Curating the Unseen: Sound, Space and Attention in the Séance and the Smart Home

Abstract

This article discusses the sonic and spatial configurations of the Spiritualist séance as a speculative antecedent to the presence of disembodied voices, such as Amazon’s Alexa, in contemporary homes. I examine archival notes, photographs and audio recordings in order to unpack how séances curated domestic spaces in order to display and interrogate unseen agents. Further, I consider the presentation of the sound installation The Dark Age of Connectionism: Captivity (2017) by Wesley Goatley at IMPAKT festival, curated by the curatorial collective Haunted Machines, as a case study that demonstrates how the exhibition framework articulated in the séance room might be applied as critical strategy in gallery spaces.