The Ghostly Photograph

The idea of of photographs becomes haunted or ghostly is something that Barthes and Baudrillard both discuss. The photograph has an unholy power to collapse past and present into one moment, and also the power of evocative nostalgia – sometimes the power to bring what is dead back to life.

I started to play with this notion of 'ghosting' by using long shutter speed times in order to capture a momentary impression. The place in which I experimented was in itself a transient space – a room on campus that I stay at overnight. It made me think of other places that we temporarily own, or non-places. For instance, when we go on holiday and stay in a hotel, we often refer to the hotel room as 'my' room, 'my' bed and 'home'. However, it has been a home to many people at one time.

This impermanence is a quality that performance shares: it exists as a brief impression on both the environment and on the mind of the person who witnesses it. I think this ghosting effect very accurately captures this sense of something once being there, but now no longer. In a sense, all of our actions become ghosted and leave the tiniest, momentary impression on the environment.

Falling Into Bed

I found that choosing where you wanted the deepest impression to be left was one of the most important parts of this exercise. For example, the final point – lying on the bed – left the longest exposure, but the motion blur gives the feeling that the person could either be getting up or lying down. As long as the gesture has a cyclical nature, the gesture stars to take on a repetitive power of its own.

Faceless

This particular image, I was shaking my head side to side. I thought it might give the impression of looking around the room, but instead the lasting image is of a faceless, more frantic being. The motion produces a very nervous kinetic energy – it almost buzzes.

The most effective image came from a very subtle impression:

I Woz(n't) (T)Here

The impression is almost unnoticeable at first, but on second glance it is evident the shadow in doorway is a figure. I have showed it to people since who always squint as though they wonder why I am showing them a picture of a room, before they say, "Ohhhh" and realise.

The image for me encapsulates the sense of someone or something having been there and now is there no longer. There is also some question as to what the figure is going through – Loss? Grief? Upset? The transience of the mood is also captured here as a passing moment. I also think it gives a sense of unease about putting context to what is essentially a 'non place'. This room may, over time, be populated by many more people. However, it is now no longer an impersonal, anonymous room you can make your own – it is haunted by this event, by this figure and by their emotion.

I think this making a place out of anonymous rooms and also trying to track the 'impressions' that we as human beings leave on buildings has an interesting angle of transience and perhaps highlights the disappearance of action effectively – that ultimately the world is populated by ghosts who live near-invisible marks on the physical environment.