protonumerique » voodoo http://protonumerique.net augmented media, digital tools, art and other whereabouts Tue, 06 Jul 2010 14:09:11 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 Voodoo revisited http://protonumerique.net/2009/03/voodoo-revisited/ http://protonumerique.net/2009/03/voodoo-revisited/#comments Fri, 13 Mar 2009 16:03:26 +0000 admin http://protonumerique.net/?p=180 One of the most influential Religions in Western Culture is Voodoo. Not really at a spiritual level or because of its number of adepts. It is more a whisper that flies around, misunderstanding the true thing, using the religion as marketing device, subverting it to commercial dimensions. The few (relative to the big Religions) real practitioners are rather regarded as dangerous, charlatans or just part of a weird bunch. It has anyhow become one of the most exploited clichés in folk and pulp cultures, films and even games. It offers the perfect ingredients to configure evil characters and cults inside a western european sort of narrative: Black, misterious people, ritualizing objects, fire and the spirits of the dead.

In Amsterdam at the Troppenmuseum, they set up a very nifty exhibition with the personal collection of a Swiss Woman. Objects and characters that have nothing to envy about any of the protagonists in the soon-to-happen Pictoplasma, are exhibited as objects originated from the cult to certain spirits and as remainings of a very strong tough vanishing culture. Pictures above are from almost human-sized dolls that represent members of certain voodoo secret societies. Note that one guy (In the exhibition many of them), has sunglasses. It is believed -couldn’t find out since when-, that spirits wear sunglasses when they appear. I’m curious on how digital devices are being imported into recent voodoo practices. And I’m not talking about phishers and on-line sourcerers.

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