Kader Attia’s installation departs from the words of a Vietnamese shaman who said that computer viruses are “spiritual entities” seeking to thwart human domination of the virtual world. Attia treats these words as “metaphysical anthropology”, understanding that this poses questions worth considering: Is the virtual world populated by spirits? Do ancestors and other forces of the universe itself seek to possess us through the veins of electricity?
Whisper of Traces seems to ask, “If we decide to listen to this shaman, what possibilities open up to us?” Entering through a labyrinthine corridor, surrounded by objects intertwining African ritual statues and modern art, we are confronted by mesh containers of dried herbs – mnemonic traces connecting us to our own memories and those of ancestors. Ropes covered with fragments of mirror create a forest through which we move. It is as if the spirits that inhabit the Amazon have infiltrated the audio-visual technology that creates this environment. Technology believes it controls the space because it produces the space. But what if it is the spirits that control technology instead?
Attia’s installation invites us to see the ongoing deification of AI not as a mere fetishist outcome created by capital, but rather as an ancient Greek daímon: a genius that can be demonic without necessarily being evil.
—Mohamed Amer Meziane
