“The
majority of “mediums” were women, and mediumship itself was thought to
be a function of the unique “electrical” constitution of women. While
in a state of medumistic trance, these women were able to comment on a
variety of contemporary social issues of concern to women, including
marital equality, reproductive rights, and universal suffrage.”
Jeffrey Sconce, Haunted
Media : p.12.
XX Fantastic
Ghosts and phantoms
The iconography of the fantastic is populated with ghosts and phantoms.
In the past, it was said that women had a special relationship with
ghosts, that their electric constitution allowed them to contact the
spiritual world (see quotation). Ghosts are also linked to
technological developments. Since the invention of the telegraph and
Morse code, it was believed that technology allowed people to contact
the spirits (Sconce, 2007, p.12). Zoé Beloff reminds us of the intimate
connection between film-making and ghost-making. She evokes
the phantasmorgia (which literally means “the art of making the spirits
speak in public”), spectacles involving optical illusions at the end of
the 18 th century. Beloff's artistic production and accompanying film
are inspired by this kind of “ghost-making” that, according to her,
allows the virtual to enter into the real, but also makes us rethink
film as a creative medium. The ID runners
videos speak to us of a haunted media, creating ghostly faces that
bring to mind a horror film aesthetic. From these videos, we get the
impression that the media, as much an interpreter as a messenger, is in
contact with the spiritual world. In the performance piece Immanence :
Technologies of Inner Space , a woman dances with her own
phantom, which only appears through her own movements, a bit like a
mirror. Through constant contact with the dancer, the ghost comes to
life.