Artist offers computer blessings

Users are told they will be blessed by touching the screen

An artist has created a website offering to give internet surfers religious blessings online.

Shilpa Gupta's site lets visitors pick a religion and watch videos of computer cables being blessed at religious sites in her home city of Bombay, or Mumbai.

Users can put their heads against their computer screens before printing out a certificate promising happiness.

Blessed-bandwidth.net was commissioned from the 26-year-old artist for the Tate galleries' Net Art site.

A certificate can be printed as "proof" of the blessing

Visitors are asked to choose between the Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Sikh and Buddhist faiths and the site pledges to bring "instant peace and happiness".

It offers virtual blessings at Bombay's religious monuments and users are also encouraged to dress as their favourite god or priest.

They are also invited to contribute to a confession diary - with sin ratings of low, medium, high or severe - and "look after and feed" a downloadable programme called God.exe.