Elsa Basle

'Every Sunday, for almost two decades, I attended a conference. The hum of a PowerPoint slide show would scroll to a voice amplified through a modern beige headset microphone ­­– to set the tone. The essentials: a few papers (or an iPad), a pen, and a concealed remote, all tucked behind the lectern. Eyes converged on a singular point, a church stage that could double as a scene from a high-powered business meeting or perhaps a whimsical puppet show. Wide, deep, and alive with crisscrossed beams of light. The platform seemed to beckon us into an unspoken, almost anchored liturgy that the audience and the guest speakers would keep coming back to.

 

Two displayed "confidence monitors" reveal the presenter notes from a fictional lecture about this stage; the prompter cues only you can see.

 

The wall mounted speakers’ breath and the Holy Ghost, the Scriptures and the paper notes, the holy water and the water bottle, the assembly and the audience, the sermon and the lecture, the preacher and the MC, the spotlights and the stained glass window. All those things.