Spectral beings haunt digital images: algorithmic figures lurk in photorealistic computer games, enigmatic beings nest in datasets, and ghostly figures surface through AI prompts.
From Spirit Photography to Artificial Intelligence and Algorithmic Images
Shadow Creatures shifts the focus from photography as a medium of light to shadows. The exhibition spans the history of spirit photography through to the algorithmic phantoms of the present, showing how images summon beings that inhabit our personal, social and political unconscious. At its centre are ghosts, occult creatures, glitches and non-human figures that appear in analogue and digital image worlds. In doing so, the exhibition reveals that images are never merely objective evidence, but open up spaces for imagination, uncertainty and other ways of seeing. The exhibition thus shows how contemporary images continue the historical search for the invisible to which spirit photographers of the nineteenth century had devoted themselves. At the same time, it examines how artificial intelligence, datasets and algorithmic imaging systems produce new phantoms.
Artistic Positions
The exhibition brings together works by Cihad Caner, Nina Davies, Tomokichi Fukurai, Sung Chi-Li, William H. Mumler & Helen F. Stuart, Trevor Paglen, Mario Santamaría, Janne Schimmel, Steph Maj Swanson, Shannon Taggart, Agate Tūna and Sheung Yiu, as well as contributions by students from the Master of Arts in Interaction Design at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland (SUPSI).
The works engage with historical spirit photography, AI-generated figures, datasets, computer games, spiritualist practices and the cultural and political dimensions of digital image production.
Publication
The trilingual publication accompanying the exhibition is published in English, Spanish and Basque by DISTANZ and will be available from the museum shop from 27 June 2026. It includes essays by the curators Rea Grünenfelder and Marco De Mutiis, as well as contributions by Matteo Bittanti, Deirdre de la Cruz, Dortje Fink, Arianna Forte, Bogna Konior, Sophie Publig and Mikkel Rørbo, Johny Pitts, Shih-Lun Chang, Shannon Taggart, Jon Uriarte, Günseli Yalcinkaya and Sheung Yiu.
[permanent beta]
The exhibition is co-produced with Kutxa Fundazioa and is the second edition of
[permanent beta].
