AltarNation

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Questions Raised

Is there a mismatch between spirituality and technology?

Given that people are employing web pages, chat, and mailing lists for spiritual or religious purposes - is it appropriate for tools and environments designed for information exchange or basic communication to be used for experiences that are meant to be visceral, symbolic, etc.? Or should there be particular design strategy for these communal and personal experiences?

In designing for a spiritual or meditative community, what qualities should be considered or strived for?

• changes in bandwidth based on a temporal dimension: at different times, you receive more or less "information" - there are periods of quiet or little change
• co-presence in time and synchronicity in action among community members
• personal expression
• group membership
• importance of entry and exit
• naturalness, material artifacts
• responding to the "whole person" as an architect would

Should the physical place be included in the design of digital technology?

What artifacts, postures, movements, smells, sights, sounds, etc. populate your memories of spiritual or meditative moments?