Hostings 11: GHost-dance I
17th April 6.30 - 9.30
Central St. Martins College of Arts and Design
LVMH Theatre E0003
Granary Square
London
N1C 4AA
Programme
David Jacques (Artist) - The Irlam House Bequest (film screening)
Alan Murdie (Barrister) - Ghosts and Spirits in the Court Room
Marcy Saude (Artist) - Spirit Conjuring and Laying Down Hoodoo Tricks to Combat Anti-cultural Austerity in the Netherlands
Chris Moffat (Historian) - Politics and the Ghost's Demand
Tickets are FREE - you may book yours here:
GHost-dance I Programme
THE IRLAM HOUSE BEQUEST (film)David Jacques
THE IRLAM HOUSE BEQUEST (film)David Jacques
David Jacques film is inspired by the
history of trade union banners and the entrepreneur George Tutil,
whose workshop dominated banner production in the 19th century. The
work represents items from a fictional subversive banner workshop with a possible paranormal function, discovered in an abandoned flat in Irlam House, a tower block in
Bootle.
David Jacques, was the winner of the
Liverpool Art Prize 2010.
"Irlam House is a sixteen story
tower block in Bootle, Merseyside. Sometime in the late 1980’s the
resident Caretaker came into possession of a substantial collection
of drawings. The drawings came to our attention when he recently
brought one study to the Conservation Department claiming it to be
suffering from ‘vibration issues’.
After some deliberation we have
identified the works as composite templates and graphics for banner
designs, of the type made popular amongst the British Labour
Movement. They were retrieved from a flat on the 14th floor that had
apparently been vacated without forewarning by its tenants. The
Caretaker has written extensively about the works in the context of
his PHD studies (titled: The telepathic turn; affective states,
autonomous sociality & overcoming the bio-political.).
The occupants, by all accounts unseen
throughout their tenure, had also used the accommodation as a
makeshift design workshop and had secured funding through the
‘Enterprise Allowance Scheme’. Though for some unknown reason
they had abandoned this venture before making any attempt to market
their wares. The caretaker, whilst apparently maintaining some form
of communication with the group became evasive when asked of their
present whereabouts.
Aside from the works, we have an amount
of information gleaned from the Caretaker that mostly recounts the
group’s composition and methodology relating to their production.
He professed to never having met any of them, though he thought that
they probably originated from a variety of nationalities. He had a
tendency to be dismissive of the works and stressed that the
significance of the group’s activities should primarily be gauged
by “their capacity for imagining in the midst of political
struggle” and that this stemmed from “what we might term
contaminating affects - arising out of a social interaction between
bodies”.
He felt that the group were creating
works that had no representational basis, although they were
concerned with “objects emerging as part of the sensual experience
of the surrounding environs”. He believed that they were immersed
in experimentation, analysing craft and design aesthetics, testing
the limits of language. Though on the face of it, their modus
operandi was strangely paradoxical. It seems as though they had set
up, or had proposed to activate an archetypical ‘Fordist’
assembly line dealing in specific ‘types’ of output.
Though he recognised that his own
interests were for the most part tied to the realm of praxis, the
caretaker joined in with a passive examination of the collection -
“the residue”. During this his mood changed as he surprisingly
opened up to speak about the group’s identification with ‘the
occult’ and a possible engagement with paranormal phenomena. He
believed that the designs were “invoked through some process of
automatism” but my conjecture about the energy generated by the
group possibly being locked into the works was met with bemusement.
Ultimately, he could only admit to
feeling ambivalent about our proposal to exhibit the collection. He
finally commented that the works “might resonate, find a frequency
…maybe even enter into dialogue with the dead artists also showing
therein” but that he “personally thought they’d be better off
left out in the street.”"
Biography: Exhibitions include: 2012
Kirche St. Theodor, Koln Germany (solo), Shanghart / Openeye Shanghai
China & Liverpool (group), 15th Antimatter Film Festival Victoria
BC Canada, Aesthetica Short Film Festival, York UK, 2011 Walker
Gallery, Liverpool 'The Irlam House Bequest' (solo), Bluecoat
Gallery, Liverpool ‘Democratic Promenade’ (group), 2010 Liverpool
Art Prize (group) UK, Northern Art Prize (group)
Leeds UK, 2009
Contemporary Art Norwich EAST International 09 (group), Northern
Print Biennale, Newcastle (group),
EASTvideo, screenings at
various venues across the UK (group), Trafo Gallery, Budapest,
Hungary 'EASTgoesEAST' (group), Royal College of Art, London 'Por
Convencion Ferrer' (solo), 2008 Bluecoat Gallery, Liverpool 'Next up'
(group), 2005 Triskel Arts Centre, Cork Ireland 'As if in a dream
dreamt by another' (solo), The Model , Niland Arts Centre, Sligo,
Ireland 'As if in a dream dreamt by another' (solo), Galerie
Gulliver, Cologne, Germany 'Allotment', 20
GHOSTS AND SPIRITS IN THE COURT ROOM
(talk)
By Alan Murdie, LL.B, Barrister
In the long history of English law
there are many references to ghosts, spirits and supernatural powers.
Whilst ghosts and spirits have provided a useful source of metaphors
for judges and in judicial pronouncements there have also been many
cases where the courts have had to rule in cases where a party holds
a genuine belief in ghosts, spirits or supernatural forces. Ghosts
and spirits have previously featured in civil cases determining legal
rights in areas as diverse as contract (Lyon v Home (1860), copyright
(Cummins v Bond (1926) rent control (McGhee v Hackney London Borough
Council [1969] family law (Sultana v Islam (1997) and in employment
(Great Manchester Police v Power [2009]).
In addition, since 1974 there have been
a growing number of criminal cases in England and Wales where the
courts have had to examine the belief in ghosts and spiritual
entities in the context of the law. These have includes the case of R
v Young [1996] where members of a jury used a ouija board to try and
ascertain the guilt of the accused in a murder trial by attempting to
contact the spirit of the victim (Young has gone on to become one of
the leading authorities on jury deliberations). In R v Gallivan
[2000] the Court of Appeal had to consider an appeal from a mother in
Barry, Wales convicted of arson which claimed was an attempt to rid
herself of a poltergeist. Most serious of all have been cases of
alleged possession where persons have gone on to kill. A case in
Barnsley in 1974 when a mentally-ill man killed his wife following an
exorcism led to the Church of England re-organising its procedures
and ruling that an exorcism can only be conducted with the permission
of a Bishop. Since then there have been a number of cases where
persons claiming to be possessed have been before the criminal
courts, the most notorious being the case of Antoine [2000] where the
House of Lords had to review the procedure under the Criminal
Procedure (Insanity) Act 1964 and the defence of diminished
responsibility in the case of a teenager who murdered a 15 year-old
boy on a satanic altar following a message obtained via a ouija
board.
This talk will examine the topic of
ghosts and spirits in the court today and the implications for the
law and wider society. Biography: Alan Murdie is a Barrister. He is also a long time member and chairman of
the Ghost Club. As well as his own extensive archive of material, he
also has access to the archives of ghost hunter extraordinaire Andrew
Green. He has written several books on ghosts including, Haunted
Brighton (2006) and Haunted Bury St Edmunds (2007).
SPIRIT CONJURING AND LAYING DOWN HOODOO TRICKS TO COMBAT ANTI- CULTURE AUSTERITY POLITICS IN THE NETHERLANDS
Marcy Saude (perfomative talk)
For this GHosting, I will perform a
hoodoo ritual (lay down a trick) that conjures the spirit of a
Do they owe us a living?
Do they owe us a living?
Course
they do, of course they do
Owe
us a living?
Course
they do, of course they do
Do
they owe us a living?
Of
course they fucking do!
-Crass
In
my work, I am interested in the relationship between conjuring
rituals and performance art, framed within a larger context of
resisting the intertwined ideologies of capitalism and progress.
For
this GHosting, I will report on the performance of a hoodoo spell
that conjures the spirit of a deceased person and asks them to aid in
the payment of money that is owed. This particular trick is generally
performed in the context of a personal debt; however, I am connecting
the issue of money owed with the implementation of austerity and the
resulting de-funding of the arts that is ongoing in the Netherlands
and elsewhere. Inspired by the African-American syncretic folk-magic
tradition of hoodoo, re-emerging demands for a global minimum income
that is not tied to “work,” artist participation in
anti-austerity protests, and of course anarchist band par excellence
Crass, I will act as an envoy for all artists living and working in
the Netherlands (regardless of nationality) and ask my chosen spirit
world emissary to intervene with specific individuals responsible for
cultural funding in the current Dutch cabinet.
In
addition to documenting the ritual, the talk will include background
on the practice of hoodoo, and presentation of prior projects
concerning the intersection of folk magic, aesthetics, and radical
politics. Additionally, I detailed instructions will be provided
allowing members of the audience to replicate the spell and conjure
their chosen spirit in response to their own political needs.
Biography: Marcy Saude’s work
involves subjects such as marginal histories, the landscape,
counterculture, and language, and have screened at venues and
festivals including International film Festival Rotterdam (The
Netherlands), Torino Film Festival (Italy), EMAF (European Media Art
Festival, Germany), Ann Arbor Film Festival (Michigan), Anthology
Film Archives (NYC), Other Cinema (San Francisco), and the Echo Park
Film Center (LA). She is interested in DIY aesthetics, appropriation,
homesteading, the relationship between the natural and built
environments and politics, expanded notions of non-fiction and
time-based media, and folk magic. She completed an MFA from the
Department of Art and Art History at the University of Colorado at
Boulder and currently works in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
POLITICS AND THE GHOST"S DEMAND
Chris Moffat
This paper considers the force of the
ghost’s gaze in modern politics. Rather than the willful conjuring
of ghosts for politics, by political actors, I want to ask how ghosts
themselves conjure forms of politics. Can the dead hold the present
accountable? How might these revenant figures incite, pushing time
‘out of joint’? Writing in 1855, Walt Whitman reflected on the
‘corpses of young men’, struck down by the ‘weapons of
tyrants’; they live elsewhere, the poet contends, with
‘unslaughter’d vitality’, their spirit stalking invisibly over
the earth, ‘whispering, counseling, cautioning.’ I want to
explore the implications of this spectral voice: how might horizons
of political possibility shift in the presence of ghosts?
Whitman’s words appear, 76 years
later, scrawled in the pages of a prison notebook kept by the young
Indian revolutionary Bhagat Singh. The 23-year-old was executed by
colonial authorities in March 1931, famously embracing death and
kissing the hangman’s noose at Lahore Central Jail, shouting
Inqilab Zindabad (‘Long Live Revolution’) with his final breath.
Perhaps, following Whitman, he anticipated the vivid afterlife
awaiting him. Recalled today as shaheed-e-azam (‘the great
martyr’), Bhagat Singh persists as a revered and enormously popular
figure in twenty-first century India and Pakistan, repeatedly invoked
in politics. This paper considers the implications of Bhagat Singh’s
enduring appeal, its interaction with narratives of violence and
self-sacrifice, but also directs attention to the erratic, eruptive
potentiality carried by his promiscuous ghost: his incitement of the
present, his refusal to be contained. Reflecting on contemporary
formations of dissent in North India and Lahore, Pakistan – from
youth organisations to militant associations to street theatre groups
– I will consider how activists respond to Bhagat Singh’s
spectre, the demand implicit in his presence, and the dissensual
resonance of Inqilab Zindabad in twenty-first century politics.
Biography: Chris Moffat is
working towards a PhD in History at the University of Cambridge and
is interested in both the anthropology and philosophy of the
discipline. His thesis considers the relationship between history and
the construction of political futures, focusing specifically on ideas
of dissent in contemporary India and Pakistan.
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