Italian version
.hacktivism
13.12.02 Plug & Pray, choose your religion.
Developed both in italian and in english, thus revealing its geographic location, Plug & Pray is a successful joke site which, behind the appearance of an imaginary corporation ('Holy Soft'), proposes perfectly packaged and serious-looking software kits for changing religion in case of need. The packages formally include the most popular faiths (Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Islamism and Buddhism) and should include the respective sacred texts on cd-rom, some 'cards' for quickly distinguishing ceremonial paraments, a hardware board for accelerating one's performances and codes for accessing the help desk, the information services and the 'tips from the experts' section. Besides the standard kit, there are also deluxe kits which, as well as having personalized packages, include the access codes for the 'premium' version of the site. The offer is completed by the 'switch' kits for multifaceted realities, such as 'Palestine' (jewish-muslim) and 'Ulster' (catholic-protestant). Formalizing the social and political products of religious faiths in the forms of the immaterial industry, this operation effectively communicates both the strategically political and control-keeping role of the faiths themselves and their growing transformation in an 'advanced tertiary service' which permits, like the national languages, to communicate with other realities by temporarily adapting their interests/goals to one's own beyond the mystical aspects. Although the authors of this site couldn't resist to adding another kit named 'Prega Italia', which makes fun of the similarly named political party, they unfortunately end their joke at the ecommerce order form page, which asks the customer to buy one of the member's t-shirts instead.