Persistence and Transformations of the Sacred

Abstract

The aim of the text is to develop the interest which advanced modernity still retains in the sacred and imaginaries albeit transforming them, making them more fluid and adaptable to the most varied uses. On one hand, the sacred connotes not only "the transcendent sacred" but also "the everyday sacred". On the other, imageries in advanced modernity re-appear as techno-imageries, the potency of whose imagery increases the magic of complex machines, referring to other universes and creating their own topography which recalls the "elsewheres" and "hereafters" of their usual loci. Today it is "the everyday sacred" and the creativity of computers which fulfill the functions performed by myths, traditions and literature in the past.

Keywords

• sacred
• imaginaries
• secularisation
• modernity
• future