Worship Media Arts

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In the graduate class we teach on Communicating Visually, one of primary theses is the idea that every medium has its own unique language, and that changing communication systems alter our perceptions of reality and truth and ultimately change the way we think.

A recent issue of Wired magazine is all over this idea. First there was an article by Clive Thompson, “This is Your Brain on Video: How the new language of YouTube is changing the way we think”. Thompson points out that the proliferation of DIY ["Do-It-Yourself"] tools for making video are not just changing who uses the medium, but how it is used. And gives some cool examples, too. He says, “Video used to be a way we communicate with others. It’s becoming a way we communicate with ourselves.” Chew on that for a bit.

Then twelve pages later is another short article called The Viewer’s Cut. It discusses an independent feature film recently released on DVD that allows the viewer to “shuffle scenes around” and make their own edits, like a video version of the old “Choose Your Own Adventure” books.¬?

More than a gimmick, I see these as relatively early manifestations of what will someday become mainstream – using video not as a pre-packaged, completed form for communicating a specific message that originated in printed form, but a mechanism by which we compose our messages.¬?

This is how we approach worship media at Midnight Oil. Our media isn’t self-contained “mini-movies” used to convey themes like Materialism or Complacency, but thematic elements of a larger communication experience that happens in worship, where everything in the order of worship and in the worship space is part of the message.

Do you see any examples of the language of video in media? What are your thoughts about how this impacts worship and communicating the Gospel?

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