You may have already noticed that we’ve made some changes to our Kiosk page. As part of our ongoing campaign to highlight creative indie folk we’ve added a few things – including two, yes 2 – lines of T-Shirt designers.

First our own. Occasionally we make a graphic for something and really like it (and hope you do to). We thought that it might be fun, that if people enjoyed that particular graphic – they ought to be able to enjoy it in a different context. Thus, we offer you our T-Shirt Factory (which also does bags and buttons). Thus far we’ve experimented with a few items – but we’ve got a few more planned. For American visitors we’re working to keep the prices down because we know that the Pound/Dollar exchnage rate is . . . well . . . a little high – sorry about that. We are looking into some other options for you.

One of those options however, is our friend Huw (another indie creative type) he’s got a neat kiosk of Eastern Rite designs called Doxos Swag (pretty cool name huh?) and we have included a link to his project on our kiosk page.

For the record – the goal of the exercise is not to make money but to highlight, and to encourage the wide spectrum of scholarship and creativity within the indie community. We’ve got the talent – we (all of us) ought to flaunt it (grin)!

Last week, I think it was, I posted about encouraging other OC/IC ISM scholars and talented others to publish more – to make our voices available and heard not only within our community, but also within a wider audience.

I’d like to take this moment to draw your attention to the work of a close friend of mine – Rev. Siobhan Houston – she’s published one book on Magdalene spirituality, and has another on the history of western esotericism on the way (to be published by Apocraphyle Press). Jordan Stratford has written two (I think that’s right) books focussing on Gnostic ideas and spirituality. Until not long ago – he also kept a great blog of the same bent.

More information on their work, is at their sites, and I believe that both of their works are available on Amazon; and in select (or shall I say selective) book stores.

I’ve said this to my friend John Plummer – one thing that I find very curious is that it is the Gnostics within the wider community who appear to be the most engaged – the most creative. While I find this stimulating (and sometimes very challenging given that I normally disagree with 90% of their theological starting points), I have a huge amount of respect for their voice, and what they contribute.

Last week I posted on Menachem Wecker’s essay in which he explores how art can be a media for reconsidering faith in a creative, and consumerist society. This week, Mark Lawson writing for the Guardian’s CIF Belief section delves into the interplay of art and faith.

There have been a number of instances in the recent past when art depicting Christian themes has been deemed offensive by some believers, but their attempts to have it censured have been brushed aside. In contrast, similar artistic productions centering on Islam have been removed, or shut down. Lawson explores this dichotomy.

I’ve been mulling over Wecker’s proposition that art can be a means of communicating ideas about faith if employed effectively – and Lawson’s essay is a timely new tack on the idea. Even in Britain, where churches are emptying as fast as Northern Rock, christian imagery remains a powerful medium around which atheists, agnostics, and lapsed Catholics build stories, and express important, moving ideas.

Over the past two years I’ve posted more than once about the interaction between new media, outreach, and sparking creative projects within the community. Here, at Iconia Menachem Wecker has written a post well worth reading. In it he observes that many religious communities using new media are failing to take the opportunity to present a different take on the message; instead they simply package the old message for a new delivery system.

More interesting still, is how in our age of growing radicalism, and vocal atheism, he raises the idea of art and creativity as a means – on its own – of inspiring a reconsideration of faith and religion. If, for example, we don’t view the paintings of the great masters as art about religous imagery, but instead as a participating element in religious life – how does that change our perspective? How too can a discussion on the product, and praxis of contemporary and historical religious artists bring about a transformation in the way we build community?

Over the past couple of years – ever since I discovered the glories of SKYPE I’ve been interested in how OC/IC communities, and projects (like our own Indie Voices Archive) can use various new media to reach out beyond the small groups we work within. I’ve done a bit of blogging on it in the past – which you can view here.

I’ve been concentrating on video – using my camcorder, webcam, and camera, to create and edit videos then upload them to ourmedia, the Internet Archive, and Blip.TV (I prefer Blip.TV to YouTube – its . . . classier). The upside of this method is that we can place various projects (interviews, documentaries, reflections, theology, teaching, etc.) before a wider audience. But they also have their limitations (beyond the technical and mechanical) for example they are not live feeds, responses can be days, even months after the original project is finished, which means that the experience, the inspriation for that particular video is no longer fresh in your mind – possibly inhibiting your ability to engage as thoughtfully as you might have liked, since your community have “moved on” to more developed projects.

It is possible via SKYPE for example to do live, real time conversations in large groups, as well as live video (face to face) converstaions with another person. Two years ago, we experimented with a weekly Evening Prayer via SKYPE which allowed a rotation of “leader” and community time afterward. Now I’ve seen a “new” (to me) project called UStream.TV which enables a live feed and . . . it would appear (I’ve not finshed exploring this yet) a capability for real-time reactions (via a chat feed) from the audience.

Recently I’ve discovered a nifty “thing” I’ve know idea how to classify it yet other than to describe it as “video email plus” called seesmic – with nothing more than a webcam it allows you to record messages, and participate in conversations. There is also a plugin (for wordpress users) to enable you to generate both quick video posts, and video comments. I’ve been experimenting with this for the past two weeks, and its been fun. Also I’m currently using it in an “audiance participation” experiment on my other site – you can see that post by clicking here. I’m about to activate that plugin here too.

Used in combination with image and textual resources – PDF’s, dynamic web pages, and even self published material such as from LULU – there is nothing hindering our various communities and projects expanding their ability to become a spiritual resource for others, and to come out from underneath the shadow of other, larger, “better resourced” traditions.

I’ve got an idea list as long as my arm for various projects – right now I’m focussing on mastering the technical and mechanical (see my “other” site for examples). And there is the small matter of finishing the Thesis from Hell (sigh). But I’m interested to know about what projects your community is developing using new media forms, what have you already done, and what was the response? What would (will) you do differently in the future?

Moreover, I would really like to make some space here to highlight those projects, and would appreciate your sharing the links to them.