Transmissions From El Shaddai
In 2019, multiple members of the communications department at a prolific Southern California university were contacted by a man claiming to be God. These attempts at communication continued to escalate until the authorities had to be contacted and the man told to stop. While most of these transmissions were not recorded, a few were saved, and subsequently repurposed as part of Matthew Fisher’s first solo exhibition, "Transmissions From El Shaddai."
The Third Temple
On March 21, 2013, Terry A. Davis released TempleOS. First released in 2005 as the “J Operating System” to design games, it was later changed to function as the Third Temple of God prophesized in the Hebrew Bible. Multiple limitations are incorporated into the design of the operating system such as its 16-bit color and 640x480 resolution, because “God said 640x480 16 color is a covenant like circumcision.” The OS also has a random-number, word, and bible-passage generator all included as ways to commune with God reflecting Davis’s belief in seeing messages from God in what other people saw as randomness. In The Third Temple, Matthew Fisher constructs a physical manifestation to house Davis’s digital temple.