Technoshamanism as a concept reminds me heavily of the concept of divine technology and attributing other-worldly or spiritual aspects to tech. In this text Shanken brings the perspective that the artist themselves are the driving, shamanistic forces behind this phenomenon. He also explains that he sees artists specifically in the new media arts (NMA) circles to be more perceptive to this novel idea which makes sense to me as NMA has always existed on the fringe of conventional understanding of the world.

Overall, the call to harness the complete power of technology and art while respecting ancient knowledge of shamanism reminds me of esoteric philosophical enquiries of Land and Fisher early in their career. There seems to be a mystical, almost Lovecraftian reverence attributed to technology which requires shamanistic practices to be ‘understood’ and harnessed.

Throughout the reading, although thought-provoking and enjoyable, I kept wanting to see examples of indigenous artists approaching technoshamanism through their own lived heritage rather than outsiders who had attempted to reinterpret and appreciate indigenous practices in their own ways. There is a mention of Korean artist Kim Jeong Han whose BirdMan is built on traditional Korean and Buddhist idea of the ‘self’ and the ‘other’ being similar. However, these are still mainstream understandings of the many thousands of indigenous spiritual philosophies. In fact, Shanken briefly mentions; “Technoshamanism names the messiness of cultural hybridity and the commodification of shamanic traditions”. So there is already a discourse around this part of the movement which makes it even more confusing for me that he chooses not to touch on shaman artists who may provide pushback to this phenomenon later in the text. Maybe he ran out of space.