First wave of Hauntology:
A concept introduced by French philosopher Jacques Derrida in his 1993 book Spectres of Marx.
- it refers to the return or persistence of elements from the past, as in the manner of a ghost.
Hauntology is not medium specific - seen across all art forms, music, TV, graphics etc.
Music and culture that seem familiar and comfortable but also unsettling and ghostly fall under the hauntology umbrella.
Developed through a sense of loss after failing to achieve this modern utopia that seemed possible in the rise of communist and anti-capitalist governments after WW2 - 1980's. But after communism fell in the late 80's, very symbolically represented through the fall of the Berlin Wall 1989, capitalism seemed like an unbeatable force especially after the rise of neoliberalism with its rhetoric of freedom, 'there is no society, only individuals.'
The last 40 years have seen an unheralded political, social and technological transformation and yet rather than experiencing a sense of time accelerating the opposite seems to be true - there's an overriding feeling of 'stuckness.'
Similar but not the same as Revivalism - taking comfort in stuff from the past. (do we have the inability to create new cultural form?) & Post modernism - captures and appropriates the past
Danila Tkachenko:
^These appear to artifacts from lost futures. This feeling of the spectral , of lost futures is seen with the work of danila tkachenko, who photographs abandoned hardware, secret cities and installations from the Soviet Union and the cold war period.
Second wave:
Early years of the 21st century
Hauntology re-emerged as a cultural response to way in which technologies allow us to record, replay, store and upload the past.
Rise of retro mania/retro futurism. We culturally became more excited about the past than creating a new future - cultural time folding back on itself.
e.g. '60's soul sound' of Amy Winehouse's cover of Valerie was actually a simulation - the cover sounds older than the original.
Gone into the 21st century with a confusion of what is contemporary and what is from the past.
A lot of 80's nostalgia:
TV & Film
- Stranger Things
- The Goldbergs Breakfast Club episode
- Ready Player one
- Blade Runner 2046
Music and Fashion:
- Lucia & The Best Boys
- The Ninth Wave
- The 'modern mullet'
- Dua Lipa Future Nostalgia album
- Tennis Need Your Love
- '80s Fashion Trends Are Back — Here's How To Wear Them In 2019 https://www.thezoereport.com/p/80s-fashion-trends-are-back-heres-how-to-wear-them-in-2019-18553903
Vapourwave:
music of 'non times' & 'non place'/the sounds of the future shock and techno decay during the twilight of late capitalism- skeptical of what consumer culture has done to time and space.
I found this lecture particularly relevant to my project, especially the idea of being stuck in the past as my photobook aims to show the wonder and joy of play and imagination that we have as kids and therefore in that sense is very nostalgic. I've also looked at a lot at 90's rave and early 2000's fashion as inspiration for the looks for my shoot and there is definitely sense in the images I'm now editing for my book of familiarity and comfort and better days now gone, but also the way I'm distorting and pulling the images apart in photoshop gives them a very surreal feeling which I definitely want to push even further after being introduced to the concept of hauntology in this lecture.
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