Reconfiguring Sacred Experience: AI, Space, and Paraliturgical Practice in Deus in Machina

Abstract

The introduction of artificial intelligence into religious spaces not only brings new forms of mediation but also raises renewed questions concerning sacred space, religious authority, embodied experience, and the boundaries of liturgical practice. This article examines Deus in Machina, an experimental art project developed in 2024 through a collaboration between Peterskapelle in Lucerne, Switzerland, and the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts (HSLU). Drawing on preliminary survey data released by the project team and engaging with scholarship on digital religion, religious mediation, and spatial theory, the article investigates how the introduction of AI into an active Christian worship space reconfigures spatial experience. The analysis proceeds through a three-part framework of construction–deconstruction–reconfiguration. First, it examines how the digital interface, religious architecture, and embodied actions jointly construct a hybrid interactive space. Second, it considers how AI-generated responses destabilize established understandings of presence, embodiment, and religious authority. Finally, it argues that the significance of the project lies not in whether artificial intelligence can reproduce or replace established forms of sacred experience, but in how it reconfigures the mediating conditions through which individuals encounter religious representations. Building on the particular circumstance that the spatial form of the confessional was retained while sacramental confession itself did not take place, the article further proposes that the installation may be understood as a spatial practice with paraliturgical characteristics: it draws upon liturgical spatial forms, embodied structures, and religious symbols without itself constituting formal liturgy. In this respect, Deus in Machina provides an experimental case through which to examine emerging relationships among art, liturgy, and sacred space in the age of digital technology.