Canada, 127–134.
[5]
Răzvan Gabriel Boboc, Florin Gîrbacia, Mihai Duguleană, and Aleš Tavčar. 2017. A handheld Augmented Reality to revive a demolished Reformed Church from Braşov. In Proceedings of the Virtual Reality International Conference-Laval Virtual 2017. 1–4.
[6]
Alexander Bogner, Beate Littig, and Wolfgang Menz. 2009. Introduction: Expert interviews—An introduction to a new methodological debate. In Interviewing experts. Springer, 1–13.
[7]
Nicholas David Bowman, Rowan Daneels, and Daniel Possler. 2023. Excited for eudaimonia? An emergent thematic analysis of player expectations of upcoming video games.Psychology of Popular Media (2023). https://doi.org/10.1037/ppm0000474
[8]
Virginia Braun and Victoria Clarke. 2019. Reflecting on reflexive thematic analysis. Qualitative research in sport, exercise and health 11, 4 (2019), 589–597.
[9]
Elizabeth Buie. 2019. Let us say what we mean: Towards operational definitions for techno-spirituality research. In Extended Abstracts of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. 1–10.
[10]
Mila Bujić, Mikko Salminen, Joseph Macey, and Juho Hamari. 2020. “Empathy machine”: how virtual reality affects human rights attitudes. Internet Research 30, 5 (2020), 1407–1425. https://doi.org/10.1108/INTR-07-2019-0306
[11]
Amber Choo and Aaron May. 2014. Virtual mindfulness meditation: Virtual reality and electroencephalography for health gamification. In 2014 IEEE Games Media Entertainment. IEEE, 1–3. https://doi.org/10.1109/GEM.2014.7048076
[12]
Doriana Cisternino, Laura Corchia, Valerio De Luca, Carola Gatto, Silvia Liaci, Liliana Scrivano, Anna Trono, and Lucio Tommaso De Paolis. 2021. Augmented reality applications to support the promotion of cultural heritage: the case of the basilica of saint catherine of alexandria in Galatina. Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage (JOCCH) 14, 4 (2021), 1–30.
[13]
Marshall Connolly. 2016. Is ’Pokemon Go’ anti-Catholic?Online, available at: https://www.catholic.org/news/technology/story.php?id=69867, visited November 18, 2023 (2016), 1–1.
[14]
Anthony-Paul Cooper, Samuli Laato, Suvi Nenonen, Nicolas Pope, David Tjiharuka, and Erkki Sutinen. 2021. The reconfiguration of social, digital and physical presence: From online church to church online. HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies 77, 3 (2021).
[15]
Rowan Daneels, Nicholas D Bowman, Daniel Possler, and Elisa D Mekler. 2021. The ‘eudaimonic experience’: A scoping review of the concept in digital games research. Media and Communication 9, 2 (2021), 178–190. https://doi.org/10.17645/mac.v9i2.3824
[16]
Emile Durkheim. 1915. The Elementary Forms of The Religius Life. IRCISOD.
[17]
Theodora Ekonomou and Spyros Vosinakis. 2018. MOBILE AUGMENTED REALITY GAMES AS AN ENGAGING TOOL FOR CULTURAL HERITAGE DISSEMINATION: A CASE STUDY.Scientific Culture 4, 2 (2018).
[18]
Sonja Gabriel. 2017. Pokémon Go-How Religious Can an Augmented Reality Hunt Be?Online-Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet 12 (2017).
[19]
Florin Girbacia, Silviu Butnariu, Alex Petre Orman, and Cristian Cezar Postelnicu. 2013. Virtual restoration of deteriorated religious heritage objects using augmented reality technologies. European Journal of Science and Theology 9, 2 (2013), 223–231.
[20]
Simon Glendinning. 2009. Japheth’s world: The rise of secularism and the revival of religion today. The European Legacy 14, 4 (2009), 409–426. https://doi.org/10.1080/10848770902999500
[21]
Aron Gurwitsch. 1966. Studies in phenomenology and psychology. Northwestern University Press.
[22]
Miftakhul Hadi, Ika Ratna Indra Astutik, Mochamad Alfan Rosid, and Arif Senja Fitrani. 2023. Introduction to Places of Worship of Religious People in Indonesia Augmented Reality Based As Learning Media for Early childhood. Indonesian Journal of Islamic Studies 11, 3 (2023).
[23]
Juho Hamari. 2019. Gamification. The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology 1 (2019), 1–3.
[24]
Mari Huotari and Essi Ikonen. 2017. Learning with tablets in a church-Experiences of augmented reality in religious education. Online-Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet 12 (2017).
[25]
Hafizah Husain, Badariah Bais, Aini Hussain, and Salina Abdul Samad. 2012. How to construct open ended questions. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences 60 (2012), 456–462.
[26]
Lucas J Jensen, Keri D Valentine, and Joshua P Case. 2019. Accessing the pokélayer: Augmented reality and fantastical play in Pokémon Go. Educational Media and Technology Yearbook: Volume 42 (2019), 87–103. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27986-8_9
[27]
Sangwon Jung, Oğuz’Oz Buruk, and Juho Hamari. 2022. Altered States of Consciousness in Human-Computer Interaction: A Review. In Nordic Human-Computer Interaction Conference. ACM, Aarhus, Denmark, 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1145/3546155.3546667
[28]
Sangwon Jung, Oğuz’Oz’ Buruk, and Juho Hamari. 2022. Psychedelic VR Experience: An Exploratory Study on Cosmic Flow. In Proceedings of the 25th International Academic Mindtrek Conference. 23–30. https://doi.org/10.1145/3569219.3569391
[29]
Laddawan Kaewkitipong, Elisabeth Beaunoyer, Peter Ractham, and Matthieu J Guitton. 2023. Augmented spirituality: Renewing human spirituality in a technology-driven world?Computers in Human Behavior 148 (2023), 107904. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2023.107904
[30]
Elizabeth Suzanne Kassab. 1991. “Paramount reality” in Schutz and Gurwitsch. Human studies 14, 2-3 (1991), 181–198. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02205602
[31]
Kei Kobayashi and Junichi Hoshino. 2020. Augmented reality media for experiencing worship culture in Japanese shrines. In Entertainment Computing–ICEC 2020: 19th IFIP TC 14 International Conference, ICEC 2020, Xi’an, China, November 10–13, 2020, Proceedings 19. Springer, 270–276.
[32]
Bastian Kordyaka, Samuli Laato, Sebastian Weber, Juho Hamari, and Bjorn Niehaves. 2024. Exploring the association between engagement with location-based game features and getting inspired about environmental issues and nature. In Proceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA, 1–15.
[33]
Samuli Laato, Daniel Fernández Galeote, Ferran Altarriba Bertran, Konstantinos Papangelis, and Juho Hamari. 2023. How Location-Based Games Incentivize Moving About: A Study in the Context of Nature-Going. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction 7, CHI PLAY (2023), 642–664.
[34]
Samuli Laato, Nobufumi Inaba, and Juho Hamari. 2021. Convergence between the real and the augmented: Experiences and perceptions in location-based games. Telematics and Informatics 65 (2021), 101716. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tele.2021.101716
[35]
Samuli Laato, Nobufumi Inaba, Mauri Paloheimo, and Teemu Daniel Laajala. 2021. Group polarisation among location-based game players: an analysis of use and attitudes towards game slang. Internet Research 31, 5 (2021), 1695–1717.
[36]
Samuli Laato, Bastian Kordyaka, AKM Najmul Islam, Konstantinos Papangelis, and Juho Hamari. 2022. Territorial or nomadic? Geo-social determinants of location-based IT use: a study in Pokemon GO. Internet Research 32, 7 (2022), 330–353.
[37]
Samuli Laato, Sampsa Rauti, and Juho Hamari. 2023. Resemblance of religion and pervasive games: A study among church employees and gamers. In Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, Hamburg, Germany, 1–15.
[38]
Samuli Laato, Nannan Xi, Velvet Spors, Mattia Thibault, and Juho Hamari. 2024. Making Sense of Reality: A Mapping of Terminology Related to Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Mixed Reality, XR and the Metaverse. In Proceedings of the Hawaii International Confernece on System Sciences (HICSS). ScholarSpace, Hawaii, USA.
[39]
Tal Laor, Hananel Rosenberg, and Nili Steinfeld. 2022. Oh, no, Pokémon GO! Media panic and fear of mobility in news coverage of an augmented reality phenomenon. Mobile Media & Communication 10, 3 (2022), 365–386.
[40]
Nicola Liberati. 2018. Phenomenology, Pokémon Go, and other augmented reality games: A study of a life among digital objects. Human studies 41, 2 (2018), 211–232. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10746-017-9450-8
[41]
Nicola Liberati. 2019. Mediation theory between pokémon GO and the everyday world. Augmented Reality Games I: Understanding the Pokémon GO Phenomenon (2019), 51–60.
[42]
David L Morgan. 1996. Focus groups. Annual review of sociology 22, 1 (1996), 129–152.
[43]
The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland. 2023. Personnel Statistics 2023. In ONLINE, availablet at: https://www.kirkontilastot.fi, visited November 11, 2023. Kirkontilastot.fi, Finland, 1–1.
[44]
Almoaid A Owaidah. 2014. Hajj crowd management via a mobile augmented reality application: a case of The Hajj event, Saudi Arabia. Ph. D. Dissertation. University of Glasgow.
[45]
Vandith Pamuru, Warut Khern-am nuai, and Karthik Kannan. 2021. The impact of an augmented-reality game on local businesses: A study of Pokémon go on restaurants. Information Systems Research 32, 3 (2021), 950–966.
[46]
Konstantinos Papangelis, Melvin Metzger, Yiyeng Sheng, Hai-Ning Liang, Alan Chamberlain, and Ting Cao. 2017. Conquering the city: Understanding perceptions of mobility and human territoriality in location-based mobile games. Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies 1, 3 (2017), 1–24.
[47]
Peter Phillips, Kyle Schiefelbein-Guerrero, and Jonas Kurlberg. 2019. Defining digital theology: Digital humanities, digital religion and the particular work of the codec research centre and network. Open theology 5, 1 (2019), 29–43.
[48]
Md Rakibul Hafiz Khan Rakib and Azizul Hassan. 2023. Factors prompting augmented reality adoption in sacred places. International Journal of Tourism Policy 13, 3 (2023), 187–202.
[49]
Philipp A Rauschnabel. 2021. Augmented reality is eating the real-world! The substitution of physical products by holograms. International Journal of Information Management 57 (2021), 102279. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2020.102279
[50]
Sampsa Rauti, Samuli Laato, Erkki Sutinen, and Antti Laato. 2021. Kirkon työntekijöiden näkemät tavoittavan työn mahdollisuudet paikkatietoon perustuvissa peleissä. Teologinen Aikakauskirja 126, 5 (2021), 438–458.
[51]
Alfred Schutz. 1962. The problem of social reality. In Collected Papers: Volume IV. Springer, 71–72.
[52]
Statista. 2022. Share of global population affiliated with major religious groups in 2022, by religion. In Online, available at: https://www.statista.com/statistics/374704/share-of-global-population-by-religion/, visited November 16, 2023. Statista, 1–1.
[53]
Erkki Sutinen and Anthony-Paul Cooper. 2021. Digital theology: A computer science perspective. Emerald Publishing Limited.
[54]
Lauri Viinikkala, Laura Yli-Seppälä, Olli I Heimo, Seppo Helle, Lauri Härkänen, Sami Jokela, Lauri Järvenpää, Timo Korkalainen, Jussi Latvala, Juho Pääkylä, 2016. Reforming the representation of the reformation: Mixed reality narratives in communicating tangible and intangible heritage of the protestant reformation in Finland. In 2016 22nd International Conference on Virtual System & Multimedia (VSMM). IEEE, 1–9.
[55]
Brent Waters. 2016. From human to posthuman: Christian theology and technology in a postmodern world. Routledge.
[56]
Orlando Woods. 2021. The territoriality of teams: Assembling power through the playing of Pokémon Go. Mobile Media & Communication 9, 3 (2021), 405–421.
[57]
Hsin-Kai Wu, Silvia Wen-Yu Lee, Hsin-Yi Chang, and Jyh-Chong Liang. 2013. Current status, opportunities and challenges of augmented reality in education. Computers & education 62 (2013), 41–49.
[58]
Ann Marie Yasin. 2009. Saints and church spaces in the late antique Mediterranean: architecture, cult, and community. Cambridge Univ. Press.
[59]
Zexuan Zhu, Chao Liu, and Xun Xu. 2019. Visualisation of the digital twin data in manufacturing by using augmented reality. Procedia Cirp 81 (2019), 898–903.

Recommendations

Comments

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM Conferences
IMX '24: Proceedings of the 2024 ACM International Conference on Interactive Media Experiences
June 2024
465 pages
ISBN:9798400705038
DOI:10.1145/3639701
  • Editors:
  • Asreen Rostami,
  • Donald McMillan,
  • Jonathan Hook,
  • Irene Viola,
  • Jun Nishida,
  • Hanuma Teja Maddali,
  • Alexis Clay
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives International 4.0 License.

Sponsors

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 07 June 2024

Check for updates

Author Tags

  1. augmented reality
  2. holy grounds
  3. place of worship
  4. religion
  5. sacred space
  6. virtual reality

Qualifiers

  • Research-article
  • Research
  • Refereed limited

Funding Sources

Conference

IMX '24

Acceptance Rates

Overall Acceptance Rate 69 of 245 submissions, 28%

Upcoming Conference

IMX '25

Contributors

Other Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

  • 0
    Total Citations
  • 289
    Total Downloads
  • Downloads (Last 12 months)289
  • Downloads (Last 6 weeks)56
Reflects downloads up to 18 Jan 2025

Other Metrics

Citations

View Options

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

PDF

eReader

View online with eReader.

eReader

HTML Format

View this article in HTML Format.

HTML Format

Login options

Media

Figures

Other

Tables

Share

Share

Share this Publication link

Share on social media