What do ritual and religion mean when our lives are increasingly lived online? For artist Michael Dudeck, who is currently doing an individualized PhD (Studio Art, Art History, Religion, Anthropology) at the University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh College of Art, part of the answer to this question involves inventing their own queer religion (a project called “The Religion Virus”). It’s a multi-faceted endeavour including not only writing a fictional bible but creating an entire prehistory through the recoding of humanity’s dominant cultural myths.
The end result is dazzling – deeply original research that encompasses the gamut of artistic expression: live performance, invented scripture, psalms, and sermons, and installations. They have, in effect, disseminated their teaching in the forms that religion has always done – performance, visual art, and written word – in order to understand how a secular public would respond to queer ritual. They have also done a series of more traditional monographs, with their own fascinating twists. At their interview, Dudeck showed us their book entitled “Religion.” It is full of captivating artwork, photos and excerpts from scripture, both evoking and commenting on familiar religious iconography.
Michael has a solid, multi-disciplinary grounding in art: a BFA from the University of Manitoba (from their hometown of Winnipeg – which hosts a thriving international arts community) with a double major in video and drawing, followed by an individualized MA from Concordia (in Queer Theory, Anthropology, Religion, Art History and Visual Arts). Well before beginning their PhD, Dudeck performed, exhibited, and lectured around the world (including doing fieldwork in the Arctic), in addition to a stint as artist-in-residence at Union Theological Seminary in New York.
Perhaps the word “artist” is too narrow a characterisation; Michael is a cultural engineer. One of their projects for example – The Museum of Artificial Histories – houses artefacts and alternate information systems. Their research methods go over and beyond the forms used in traditional methodology – encompassing both thinking and doing. This stretching of the boundaries of traditional scholarship permeates their approach to the entire academic project (at one point, they submitted “a fictional interview” to an academic journal).
Michael has exhibited, performed, and given talks around the world, including on their home turf at The Winnipeg Art Gallery and Plug IN ICA, at DeFibrillator in Chicago, Insel Hombroich (Germany), The Brucebo Museum (Sweden), KW ICA (Berlin), Grazer Kunstverein (Austria), Hamburg Maschine (Germany) and most recently IFTR (Shanghai) and The Research Pavillion at Venice Bienalle. Their work has been featured in The New York Times, The Village Voice, and The Artist is Present (MoMA) among many others.
Their numerous scholarships and awards include being longlisted for a Sobey Art Award (Canada’s most prestigious award for artists aged 40 and under), and as a recipient of SSHRC funding for masters and their doctorate. Once Michael finishes their PhD, they plans to continue with their exploration and creation of an invented religion for the online world, as well as doing an experimental practise-based Post-Doctorate. We will definitely be following them on this fascinating journey of scholarship and artistic expression.
Michael’s pronouns are they/them.
