GHost

Call for papers/ presentations/ performance: Hostings 6 & 7

2011-11-27T13:30:00.008Z

Hosting 6: “Absence – Haunted Landscapes”

Hosting 7: “Presence – Manifesting Ghosts”

We invite proposals for papers, presentations, or performances of 30 minutes exploring the desire and attempt to materialise what is absent via the medium of haunted landscapes or through the manifestation of a ghost. We would like to hear from researchers within the fields of anthropology, art history, cultural studies, film studies, history, law, literary studies, parapsychology, psychology, philosophy etc. as well as practising artists.

The Hostings will take place in the Court Room, University of London, Senate House between 6.30 – 9.00pm on the 29th February and 14th March.

Please send a (working) title and an abstract of approximately 300 words. lnclude which Hosting you are submitting to and, if applicable, one or two pictures.

Send these to Sarah Sparkes at: ghost.hostings@gmail.com

Deadline for submissions of proposals: 13th January 2012

Hostings 6: Absence – Haunted Landscapes

The Key Of Solomon, a medieval grimoire instructs magicians to seek out “places that lie concealed, distant and removed from the haunts of men. Wherefore desolate and uninhabited regions are most appropriate, such as the borders of lakes, forests, dark and obscure places, old and deserted houses, whither rarely and scarce ever men do come, mountains, caves, caverns, grottos, gardens, orchards...”

Could it be that this instruction suggests a common topography of the haunted landscape that such venues operate as amplifiers for achieving rapport with the dead? Perhaps it is the absence of life and the nature of our own loneliness that in fact haunts the landscape? Are places of tragedy imbued with spirits of their victims or is this just a romantic engagement, an imaginative association with a past event? Is it possible to use a particular landscapes to facilitate the experience of paranormal phenomena – in this respect can landscape serve like the séance room for the natural channelling of the spirit of place, or the dead souls of its past? Moreover, have artists and writers intuitively apprehended these landscapes to manifest a haunted aesthetic?

GHost invites submissions exploring these or other ideas associated with the Haunted Landscape.

Hostings 7: Presence – Manifesting Ghosts

“Ghost Seance has the potential to summon spirits at any given location and time although 3:00 a.m. usually produces the best results.” (Taken from a website advertising a séance app. for smart phones)

Writers, psychical investigators, mediums, parapsychologists, illusionists, artists all have manifested ghosts in their own way. The writers mind conjures up ghostly apparitions, pinning down their fleeting forms with words. In the darkened séance room both psychical investigator and audience witness phenomena produced by the medium. Whether witnessed by believer or sceptic, the spirit announces itself, with a common ghostly language: wraps, moving furniture, unexplained scents, temperature changes, phosphorescent lights etc. In more recent times visual and auditory ephemera has been described and captured by paranormal investigators, with the help of technological devices. This new language of the ghostly reappears in the haunted aesthetics of films such as Nigel Kneale’s The Stone Tape and in the work of contemporary artists such as Susan Hiller. When attempting to document ghosts, is it us or the ghosts who are controlling the means by which we describe and measure their presence?

GHost invites submissions exploring ghost-makers: their means , methods and their reasons for manifesting ghosts.

About GHost

GHost is a visual arts and creative research project which explores the various roles ghosts play in contemporary culture by bringing artists, writers, curators, researchers and others together. In homage to Duchamp’s wordplay “A guest + a host = a ghost”, we take on and explore the various roles of ghosts, guests and hosts in our activities. The project has been running since 2008 and we have organised exhibitions, performance nights and so-called Hostings, seminar-style workshops which serve as a forum for exchange between thinkers and makers, audience and practitioners. As a research project, GHost blurs the boundaries between the diverse research groups and audiences that exist for the paranormal and hosts events in which these groups can explore their various beliefs. As a visual arts project, GHost explores the illusionary power of art and artists to create what could be seen as a ‘haunted aesthetic’. Visual art exhibitions have been hosted by a John Soane church in East London, at the London Art Fair and the Folkestone Triennial Fringe while the Hostings have been held at Senate House, University of London.

GHost has been organising Hostings in association with the IGRS, School of Advanced Study, University of London since 2009.

The Haunted Sea - final weekend in Folkestone

2011-10-12T00:02:00.000+01:00

We had a fantastic weekend in Folkestone with the screening of The Haunted Sea films and an 'outerspherical' performance by English Heretic on 23rd September and then a final opening of the GHost CLHub on the 24th with a beautiful performance by three enchanting mermaids, who could really put any siren to shame. It was with sadness that we closed the show on the evening of the 24th. We loved Folkestone and our four-month residency at the B&B for the duration of the Triennial.
Here are some pictures from the final weekend.

an apparition of mermaids... Joanna McCormick with Martha and Ruby (photo by Sarah Sparkes)

The GHost CLHub counter (photo by Sarah Sparkes)

something is watching through the open cabinet... (photo by Sarah Sparkes)

Domingo Martínez's eerie family photographs between Matt Rowe's skulls and a greeting from the Count of Monte Christo. (photo by Sarah Sparkes)

Folkestone's Red Lady with Calum F. Kerr's red book of evil. (photo by Sarah Sparkes)

The Haunted Sea at 64 Tontine Street (photo by Ricarda Vidal)

The GHost SHip gets ready for English Heretic (photo by Ricarda Vidal)

English Heretic whistles through closed church doors and evokes the spirit of M.R. James... Who is it who's coming? (photos - Ricarda Vidal & Sarah Sparkes)

Sound waves take their toll on our field of vision (photo by Ricarda Vidal)

GHost presents The Haunted Sea (photo by Sarah Sparkes)

Glenn Church's Salem Ghost Ship on the big screen (photo Sarah Sparkes)

Eva Rudlinger's "Arctic Echo"- icy blasts by the warmth of candle light

(photo - Sarah Sparkes)

Watching The Haunted Sea films (photo by Ricarda Vidal)

A Ghost mermaid sings her siren's song in the dying light.

(photo: Sarah Sparkes)

The Haunted Sea Film Screening

2011-09-18T13:08:00.019+01:00

GHost presents

The Haunted Sea

Amy McDonough, Ash on my Skirt (still)

Short Film Screening

and

Musical Performance by English Heretic

Friday 23 September 2011

7pm doors open

7.30pm musical interlude by English Heretic

8pm film screening commences

64 Tontine Street, Folkestone, Kent, CT20 1JP

Map: http://tinyurl.com/6zd2ssc

We have selected twelve international artists who have responded to our call for short films on the theme of “The Haunted Sea”. Their films will be screened on the final weekend of the Folkestone Triennial:

Films by
Tymon Albrzykowski, Neil Baker, Nick Baxter & Jude Cowan & Joanna McCormick, Emma Caddow, Kieron Clark, Inez de Coo, Glenn Church, Romeo Grünfelder, Ellen Lake & Chris Green, Amy McDonough, Eva Rudlinger, Stasis73

English Heretic will open and close the event with “An intermission of aural lagan, manipulating phonographic salvage from the actual locations of M.R.James' ghost stories “A Warning to the Curious” and “Oh Whistle and I'll Come to You.”

Saturday 24th September, 2.00p - 6.00pm
the films will be screened on a loop at 64 Tontine Street
and the B&B Project Space will be open with
a final chance to glimpse the GHost CLHub

4.00pm – Performance by Joanna McCormick and Jude McGowanthe B&B Project Space, 14 Tontine Street

Film Programme

Arctic Echo, Dir. Eva Rudlinger, UK, 2008 The gradual appearance and disappearance of a white cliff facing its double at the mouth of an Icelandic fjord, subtly alters scenery and atmosphere. The temporary transfiguration of sea and sky recalls phenomena such as the arctic mirage witnessed in remote and high latitude settings.
Since completing an MA in Fine Art at Chelsea College of Art and Design, Eva Rudlinger's practice uses light, space, scale and elemental materials as a catalyst to explore perceptions of time and the temporal, thoughts and feelings, mainly expressed in the medium of photography, film and sculpture. She has participated in selected screenings and exhibitions in national and international festivals and galleries.
http://www.evarudlinger.co.uk

[desı’re:] the Goldstein Reels, Dir. Romeo Grünfelder, Germany, 2006

An old celluloid film is labelled as being from the estate of Jack Goldstein. The unusual S8 footage is nevertheless difficult to interpret. Due to partially missing data, place, time and author cannot be determined and keep the beholder in the dark. The ongoing investigation has not been able to produce a reasonable explanation of the circumstances.
www.felderfilm.de

The Radiographer’s Daughter, Dir. Stasis73, UK, 2011She had played the harp so beautifully she was called before the king. The wind became jealous and mustered a great storm that came and washed them all away. A storm that created new land, such was its fury, in exchange for old. And now sunken towns and villages hold memories of the marks that hands had made in their walls….and on a clear day, if you listen ever so carefully, you can hear the music she played the king in amongst the lapping of the now gentle tide.
Stasis73 is a freeform post-experimental sound and film outfit. Drawn together by the chemistry of the random.The perfect number is 73, because 73 is the 21st prime number. The mirror of 73 is 37, the 12 prime number. 12's mirror is 21. The products of 21 are 7 and 3. 7 and 3 together equal 73.
www.stasis73.com

Ash On My Skirt, Dir. Amy McDonough, UK, 2011 Ash On My Skirt tells the story of a mother scattering her son’s ashes at sea through the repeated and clashing musical refrains of a macabre Scottish folk ballad and the washing of the tides. It weaves together an address of an audience that is informational with something more lyrical.
Amy McDonough (Born Ashington Northumberland 1981.) BA English, Royal Holloway 2002. BA Fine Art, Goldsmiths 2006. PG Dip Fine Art, Royal Academy Schools 2011. Amy has exhibited films and performances both nationally and internationally: Bloomberg New Contemporaries, Clore Cinema Tate Britain and exhibitions in UK, Italy, Germany and Japan. She has recently been awarded the Deutsche Bank Award.

Dziwy Mórz Głębokich (The Deep Sea Wonders), Dir. Tymon Albrzykowski, Poland, 2010The film tells the twisted tale of a fantastic submarine expedition to the depths of the ocean to rescue a woman swallowed by a fish.
Tymon Albrzykowski was born in 1988. He studied film and artistic photography at the School of Arts in Gdynia (Poland) and graduated in 2008. Since October 2009 he studies at Lodz Film School (Poland) specializing in Animation Directing and Special Effects.

Oh Dreamland, Dir. Inez de Coo, UK, 2010
Made by combining photographs shot in Coney Island, New York and Dreamland, Margate with footage taken from the 1962 film Carnival of Souls, this video addresses the haunted feeling of abandoned fairs while suggesting that film and photography contain ghosts of their own in the way the mediums are created out of life and held in time. It is a video work with its own sense of time and logic that seduces the viewer as if it were a dream.
Inez de Coo (Lutong, 1982) is a visual artist, specialising in video art. She completed her BA at the KABK in The Hague in 2008 and graduated from the Royal Academy Schools in summer 2011. She is interested in applying ideas from film theory alongside psychoanalysis and philosophy to explore the intersections between fiction and reality, exploring cinema’s role in shared social and cultural heritage as a record of collective memory. www.inezdecoo.nl

The Salem Ghost Ship, Dir. Glenn Church, USA, 2011
The Salem Ghost Ship is based on the rich New England narrative folklore tradition. Ships from Salem sailed all over the world many never returning. This constant threat of untimely death would culminate in stories of ghost ships returning the souls of dead sailors back to the land they sailed from.
Glenn Church’s work combines sound and its visual counterpart. He is interested in how these two disciplines combine to create ‘total’ and immersive psychological experiences. He works with multimedia to create expressions of social and psychological reactions to the 'personal' engagement with the world; both the 'seen' and the 'unseen'. www.neophytecapsule.com

Mermaid Song, Dir. Nick Baxter, Jude Cowan, Joanna McCormick, UK, 2011
Mermaids squeeze the life out of sailors while attempting to rescue them. “Now you're blinded by starlight, and so I do not know your salty skin, your sailor's gleam, the dazzle of your fine heart's beam.”
Mermaids' tears are freshwater pearls.
“I cannot swim, the water's fluttering drift eludes me in the night.”
When you see a mermaid beware rough weather ahead.
“Were you to join me here, and sit with me on shore, I would delight to take your hand and lead you to the ocean's roar.”
Eat a mermaid's flesh and become immortal.
“And glide immersed and drifting, embracing storm and calm.”
A mermaid's kisses will cure your ills.
“And infinite consolation of the seas' deep lustrous balm.”
Mermaid Song is a collaboration with film maker Nick Baxter, invented from snippets of footage gathered while searching for monstrous wonders of the deep at Highcliffe on the Dorset coast bordering Hampshire.The film is a playful exploration of haunting themes, including the elusive quality of dreams, mystery, longing and loss.
Jude Cowan and Joanna McCormick are artists who delight in the absurd, the surreal and the spontaneous. Jude is also a musician and published poet and Joanna is artist in residence at Peckham Settlement and is part of Westminster Arts' Resonate team.
www.joart.info www.myspace.com/judecowan www.judecowan.blogspot.com
nicholas.baxter@btinternet.com

Edges of the Peripheries, Dir. Emma Caddow, UK, 2007 A phenomenological study.
Ephemeral gateways.
Transient precipitations.
A myriad of hopes.
This footage was shot at Harwich Seafront where the Doverport Lighthouse sit, which have been painted by John Constable.
Born in metropolis of Hong Kong, Emma travelled across a continent only to land in another metropolis, London. Having previously followed a more scientific career, a pivotal experience derailed her mathematical existence onto the free highway of art. Having recently completed a Fine Art BA at Middlesex University she specialises in film & video.
www.emmacaddow.com

West of Arran, Dir. Neil Baker, UK, 2011
A fisherman is slowly strangled by a jumper his mother knitted in this sparse tale of love, loss and revenge from beyond the grave.
Neil Baker is a widely published writer of bitter-sweet short stories and surreal, unsettling tales. He lives near the sea, outside of Rye.
http://neilbaker.blogspot.com/

Joy, Dir. Kieron Clark, UK, 2007Joy tells the story of a modern-day miracle and of its effects on the residents of a small seaside town.
Kieron Clark is a South London-based writer, producer and director with several short films under his belt, including the UK Film Council-funded Joy, which has screened at festivals including Raindance, Brest and Leeds, and the short dramas Still Life and Gas. www.kieronclark.co.uk

Seaworthy, Dir. Ellen Lake and Chris Green, USA, 2010
Based on observations of everyday life – this short is an eclectic mix of cargo ships, tug boats, and sailboats shot on the Oakland Estuary, with a bluegrass soundtrack by Evie Ladin, and a body floating by – mixing fantasy and documentary, love and loss, while exploring the urban/marine landscape.
Chris Green (scientist) and Ellen Lake (artist) join forces to make mechanical sculptures, videos, photographs, and installations. Working with metal, motors, electronics, and digital media they make art inspired from observations in everyday life. We are currently working on a series exploring contemporary urban space. Chris and Ellen live in Oakland, California. Ellen works at Kala Art Institute, a residency program for printmakers and digital media artists and Chris is an environmental scientist at the United States Geological Survey. Seaworthy has shown at the Director’s Lounge 2011 Urban Research Program “Places and Locations: Reality Check,” in Berlin, has traveled in Europe with Ciné Martiko, played at the Santa Fe International New Media Festival, “Currents 2011,” the Great Wall of Oakland, the Berkeley Art Center, and the Kala Art Gallery in Berkeley.

GHost and Tall Tales

2011-09-11T23:58:00.002+01:00

Paul Harris at the GHost CLHub photograph Sarah Sparkes

Paul Harris, local ghost story expert, visited the B&B Project Space over August Bank Holiday weekend. Matt Rowe recorded Paul's Ghost stories for his Tall Tales Project and GHost authenticated Paul's Tall tales Certificate with a GHost CLHub stamp.

Paul Harris is recorded telling a 'Tall Tale' to Matt Rowe. Photograph Sarah Sparkes

Paul with his 'Tall Tales' Certificate. Photograph Sarah Sparkes

Tall Tales - authenticated by GHost. Photograph Linda Barck

Haunted Folkestone - new works

2011-09-03T21:48:00.006+01:00

Haunted Folkestone

Paul Harris has been collecting ghost stories from Shepway for many years - enough to fill two fascinating anthologies.

As part of our residency at the GHost CLHub we invited artists to make work in response to these stories.

Sarah Doyle "Crying Boy" Photograph by Sarah Sparkes

Sarah Doyle “Crying Boy” watercolour on paper, 9” x 7”, 2011

Sarah Doyle has made a painting in response to a story in Paul Harris’ ‘Shepway Ghosts’ about the ghost of a young boy at the Royal Norfolk Hotel:

‘A waitress rushing to and fro from the kitchen to the bar noticed a young boy in brown ragged clothing “like an urchin of Dickens’ time” sitting on the stairs. Twice she passed the boy by who seemed unnaturally still and quiet. When he was still there when coming back from delivering an order she asked if he was alright.

“He started to cry, and looked at me with tears rolling down his cheeks, his eyes were bright blue, and then he just vanished, right there in front of my eyes,” The waitress explained

Linda Barck "Mary" Photograph by Sarah Sparkes

Linda Barck "Mary" drawing on glass with hair, silver leaf and silica, 2011

"With sorrow and some intrigue I read theses stories of sudden and brutal death, young women that had their lives taken in acts of suicide, murder and war. As an aftermath their ghosts are now said to haunt the places where their lives where cut short. These drawings on glass with hair and silver leaf are reflections, mirages of the past while literally reflecting the present.

Mary was brutally murdered after refusing the advantages of one of the chefs at her work place. Her ghost is said to haunt the Burstin Hotel (former Royal Pavilion Hotel) in Folkestone. She is still running from her murderer. Her ghost appears, reflected in mirrors and glass, wearing a white dress with long flowing, black curly hair.

Edith (Edith Mary Grimes), killed by a German bomb in 1917. Her ghost is said to haunt 14 Tontine Street in Folkestone, where it tries to prevent people climbing the stairs to, presumably, where the impact of the bomb would have taken her life.

Jane Doe took her own life after a fight with her lover. She is said to haunt the Clifton hotel, Folkestone, in the very room where she committed suicide. Her ghost is described wearing a nightgown and emitting great sadness, sorrow and misery.

Additional Reference to Mary & Edith; Terry Begent, Go Folkestone Newsletter December 2007. Reference to 'Jane'; 2003, http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/50965/4c63

Jacqueline Utley, "Katherine, Elizabeth and the Grey lady" Photogragh by Sarah Sparkes

Jacqueline Utley "Katherine, Elizabeth and Grey Lady" Watercolour paint on old paper in frame,12 cm x 10cm, 2011

Jacqueline Utley makes still life paintings from abandoned ornaments and objects. Jacqueline talks of place in painting she attempts to arrive at ''where the observed and imagined can sort of merge together'' “In the Ghosts of Shepway by Paul Harris I became drawn to female ghosts in the stories especially Katherine Eve of Romney Marsh, Elizabeth of the New Inn and the Grey Lady of the Ship Inn, Dymchurch. I began to think of the loneliness of the three women ghosts. Katherine wandering the shore, Elizabeth in the New Inn and the Grey Lady of the Ship. I decided to make a drawing of the three women ghosts together imagining they may take some comfort from such a meeting”.

"Apparition in the Burstin Hotel" Photogragh Sarah Sparkes

Linda Barck came to assist at GHost CLHub over bank holiday weekend, GHost took her to visit the location where Mary's ghost has been sited. This photograph was taken in the deserted dining room at the Grand Burstin Hotel, but is this Linda or Mary who has been captured by the camera?

GHost -New work- Aug bank holiday

2011-09-01T00:03:00.062+01:00

Here are some images of the new work we installed at the GHost CLHub for August Bank Holiday.

New works by - Linda Barck, Sarah Doyle, Rebecca Feiner, Richard O'Sullivan, Sarah Sparkes, Sam Treadaway, Jacqueline Utley, Malcolm Hobbs & Colin Priest & Joe Reeves,

Also works by -

Miyuki Kasahara, Domingo Martínez Rosario, Ricarda Vidal and Cathy Ward

Matt Rowe, proprietor of the B&B Space, surveys the GHost CLHub. Photograph Ricarda Vidal

GHost CLHub Corner. Photograph by Sarah Sparkes

Jacqueline Utley's watercolour in the B&B window photograph Ricarda Vidal

Jacqueline Utley has made work in response to one of Paul Harris' ghost story anthologies - more on this here

Sarah Doyle's 'Crying Boy' photograph Sarah Sparkes

Sarah Doyle has made work in response to one of Paul Harris' ghost story anthologies - more on this here

Rebecca Feiner "Hospital Ghost 1" photograph Ricarda Vidal

Rebecca Feiner's prints are reminiscent of the Victorian curiosity for the supernatural, a time which coincided with Folkestone's heyday. Through their ghostly form the images also embody the sentiment of the 2011 theme 'a million miles from home' as the artists manipulation and intervention directly challenges the function of the medical original, which was to make clear, to understand, so that a doctor could take action and intervene. Instead the artist has intervened to create a haunting mystery.

Rebecca Feiner's art has been described as both 'performative and visceral'. Experimenting with whatever medium necessary to achieve her aims she embraces filmmaking, sculpture, installation, photography and sonic art. Feiner sees herself less as an artist and more as a psychological detective, relentlessly investigating the forgotten, abandoned and lost.

Whether excavating memory, history, people, spaces or time, Rebecca Feiner’s dark documentary quality is balanced by a child-like sense of fascination and discovery.. Her work has been featured by TimeOut, Daily Telegraph in the UK and internationally

Linda Barck "Edith" Photograph Ricarda Vidal

Linda Barck has made work in response to one of Paul Harris' ghost story anthologies - more on this here

Sam Treadaway, "Language of Flowers", drawing 2011

On the 8th of June 2011, in Washington D.C. USA, a specimen of the gigantic Armorphophallus Titanum, or corpse flower, released its putrid scent, likened to that of decaying cadavers: the stench of death.

Following a recent visit to Grasse in France and its Musée International de la Parfumerie, the leading centre for perfume and scent, the artist has imagined a ‘GHost perfume’ harvested from the recently flowering corpse flower in Washington D.C.

It is specifically the Washington D.C. flower that is of interest here. This is because Armorphophallus Titanum blossoms triennially. Flowering previously in 2008, the opening year of both the Folkestone Triennial and GHost and now in 2011, the Washington D.C. flower should blossom to coincide with all future Triennials.

The drawing shows the molecular structure of Cadaverine – emitted by the decomposing flesh of corpses – and a bottle of the aptly titled perfume Enchanted Bloom by the brand GHOST. The name is changed to read instead GHost. The composition also includes a symbol used in the perfume industry for florals, containing within it three numbers that refer to years; 95 – the year the seed of the Washington D.C corpse flower was sown, and 08 and 11 the years of the previous and current bloom. Three Armorphophallus Titanum seeds, at the base of the GHost perfume complete the drawing.

The powerful corpse-like odours of the Amorphophallus Titanum, bottled especially for the GHost project is an indicator of death and through association, the unknowable realms of the after-life. The largest flowering plant in the world smells not fragrant, but foul.

"Fishing Lines" projected at GHost CLHub photograph Ricarda Vidal

“Fishing Lines”, silent film, 3 min, 2010,
from the series “Greetings from DEAL” by Colin Priest, Malcolm Hobbs and Joe Reeves

Broadly the extent of any condition exists between the material and immaterial. The opportunity to articulate these curious physical margins were explored as a part of an on-going exploration of the coastal town of Deal, Kent over the weekend 3-6th September 2010. Greetings from DEAL represent five states of meta-existence in a place some consider invisible and others salted with activity. Through various modes of recording and re-presentation as postcards of contemporary, fictionalised and historical narratives, a new lens to view Deal awakens. Other films in the series include “Historic Deal”, 2010, “Persuasion”, 2010, “Spratter Portraits”, 2010 and “Smuggling”, 2010.

http://www.studiocolumba.com/

“Deck”, digital film, 8:10m, 2010,
Richard O’Sullivan

Inside the boat, in the anodyne human spaces, the protective womb of the ship erases the traces of the outside. Beyond the barricade, the sea roars. The corroded, wind-blown deck, trembling with seawater, seems like a liminal space between the human and the wild.
This very simple piece is a portrayal of the deck of a sea ferry in rough water.

Richard O’Sullivan is an artist in new media. He graduated from the M.F.A. program in Film Production/ Direction at U.C.L.A Film School in Los Angeles (University of California at L.A.), and from the University of Warwick. His videos explore the meanings of place, and have focused on the contradictions of the Californian landscape. Other works have explored visual perception and video technology. The artist has also produced documentaries, which follow personal narratives. Work in this area includes the feature-length Cradle, the production of which was undertaken with the mentorship of Marina Goldovskaya. He currently teaches Experimental Media and Media Production at Aberystwyth University, UK.
http://www.richardosullivan.net/Index.html

Matt Rowe's ceramic skulls photograph Sarah Sparkes

August Bank Holiday - Folkestone

2011-08-23T12:52:00.005+01:00

Bank Holiday - GHost - Folkestone

Linda Barck, "Edith", drawing with glass, silver and hair

(the ghost of Edith Mary Grimes is said to haunt 14 Tontine Street)

The B&B Project Space, 14 Tontine Street, Folkestone

Saturday 4 - 7pm, Sunday and Monday, 2 - 6pm

GHost presents new works made in response to Shepway ghost stories
and film installations exploring the sea as a haunting presence.

Artists:
Linda Barck, Sarah Doyle, Rebecca Feiner, Malcolm Hobbs & Colin Priest & Joe Reeves,
Miyuki Kasahara, Domingo Martínez Rosario, Richard O'Sullivan, Sarah Sparkes, Sam Treadaway, Jacqueline Utley, Ricarda Vidal and Cathy Ward

GHost at Folkestone Triennial Opening Weekend

2011-07-18T18:48:00.001+01:00

The GHost CLHub Flag is in residence at the B&B Project Space.
Photograph Ricarda Vidal

On June 25th and 26th the Folkestone Triennial 2011 officially opened and GHost was there inviting visitors into our GHost CLHub at the B&B Project Space. We also took up residence in the Kent Cultural Baton in the Stade.
Here are some photographs from the weekend.

GHost CLHub in the B&B Prject Space -Photograph by Ricarda Vidal

GHost CLHub is a GHost Project for Folkestone Triennial Fringe. The name is part homage to the real Ghost Club and a play on our name GHost and our hosts name Club Shepway. The CLHub was constructed by Sarah Sparkes and Ricarda Vidal, from our own hand made wallpaper and found objects from Folkestone. It serves as both an exhibition space and investigative headquarters for our research into haunted Shepway. We are currently showing artwork by Miyuki Kasahara, Calum F. Kerr, Domingo Martínez Rosario and Cathy Ward. More artists will be represented over the three month residency and their work will hang along side a growing archive of materials sourced, lent or donated form Shepway residents and which reference paranormal themes.

GHost CLHub postcards - look out for them around the town. by Sarah Sparkes and Ricarda Vidal 2011.


The GHost CLHub wall paper haunting Cathy Wards Treasures. Photo Sarah Sparkes

A busy opening B&B - Saturday 25th June


"The Haunted Sea" by Sarah Sparkes 2011 - mixed media.

“The Eternal Tide” Cathy Ward, 2006/11
salt-encrusted objects, film

On a cold, bleak, winters day a 7 year old child was out rock hunting in the outer limits of no-mans-land left by the retreated tide. She discovered buried treasure under the stones, a mass of silverware, medallions, jewellery and brass. The treasure trove was handed over by the child. It was discovered that it was stolen from an antique shop in Tontine Street, but the child received no acknowledged for the find.

The true story is retold as part memory, part fiction, blended with nostalgia and a melancholic soundtrack that harkens back to that decade. Featuring her elderly mother in the present day, with images of the artist and parents from 1967, the year this event occurred in Folkestone. The event was restaged 40 years after the discovery in 2006. The objects used then stood for years corroding, decomposing & reforming salt crystals, a process of being reclaimed by the sea.


Cathy Ward The Eternal Tide Detail. Photograph by Sarah Sparkes

Cathy Ward, The Eternal Tide - detail 2011. Photograph Sarah Sparkes

Domingo Martínez, detail 201. Photograph Sarah Sparkes

Un-titled, Domingo Martínez, 2011
found photographs, found objects

Domingo Martínez is a visual artist currently studying for his PhD at the Polytechnic University of Valencia, Spain. Both his artworks and research project deal with memory in contemporary art, taking anonymous found objects (photographs, videos, dolls, furniture, etc.) as the starting point to build up the artwork. By means of manipulating and modifying those objects, he reaches issues on a conceptual level in which we can argue about the role of memory as a construction within the present, that has a direct influence on the conception of ourselves, our identity and the world we live in. In the photographs and objects for the project GHost CLHub in the Folkestone Triennial, he shows the memories and recollections of a place, not only by using old photographs and objects, but for the presence of other beings in them, other souls that lived in the same place and that appear as silhouettes and ghosts.

Domingo Martinez haunted photographs and Matt Rowes ceraminc skulls in the B&B window. Photograph by Ricarda Vidal

Miyuki Karahara, Hungry Ghost 2009. Photograph Sarah Sparkes

“Se Ga Ki (Hungry Ghost)” Miyuki Kasahara, 2009
Sculpture and Found objects

Miyuki’s ‘hungry ghost’ was part of a series of ghosts she made for a performance at GHost II in St John on Bethnal Green, London, in 2009. At the exhibition she gave away boxes containing ‘hungry ghosts’ asking the recipients to sign a promise to look after the ghosts and take them home to feed them well. The result can be seen on http://segaki.blogspot.com/

The last hungry ghost is now unliving at the B&B Project Space - please visit it and feed it to keep it from haunting the space.

“Alan Hazzard's Re-readings from the Necronomicon” Calum F. Kerr, 2009/11
Mixed Media (Digital Film, Screen, Headphones / The Necronomicon, Chain, Dark Cloth, Padlock),

Detail of the book from Calum F Kerr's installation

In an illuminated basement on 26th July 2009 Alan Hazzard read from the Necronomicon. He had recently acquired it from a professor in Leipzig. Oh to re-live this sombre reverie!
With live sound from Death to the King (Kevin Quigley) and camerawork by Miyuki Kasahara.


Still from Calum F Kerr's Film

On Sunday 26th GHost CLHub was in residence in the Kent Cultural Baton where were new memebers were intitiated, ghost stories collected and recorded. Inside the Baton, visitors could watch films from the GHost archives and find out more about the project.

Miyuki Kasaharas Scroll and Domingo Martines dolls inside the Baton on sunday 26th - Phootgraph Ricarda Vidal

Initiated into the GHost CLHub at the Kent Cultural Baton - photo by Ricarda Vidal

Visitors leave the Kent Cultural Baton with GHost CLhub postcards

GHost CLHub opens its doors

2011-06-18T09:11:00.002+01:00

GHost has been invited to haunt the B&B Space in 14 Tontine Street for the duration of the Folkestone Triennial (25 June – 25 September). Our project GHost CLHub has manifested in a corner of the B&B and will open its doors to the public on 25 June. Over the three months of the Triennial GHost CLHub will explore the hidden narratives of ‘hauntings’ emanating from Folkestone and the Shepway area and our corner in the B&B will grow from the initial exhibition into an archive of artworks, artefacts, documents, films, stories and other entities.

For the opening of GHost CLHub we will be showing haunted artworks by Miyuki Kasahara, Calum F. Kerr, Domingo Martínez Rosario, Sarah Sparkes, Ricarda Vidal and Cathy Ward.

26 June to 1^st July: GHost at the Kent Cultural Baton

Between 26 June and 1^st July we will install temporary headquarters in the Cultural Baton – find us in Folkestone Harbour on the 26^th and in the Leas from 28 June to 1^st July. Visitors can engage with and contribute to the ghostly archive documenting uncanny tales from the Shepway locale. On display will be films by GHost artists, publications, artefacts and illustrations responding to local ghost stories. There will also be interactive information about the project.

Visitors will also have the chance to acquire membership of "GHost CLHub", take away GHostly souvenirs as well as leaving some ghostly keepsake behind for the archive.

Opening times:
Sunday, 26 June, 4.30 – 7.30pm; EVENT: 8pm, Raising a euphoric ghost

Tuesday, 27 June - Friday, 1^st July, 4.30pm – 7.00pm

(Monday closed)

Contact: ghost.hosting@gmail.com

More info for the Kent Cultural Baton: http://kentculturalbaton.com/blog/?p=249

More info about B&B Space: http://gogowhippet.com/wordpress/bandb/about/

GHost CLHub Manifests

2011-06-16T11:56:00.003+01:00

GHost has been active in Folkestone, manifesting our GHost CLHub in a dark corner of the B&B project space in preparation for the opening of the Folkestone Triennial on June 25th.

Hand-painted GHost CLHub wallpaper by Sparkes and Vidal

GHost DIY

GHost CLHub opens its doors...

Kent Cultural Baton Residency

2011-06-03T12:34:00.003+01:00

GHost Residency in The Kent Cultural Baton June 26th - July 1st

As part of our three month residency in Folkestone for the Triennial Fringe, GHost will install temporary headquarters in the Cultural Baton. Visitors can engage with and contribute to a ghostly archive documenting uncanny tales from the Shepway locale. On display will be films by GHost artists, publications, artefacts and illustrations responding to local ghost stories. There will also be interactive information about the project. Visitors will also have the chance to acquire membership of "GHost CLHub", take away GHostly souvenirs as well as leaving some ghostly keepsake behind for the archive.
A euphoric ghost raising event on Sunday 26 June will mark the beginning of our residence at the Baton.

The Kent Cultural Baton is a unique, original artwork designed by artist Nicole Mollett, "It is a mobile creative workspace that at each visit chapters the sights and sounds of its location". Read more about GHost at the Baton here

On 1^st of May we took up residency in the B&B project space, 14 Tontine Street, where as part of the Vernacular Events Program we are installing our project GHost CLHub. GHost CLHub explores the hidden narratives of ‘hauntings’ emanating from Shepway. A growing archive will document our findings over the five months and will be contributed to by visiting and local artists, writers, researchers and others. We’ll also host a series of events including film screenings and performances in local venues. A call for films on the theme of the ‘Haunted Sea’ is currently being advertised (deadline for submissions 14 July). In the final week of the Triennial (21 September) there will be a ghost story competition at the British Lion.

GHost explores the various roles ghosts play in contemporary culture by bringing artists, writers, curators, researchers and others together. GHost hosts exhibitions, performance events and workshops, so-called ‘hostings’. Venues have included the atmospheric church of St John on Bethnal Green, a John Soanes church in East London, the haunted Senate rooms at University of London and a video booth at the London Art Fair. We’re looking forward to haunting Folkestone throughout the Triennial.

KENT CULTURAL BATON SITE
CLUB SHEPWAY

'GHost CLUb Caravan' image by Sarah Sparkes
'GHost CLHub' logo by Ilana Levine

Call for Artist Films 2011

2011-05-04T14:44:00.008+01:00

GHost at the Folkestone Triennial Fringe 2011

‘The Haunted Sea’

We are inviting submissions of artist short films for screening:
during the Folkestone Triennial 2011. This is part of "GHost CLHub", a collaborative residency based at the B&B Project Space (14 Tontine Street, Folkestone) running for the duration of the Triennial from 24th June - 25th September.

We are interested in moving image works which explore the sea and the coast as haunted spaces, which unlock the rich treasure chest of stories about ephemeral creatures of the sea that come to haunt you on stormy nights, mysteries revealed in the density of sea fog… ghost ships, murdered sailors, drowned smugglers, abandoned seaside towns, deserted amusement arcades, desolate hotels, echoes of departure and arrival, dreams washed up on the shore… or something entirely different.

Deadline for submissions: 14 July 2011

Please send submissions to:

GHost (Sarah Sparkes and Ricarda Vidal)
9 Venetian Road
Camberwell
London SE5 9RR

Or hand-deliver your films to

GHost (Sarah Sparkes and Ricarda Vidal)
Institute of Germanic & Romance Studies
School of Advanced Study
Stewart House, 32 Russell Squ, London WC1B 5DN

For further information or to submit on-line films Email: ghost.hostings@gmail.com

join the GHost group on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/inbox/readmessage.php?t=1166662399611&mbox_pos=0#/group.php?gid=117301037117&ref=mf

photogragh by Sarah Sparkes

May Day - GHost in Folkestone

2011-04-21T19:56:00.001+01:00

GHost, In collaboration with Matt Rowe of Club Shepway will be spending May bank holiday in residence at Club Shepway’s B&B Project Space for the research and development of "GHost CLHub"

The B&B, 14 Tontine Street. Matt Rowes work can be seen in the windows. The resident ghost Edith Mary Grimes, a 24 year old typist haunts the fourth floor.

Throughout the Triennial we will research and document the hidden narratives of hauntings, unusual occurrences and curiosities in the Shepway area and explore the origins and mechanics of ghosts and their apparitions. A growing archive at the B&B Project Space will document our findings over the five months and will be contributed to by visiting and local artists, writers, researchers and others.
Throughout the Triennial we will be working in the public domain, contributing to the vernacular events program with a series of events such as performances, film screenings and talks.

Hosting 5: GHost-hunters 3

2010-12-24T14:55:00.009Z

"A séance takes place in the Monk’s dorms"

photograph taken by James Thurgill during investigations at Waverley Abbey, Surrey , 2009

Join us for

Hosting 5: GHost-hunters 3

Date: 18 January 2011, 6.30pm – 9pm

In the Stately Senate and Jessel rooms, Senate House South Block, University of London
(An apparition known as 'The Blue Lady' has been reported to haunt the Senate rooms)

Hannah Gilbert, Translation for the Dead

James Thurgill, Ghost hunting and the architecture of Hauntology

This event is free but places are limited - rsvp ghost.hostings@gmail.com to reserve your seat.

Hannah Gilbert, Translation for the Dead

This paper will examine the relationship between spirit mediumship and ghost hunting investigations. While spirit mediums generally communicate with familial spirits connected to their audience or clientele, a significant number are involved in ghost hunting groups. In these situations the medium may be used as a test subject, with the information they produce about the entities who haunt certain locations being either verified or rejected by historical research or scientific methods. However, some ghost hunting investigations are led by mediums who occupy a position of authority when it comes to understanding the nature of, and negotiating interactions with, the ghosts who haunt the site of study. The kinds of spirits encountered by mediums and group members in these situations bare significant differences to those communicated with in other kinds of mediumship demonstrations. Using case studies, this paper will examine the role of mediums in ghost hunting groups, focusing on the ways in which they represent their ghost contacts, how they negotiate and contribute to beliefs about ghosts and haunted houses within a group, and how they manage malevolent encounters which are unusual within the context of other mediumship demonstrations.

James Thurgill, Ghost hunting and the architecture of Hauntology

This paper seeks to draw upon the practice of ghost hunting as a basis for rediscovering the landscape. As public interest in the paranormal continues to grow, more people are taking up ghost hunting and engaging with the deep history that surrounds them, opening up to the resonances of past events, lives and residual memories that saturate the world we live in. Ghost hunting is, in essence, the act of communing with place and history, landscape and memory.

Putting place at the heart of paranormal investigation allows one to focus on the source of ghosts, that is, the matter from which spectres emerge. Such a process might well be thought of as hauntological; hauntology here, pertaining to a reiteration of the past in the present, quite literally through the form of the spectre. Ghost hunting forces a confrontation with our environment, a particular way of understanding our place in time and space. One might consider this the foundations for a spectral ecology.

Taking the foreboding ruins of Waverley Abbey, Surrey as a basis for studying ghost hunters’ engagements with place, it will be shown that paranormal investigation and indeed ghosts themselves belong to a particular tradition of rediscovering history and landscape. Moreover, that ghost hunting provides a framework in which hauntologies are engendered.

This presentation will make use of projected images and sounds recorded within the Abbey ruins, producing a soundtrack to the talk that is rooted in the voice(s) of the Abbey itself. Such a process aids in the transference of the ghosts of Waverley to a new forum where perhaps they might become known and revealed. More importantly; such resources can be used to recreate a sense of place and promote an engagement with our haunted landscape.

GHost III

2010-11-30T18:02:00.102Z

Friday 17th December, 6pm – 10.00pm

St. John on Bethnal Green

200 Cambridge Heath Road, E2 9PA (next to Bethnal Green tube)

GHost is here once more, with another unforgettable night of artist films, performances and moving image interventions to celebrate the darkest days of the season and to welcome in the ghosts that inhabit them.

In the lofty shadows of this atmospheric John Soane church, hosts and guests become GHost-hunters bedazzled by artist films on a movie-sized screen in the nave, and haunted by moving images, transmissions, interventions and performances in the foyer, belfry and beyond...

Warming seasonal drinks will be served

NOTE: The exhibition can be viewed throughout the night 6pm - 10pm and the film screenings in the nave start at 8.30 pm.

GHosts
Nichola Bruce, Gail Burton & Marc Vaulbert de Chantilly with The East London Secular Choir, Antonia Carrara, Jo David & Alex Baker & Kit Poulson, Rebecca Feiner, Romeo Grünfelder, Michelle Hannah, Simon Hollington & Kypros Kyprianou, Theo Kaccoufa, Miyuki Kasahara, Output Arts, Matt Rowe, Manuel Saiz, Sabine Schöbel, David Secombe & Andrew Martin, Sarah Sparkes, Kate Squires, Ricarda Vidal, The Reverend Marc Vaulbert de Chantilly, The Phantom Organist, The Daughters of Gef, Neil Wissink

map here: http://tinyurl.com/33rdupu

GHost is led by Sarah Sparkes and Ricarda Vidal
http://www.ghosthostings.co.uk/
more information: ghost.hostings@gmail.co.uk
follow us on facebook:

Installations and performances around the church

Output Arts, ‘Static’, 2010, Audio installation

Using collected responses to simple questions, and the voices of the church community, Output Arts have created an audio installation specifically for GHost.
With an old transistor radio, the audience is invited to tune through the static and capture the voices being transmitted throughout the space. In the context of the church, personal memories take on a haunting, ethereal quality.
Output Arts create multi-sensory artwork for non-gallery venues. We design installations combining images, text, video and audio gathered primarily from and within the venues that are used to show the work.
We would like to thank all those who have participated in the project and particularly our readers.
www.outputarts.com

Simon Hollington & Kypros Kyprianou, ‘Evidence and values for a new age’

‘Evidence and values for a new age’ uses Super 8 film and cctv recording to document a wineglass moving across a table.
By deliberately recording the evidence in a manner that hints at old ruses, the short recording might be an attempt at evidence being faked through stop-motion, strings, panning or digital manipulation, hidden by the quality of the image. In actual fact, it is a wineglass moving across a table. Or as Lou Reed put it ‘Believe none of what you hear, and only half of what you see’.
http://www.electronicsunset.org/

Sarah Sparkes, 'The Infinity Box', 2010, infinity box, illuminated sign and shed, 4ft x 6ft

On entering the Belfry space the viewer is confronted with the challenge 'NEVER AFRAID’ in flashing lights, faintly illuminating the shape of a shed on which the sign is hanging. Pass through the darkness and look for a peephole in the shed door through which a portal opens out into a limitless dimension. For some years, Sarah Sparkes has been exploring the potential of these boxes, previously installing them into coffins, built to fit the artist and in this instance a garden shed. A structure which is both domestic and everyday serves as a gateway to explore our fascination for ‘other worlds’.

Sarah Sparkes is currently undertaking an IGRS research fellowship at the Harry Price Library of Magical Literature, University of London. Recent exhibitions include, ‘The Infinity Box’ a solo show at The Belfry of St Johns- London, 'Fate and Free Will' at Riverside Contemporary Art Space - California, USA and 'Sold Out' at Elastic Residence- London.

Manuel Saiz, 'A New Chance for Symbolic Dimension', Spain,

A video installation based on a scene of Ingmar Bergman's "The Magician" (Ansiktet, 1958) in which art and society, magic and art are confronted. The work uses a clever application of mechanical sorcery that creates a magic phenomenon that echoes the fakery and trickery of the film.

Manuel Saiz is an international artist and curator. Selected solo shows include Specialized Technicians Required, Galeria Moriarty, Madrid (2005), Private Party. Keep Out Castlefield Gallery Manchester, Nominal_Politics, T1+2 Artspace, London (2003) and selected group shows include Talk Show ICA London, 'Monitoring', Kassel Germany (2005), UK, East End Academy, Whitechapel gallery, London

Rebecca Feiner, 'Everyday Abandoned' & ‘LOST’

The film 'Everyday Abandoned', which is shown in the belfry’s ‘natural’ confessional booth is a series of intense visual fragments of every day abandoned hauntings & memories exploring textures and absence capturing the mystery from a child’s point of view of both horror and wonderment at their surroundings. The film has audio of train tracks and city traffic & was originated on VHS so that visually the colours bleed into soft edges. Exploring the continued theme of absence & haunting a small object-based work accompanies the film at the small curved landing entrance to the Belfry: two tiny white leather little girls shoes of the style associated with confirmations & weddings which will be spot lit- this piece is called LOST.

Theo Kaccoufa 'Dearest' Kinetic Chair

I like the idea of the mundane behaving unexpectedly.
Dearest is a haunted chair, an utilitarian object possessed by forces unseen. I have created my version of possible Victorian technologies, as used by spiritualist charlatans, to beguile, seduce and bamboozle.
In contrast to “Dearest”, a skeletal flower grows from a crack on the stairs. This piece continues from my Cyber Flora series, plant forms of exotic origins, like ghosts, barely existing on this earthly plane.
Theo Kaccoufa, together with Tom Grimsey, is currently working with scientists from Universities around the UK on the subject of Nano Technology. Calling themselves “Giants of the Infinitesimal”, they will be showing their work in 2011 at the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester.
http://www.theoland.com/

Miyuki Kasahara “Becoming a Ghost Healer not Hunter” 2010, Performance

I will be helping people hunt unhappy invisible ghosts. I will be asking visitors to release the ghosts’ pains or to solve their problems. Visitors will be encouraged to pick one of the ghosts at random from facedown individual cards. I will explain the particular nature of the ghost. There will be a series of objects on a table; all appropriate in someway to helping the ghosts. Participants need to choose the right item for their ghost. When they choose the item to take away with them; they need to explain and write out an instruction on how they will achieve the Ghost healing. I will ask for photos of their care as evidence that they have carried out their instruction. The results will be shown on the blog: www.ghosthealer.blogspot.com
Group shows 2010: Dalston Voices, Hackney Museum, After Dark, Gift 10, Vyner Street, Seed Dispersal Farm, London Fields

Matt Rowe, Screaming Skull, 2010

Super-8 projection and ceramic installation

The screaming skull pays homage to historical accounts of displaced skulls that posses supernatural powers. A screaming skull is alleged to relentlessly harass the culprit who is responsible for removing it from a designated resting place.
The projection of an animated veil onto the surface of a blank porcelain skull activates the screaming skull’s wail in infinity. For Ghost III Matt Rowe begins to investigate the morbid curiosity present in the human condition that compels us to seek talismans, relics, and spaces that offer contact to other worlds.
Rowe is an artist based in Kent and the London area. His work investigates regional myth, traditions and identity in a quest to distill an essence of folk culture.
Selected shows include: Fan Fair at Transition Gallery in London 2008, Vernacular Spectacular in the Folkestone Funicular Lift (Folkestone Triennial Fringe Events 2008) and Extra at Espace Le Carré, Lille 2010.

Nichola Bruce

'Alive , dying , dead', 2010 - 3 part moving image installation - continuous loop

I search, hunt through my archive of the past and there are always slices of film that I replay, because of a lost time, because the ghosts are so strong, and in those pieces of film, there is always an object, a place, that the memory hangs on and it is often something I still live with, only they are gone and I project their presence back onto, those places where for me they once were.
I am slowly filling my secret places of the dead and gone.
Nichola Bruce continues to film the Randometer Archive, extracts from her life.
She has been working with perception and memory through moving image exploring different forms, from experimental to feature drama to interactive mobile. She has screened her work worldwide, via broadcast, exhibition, festivals and cinema.
She also enjoys making musical noise.
http://www.nicholabruce.com/

Jo David & Kit Poulson & Alex Baker - a live sound and video sculpture, with projections on the screen in the church

The aim is to try to draw the sublime, the ineffable, the indescribable. The work comes from Jo David’s ongoing study into video feedback. Literally what happens when a camera is fed it’s own signal. What is the nature of the artefacts created? Where do they come from? What is their ontological status?

Positioning themselves as “Edwardian” Explorers, investigating the great uncharted space that might lie between the concrete world and the conceptual world.The work draws in ideas such as fractal mathematics, exploring the elemental forces that connect every human to one another and humans to the universe.

Relevant biographical info:

Jo David made the Anomolous (Fox) video piece for Ghost in 2008 which was shown in the stairwell at St John and also designed the programme that year with a drawing of St John on Bethnal Green by Rachael House. For Ghost II, in 2009, he made From Beyond, a video and sound installation, with sound by Kit Poulson. [1] The piece for Ghost III will attempt a live rendering of similar processes. Kit Poulson and Alex Baker also took part in Jo David’s curation for Supernormal at Braziers Park 2010 for Space Station Sixty-Five.

http://www.alexbaker.co.uk/

http://www.fineartresearch.org/CV/KitPoulson

http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/walker/johnmoores/25/exhibitors/kit_poulson.aspx

Ricarda Vidal, "Temporis manus edax scalae", 2010,6 min. loop,

This little film brings back the old wooden ladder of St. John which served generations of bellringers before the hand of time sealed its fate. It is an exploration of light and shadow, stillness and peace and ultimately the death of an inanimate object which contained the warmth of more than two centuries of human touch.

Ricarda Vidal is Lecturer in Visual Culture at the IGRS, School of Advanced Study (University of London). Most of the time she researches, writes or talks about culture since 1900 - above all about cars, death, urban culture, Modernism and Romanticism - but every now and then she sits down and makes things.

Gail Burton and Marc Vaulbert de Chantilly AISLE - A ten-minute performance

Films on the big screen

Michelle Hannah, "I AM THE SUN AT NIGHT" UK, 2010, 4.23min

The still point. The source of all light.
The video harnesses the precarious and fleeting aspects of our world, evoking the spiritual and visceral attachment to nature, faith and the existence of life after death, ideas very much founded in the Romantic traditions. Yet the transcendental and meditative experience at the core of this tradition is disrupted here by the disturbing presence of a singular unsexed voice.
A subconscious entity? The Future? Post Utopia? It toys with the viewer to come into its Sublime. Against the terrifying beauty, we sense our insignificant place within its infinity, a deep primal instinct to go ‘towards the light.’
It is the still point. Where no meaning exists.
Michelle Hannah is a Glasgow based artist , a recent graduate from the MFA programme at Glasgow School of Art. She currently revolves around the darker recesses of the human psyche and is at the fledgling beginnings of an esoteric cult: The Kingdom of Muin. She has recently shown at Embassy Gallery Edinburgh, The Elevator Gallery London, The Creative Labs CCA and Tramway Glasgow.

Romeo Gruenfelder 'Naissance d'un objet' Germany 5.10 min

A group of young people are discovering something right in the "center ", which remains inexplicably unseen.

Simon Hollington &Kypros Kyprianou, ‘Last Chance for a Slow Dance’

‘Last Chance for a Slow Dance’ documents seemingly polter activity in a derelict house. Continuing in the tradition of theatrical illusionists, fraudulent mediums and cinematic sideshows, the apparent lack of the performer is mirrored in the poltergeists’ literal lack of body.

Antonia Carrara, The definition of a thing in itself France 2010, 16mm on hd, 8,24 min

The cinema Louxor Temple was built in Paris in 1921 with an Egyptian-inspired architecture; briefly transformed into a night club, Louxor Megatown was abandoned in the 1990s. The film shows a guided tour to the site, retracing Louxor Temple’s plan loosely following Egyptologist Gaston Maspero’ s memories. Legendary French film director Luc Moullet explores the site, strolling through what is left of Megatown nightclub inside Louxor. The project proposes a speculative archaeological method based on a web of spatiotemporal correspondences and semantic and visual coincidences. The validity of the investigation method is constantly put to test. Especially because the whole setting is nothing but a photographic reconstruction of the site.

A.C. is an artist, living and working in Paris.

Kate Squires, "Unheimlich Gäst”Berlin, Germany 2009, Lumix stills camera. 4.29 min

Rare footage of ghosts sitting down to enjoy a normal spaghetti dinner. This film uses the common ‘ghost white sheet’ with eye holes and shows it’s unsuitability beyond the spirit world. With haunting music by Tomita.
I primarily make sculpture and collage/drawings as well as short films. My work often calls on the viewer to suspend their imagination somewhere between reality and non-reality.
Kate Squires is currently based in Berlin where she runs an art space www.centrumberlin.com with David Moynihan.

Neil Wissink, "Pugwash" Canada/UK, 2007, 16mm Film, 5:44 min

My practice explores geographical interstices and their subjective histories, the works themselves effecting poetic collisions between their materiality and their subject, between documentation and fabrication. Pugwash depicts a farm in Nova Scotia which was originally settled by my ancestors, but which I had never before visited as it was abandoned shortly after I was born. In London I showed the rushes to a professional psychic medium, whose ‘reading’ of the film became its soundtrack, offering a highly subjective and contentious proposition for what representations of place can mean.
Neil Wissink is a Canadian-born artist currently based in London. Since completing his studies at the Royal College of Art (2007) and Central St Martins (2003) he has exhibited his work in galleries and festivals internationally. Neil recently won the inaugural AMIP award for artist’s moving image, a co-commissioning scheme from the National Film and Television School and The Royal College of Art.

Sabine Schöbel, GRUNSKE Germany, 2009, Super8 and 16mm on DigiBETA, colour, sound, 4min 45sec, with the assistance of Deborah Phillips, Eva Heldmann, Justyna Hayda

The demise of the 'Palace of the Republic' in Berlin, at sunset. This is a portrait of a powerful symbol of nostalgia for the GDR that was re-used, restored and then, eventually, demolished, becoming a changing, magical emblem of the new centre of the city. The last glimpses of its 'skeleton' evoke thought-provoking experiences: the last bits of stairwells are reminiscent of other images of ruins, such as Berlin in the 1940s, when it was a bombed-out city, or of the World Trade Center in New York. It also conjures notions of the Romantic era in the 17th and 18th centuries, when ruins where expressly built. GRUNSKE is, in an odd way, the name of the sculptor responsible for this accidental monument: it's the name of a company that recycles metal. Over the course of months, their machinery carried out the contract of dismantling the Palace, for the public good in a public space. (Sabine Schöbel, 2009)

David Secombe & Andrew Martin, ‘Ghost Club’, Scout Hut Films 2007, UK, HDV, 10.53

Ghost Club follows the members of the South London Paranormal Investigation Society during a night-time vigil at a reputedly haunted local mansion, Charlton House. The team is led by club-founder John, whose pomposity is mocked by his companions Peter and Ian. No apparitions from the other side materialise during their vigil: but when John is alone, he discovers that spectres do not always conform to the criteria set by writers of Edwardian ghost stories.

David Secombe: “Ghost Club was an attempt to have some fun with the English ghost story tradition. We wanted to send up the genre whilst creating something that might be scary on its own terms.”
Andrew Martin is a journalist, novelist and broadcaster. His ninth novel, The Somme Stations, will be published by Faber and Faber in March 2011.
David Secombe is a writer, photographer and occasional film-maker. He runs the website esotericlondon.com, a literary and visual examination of the capital’s past and present.

The Phantom Organist

AKA 'Ring Mod Orkestra'

Selected pictures Hostings 4 - GHost-hunters 2

2010-11-18T16:53:00.003Z

Hostings 4 - GHost-hunters 2 - 16th November 2010
A selection of pictures from a night of presentations by:

Lucy Bensusan, “Most Haunted Live” – Interactive Television and the Domestic Ghost Hunter

Blue Firth, David Luke, Mark Pilkington, Vigil
Followed by discussion including the parapsychologist Dr. Ciarán O'Keeffe.

Hostings 4 - GHost-hunters 2

2010-11-16T01:13:00.000Z

Hostings 4 - GHost-hunters 2, a set on Flickr.

Hosting 4: GHost-hunters 2

2010-10-29T22:57:00.000+01:00

Date: 16 November 2010, 6.30pm – 9pm

Venue: The Senate Room, 1st floor, Senate House South Block,
University of London, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU

Join us for the fourth GHost Hosting, an evening of exploration into the phenomenon of ghost-hunting, including the findings from the recent and very marvellous 'Vigil' at the Royal Academy and a dissection of the substance of ghost-hunting inside the world of television.

The stately Senate Room is haunted by the smell of academic incense and the ghost of the blue lady may be heard scratching from behind the wood-panelled walls.
Come and play with us...

Lucy Bensusan, “Most Haunted Live” – Interactive Television and the Domestic Ghost Hunter

Blue Firth, David Luke, Mark Pilkington, Vigil

Followed by discussion including the parapsychologist Dr. Ciarán O'Keeffe.
London spirits will be served.

This event is free but places are limited – to secure your seat please email us at ghost.hostings@gmail.com

Abstracts of presentations

Lucy Bensusan, “Most Haunted Live” – Interactive Television and the Domestic Ghost Hunter

'The camera as we know it now and in its future manifestations will continue to function as an apparitional apparatus.' (Daniel Wojcik, 'Spirits, Apparitions, and Traditions of Supernatural Photogrpahy', Visual Resources.)
The subject was initially born from a personal interest in the paranormal, but as I searched for something spooky to watch in the evening I became increasingly aware that I was spoilt for choice, and the body of preternatural television texts that are marketed as either documentary, reality or investigative is more dominant than ever before in television history.
Crucial to my investigation is how Most Haunted Live innovates the traditional notions of live broadcasting as media event, monopolises upon the advantages of digital television, explores multi-platform delivery, creates cult viewing, encourages high levels of audience interactivity to produce an active television viewer, and therefore an active ghost hunter operating from their own domestic sphere. Whilst textually analysing the ideology, address and format of programmes such as these, this project investigates what properties inherent to the medium of television make it suitable as a vehicle of supernatural factual or reality programming. Initially, one must observe to what extent this portrayal of the contemporary investigator imitates previous incarnations of psychic entertainment, but also contemporarily how does Most Haunted revise, re-work or create new formats of television programming? Finally, this discussion will encompass arguments over the potential of the medium of television to be used to channel the deceased, encouraged by televised paranormal investigations, and being able to function as an 'apparitional apparatus', both letting the viewer see far into the distance whilst possibly bringing an unknown energy into the domestic sphere.

Blue Firth, David Luke, Mark Pilkington, Vigil

VIGIL is a participatory investigation into alleged paranormal phenomena at The Royal Academy Schools in Piccadilly, London. It was conducted in October 2010.
The project arose from first hand accounts of anomalous experiences told to RA student Blue Firth by security guards doing night shifts on the site. Their descriptions prompted Blue to unearth a history of unusual phenomena at the Academy buildings.
Wanting to explore these occurrences further, Blue brought in parapsychologist Dr David Luke and fortean author-curator Mark Pilkington. Together they attended training seminars with the respected investigation group ASSAP (Association for the Scientific Study of Anomalous Phenomena) and devised Vigil according to their guidelines. Blue and Mark also interviewed veteran psychical investigator Guy Playfair, who in 1977 experienced, and documented, dramatic poltergeist phenomena at the home of the Hogdson family in Enfield, North London.
Vigil took place over two evenings in October, during which 120 people participated over six sessions. Each session lasted 30 minutes and was conducted in total silence and complete darkness; subjects were asked to complete psychometric assessment forms and detail any unusual sensations felt during the session. Trained medical and psychological facilitators were on site to assist with the project.
For Hostings Blue, David and Mark will present a performative summary of their findings incorporating data and documentation from the Vigil sessions.

Scott Wood and Sarah Sparkes on Resonance FM

2010-10-18T16:03:00.003+01:00

http://www.loststeps.org/2010/10/ls030-scott-wood-sarah-sparkes/

Scott Wood iinvited Sarah Sparkes to join him on Lost Footsteps

"Lost Steps is a weekly radio show broadcasting in London on Resonance 104.4FM.

Each week we explore aspects of London's artistic and cultural landscape. Our guests are generally artists, writers, film makers, bloggers, academics, publishers etc.
Lost Steps is presented by Malcom Hopkins and produced by Nick Hamilton."
Contact: nick@loststeps.org

This week Malcom is joined in the studio by Scott Wood and Sarah Sparkes to discuss London Hauntings.

Scott writes the Fortean London column for the wonderful Londonist blog and runs the South East London Folklore Society (SELFS) whose monthly meetings provide a forum to discuss folklore, magic, mysteries and forteana in London.

Sarah is an artist investigating our fascination for hauntings. Together with Ricarda Vidal she runs GHost which “…aims to address the various roles ghosts play in contemporary culture by bringing artists, writers, curators, researchers and others together”. They’ve been putting on events around town for the last couple of years but until we met I was unaware of them. I’m intrigued by the video evidence and must make an effort to get along to future events, in particular the upcoming GHost III.

After recording the show Scott revealed that he’d received reports of supernatural goings-on at the Resonance studio. Keep an eye on Fortean London for details."

Hear Malcom getting the lowdown on London Hauntings from Scott Wood and Sarah Sparkes.

Listen hear

Originally broadcast October 21st 2010 on Resonance FM.

Selected pictures Hostings 3 - GHost-hunters I

2010-10-17T16:32:00.001+01:00

Some pictures from 'Hosting 3 - GHost-hunters I"

Featuring presentations by:
Maya McKechneay, "Respectable Gentlemen, Techno-geeks and Wise Women: Gender Roles in Ghost-hunter films"

Scott Wood, "Elliott O’Donnell: Number 1 Ghost-hunter"
Rob Gallagher, “Press X to Enter”: Videogame Ghost Hunts and the Horror of the Object"

Hostings 3 - GHost-hunters 1

2010-09-16T19:50:00.001+01:00

Date: 12 October 2010, 6.30pm – 9pm This event is free but places are limited – to secure your seat please email us at ghost.hostings@gmail.com
Venue: The Senate Room, 1st floor, Senate House South Block,
University of London, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU

GHost invites you to join us for three presentations on the wondrous world of ghost hunters in film, in video games and in real life. A 'blue lady' is said to haunt our atmospheric venue, so you'll have the the chance to do a bit of ghost hunting yourself.

Maya McKechneay, "Respectable Gentlemen, Techno-geeks and Wise Women: Gender Roles in Ghost-hunter films"

Scott Wood, "Elliott O’Donnell: Number 1 Ghost-hunter"

Rob Gallagher, “Press X to Enter”: Videogame Ghost Hunts and the Horror of the Object"

The event is part of the GHost project, led by Sarah Sparkes and Ricarda Vidal

Maya McKechneay, Respectable gentlemen, techno-geeks and wise women: gender roles in ghost-hunter films
In fiction films ghost hunters are usually portrayed in a standardized way: There is the stereotype of the respectable gentleman in the Brit-Mood-Horrorfilm. Like Dr. John Markway in Robert Wise’s “The Haunting” or Mr. Barrett in John Hough’s “The Legend of Hell House”. The respectable gentleman-ghost hunter has greying hair and is on top of the hierarchy within the team he assembles around him (the psychic-medium, the experienced eye-witness, etc.) ... which makes him the love interest of the female participants. There is the clergyman, deeply afflicted by his responsibility, who performs an exorcism, most famously Max von Sydow in William Friedkin’s “The Exorcist”. Then of course, there is the comic ghost hunter: you’ll find him (and his technical gadgetry) in Ivan Reitman’s 1984 classic “Ghost Busters” and its sequels or in family entertainment like “Disney’s Haunted Mansion”.
Female ghost hunters usually choose the mental path and take the role of the psychic medium. They rarely use machines or technical gadgets like the male ghost hunters. Women lure ghosts out of their hidings with their mind, they try to establish communication and offer to be the therapist. Some even offer their voice and body to the ghost, which may take the form of a more or less explicit metaphor for the sexual act.
Ghost hunting is an archaic profession, so – not surprisingly – gender roles are firmly cemented. Still: the classical male ghost hunter is usually far less interesting than his female counterpart. While he is in for ratio and eventually knows less than he thinks, she always seems to know a little bit more than what she chooses to tell the audience.
Maya will explore the gender-theme by talking about some spectacular (and some spectacularly crappy) films. She will also show clips from the films.

Scott Wood, Elliott O’Donnell: Number 1 Ghost hunter.
“And now, as I stared in wonder –and, I admit, not a little fear – I saw something rise from the floor and advance towards me.”
Elliott O’Donnell (1872 – 1965) was an Irish ghost hunter and writer who couldn’t have a drink in his club, sit on a park bench or stay in a boarding house without someone telling him their encounter with a ghost or seeing something spectral himself. His mother was psychic, he saw his first ghost, with “yellowish green and sphinx-like” eyes at the age of 5, he was throttled unconscious by a dangerous spirit in Bristol and his father’s death was heralded by the family banshee. He wrote many books based on these encounters that tell wild tales of almost medieval ghosts and spirits, all with spare but well round narratives attached to them.
Scott Wood, of the South East London Folklore Society and Fortean London column, picks out and discusses some of O’Donnell’s stories, compares them to our meagre contemporary ghosts stories and tries to find out who Elliott O’Donnell was through his stories, ghosts, opinions on Celtic identity and his eagerness to prove his own membership of the O’Donnell clan.

Rob Gallagher, “Press X to Enter”: Videogame Ghost Hunts and the Horror of the Object
Rob will discuss the Fatal Frame, Silent Hill and Forbidden Siren videogame series, all of which allow players to go hunt ghosts from the (dis)comfort of their own settees.
While the games remediate various tropes from gothic literature and horror cinema, their plots – and their marketing campaigns – have also drawn heavily on the culture of contemporary ghost hunting and paranormal investigation: the Siren games were promoted via a series of hoax websites and blogs purportedly maintained by in-game characters, while Fatal Frame was marketed in America as ‘based on a true story’ - a claim that catalysed widespread online debate as to the location of the game’s (fictional) setting.
These electronically-orchestrated misinformation campaigns hint at a dominant theme in the titles, which are profoundly preoccupied with the capacity of technology to unearth and make sense of the past. While all the games stage dramatic confrontations with spectral, undead or demonic antagonists, the horror they generate turns out to have much more to do with the ghostliness of electronic media and the intractability of material objects; players spend as much time fiddling with cameras, radios and telephones, collecting keys, lockets and dolls as they do discharging firearms.
What emerges is a fear of the capacity of objects to look back – both in the sense of indexing the past, and that of seeming, uncannily, to return the player’s gaze. Via a reading of these titles informed by Sartrian phenomenology and the ‘thing theory’ of Bill Brown, Rob hopes to throw light on their presentation of ghost hunting as paradigmatic of modern experience and to suggest how their interactivity furthers this end. He will use footage of play to illustrate his argument.

If you want to attend more hostings in the ghost hunters series please put the following dates in your diary:

Hosting 4: Ghost hunters 2: 16 November 2010, 6.30 – 9pm
Senate Room, Senate House, University of London

Lucy Bensusan, “Most Haunted Live” – Interactive Television and the Domestic Ghost Hunter
Blue Firth, David Luke, Mark Pilkington, "Vigil"

Hosting 5: Ghost hunters 3: 18 January 2011, 6.30 – 9pm
Senate Room, Senate House, University of London

John Hyatt, The Uncanny in the Everyday
Hannah Gilbert, with (Films by Amanda and Rachael Hayward) Translation for the Dead
James Thurgill, Ghost hunting and the architecture of Hauntology

GHost III - Call for Artist Films

2010-08-03T17:52:00.001+01:00

A project by Sarah Sparkes and Ricarda Vidal

17th December 2010, 6 - 10pm at St Johns Church on Bethnal Green

200 Cambridge Heath Road, London E2 9PA

We are inviting submissions of artist films on the theme of ‘Ghost hunters’. We welcome short films, but will consider films of up to 20 minutes in duration. Films should be suitable for screening as part of a show reel, rather than for installation. The works will be screened on a big screen in the nave of the church of St John Bethnal Green as part of “GHost III”, an annual weekend-long exhibition with performances and screenings.

We are interested in moving image works which explore the various angles and aspects of ghost-hunting.

"HAUNTED HOUSE: Responsible persons of leisure and intelligence, intrepid, critical, and unbiased, are invited to join rota of observers in a years night and day investigation of alleged haunted house in Home counties. Printed Instructions supplied. Scientific training or ability to operate simple instruments an advantage. House situated in lonely hamlet, so own car is essential. Write Box H.989, The Times, E.C.4"

This ad appeared on 25 May 1937 in The Times. It was posted by Harry Price, an early-20th-century ghost-hunter who was looking for fellow researchers to investigate the paranormal activities in Borley Rectory, allegedly Britain’s ‘most haunted house’. While it is unlikely that a similar ad would be taken seriously by most readers of The Times these days, TV-shows such as ‘Britain’s Most Haunted’, or cinema films like The Blair Witch Project (1999) or Paranormal Activity (2010) as well as the abundance of websites dedicated to the paranormal attest to the continuing interest in the field. In some sense ghost-hunting has become popular entertainment, but its popularity is also an expression of a need to prove the existence of life beyond death.

Deadline for submissions: 1st November 2010

Please send submissions to:

S. Sparkes
GHost III
9 Venetian Road
Camberwell
London
SE5 9RR

Or hand-deliver to

R. Vidal
GHost III
Institute of Germanic & Romance Studies
School of Advanced Study
Stewart House, 32 Russell Squ, London WC1B 5DN

Email: ghost.hostings@gmail.com
join the GHost group on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/inbox/readmessage.php?t=1166662399611&mbox_pos=0#/group.php?gid=117301037117&ref=mf

Call for papers/presentations for GHost III: Hostings 3 & 4

2010-05-07T22:25:00.008+01:00

GHost-hunters

GHost is led by Sarah Sparkes and Ricarda Vidal

Institute of Germanic & Romance Studies, Stewart House, 32 Russell Square, London WC1B 5DN

Deadline for submissions of proposals: 12 July 2010

Date for Hosting 3: 12 October 2010

Date for Hosting 4: 16 November 2010

Venue: The Courtroom, Senate House South Block, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU

"HAUNTED HOUSE: Responsible persons of leisure and intelligence, intrepid, critical, and unbiased, are invited to join rota of observers in a years night and day investigation of alleged haunted house in Home counties. Printed Instructions supplied. Scientific training or ability to operate simple instruments an advantage. House situated in lonely hamlet, so own car is essential. Write Box H.989, The Times, E.C.4"

This ad appeared on 25 May 1937 in The Times. It was posted by Harry Price, an early-20th-century ghost-hunter who was looking for fellow researchers to investigate the paranormal activities in Borley Rectory, allegedly Britain’s ‘most haunted house’. Price was a member of the Ghost Club and the Magic Circle and avid collector of magical artefacts and literature on the paranormal and occult. He visited and researched ‘haunted houses’ all over Britain and Europe and documented the presence of ghosts and other inexplicable phenomena. He was also the first person to broadcast live from a ‘haunted house’ and is usually referred to as ‘the original ghost hunter’.

While it is unlikely that a similar ad would be taken seriously by most readers of The Times these days, TV-shows such as ‘Britain’s Most Haunted’, or cinema films like The Blair Witch Project (1999) or Paranormal Activity (2010) as well as the abundance of websites dedicated to the paranormal attest to the continuing interest in the field. In some sense ghost-hunting has become popular entertainment, but its popularity is also an expression of a need to prove the existence of life beyond death.

We would like to invite proposals for presentations of 30 minutes on the theme of ghost-hunters for the two hostings on 12 October and 16 November. We are interested in presentations which look at ghost-hunting as a historical as well as a contemporary activity and would like to hear from practicing artists as well as from researchers within the fields of anthropology, art history, cultural studies, film studies, history, law, literary studies, parapsychology, psychology etc.

Whether you are proposing an academic paper, a performative talk, a recital or a presentation of your art practice please think of ways of presenting your work beyond the neat framing of Power Point and take us somewhere on the far side of Windows Vista.

Please send a (working) title, an abstract of ca. 300 words, and, if applicable one or two pictures, to ghost.hostings@gmail.com

Abstracts should reach us no later than 12 July 2010.

The GHost project has been running since 2008. It addresses the various roles ghosts play in contemporary culture by bringing artists, writers, curators and researchers together for workshops, so-called ‘hostings’ and exhibitions of moving image and performance art. The hostings take place at the Institute of Germanic & Romance Studies and exhibitions are hosted by St Johns on Bethnal Green (East London).

For more info please see our website: http://www.host-a-ghost.blogspot.com/

Or join the GHost group on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/inbox/readmessage.php?t=1166662399611&mbox_pos=0#/group.php?gid=117301037117&ref=mf

Artists, please note that there will be a separate call for submissions for the GHost exhibition at St Johns on 17-19 December. We will circulate this soon and will also post it on our website and on facebook as soon as it is ready.

GHost - The Post GHost Hostings

2010-02-10T15:13:00.012Z

25th Feb
6.30 - 9.30
The Court Room and Jessell Room
Senate House, University of London
Malet Street, WC1E 7HU

This evening concludes the cycle of events that comprised GHost II and opens the curtain for the entrance of GHost III.

In a parallel projection on the walls of the Courtroom we will show Julian Wakeling’s haunted photographs of hostings I and II, which took place in the same room in October and November last year and of the GHost II exhibition at St Johns Church on Bethnal Green. Fabrizio Manco, Calum F. Kerr, Miyuki Kasahara and Derek Jordan, who have all taken part in GHost II, have devised a series of performances for the evening and will invite audiences to interact with the space and its invisible entities. The Reverend Marc Vaulbert de Chantilly breaks his silence to give a sermon in the haunted room.

Wine will be served and you will have a chance to purchase a copy of our GHost publications, “Hosting I: Haunted Houses” and “Hosting II: Ghost Voices”, which contain essays from the hostings and a selection of Julian’s photographs.

The Daughters of Moroni will preside over the evening.This is a free event but please email us at ghost.hostings@gmail.com so we know how many to expect.
GHost is organised by Sarah Sparkes and Ricarda Vidal.

The GHosts
In the darkness of the séance room Julian Wakeling's other-worldly photograghs of Hostings I & II and Ghost II are shown, for the first time, as a dual projection. The illuminated memories of one observing from beyond the glass.
Fabrizio Manco haunts the imposing corridors and chambers, walking whilst drawing his binaural experience of auditory phantom perceptions and ghost acoustics.
Miyuki Kasahara waits for you in in the Jessell room. As a zashiki-warashi, a child specter who lives in haunted house she will invite you to hear her 'I Ching' predictions of happiness or disaster.
The ghosts of Bethnal Green are stirring, emanating from the Haunted Lecture Room are live recordings from Calum F. Kerr. These oratories are echos from figures each known as John, returning once more from the dead.'
Derek Jordan entertains with haunting choral renditions guaranteed to send chills down you spine.
For the benefit of our lost souls the Reverend Marc Vaulbert de Chantilly will give a rousing sermon from the very heart of the blue lady's domain.

GHost II

2009-12-02T15:21:00.125Z

We're Back!

Join us for the Return of GHost!
curated by Sarah Sparkes and Ricarda Vidal

A night of artist films, performances and moving image interventions to celebrate the darkest days of the season and to welcome in the ghosts that inhabit them. With moving image installations around the foyer and belfry and a screening of artist films on a movie-sized screen in the nave.
Plus, as a finale a screening ofMario Bava's 1963 classic, 'I tre volti della paura: La goccia d'acqua’
And, of course, Mulled wine and minced pies!

With (in no particular order): Glenn Church, JoWonder, Geraldine Swayne, Daisy Delaney, Sinead Wheeler, Magnus Irving, Sarah Doyle, Tessa Garland, Lisa Fielding Smith, Gail Burton, Rebecca Feiner, Sam Treadaway, Katja Tukiainen, Sarah Breen Lovett, Calum F Kerr, Anne Charlotte Morgenstein, Andrew Graves-Johnston, Mason Stone, Richard Mansfield, Fernando Cestari, Mikey Georgeson, Reverend Marc Vaulbert de Chantilly, Geoff and the Daughters of Moroni, Miyuki Kasahara, Jo David, Julian Wakeling, Derek Jordan, and David Buckley on the ORGAN

Visit our website for more info: www.host-a-ghost.blogspot.com or join our Facebook group: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=212861422572&ref=mf#/group.php?gid=117301037117

With thanks to St John’s Church on Bethnal Green, the Institute of Germanic & Romance Studies (University of London), Betting on Shorts, Paul Dillon, Jonathon McKay, Cosimo Trisolini and Intellect Books

Andrew Graves-Johnston

‘The Ghosts of Pete Townsends Guitars’. Glass, 2009
Pete Townsend used to smash his guitar at the end of The Who gigs.- Do objects absorb the spirit of the emotion of what surrounds them in their lifetime? If a guitar that has been played with enthusiasm, passion and feeling, will the guitar absorb those feelings? These pieces made in Pate de Vere try to capture and reflect the emotions absorbed during the life of the instrument.
Shows -2009 Glass Echoes, The Crypt Gallery, London U.K., 2009 Summer Exhibition, SW1 Gallery, London U.K., UnArted. The Black Gardenia, Soho, London, U.K.

Anne Charlotte Morgenstein

A life size face with a worried expression is incorporated to a wall, a presence, an absence and traces left by activities within a structure. The face becomes part of the structure in which it is integrated and personifies it as if something was felt in such strong way that it needed to get out and be expressed.
Anne- Charlotte is a regular performer at the House of Fairy Tales, recent shows include ‘Bricks’ at Area 1

Calum F. Kerr
‘No John Doe's in St John’, Audio Performance/Installation, 2009, Image Title: Dr John + Dr John
Disembodied voices can be heard in the headphones up in the belfry, each relates to 'famous' figures named John who are now deceased. There are twelve in all. Their presence was recorded within this church and now repeats. Some of these Johns were obscure in their lifetime, some were undoubtedly popular. Here they find unison with the multitude of anonymous dead. Bio: Is Calum F. Kerr? a) a performance artist b) a rodeo clown c) a man in the dark

Daisy Delaney

'Fumes Descending a Staircase' : No 1” 2009
Someone with smoke in their eyes, is in a smog-filled room, trying to find a revving engine, which isn’t there...
Daisy Delaney has recently exhibited in Trickle Down Theory, Helsinki, Finland ; Dissolving Cube at the Portman Gallery, and has been commissioned to produce the Art Car for Liverpool Biennial 2010.

Fernando Cestari

‘Untitled’ 2009 – size varies with installation
This work is about image distortion. It is about how the media such as Religion and Politics present images and how the viewers perceive it. Images are sometimes manipulated in order to allure the viewer creating an illusion, a spell in order to enchant them. Belief is the word.
Biography: 2009 Central St Martin’s College of Art and Design Degree Show — “Untitled”(Hope), 2008 Rivington Gallery group show — Secret Lives — Purgatory, 2008 Islington Arts Centre group show — Uncommon Ground — The New Church

Gail Burton

"Crossbones" 2009, 2.16 minutes , Colour and sound
Crossbones: an unconsecrated graveyard where from medieval times prostitutes and other marginalised people have been buried. Now, some of the bodies have been exhumed and the ground lies derelict. But a shrine to the memory of these long dead people has emerged on the fence around the ground. Ephemeral memorials of ribbon and paper remember the thousands buried here, and mark more recent deaths, including the murdered Ipswich prostitutes. DUST, solo show at Hovel, London, 2009, OVER Banner March, part of 'Good News', Alexandra Palace, group show of site specific and performance art, 2009The Sky is Always Blue, The Grass is Always Green, solo show for Showflat, London, 2009

THE CROSSBONES CEMETERY

Crossbones ritual, lead by John Crow - image Katie Nichols
Crossbones - A shrine has been created at the gates to the site of a post-medieval burial ground in Redcross Way, Southwark. This ancient outcasts’ graveyard, also known as ‘the Single Woman’s churchyard’ – a reference to the ‘Winchester Geese’, prostitutes licensed by the Bishop of Winchester to work in South London was closed in 1853, described as being ‘completely overcharged with dead’. In the early 1990s it was partly dug up during work on the Jubilee Line Extension. Museum of London archaeologists removed 148 skeletons, an estimated 1% of 15,000 whose bodies are still buried there. GHost asks you to add your names to a petition requestiong a memorial garden at this site to remember and honour the outcast
http://www.crossbones.org.uk/#/friends-petition/4530753744

Geraldine Swayne

The Go-Between Again" 2009, film, 5mins
A childhood memory of another fictional child's dramatised trauma,
re-enacted verbatim, by blue-screened supernatural beings in a museum doll's house. Very saucy.
Ideally I want my work to have an uneasy, otherworldly emotional charge, as well as be humorous. I change medium quite often, between painting, film and music since my back-ground was a training in fine-art followed by years in film post-production. I also love the terror of live audience feed-back that playing improvised music provides.
Geraldine Swayne made the world's first Imax film from super-8 home movies, entitled "EastEnd", in 1999. She is represented by L-13 gallery, Farringdon, London and ia a member of "krautrock" band Faust who just completed a USA tour, and will be playing at ATP in the Spring.

Glenn Church

"Fragility" 2009, film 5.33mins
Utilizing small scale models, filmed with miniature cameras, ‘Fragility’ analysis the human condition of isolation, (both mental and geographic), emotional breakdown and separation. The notion of ‘home’ becomes a panopticon for self reflection and voyeuristic self destruction. The inhabitant has become a viewer from the outside, a ghost looking into their own surroundings.
My work combines a passion for sound and its visual counterpart. I am interested in how these two disciplines combine to create a ‘total’ and immersive psychological experience. After being born and raised in the UK, in 2006 I moved to North America living in New York, and currently in Salem, Massachusetts
Recent Exhibitions: Human Emotion Project. (Globally Exhibited Video Installation Project) 2008 - 2010 , 'Infrastructure'. Catskill Art Society, NY. February 28 - April 12, 2009
Metaphors For the Void' Catskill Art Society, NY. February - March 2008

Jo David

From Beyond, 2009, analogue video transfer, installation, Sound: collaboration with Kit Poulson
In 2009, Jo David co-curated, with Rachael House, the critically reviewed The Peckham Experiment, London; exhibited in Kiss of a Lifetime, Manchester & London; and made a collaboration for Mark McGowan’s Village Idiot, Peckham Square, London. He is founder and co-director of artist-run Space Station Sixty-Five.

JoWonder

'6 Days Goodbye Poems Of Ophelia', film/ interactive - 5min 7 sec - ongoing work
Contemporary bacterial version of the pre-Raphaelite Ophelia lies in the lake oblivious to the poetry that people are leaving for her on an answer phone.

Jo is particularly interested in the possibility that aesthetic involvement can increase interest in science and stimulate the mind to understand more about the complexity of life. The Ophelia interactive video incluides a contribution from well known auther and poet Kim Morrissey. Recently Jo created a special interactive animation for a fairy tale ball for Marina Warner. This piece is still ongoing and she welcomes more answer-phone comments to the dead Ophelia please leave messages on: 02071839366

Julian Wakeling

GHost images from Hostings I and Hostings II will be available in two publications that also contain the texts from the two events.

Katja Tukiainen

‘The Blythe as a Moon’, video animation, 2006, loop
Katja Tukiainen is a Finnish artist who works with the narration. Her mediums are painting, painting installation, drawings series and moving image. In her art the innocence and seduction are combined. "As Blythe" is a drawing animation about the allure of the gaze.
Katja Tukiainen holds the Master of Fine Arts degree from the Academy of Fine Arts Finland. Tukiainen is an acclaimed artist whose works have been exhibited in Finland and around the world. She has participated in artist-in-residence programs in Italy, New York and Japan.

Lisa Fielding Smith

“Milk” 1.5 Min. Colour Digital Video, 2009
A woman sits on a white sheet forming a makeshift backdrop for the frame of the film. She wears a black dress of which the hem forms a circle. The dress is ‘soiled’ by a spillage of what one presumes to be milk. The woman is sitting with her arms held outward at each side of her body. After a pause, she moves her hands closer together in slow motion. She seems to be ritualistically summonsing the milk to rise up out of the dress and into the sky (footage is reversed). As soon as it does, the woman’s hands revert back into position outstretched at either side of her body until the milk is gone. The dress is ‘cleansed’ and the film ends.
Graduated from Goldsmiths in 2001 with an MA in Fine Art. Exhibited widely including exhibitions at Danielle Arnaud, One in the Other and The RCA Gulbenkian Galleries.

Magnus Irving

Pergus and the Ectoplasm, film, 2001 , 3mins
Maker of things, performer, poet, film-maker, editor, wayfarer, romantic and captain of a pretend yacht.
2007 Séance with spiritual presences and ectoplasm. Margo Forbes at Port Eliot Festival, 2009 Let’s Murder the Moonshine. Painting performance to celebrate 100th anniversary of the Futurist manifesto. Goldsmiths College. London, The Deadman Talks for G Host, Hosting 1 at The Senate Rooms Oct 2009, London University.

Mikey Georgeson

‘Ghostpital’ film, 2.36 mins
This film is part of my ongoing dialogue with subtitles made all the more resonant by life long moderate hearing loss now dwindling further. For me is about suggestion and ambiguity. Turning the movie into a series of pictures creates a new story about being alone late at night watching the telly with the sound off and feeling jittery. My music for the film includes the spectral dislocated voice of Kurt Schwitters and refers to running away from Hitchcock’s dreams. Recent shows, My Magic Life – solo exhibition Sartorial Contemporary Art Recent Performances as Mister Solo at the Whitechapel Gallery Legends of Circumstance – group show White Cross Gallery June 2009

Miyuki Kasahara
’Se Ga Ki’ 2009,
Miyuki will give away boxes which have “ hungry ghosts” in. People can only see shadow of the ghosts at the exhibition. Miyuki will be ask other people to to sign a promise to look after the ghosts and take them home to feed them well, otherwise they may eat everyone. The result will be on http://segaki.blogspot.com/ Exploring identity, personal memory, and personal myths in people and herself, Miyuki's work has been widely exhibited in the British Isles and abroad. Exhibitions include: Unconfined, Melina Mercouri Cultural Center, Athens in Greece (2009) - Message to me 2012, Commissioned by Shoreditch Trust, Supported by Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation, London (2008) - Trigger, Art Gallery X, Sponsored by Nihombashi Takashimaya Co.Ltd, Tokyo (Solo exhibition 2007)

Rebecca Feiner

EXHUMATION video loop ( approx. 3mins)
The most powerful ghosts to haunt any conscious human being are the ones we carry with us in our minds. To survive, we suppress memories and choose to forget. That is until our senses are unexpectedly triggered by an object, a place, a smell or sound.In Exhumation, Rebecca Feiner explores a memory, and a ghost of violence, bought on by a simple pain of glass found in a window of a domestic setting. Dragging the ghost from the cellar of the mind, exposing it to the gaze of light, releases it’s brutality. A new dwelling place for the ghost is created that is ephemeral, intangible and dreamlike.The places we are told are the most safe, marriage, family, childhood, and home, are statistically the greatest source of violence, madness and dysfunction. It is here we find the source of all our ghosts

Reverend Marc Vaulbert de Chantilly
The Reverend Marc Vaulbert de Chantilly wanders a grassy road before the feet of the Rose of the World.

Richard Mansfield

In the Shadows 2009 3.30mins
In the shadows is a poem about souls dwelling in an abandoned and isolated old house. The film is narrated by Richard Mansfield and was dreamt up whilst staying in Ghent where the live footage was shot. Silhouette puppets were uses to create the lonely spirits.Biog; Richard Mansfield has been making puppet films for 5 years and has had his films screened across Europe the US and recently on ITV4. He focuses on ghostly goings on and dark fairy tales. He uses Marionettes and Silhouette Shadow puppets to bring his stories to life

Sam Treadaway

‘Rest for the Wicked or EXXit for a Ghost’
This piece draws a comparison between the insomniac and ghosts, traditionally believed to be caught between two realms, unable to find release in death. An exit box is used to contain a mixture of eight herbs used within the treatment of insomnia - hypericum, passion-flower, hops, chamomile, melissa, lavender, skull cap and valerian root. The dried herbs, soaked in essential oils of the same type, create a combined scent, subtly diffused by the heat of the light bulb. Connections between sleep and death are well documented. An analogy is formed between these states of temporal transition and a basic architectural interaction - the use of doors - as represented by the exit-box.

Group shows have included Wood at the Stroud House Gallery and Forget Me (curated by Gristle Mountain) Commissions have included works for the playwright Polly Stenham and the actress Sophia Myles.

Sarah Breen Lovett

tunnel01 – film
Lovett is an abstract film and installation artist. Her abstract films employ the the effects of light, form and texture for experimental experiential films. Her installation work stems from the enquiry of the medium of digital film and light as an architectural material. A material which can be used to create architectural space, through both expanded cinema and interactive installation formats.
EXHIBITIONS BY INVITATION + COMPETITIONS : 2009 ROME: Abstracta Cinema Festival, Film :2009 LONDON: VISUAL DEFLECTIONS Festival, Film :2009 dublin: NOW WHAT interactive INSTALLATION: 2009 AUSTRALIA: Royal Institute of Architects Design Medal Finalist, Design :

Sarah Doyle

‘Opheliyah’ animation 2007

An animation showing all of the shots redrawn in felt tip of the R&B singer Aaliyah underwater in the last video she made before her death in 2001The main part of the video shows Aaliyah on a boat and on a beach, however there are a few underwater shots of her in the video, which had always struck me as very beautiful and haunting, these are individually hand drawn and animated.Recent shows: Chisenhale Live Art Residency, Chisenhale Gallery, London, UK 2009, Nunhead Windows Project, Nunhead Arts Week 2009, London, UK, Kiss Of A Lifetime, Rogue Artists' Project Space, Manchester, UK

Sinead Wheeler

'Looking around and expecting to see Steven', 2009
35mm slide installation

Using the tropes of ghost photography and structural film, the slide installation 'Looking around...' mourns a departed friend. Taken to extreme, nostalgia becomes a pathology - an intractable loop - and the ghost in the machine will not be stilled.
Group shows, 2009: 'Exhibit One', The Old Police Station, New Cross; 'It's Over, That's It, Goodbye', The Duke of Clarence; 'The Pleasure is all Mine', AutoItalia South East.

Tessa Garland

‘No 1 Wilwyne Crescent’ Video, 4:3, 5.55 mins.
No 1 Wilwyne Crescent takes the viewer on a short walk around a suburban model house where a surreal and other worldly force lurks within the confines of the greenhouse. Early science fiction films such as ‘The Day of the Triffids’ and ‘Revenge of the Bodysnatchers’ that play with notions of the everyday and collective fear have influenced the work.
Tessa Garland is the co curator and organiser for the international moving image event ‘Visions in the Nunnery’, The Nunnery Gallery, London Tessa Garland has shown her work in solo and group exhibitions in the UK and Internationally for many years. She has recently produced a series of short artist films which have been well received, most recently at the MACVAL Contemporary Art Museum, Paris and at The Whitechapel Gallery, London.

The Daughters of Geoff – Sarah Sparkes and Ricarda Vidal present, David Buckley on the organ and Derek Jordan singing unaccompanied
image - detail of 'don't you want to see me' construction with infinity, Sarah Sparkes 2009

GHost, Hosting II: "Ghost Voices"

2009-11-20T00:25:00.018Z

The Guests find Fabrizio Manco

GHost, Hosting II: "Ghost Voices"
17 November 2009, 6.30pm
Court Room, Senate House (South Block)University of London, Malet Street, WC1 7HU
Elena Kamilari, ‘Ghosts on Radio, a Ghost-Medium’, talk and audio
Fabrizio Manco, ‘A GHOST is another PHANTOM?’ performance and talk
Sarah Wishart, ‘Something’s coming through – art and the spectre’s voice’, talk and audiovisual
Julian Wakeling, ‘Ghost Images’, photographic work in progress

Another evening of performance, talks and discussions and another chance to summon the ghost of the blue lady from her hiding place in the Senate Room. November's hosting explored the sounds and noises peculiar to ghosts and their kind.

Elena Kamilari, ‘Ghosts on Radio, a Ghost-Medium’, talk and audio

Elena Kamilari and ghost voices
The paper deals with the way radio, an invisible medium, a “ghost”, implies a presence. I will examine, the way the lack of visual dimension in radio is connected with the intangible essence of ghosts, as they both invite us to use our imagination, in order to create a mental image. I will focus on the strategies that radio play directors use, in order to evoke images of persons, places or actions. In the second part of the paper I will focus on the examples of the radio adaptations of Hamlet and Macbeth and I will examine the way radio signs and codes signify the appearance of the ghosts of Hamlet and Banquo.

Elena and Hamlet + Ghost

Elena, ghost hunting.

Fabrizio Manco, ‘A GHOST is another PHANTOM?’ performance and talk

A GHOST is another PHANTOM? is a live art work in relation to the sound of spaces and a reflection on acoustic phantom perception (and its phantasmagoria) informed by Fabrizio’s experience of chronic tinnitus. The ‘phantom-ghost’ will engage the audience in an initial pedestrian itinerant action through the corridors and rooms of the building. Later they will be asked to write down their phantom and a ghost sound on a piece of paper in envelopes given by the artist at the beginning of the performance. This will be read at the conclusion as part of his talk. The audience is particularly invited to engage and ‘prick up their ears’ and actively listen to the spaces and acoustic changes (and temperatures) of the building. N.B.: This performance requires participants to walk up and down several stairs in search of the hidden noises of Senate House.

Footsteps echo on the stairs - Farizio Manco

Confronted by Ghost noise - Fabrizio Manco

Ghost walk - Fabrizio Manco

Sarah Wishart 'Something’s coming through – art and the spectre’s voiceGraeme Miller’s artwork', 'Linked' talk and presentation

'Linked' re-inserts the stories of the area devastated by the building of the m11 link road, into the space that had forgotten them, through eight-minute audio soundscapes, which audience members pick up via radio receivers. Through the use of images and Miller’s soundscapes, I will take the audience on an incorporeal walk along the route. By exploring my experiences of the walk, I ask if this kind of art has the ability to invoke landscapes from spectral voices, how does it do it on a surface, like a road, that appears to be resistant to the ghosts?

Audience during Sarah Wishart's evocative talk on Graeme Miller's 'Linked'

Sarah Wishart

'Linked' makes contact with the guests

Hostings 1 - Haunted Houses

2009-11-10T14:15:00.017Z

20 October 2009 at 6.30pm in the haunted Court Room of Senate House, University of London, Malet Street, WC1 7HU.

The program

Kirsten Marie Raahauge and Ivar Tønsberg, ‘Contextual Autism’, talk and art presentation
This project deals with the notion of ghost from an anthropological and an artistic angle. The contextual autism of ghosting reveals itself as a sensation of in-betweeness in art as well as in everyday life. As a non-present presence the ghost flavours its host with ghastly sensations of something dim, vague, and indifferently deadpan. The artistic approach is trying to catch the poetics of ghosts, while the anthropologist is questioning haunted people about their real experiences of the unreal in haunted houses. The one haunts the other.

Kirsten Marie Raahauge re-tells the stories of the haunted

Ivar Tønsberg's Ghost images projected into the court room

Magnus Irvin, ’The Deadman Talks’, performance
Living people rarely have the opportunity to communicate properly with the dead. We can seek out the guidance of spiritualists and mediums but all of these, both genuine and spurious are but secondary messengers. In the company of a Dead Man talking we are given a fascinating, first hand insight into the ways of death and an opportunity to share the concerns of a corpse that has not completely given up on life. His stories from beyond the grave raise the arcane issues of mind-numbing silence, fundamental human urges, senseless desecration and ornamental lakes. Many of us can spend our whole life without acknowledging the existence of the dead or even meeting a real dead person. Here is an opportunity.Warning to parents and minders: The Deadman’s views are frankly expressed. The feint-hearted and weak of spirit should be aware that he has been dead for a long time and doesn’t give a damn about social decorum.

Stéphanie Sauget, ‘Haunted Houses with or without Ghosts?’, talk
Most of the time, in the ghost stories of the Nineteenth Century, ghosts and haunted houses seem to be linked and connected, even in the parody of the genre. But this "obvious" link between haunted places and ghostly creatures is not that clear in spiritualist press articles or in the supposed "real" cases studied by the SPR (Society for Psychical Research) or other scientists. In fact, it seems that the definition of "what a ghost is" changed a lot between 1750 and 1950, both in Europe and in the United Stated.

Stéphanie Sauget - with ghost

GHost is Back and looking for submissions

2009-08-15T00:28:00.009+01:00

GHost is back!
And we've got two calls for submissions!
One for papers/presentations and one for artworks

"GHost aims to address the various roles ghosts play in contemporary culture by bringing artists, writers, curators and researchers together for two workshops, so-called ‘hostings’ and an exhibition and screening of moving image art. The hostings will take place at the Institute of Germanic & Romance Studies and the exhibition will be hosted by St Johns on Bethnal Green."

Call for Papers:
20 October and 17 November, Institute of Germanic & Romance Studies, Stewart House, 32 Russell Square, London WC1B 5DN

We would like to invite proposals for presentations of 30 minutes on the theme of the ghostly for the two hostings on 20 October and 17 November.
Whether you’re proposing an academic paper, a performative talk, a recital of poetry or creative writing or a presentation of your art practice please think of ways of presenting your work beyond the neat framing of Power Point and take us somewhere on the far side of Windows Vista.

Please send a (working) title, an abstract of ca. 300 words, and, if applicable one or two pictures, to ghost.hostings@gmail.com

Deadline for submissions of proposals: 15 September 2009

Call for Artists:
GHost 218th Dec. 2009, 6 - 10pm at St John on Bethnal Green200 Cambridge Heath Road, London E2 9PAE

We are inviting submissions of moving image art in all forms, interpretations and genres on the theme of ‘Ghost’. We welcome short films, video art and art film. We are also interested in installations, performances and sculptures that use moving image art (magic lanterns, optical illusions, tricks of light and shadow, etc …). The short films will be screened in the church as part of a program of artist films. Installations of moving image art and performances will be located around the foyer and belfry area. NOTE: the short films should be under ten minutes.

Please send a (working) title, a short paragraph and, if applicable one or two pictures,
to ghost.hostings@gmail.com

Deadline for submissions: 1 November 2009

The theme:

Recently BBC Radio 4 broadcast a short discussion between James Buchan and Jonathan Sutherland on whether ghost stories are a credible form of storytelling in these sceptical times. Both argued in favour of ghosts and their timeless ability to make us aware of those issues we’d rather like to forget. Ghosts are remnants of suppressed memories, but they can also speak of desires we don’t dare acknowledge or of dreams we have given up dreaming. Ghosts are ephemeral, changeable and intangible but they are also eternal. They are a flighty presence but often they are tied to a specific place. They are domestic creatures but they travel lightly by word of mouth.Ghosts, of course, have evolved over the centuries and early on the ghostly entered science and technology. Soon after the first photograph had been taken, the first ghost appeared in print. Photographic and later film and video cameras were used to trace, and also to create, their ephemeral and flighty presence. These days, film and video are joined by the digital with its sheer infinite possibilities. With advances in technology images of ghosts become less and less believable, but ghosts, whether in stories or images, are as popular as ever. Whether one believes in them or not they continue to be a credible form of story-telling commenting on and exploring the changing memories and dreams of contemporary times.GHosting aims to address the various roles ghosts play in contemporary culture by bringing artists, writers, curators and researchers together for two workshops, so-called ‘hostings’ and an exhibition of moving image art. The hostings will take place at the Institute of Germanic & Romance Studies and the exhibition will be hosted by St Johns on Bethnal Green.

GHost 1 the 19th December 2008

2009-04-07T00:53:00.019+01:00

The following images were taken during a night of artists films, installations and performances at St John on Bethnal Green, on a dark winter night in late December 2008

We arrive at St John on Bethnal green at 10am.
'You Are Here' by Sarah Sparkes is carried into the church and laid to rest in the alise

The giant movie screen, donated by Paul Dillon, is hoisted into place in front of the altar.

Later that night, the pews are filled by an enthralled audience.

The films are watched by a living and a non living audience.

While Niki Sehmi's film "Desecration" comes to its inevitable climax, the reverand Marco remains motionless in communion with the invisible guest.

The main feature is the classic MR James ghost story, "Oh Whistle and I'll come" brilliant re-told by director Jonathon Miller and actor Michael Holden

Projections and installations haunt the belfry

Lupinen (Lupines), Sabine Schöbel, projection of red stains slowly retract onto themselves and disappear between floorboards.

Rosco S. Treadaway, "The Scent of Sanctitiy" red lanterns form a line of twinkling grave-lights and scent conjuring the eerie experience of olfactory after-death communications.

Meanwhile, in the foyer, Ghosts in the machine wail in welcome to the wary guests.

Andrew Cooper, detail of the installation, "Stella and George" . Who is tap, tap tapping at Stellas door?

"Anomaly" by Jo David. Another unexpected visitation breaks the peace of the watcher.

Succour is provided,

Ricarda Vidal's Candy offers more than just sweet words.

GHost - The procession with the reverend Marc Vaulbert de Chantilly

GHost 2008

2008-12-11T20:17:00.006Z

GHost
Hosted by the belfry project
Guest-curated by Sarah Sparkes & Ricarda Vidal

Friday 19 December 2008, 6.00pm – 9.30pm St Johns Church Bethnal Green

In 1953 Marcel Duchamp made an artwork titled “A Guest + A Host = A Ghost”. The mysterious phrase was inscribed on the tinfoil wrappers of sweets that were handed out during an opening in Paris.
Etymologically “guest” and “host” go back to the same roots. The Middle English (h)oste meant both “guest” and “host”. It also meant “stranger, alien” and it is only a small step from there to “ghost”, to the disembodied spirit, the shadowy or evanescent form wandering among the living like an uninvited guest.
For this show we take Duchamp’s calculation literally: with the belfry project in the role of Host, and artist/curator Sarah Sparkes and curator Ricarda Vidal in the role of Guests, we have put together a night of Ghosts. Continuing the Christmas tradition of telling ghost stories on the long dark winter nights, and in the footsteps of Charles Dickens, M.R. James and the BBC, this will be a night of spooky yarns to warm you up on a chilly winter evening.
The show will spread over the whole of St John’s Church, spilling from the cobwebbed dark alcoves of the belfry into the entrance hall, past the red velvet curtains and into the church. There will be performances, video, sound and scent installations, and sculptures in the foyer and the belfry. The church itself will open its doors later in the evening, when we will screen a programme of artist films followed by Jonathan Miller’s “Whistle and I’ll come to you” (1968), an adaptation of the eponymous M.R. James story.

Mulled wine and mince pies will be served.
NB: There is heating in the church but not in the belfry or the foyer, so bring warm clothes!

Installations in the Belfry and the Foyer

"Anomaly"Jo David, UK, 2008, film, 15 min loop.
The film shows the artist’s encounter with an urban fox one night in spring. The creature’s wild nature is highlighted by the urban setting and its reaction upon sensing the ‘watcher’ is eerie and magical. What follows is an exhibition of behaviour that is challenging, even menacing and yet, there seems to be an underlying longing for some kind of connection between the animal and the human.

"Stella and George", Andrew Cooper, UK, 2008, film, installation inc. two hand-carved wooden TVs showing two parts of an animation (5 min loop); the third part will be shown inside the church.Andrew Cooper, UK, 2008
‘Stella and George’ uses stop-motion and hand-drawn animation to create a story about a family memory stored within old domestic furniture. Stella and George emerge from an old piano leg and a door frame respectively and go looking to be re-united with each other. One TV shows the story of Stella, the other the story of George. The hand-carved wooden TVs become containers for the spirits of these lost souls.

"you are here" plywood, lights, trestle tables, Sarah Sparkes, UK, 2006
Sarah Sparkes’s work ‘you are here’ consists of a ply wood coffin, built to fit the artist, and standing on two trestle tables. Through a peep hole, in the foot of the coffin, the viewer has a glimpse of a twinkling tunnel of lights disappearing out of site.

"The Scent of Sanctity" plywood, perspex, herbals oils, scent diffusers Rosco S. Treadaway, UK, 2008
Treadaway’s red lanterns form a line of twinkling grave-lights and scent conjuring the eerie experience of olfactory after-death communications and the feeling of an otherworldly presence.

"Lupinen (Lupines)" artist film, 6 minSabine Schöbel, Germany, 2006
The film is shot in an empty apartment where wine bottles fall from a height to shatter on the floor. Wine like blood runs along the floorboards. Through shifting camera angles perspectives become mixed up so that the outside appears to be inside and vice versa, while the red stains slowly retract onto themselves and disappear.

"Chair" installation, artist film, 2 min loopPhill Wilson Perkins, UK, 2008
This strange film focuses on a small wicker chair that moves of its own volition. The chair is made of some ephemeral material that conjures the microscopic look of human tissue and questions the reality the human eye allows us to perceive.

"The Touch that Moves", "They Fly with Us", "The Dance of Waiting", triptych on 3 screens, loop Albert Price, UK, 2008
Price’s triptych is a beautiful and tranquil enquiry into the spirituality of objects. In ‘The touch that moves’ two opposite entities come into contact with each other and create a whirlpool in space. In ‘They Fly with Us’ we look through the window of a plane cruising at high altitude and watch a winged creature follow our flight. The final piece, ‘The Dance of Waiting’, was shot in the belfry of St John’s and offers visitors a rare glimpse of a delicate otherworldly creature that has made the belfry its home and feeds on the sound of bells.

"All Souls’ Night" The Reverend MARC VAULBERT DE CHANTILLY Performance in the Foyer and Church.
Taking inspiration from Keats’s Poem, “All Souls’ Night”, The Reverend Marc Vaulbert De Chantilly will become the host of ‘GHost’. Throughout the night he will invite and welcome guests, both seen and unseen, to find succour during the long dark midwinter night. During the film screening, his shadowy, candle-lit silhouette will be glimpsed just outside of the frame of vision, still and constant in his waiting.

In the Church

"Wind 1", sound installation, Darshana Vora, UK/India, 2003
Inside the church and unseen to everyone a strange musician is playing an unconventional score. As the music seeps through the closed doors of the church the visitors are subjected to a series of ‘subliminal messages’. All the sounds in the piece have been extracted from the ‘spoken texts’ in the Bible, The Bhagwad Gita and the Quran. Each sound is hence a word, relating to the scriptures describing paradise/heaven.

Programme of Screening

starts at 7.30pm

"Kogel Vogel (Bullet Bird)", Dir. Federico Campanale, Netherlands, 2007, 6 min
A bullet is fired through a succession of glass panels in a blacked-out room. The only light is the spark of the bullet which lights up the shards of splintered glass as it passes through each panel. The action is shown at different speeds and from different angles. The only sound is that of splintering glass. A beautiful and eerie film.

"Stella and George" Andrew Cooper, UK, 2008, 5 min
This is the third part and compendium to Cooper’s installation. Will Stella and George finally be reunited?

"Zombie", Dir. Tessa Garland, UK, 2008, 3 min
This supermarket horror film is based on George Romero’s 1960’s cult film Night of the Living Dead. In Zombie, an ordinary supermarket becomes a film set, where the shoppers become unsuspecting actors in a short but climatic horror sequence. Zombie was shot on a mobile phone camera which gives the film its style of part surveillance, part disposable and throw-away.

"Desecration" Niki Sehmi, UK, 2008, 3 min
The assailant begins well poised for the act. There is a transformation from total control to the ridiculous and then desperation. The observer is unfortunately encouraging the inevitable rather than offering salvation.

"Flasher" Dir. Magnus Irvin, UK, 2007, 3 min
Find out where Belisha Beacons come from. Behold the transformation of a man into an item of street furniture. See the ferocious, jumping beacon hand wreak vengeance on the callous Mr. Podomowski. Witness the birth of a Belisha Beacon.

"Rorschach and Prozac, a suburban Christmas" Ami Clarke, UK, 2004, 4 min
A humorous take on the perils of suburbia during the Christmas break, taking as its reference the Rorschach inkblot test method of psychological evaluation, and the schlock horror films that navigate the territory between the familiar suburban landscape and the uncanny. Using lo-res footage filmed on Christmas day in the family car driving home, the horror genre cliché of female victim-cum-avenger; brimming with dangerous psychic energy, is sent up in the filmmaker's gaze upon the territory of her adolescence. The soundtrack, taken from Italian auteur Dario Argento’s 1977 horror film ‘Suspiria’ “effects a sense of immersion, a sense of compulsion as opposed to control, drive as opposed to desire.”

"Necromancer" Lisa Fielding-Smith, UK, 2007, 3 min
The original footage depicts six lead toys: a huntswoman, a land army girl, a milkmaid, a nurse, a lady bowls player and a flower girl. The figures have been burned one after the other in flames (poisonous fumes). The footage is then reversed emulating the figures to resurrect from the embers of fire.

"The Mist on the Water: A spooky puppet ghost story" Dir Richard Mansfield, UK, 2008, 2.30 min Shot in black and white with the eerie voice of an unseen narrator, this film has a charming yet unsettling quality that evokes the spine tinglers of those classic days of the BBC Christmas Ghost story.

INTERMISSION – 15 minutes

"Whistle and I’ll come to you" 42 mins Dir. Jonathan Miller UK 1968
Whistle and I'll Come to You is a splendidly executed tale of the supernatural, a fascinating character study and a genuinely chilling ghost story. It may lack the narrative complexity and big surprise ending of modern cinematic genre outings, or even an explanatory conclusion, but it scores through its central performance, its restrained direction and an increasingly creepy sense of atmosphere.

With Thanks To:
The Parochial Church Council at St Johns on Bethnal Green.
Paul Dillon – AV4Art for AV supply and installation
Jonathan McKay for making the showreel

http://www.sarahsparkes.com/

http://www.thebelfry.org.uk/
http://bettingonshorts.com/pages/en/homepage.php
http://igrs.sas.ac.uk/staff/ricarda-vidal.html