Purple Television
[January 13 2015] : art
Fatima Al Qadiri / Vatican Vibes (2011) by Tabor Robak
Tabor Robak created a visual analogy between the Vatican’s “centuries-old mechanisms of control over people” and the “god-like power” video gamers perceive to have for the video for Fatima Al Qadiri’s 2011 song Vatican Vibes. Al Qadiri explains “The religious-futurist sound and concept of “Vatican Vibes” led my collaborator Tabor Robak and me to think about how sprawling religious institutions like the Vatican maintain centuries-old mechanisms of control over people. This authority is in fact quite similar to the player’s godlike power over populations in video games. For “Vatican Vibes,” Tabor constructed an imaginary architecture for a Catholic video game, adapting many of the religion’s signifiers and symbols for the digital realm.
