Documentation of Hostings 7: Presence – Manifesting Ghosts
March 14th 2012, 6.30pm – 9.00pm
An evening of interdisciplinary talks and presentations exploring the desire to materialise what is absent.
Hostings 7 gave an insight into how both technology and the human body are conceptualised as a medium for invoking an otherworldly presence. Here too, the roles of scepticism, belief and faith within research were confronted.
This was an unforgettable night provoking intense discussions.
"What a fantastic evening! I was in turns astounded, amazed and incredulous...- thanks so much for organising the speakers last night - from telekinetic installation to spirit possession to raising the dead!"
Birgitta Hosea
Hollington & Kyprianou
-Technology & the Uncanny, LCC - EVA, London
Far from empirical science and
technological progress dampening the enthusiasm for magical or
spiritual readings, the use and improvement of technology trades on
the same sense of awe and the uncanny previously provided by mystical
phenomena. The symbiotic relationship between technology and the
uncanny is not only one of a shared notion of the sublime, but also
one of appropriation.
This paper will discuss the
relationship between technology and the uncanny through historical
and contemporary examples as well as referencing our own
collaborative artist practice.
Hollington and Kyprianou are London
based artists who have been collaborating for over ten years.
Their work investigates how
competing representations of science and politics shape the
boundaries of debate and the locus of the rational. Their materials
are drawn from archives of primary objects, scenarios from film and
mainstream culture, oral history, interviews and hearsay to create
new narrative spaces that are simultaneously funny and un-nerving.
Their work as been shown widely in the UK including Tate Modern and
ICA London and internationally at The 51st Venice Biennale, as
well as in Europe, North and South America and Australia.
Their latest project, a time
travel murder mystery can be seen here:
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Hollington & Kyprianou, “Technology & the Uncanny”
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Hollington & Kyprianou, “Technology & the Uncanny”
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Hollington & Kyprianou, “Technology & the Uncanny”
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Hollington & Kyprianou, “Technology & the Uncanny”
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Jack Hunter - Expressions
of Spirithood
The body is the primary tool for the
expression of personality. It is our interface with the physical
world and our everyday means of communicating with each other, both
verbally and non-verbally. The way in which we use our bodies,
therefore, is of key importance to the way we are perceived as
individual personalities. In trance mediumship, and spirit
possession, practices the human body is used for the expression of
multiple personalities and non-physical entities. This paper will
explore the differing ways in which the human body is utilised as a
means for the expression of spirits in a variety of different
cultural contexts, from the ecstatic dancing of Afro-Brazilian
Candomble mediums to the relatively static demonstrations of
Euro-American trance mediums. It will explore the different methods
employed by mediums to signify the presence of spirits and will
examine the role of performance in making the spirit world tangible.
These techniques will be contrasted with the methods of contemporary
ghost hunters (i.e. the use of electronic equipment to infer the
presence of spirits), and will address the similarities and
differences in the ways in which the presence of spirits is
recognised during trance demonstrations and modern ghost hunts. All
of this will be presented with the aim of furthering our
understanding of the nature of spirits and their culturally specified
modes of expression in the physical world.
Jack Hunter is a PhD student in Social
Anthropology at the University of Bristol, UK. His research looks at
contemporary trance mediumship in Bristol, and focusses on themes of
personhood, personality, altered states of consciousness and
anomalous experience. He is the founder and editor of
"Paranthropology: Journal of Anthropological Approaches to the
Paranormal.” In 2010 he received the Eileen J. Garrett scholarship
from the Parapsychology Foundation, and in 2011 was awarded the
Gertrude Schmeidler award by the Parapsychological Association.
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| Jack Hunter "Expressions of Spirithood" |
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| Jack Hunter "Expressions of Spirithood" |
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| Jack Hunter "Expressions of Spirithood" |
John Sabol - The Forgotten
Soldier: Manifestations of the Continuing Presence of Colonel William
Holmes (1862-2011)
What occurs at a location perceived to
be haunted, who continues to manifest years, even centuries, after
physical death and why? Avery Gordon, in her book Ghostly Matters
(1996), states that the ghost is a social figure, and one who
manifests as one form by which something lost or forgotten makes
itself known. A haunting, according to Gordon, is a very particular
way of knowing what has happened and what continues.. So much has
already been lost, forgotten or destroyed in the accelerated pace of
contemporary life and technological advancement. Yet, it is this same
technology that may write that forgotten history and tell, with
voices echoing from the past, individual ghost stories.
The battle of Antietam, September 17th
1862, was the single bloodiest day of combat in American History.
Colonel William Holmes of the 2nd Georgia became the last soldier to
die in combat here at Burnside Bridge. Holmes' story had become lost
to history and his burial site near the bridge was undiscovered until
our “ghost excavations” there in 2010/2011. Through contextual
scenarios, enacted by our female investigators and RT-EVP audio
recordings, the postscript to his death emerges as auditory
manifestations of a plea to “go home” to Georgia and be properly
buried. His voiced responses haunt us still today, 150 years after
his remains were lost to history.
John Sabol is an archaeologist,
cultural anthropologist, actor, and “ghost excavator”. He has a
M.A. in Anthropology/archaeology (University of Tennessee), and a
B.A. in Sociology/Anthropology (Bloomsburg University). As an
archaeologist, he has worked on excavations and site surveys in
England, Mexico, and at various sites in the United States. His
anthropological fieldwork includes the studies of “ghosts” and
native religious beliefs in the afterlife among various groups in
Mexico . His acting career includes “ghosting” performances of
various characters and scenarios in more than 35 movies, TV shows,
and documentaries. He has conducted “ghost excavations” (an
archaeological-ethnographic-theatrical approach embodied in the
P.O.P. Theory) in the USA and Europe. He has appeared in the A&E
TV series, Paranormal State as an investigative consultant.
Publications include, Ghost Excavator (2007), Ghost Culture (2007),
Digging Up Ghosts (2011), and the Haunted Theatre (2011).
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| John Sabol "The Forgotten Soldier" |
