REarVIEW — Residence Nº14: Al-technoor

Jan 31 - Feb 10, 2019

It genuinely took me a long time to form an opinion on Residence no.14 of S’Ala.

On the one hand, because of that sense of moral superiority I perceive when approaching absolute truths which — even when offered with tact and respect — remain, all the same, imposed.

On the other, because in recent years I have grown accustomed to a form of contemporary discourse that frames a problem, poses an existential question, and offers an aesthetic response — the outcome of a strictly personal (or, I concede, collective) process.

Here the issue is somewhat more complex, because the question and the answer are embedded within an already defined trajectory that I (perhaps) find harder to accept as genuinely artistic. The rituality and the aesthetics are familiar, and I find myself wondering how far an artist can push themselves while remaining in a space where they do not betray faith, on the one hand, and the audience, on the other.

It is certainly interesting as a way of understanding an artist’s evolution.

In any case, there is a note of mysticism that made things easier for me.

First of all, a short ‘why-this-matters’ interlude (!) on the title and my cultural references — otherwise it becomes harder for me to find my bearings.

“Al Noor” (“of the Light”) is a name associated with several mosques, one of which (the one in Christchurch, New Zealand) hit the headlines in 2019 after being targeted in a terrorist attack. The name “Mosque of Light” refers to divine guidance that illuminates the believer along the path of Islam.

“Tech noir” (phonetically echoing technoor) brings together an aesthetic made of shadows, technology and dystopian futurism, synthwave sonorities, dark electronics, and the eternal conflict between the human being and “the system”. It has much to do with the recovery of an organic identity in a hyperconnected, hostile world.

These are the two premises on which this reflection of mine is based.

But let us start with PANTONE 11-4201 Cloud Dancer.

Cloud Dancer is a white that does not dazzle — a breath within a world that is overly saturated and visually polluted.

A few days ago, Pantone officially announced the Colour of the Year 2026.

Highly contested in a world (largely a US-centric one) that experiences the glorification of white with a certain degree of anxiety!!!

Yet Cloud Dancer is a fertile emptiness in which everything can begin again.

Now, what does the Colour of the Year have to do with Residenza no. 14?

As I write this, I realise that the Colour of the Year is “mystically” identical (let us say similar, to avoid rebuttals…) to that of the small notebook on which Sara Zaltash represented her prayer.

So it is precisely within this space — made of a silence that is not absence, but promise — that I would place S’ALA — Residenza Nº14: Al-technoor.

A residency born out of the need to meet yourself and others, without fear, with the serenity of those who accept that engagement — today as in 2019 — is inevitable for anyone who truly wishes to understand the world.

Al-technoor was the project in which the performer and Muslim mystic Sara Zaltash and the multidisciplinary artist-activist Rhodri Karim brought together breath, faith, electronics and vision. The residency contributed to the creation of material for their first album, their first tour, and a first music video.

“A work that explores how Qur’anic recitations can live and vibrate in the digital age.”

The intention was to draw from hours of sonic and spiritual research — a movement towards and away from the divine — in order to activate a dialogue with the god(s). It connected to the project Approaches to Embodied Islam:“the poetry, the prayers, the songs, the heart of my body's journey into this faith which I have inherited and am determined to make my own,” Zaltash wrote.

“Claiming the devotional potential of electronic music, al-technoor inhabits spaces of technological ecstasy, where the fire of the human spirit burns between hardware and grey matter, in an alchemy that unites the spontaneous with the eternal. The very music that moves the spheres passes through us, becomes flesh, becomes voice, becomes wave.” (from the residence caption)

I find it amusing that the ethereal white of Cloud Dancer fits so naturally into the reflection on the residency: a space that purifies, that removes noise, that makes listening possible. A place where the inner self opens like a window. A new beginning, a new form, a new way of being in the world.

As Sara wrote during her first stay in Sardinia, “Just two weeks have revealed fresh opportunities for alignment with Exquisite Ethical Natural Luxury, a phrase I repeat and repeat these days”: an ethical, natural, essential luxury — the same that we find in this white. A white, and a Sara, breathing together with the island, its mountains, its waters, its nuraghi, the history that rises from the stones.

A white that, like the dawn of her Call at Dawn, restores gentleness, clarity, and new light.

Al-technoor is something I think I will need to meet again, because, even though the “product” remains somewhat elusive, after a few years it continues to provoke reflection.

I believe it deserves attention.