ı AM A GHOST WANTıNG
WHAT EVERY GHOST WANTS, A
CONCEPT
abstract
I AM A GHOST WANTING WHAT EVERY GHOST WANTS, A (NON)BODY delves into the shifting boundaries between the physical and ethereal body. We symbolize this concept through distinct elements: a physical sculpture and fabrics embody the organic body, and projections portray the ethereal. This interplay symbolizes the transitional boundaries between these realms. In an 8-minute audio-visual installation, we dynamically showcase the tension inherent in this transformative shift.
The project delves into the emotional journey of disassociation, where boundaries blur between a bodily presence and the allure of a non-body ethereal existence. It explores the fluctuating states of connection and detachment towards the own body, which are creating tension between the immanent desire of being one with your flesh and physical manifestation and losing your body for an untethered, transparent, and utopian space.
This strain results in a perpetual flux of the body, with its capacity for transformation and constant shifts in shape and experiences.
Through this audio-visual installation, we aim to portray and research these diverse states, forms, and feelings, exploring their coexistence and intricate interactions within the human experience.
keywords
blurring boundaries, bodily presence, ethereal existence, flesh, physical, untethered, transparent, strain, perpetual flux, dissociation
RESEARCH
ideation
Our process started working together with the questions around the body. We found some common themes around the abstraction of the body, its boundaries, and its physicalities.
We looked at the following questions and picked the ones we wanted to explore in our project.
How do you attract bodies?
Can we really touch each other?
What happens after the body? Before the body?
Where are the boundaries?
Does a person have edges?
Is a body a home? For whom, for what?
What are bodies made of?
What are the elements, ideas, and data that comprise of a body?
How do bodies transform?
How do we abstract the body?
Can a body be altered? Added onto, or reduced?
We followed this process by thinking of the body's boundaries and playing with themes and sketches portraying different states being explored. Thinking of the body’s limits, the quality and quantity of those sensations, and what textures they’d have.
inspiration
Once we had our direction in the exploration of the physical body and ethereal body, we started with a research phase where on the hand looked at a lot different literature that deals we the descirption of the human body and on the other hand gather inspiring visual artworks that deal with similiar topics.
“I was standing outside myself trying to stop those hangings with ghost fingers... I am a ghost wanting what every ghost wants-a body-after the Long Time moving through odorless alleys of space where no life is, only the colorless no smell of death...Nobody can breath and smell it through pink convolutions of gristle laced with crystal snot, time shit and black blood filters of flesh.”
― William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch
In Naked Lunch, boundaries are usually shown as porous and permeable, with the distinctions between the body's interior and exterior being hazy. This could be seen as an effort to challenge accepted beliefs about the autonomy of the body.
“A body without body, a body that will be beautiful, limpid, transparent, luminous, speedy, colossal in its power, infinite in its duration. Untethered, invisible, protected always transfigured.”
― Michel Foucault, The Utopian Body
Foucault illustartes in this short essay the immanent desire of escaping the own body and explores the idea of a utopia without bodies and therefore a space where no gender, class or race is predetermined by everyones corporeality.
The ghost in the machine presupposed that the mind and body were
somehow separate entities, operating autonomously. Those critical of this position pointed out that the “ghost” of our minds ought not to be made distinct
from the “machine” of our physical selves, as the loop between the two is a crucial component of what makes us human—it is what gives us life.
- Glitch Feminism, Legacy Russel
In Glitch Feminism and especially in the chapter Glitch Ghots Legacy Russell demonstrates what it means to ghost the own body and therefore disidentify with the own physcial manifestation. This offers a way for making up own rules as we search search and reconcile the problems of the body.
These three quotes inspired us for their common transcendence theme, whether it goes beyond the known limits, mortality, or the constraints of the physical body. They all explore the human desire to transcend the limitations set by the natural world.
The existential undertone reflects on mortality, the search for meaning process, and the state of being human.
During the research phase, we looked at some artworks that explored similar topics and questions.
ALICJA KWADE
In Abwesenheit (In Absence)
Berlinische Galerie, Germany
September 18, 2021 - April 4, 2022
The foundation of "In Abwesenheit" (In Absence) is a body of recent work by Kwade that could be broadly interpreted as self-portraits. The artist investigates the range of methodological approaches that might be used to characterize an individual and their physical presence in space.
The piece "Self-Portrait" consists of 24 glass ampoules that hold the chemical components of the human body in their purest form.
This is an inspiring and good artwork to study and observe because of its use of material, the way the body is presented and how the physical presence of a body is represented.
COMPOST G¥RLS 2023
Sculptures from the exhibition, Compost Gyrls from 2023 in New Galerie France, remains another example of a reference sculpture as they explore the metamorphic and nonconforming body.
Exhibition view (link: https://newgalerie.com/?page=exhibitions&id=95)
The concept of a fragmented body and constant morphing and blending of two states, two extremities, was explored within these keywords, and we tried to construct it visually.
case study: Berlinde de Bruyckere
As the whole team, we were influenced by Berlinde de Bruyckere’s work, as the concept of the human body is the main focus, with its fragility and impermanence notable. The sculptures have an emotional resonance with the viewers as the material and the way sculptures are constructed have a raw feeling. It inspires us to create solid emotional responses in the viewers while challenging the conventions of beauty and nonconforming shapes.
Furthermore the aspect of showing the body‘s vulnerability through sculptural work inspired it us during the work process.
https://artistsinprogress.wordpress.com/2013/02/18/berlinde-de-bruyckere/
case study:
Mire Lee
Mire Lee is known for her “living sculptures” made from complex arrangements of silicone, PVC, tubes, machinery, metal and concrete. Sexuality, corporeality and technology are glued together in her work, evoking dysfunctional organisms.
The kinetic sculptures mimic technological and biological systems to address emotions that accompany a constantly evolving world like melancholy, disgust, anxiety and fear.
Although not a classical “new media” art pieces, a lot of the works are calibrated to a unique temporal experience and are constantly evolving to symbolize a technologically altered and infected body.
Mire Lee‘s work influenced especially our sculptural work because we were aiming for a similar recreation of a body that seems out of its shape, is disrupted and consists of heavy and raw materials.
PROCESS
moodboard
Initially, we started with creating mood boards, both for visuals and sound. We had separate inspirations and reference images for sculpture and projections.
Parts of the installation:
Projection visuals
Sculpture
Frame
Chains
Fabrics
prototype
The sculpture making-of started with an intial prototyping phase to get familiar with polyuerethan material we wanted to use. The foam-like material is easy to work with in terms of achieving scale in a quick way. In the first test the focus lied on creating organic shapes and especially through coloring with acrylic paints generate the illusion of a heavy stone-like sculputre which is actually very light.
With the finished protoytpe sculpture we conducted several tests to find an easy solution on how to hang and present the final sculpture on a stage. We decided to use a box-like metall frame because it offers the possibility to attach the fabric for the projections as well, creates a visual contrast to the sculpture texture and represents the physical boundary of the body.
sculpture
The development process of the final sculpture started with the construction of an inner skeleton. To achieve even more scale and save material cost of the polyurethane foam we built a frame out of wire and aluminium foil as stable core. On to this shape we sprayed the foam and then formed it by hand to result in the desired outcome. The whole construction phase took several days because we attached the foam in layers and let each layer dry before attaching the next one to have more control over the outcome and increase the overall stability.
In the next step the sculpture was primed with spray paint and more detailed textures with light and shadow areas were added afterwards with acrylics for a more relaistic look and feel. Finally several ropes and fabric pieces were attached to represent pressure and tension on the organic body sculpture and to evoke feelings of disruptiveness and vulnerability.
The metallic frame was constructed with material we rented from the university and a hanging apparatus for the sculpture was created with several chains. Additionally we attached the semi-transparent fabric to the frame. The fabric was painted with acrylic spray paints before that and a few holes were ripped into it to fit to the visual representation of a fragile torso. The nature of the fabric allows it to be used as a boundary and background for the projections as well as a translucent tissue which lets projections scatter through it on the sculpture inside of the frame.
visuals
“Having created the overall concept, keywords, mind map and mood board, the next step was to build the visuals. In this project, I took on the role of visual designer. We aim to represent the ethereal state with audio-reactive visuals using projection mapping. A final appearance aligned with the keywords untethered and fluid.
The visuals were made with keywords in mind, but I also wanted to consider how the body might react to the ethereal, to the unknown. We also imagined the intersection between those two states. Consequently, I was searching for deformed surfaces/skins to use as a metaphor for the body's reaction to the unknown and to show the often invisible physical and emotional reactions we have to unseen forces.
To represent the concept of the ethereal and this intersection, I created several styles of visuals according to our concept within Touch Designer using particle systems, noise, liquid, and height maps. Those creations were presented to my collective, and we decided to go with the bubbly, fluid, audio-reactive visual to capture both the concept and the narrative.”
- Sami Sipahioglu
Final visual with audio-reactivity.
sound
“To sonify the sculpture I turned to all sorts of metallic and gong-y sounds. There is a bowed bike wheel, piano, and cymbals; Cyngs percussion; a shopping cart. I wired this up with material from the usual ghost-hunting places - SOMA Ether electro-magnetic recordings, WEBSDR shortwave radio recordings. Ciat-Longbarde’s Sidrax provided dreamy triangle waves, and Parmeggiani-esque frequency-modulated bleeps and a Cocoquantus’ed guitar decomposing textures. Trombone, cello, and accordion make a guest/ghost appearance.”
- Nikita Proshkin
TECH
hardware
set-up
Our project's hardware setup uses a computer/laptop with Touch Designer to control our audio-visual experience. It handles three outputs: sound to the speakers, visuals to a projector for the sculpture, and lights with DMX. This setup blends sound, visuals, and lighting smoothly.
software
We used Touch Designer to create the audio-reactive visuals in our project, blending sound with dynamic visual effects.
technical rider
Laptop
Short Thrown Projector x2
6 Channel Sound System
Sound Card
EXHIBITION
images
The whole artwork was exhibited at an collaborative exhibition between the UE, timelab and catalsyt in Funkhaus Berlin on the 03.02.2024.
The “Transcorporeal” exhibtion featured several hybrid performative audio-visual installations and the pictures were taken during the presentation phase of our installation.
trailer
CONCLUSION
learnings
Overall we consider the work process and the final outcome of the artwork as a success in particular because we managed to transfer our conceptual and research-driven ideas into a finished and tangible installation. For the first time working together as a group we managed to assign clear roles and expectations early on but additionally succeeded in keeping enough flexibility to cross-functionally collaborate within our different areas of expertise. For all of us one major learning from the work as a collective was the establishment of a clear project management timeline with multiple intermediate steps. This allowed all of us to simultaneously track the group progress and intervene when problems arose and additional capacity was required to solve them. The implementation of this clear project roadmap not only increased our overall efficiency but also facilitated a more nuanced understanding of the intricate dynamics inherent in group collaborations.
process
Conceptually we are dealing with the intricate interplay of two different modes of body perception in this artwork. The realm of ethereal reality with its strive for leaving corporeality behind and the immanent desire of being one with your own flesh and material existence. The emotional journey between those fluctuating states was illustrated with different distinct elements of the installative performance. As a group we wanted to explore the interaction between different artistic media like sculpture, sound and digital projections in the frame of a performative artwork. This was a crucial aspect of our piece and we view the successful combination of those usually very differently presented media as an important takeaway with the possibility for future iterations. Furthermore the time-based presentation of the whole performance with digital projections and the remains of the sculpture as the materialistic part serves as another touchpoint to our conceptual framework. As a group we also view the sculpture as a remaining artifact of the acute emotional episode we presented.
collaboration
The external collaboration with a sound designer from catalyst proved to be the perfect extension to the skillset we could offer as a group of new media design students. We view the sound as an integral part of our performance that guides through the storyline and isn´t just an add-on. That's why working with a sound professional was the obvious solution to achieving the desired outcome. After having short coffee chats to share our ideas for the feel of the sound and ensure a good understanding of the concept we gave the sound designer a high degree of creative freedom. This level of trust proved to be very fruitful and as a group we were very pleased with the delivered soundscape.
TEAM
sami sipahioglu
Visual Design
Concept Development
Installation
@samsipahi
samisipahioglu.com
badel batu
Project Management
Research
Concept Development
@badelbatu
konstantin iden
Concept Development
Research
Physical Installation Design
edoardo ronco
Technical Set-up
Concept Development
@ventieddie
nikita proshkin
Sound Design