Major Project Report

 

 

This principal aim of this project is to conduct a thorough investigation into the philosophical concept of hauntology. My intention is to demonstrate how such a theoretical framework might be employed by the graphic designer in order visually communicate the key hauntological components of trace, dyschronia and mourning.

The scope of this research places hauntology in a contemporary context. By combining this hauntological investigation with a psychogeographical interpretation of the urban environment, the objective is to produce an outcome which functions as a visual critique of the prevailing socio–political landscape.

This report sets out to describe the origins and principal components of hauntology and to demonstrate how this philosophical reasoning may be visually articulated through graphic design techniques. By documenting the design rationale employed throughout the project, I will outline the practical considerations of choosing to articulate these metaphysical concepts by using the London Borough of Croydon as a case study.

Specifically, this report aims to illustrate the hauntological consequences of the borough’s town planning decisions of the 1960s’ and to outline the design rationale employed to communicate its materialization.

The project can be summarised as:
DEMONSTRATE A RANGE OF GRAPHIC DESIGN TECHNIQUES THAT CAN BE DEPLOYED IN ORDER TO SUCCESSFULLY COMMUNICATE THE HAUNTOLOGICAL QUALITIES OF CROYDON.

Theoretical Rationale
History In Francis Fukuyama’s 1992 book ‘The End of History and the Last Man’ it was argued that the worldwide establishment of liberal democracies and free-market capitalism as the culminate form of government, may signal the end point of humanity’s socio-cultural evolution. Fukuyama referenced Friedrich Hegel (1770 – 1831) who defined history as the progress of man to higher levels of rationality and freedom and that this process had a logical terminal point.

Critics of capitalist, post-modern society have explored this notion of history reaching an impasse as a means of explaining perceived cultural stagnation. As well as an end of history, the monopoly of neo-liberalism worldwide, has brought about an era of political sterility, where agents of dissent are reduced to making a series of hysterical demands which even they don’t realistically expect to be met. It is also claimed that this lack of forward momentum is manifest in a endless craving for revivalism.

It was against this philosophical backdrop that French philosopher Jacques Derrida’s ‘Spectres of Marx’ was published in 1993. This book was highly critical of ‘Fukuyama’s End of History, he proposed that following the demise of ‘real socialisms’ in Europe and the displacement of leftist political formations, the triumph of the neoconservative agenda had brought about record levels of suffering throughout the world. The title; ‘Spectres of Marx’ is a reference to the prophetic statement at the beginning of the Manifesto of the Communist party, written in 1848: “A spectre is haunting Europe — the spectre of communism. All the powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre” (Marx & Engles 1848)

Derrida argued that as history represents a relationship between a present and its past, this linear hierarchy can be deconstructed by the concept of ‘haunting’. He predicted that the West will continue to be haunted by Marx’s spirit of radical critique as an antidote to the apparent ‘death of ideology’. It was within this context that he proposed the philosophical concept of ‘hauntology’;“To haunt does not mean to be present, and it is necessary to introduce haunting into the very construction of a concept. Of every concept, beginning with the concepts of being and time. That is what we should be calling here a hauntology.” (Derrida 1994:161)

Amongst the analogies used by Derrida to illustrate his theory is the apparition of the spectre in Shakespear’s Hamlet. This scene features the spirit of the dead King. The expected return of this revenant, this non-object, this non-present present, cannot be controlled because it begins by coming back. Like history, it is doomed to repeat itself again and again. Culturally accepted notions of a haunting occur when a spirit visits the present from the past, usually with a warning about the future. This manifestation of space disrupted by a time that is ‘out-of-joint’ is referred to as dyschronia. Dyschronia may be described as the traces of that which has never arrived, but which will never go away.

“The spectral rumour now resonates, it invades everything” (Derrida 1994). Hauntology is defined by its very ambiguity; it hovers in the spectral space, the threshold between being and presence, life and death, departure and return. Today, hauntology inspires discourse across a broad range of cultural specialisms, from visual arts to philosophy, politics, fiction and literary criticism. It encompasses issues of post modernism, metafiction, displacement and longing. It can even be seen as a way of describing the fluidity of identity among individuals as well as the shades of influence that link one person’s experience to anothers.

The present can only be viewed through the lens of the past, with occasional glances into the future. Today’s cultural obsession with revivalism represents a denial of the future in favour of the comforting reassurance offered by the ‘ghost’ of the past. Mark Fisher describes this apparent denial of the future as; “Amnesia of the present, is the complement to hauntology’s nostalgia for the future”. Hauntology proposes a positive alternative to post modernity’s ‘nostalgia mode’. The future can only be for ghosts.
 
If history has run out, hauntology only grows more relevant as years go on. Indeed, hauntology may be the closest thing we have to a zeitgeist. (Fisher 2006)

Spectres are unsettling because they are never fully seen. An understanding of that which has never arrived and will never leave is linked to the concept of ‘trace’. Trace can be understood as the mark of the absence of a presence, an always-already absent presence. The metaphysical concept of ‘trace’ had previously been explored by Derrida in “Writing and Difference” and “Of Grammatology” and forms an important role in the formulation of his critical concept of ‘deconstruction’.  Deconstructionism challenges the perceived linguistic relationship of binary opposites such as; ‘speech/writing’, ‘life/death’, ‘signifier/signified’.  This process of metaphysical re-interpretation, involves overturning traditional hierarchies, adjusting their structure and altering their functionality. Derrida claimed that these contradictions are neither accidental nor exceptions; they are the exposure of certain “metaphysics of pure presence”, an exposure of the “transcendental signified” always-already hidden inside language. It was this “always-already hidden” contradiction, he referred to as ‘trace’.

Hauntology is also an aesthetic effect, a way of reading and understanding design. Works which might be considered hauntological are generally comprised of two opposing layers. The first layer (‘the past’) might express hope and confidence via the incorporation of optimistically archaic imagery such as those associated with ‘retro futurism’. However, this layer can only be seen through the lens of the second layer (‘the present’) which casts doubt on the ‘truth’ of the first layer by expressing a sense of  disillusionment. This is often achieved by using discordant ‘lo-fi’ effects, surrealism, fragmentation or collage. This process of obfuscation is a metaphor for memory.

Hauntology provides an opportunity to re-open a dialogue on the philosophical significance of a range of post-structuralist concepts on the discourse of visual communication.
For the past 25 years, graphic designers have generally, been happy to define their output as post modern. This wholehearted embrace of so called ‘low’ popular culture, is a rather desperate attempt to remain at the shallow end of the popular arts. Where design was once a sign of ideology. Consumer society’s ceaseless craving for spectacular representation has rendered design as mere style and personal aesthetic expression. Capitalist culture’s ability to commodify and control renders all forms of criticism harmless. Radical style and commercial style become instantly inseparable. Design that was once deemed revolutionary now looks like standard commercial culture in the dazzling spectacle of infotainment.

We have reached the point where reality is permeated by the spectacle. The contradictions in political, economic and social life are being eliminated by the theatrical gesture, which is immediately and pleasantly consumable. As a result our discipline too has become a spectacle. (Van Toorn 2006:32)

If the “end of history” can explain this loss of cultural momentum and an insatiable appetite for revivalism and the procedural narrowing of the creative spectrum, then digital technologies are dislocating more traditional notions of time and place.

The always online existence demanded by the smart phone, for instance, encourages a reluctance to commit to the here and now. The user simply logs on to arrive everywhere and nowhere simultaneously - Isolated in the connected world.  Cyberspace occupies the ghostly spectrum between satellite and screen between upload and download. Technology that looks to the future but is preoccupied with the past. A world surrendered to solitary individuality, to the fleeting the temporary and ephemeral. The internet operates in a kind of  “non-time”.

The ‘electrical sublime’ - world-wide-web has also heralded a ‘crisis of over availability’. Every banal detail of contemporary society is documented for the ages, nothing dies any more, everything is reviewed, re-lived, re-mastered, re-enacted everything comes back on YouTube or as a collectors edition retrospective. This inability to consign anything to history signifies the “loss of loss” itself. The overabundance of references, events and space are the main characteristics of super modernity.

The need to give meaning to the present, if not the past, is the price we pay for the overabundance of events corresponding to a situation we could call ‘supermodern’ to express its essential quality: excess. (Augé 1995:24)

Super modernity produces ‘non-places’. The distinction between ‘place’ and ‘non-place’ can be found in the void that exists between ‘place’ and ‘space’. These ‘non-places’ are hypnotically familiar, no matter where we are in the world. They are represented by the ubiquitous modern transport hub, the out of town retail park, the franchise coffee shop, and other homogeneous buildings absent of local flavour and historical significance.
 
A space which cannot be defined as relational, or historical or concerned with identity will be a non-place. (Augé 1995:63)

The concepts of place and placelessness can be linked to unitary urbanism and psychogeography. Psychogeography represents the point at which psychology and geography collide. It can be employed as a means of exploring the behavioural  impact of the urban environment. Originating from the Paris of the 1950’s it was devised by the Letterist group, a forerunner of the Situationist International, as an increasingly political tool which attempted to transform urban life. It was defined by, Guy Debord as; “The study of specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organised or not, on the emotions and behaviour of individuals.” (Knabb 2007:5)

The concept of a place, or non-place, is where the fundamental qualities of absent presence expressed by hauntology can be mapped out.

Context
Croydon is a borough of South London experiencing a crisis of identity. Historically, a country borough, it was incorporated into Greater London in 1965. The largest populated of the London boroughs, its inhabitants are traditionally dispersed across the borough in three main categories.  The working classes densely packed in the declining areas to the north and west. Middle classes in the leafier suburbs of the south and east. While the town centre is home to businesses and retail. Having been comprehensively bombed during the war, it was comprehensively redeveloped afterwards.

Croydon’s personality disorder is manifest in repeatedly failed attempts the town has made to achieve city status. Successive councils have attempted to peddle their latest imagining of the towns forward trajectory. They appear to spend so much time and effort defining where they are going because they are so uncertain of where they are. Each new ‘vision for Croydon’ has been unable to divest itself of a reputation forged by the highly questionable town planning decisions of the 1960s’.

Today the image of Croydon is all to do with the drab, brutalist, concrete office blocks, ring roads and underpasses of its centre. Between 1956 and 1972 nearly 6 million square feet of office space, a major shopping centre and an ill-conceived ring road were dumped in the town’s centre, largely at the expense of Victorian housing, public halls and school playing fields. It was the scale of this redevelopment that is responsible for Croydon’s reputation as a bleak, characterless, concrete jungle. In hauntological terms, the ghosts of 20th century town planning continue to haunt the splintered rationalization of this dystopian non-place. 

The non-place is the opposite of Utopia; it exists, and it does not contain any original society. (Augé 1995:63, 90)

The roots of Croydon’s predicament can be traced back to the post-war years or urban regeneration. The council embarked on a road widening scheme that included some small scale office development. They already owned the key site, but they needed the power to acquire further land through compulsory purchase without having to submit a Comprehensive Development Area Plan to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government. To expedite the process the borough promoted its own Private Bill in Parliament. This became the Croydon Corporation Act of 1956.

Having acquired two acres of land (then in multiple ownership) the Corporation added two acres of its own, they then leased the land not required for road improvements to private developers for retail and office development. Essentially, the council saw their role (aside from the collection of rateable revenue), as being responsible for clearing obstacles and preparing the land so that others could sow and harvest the best fruit.

Norwich Union, who had recently moved into new offices in Wellesley Road were persuaded to fund a new development scheme. Although not confident of success they ceded to pressure from the council and agreed to include in its plans for a modest shopping development, an additional 200,000 sq. ft. of office space. Three new blocks; Norfolk House, Suffolk House and Essex House were erected.

Around this time the Local County Council and the Ministry of Local Government were encouraging a programme of decentralisation. Croydon was only too eager to answer the Government’s call to provide accommodation for the offices the Government wanted to move out of Central London. Croydon Corporation set aside area of about 45 acres, in the north east part of the town centre. Aided by its convenient rail links, its proximity to London and the low rents, new corporate tenants started to arrive in Croydon. Between 1963 and 1973, 20% of offices & 30% of jobs which moved from Central London, relocated to one of Croydon’s new office developments.
  
“It’s like a bomb bursting. It’s all happening at once.” “Croydon will be the first town in Britain to rebuild from a town centre which was not already destroyed by the blitz.”
(Evening Standard 1959)

As soon as it was apparent to property developers that tenants could easily be found for any new office block, there was a massive scramble by developers to get into Croydon. This Klondike style land-grab that went on in the town centre lasted for eight ‘glorious’ years, until a Labour Government Bill promoted by George Brown (the ‘Brown ban’), sought to restrict further office development in heavily built-up areas. This however, did little to curb the excesses in Croydon. Virtually all the major redevelopment projects were either contracted or in progress, meaning building work continued unabated throughout the duration of the ban. By 1969 over 3.5 million square feet of office space has been completed, 1.5 million was under construction and over 1 million had been approved but not commenced, making a total of some 6 million square feet of lettable office space in the central part of the town.

The Council Planning Department appeared only too willing to sign off any proposal that was presented. Their motivation was obvious. Vast wealth. By 1973 the rateable value of the town had shot up to over £64 million, making Croydon one of the richest boroughs in London. Furthermore property prices in the centre had spiralled to £175,00 an acre.
 
“We intend to make Croydon the greatest commercial centre outside Central London”
(Ald. A. J. Dunn, Croydon Advertiser, 7 May 1965)

Tall buildings were still something of a rarity. Prior to the arrival of the towns skyscrapers, the Town Hall clock tower, built in 1896 was the tallest building in Croydon. The 1950s’ witnessed a new fascination with anything that reached into the heavens. The abiding symbol of the Festival of Britain in 1951 was a tall metal, mast structure. ‘The Skylon’ was representational of  this new ‘vertical future’.

Lord Latham: The future is looking up from the gutter and the kerb, it was heading skyward. (Collins 2004:137)

The first artificial satellite – ‘Sputnik’ was launched into orbit by Russia in 1957. The subsequent ‘space-race’ captured the imagination of a world who saw technology as the salvation of mankind. The ‘Apollo House’ and ‘Lunar House’ office blocks in Croydon were named in homage to this space-age utopianism.

Casting around for a new utopia, science fiction utopians – heads turned upward by the launch of Sputnik in 1957 – toward outer space (Sadler 1999:42)

By 1972 there were 56 office blocks of over 1,000 sq. ft. in the town centre. 29 of these block’s were over ten storeys tall including 8 of over 200 ft.. These drab monuments to capitalism were now the head offices for a host of large companies. These included Nestlé, R.A.C., Tate & Lyle, Brooke Bond-Oxo, Lennig Chemicals, I.B.M., Black Clawson, Roneo, Rothschilds, as well as a collection of insurance companies, financial services and construction industry firms, Government departments and nationalized industries were also represented. The town centre provided employment for over 20,000 workers. Croydon had rapidly become one of the largest centres of office growth in the country, outside central London. At the opening ceremony of the new Nestlés tower in 1965, the Mayor, commenting on the proliferation of big businesses in the town centre was quoted “They could be excused for believing they own Croydon”.

With all those towers, the behemoth of the Whitgift shopping centre, new roads with attendant car parking provision, underpasses and fly-overs, all done at once. Croydon was so utterly transformed during the 1960s’ that for nearly 20 years, virtually nothing else happened. As a result, the place is a living period piece.

The prevailing taste for modern architecture, post-war, was dominated by the type of neo-brutalist ‘slab block’ devised by Le Corbusier. His concept was to transfer the rationality of the workplace to home life and leisure. However, the new breed of architects who followed rarely displayed the same degree of social benevolence.

The large office developments that emerged in Croydon fell mainly into the pattern of a high slab surmounting a low block. The tremendous pressures exerted by developers on architects was to design buildings at minimum cost. In order to maximise their profits they demanded the maximum lettable floor space and the quickest possible construction time. As a result routine commercial architecture was the order of the day. Developers invariably opted for the cheapest possible curtain wall. The result is that not one building erected during this period of extraordinary activity, is of any serious aesthetic or architectural merit. Croydon is saddled with a legacy of out of date concrete office blocks which function poorly and embody a kind of an office culture that is increasingly out of date.

The urban environment isn’t even interestingly bad. Croydon seems so mundane and ordinary that there is no scope here for even the most determined ironist. It is an English Alphaville, created by Rotary Club politicians in which banality has ruled for 30 years.
(The Guardian 21 Sept 1993)

During this period of comprehensive urban upheaval, Croydon never felt the need for a Chief Officer who was a Chartered Town Planner. Neither were they obliged to produce a Comprehensive Redevelopment Plan. Their one concession to planning orthodoxy was the belated appointment of a consultative panel of architects as a token gesture towards considered urban planning. This panel were given the responsibility of inspecting applications on a piecemeal basis, but had no powers to direct the overall pattern of development. As a result the centre of Croydon became a mess of jumbled, largely unrelated buildings, containing examples of virtually every environmental mistake possible.

From the ground, these tall office blocks dominate the horizon. Their vast frontages form sheer cliffs that dive into the pavement. Masses of concrete concentrated in an area little more than a square mile. All this, plus a six lane ring-road, with its cavenous underpass driving a low-speed wedge between pedestrians and the town centre shops on the opposite side of Wellesley Road. A madhouse in which to work, shop or live. A confusion of people and traffic by day, a ghost town by night.

Buildings with an indescribable variety of size, height and architectural treatment, few of which deserve more than a second glance and some of which are deplorable examples of the worst architecture of the post-war period.

“Everywhere there seems to be a complete lack of any appreciation of the scale of people, lack of architectural feeling and the necessity of creating a coherent and pleasant environment for people to walk, work, shop and live in” (Croydon Advertiser 26 March 1965)

The real ‘architects’ of this new dystopia were a select number of protagonists at the council. They were principally Alderman Basil Monk, borough engineer A.F. Holt and Sir James Marshall chairman of the Planning Committee, a man with a finger in virtually every pie, Sir James reigned supreme in Croydon. A local magistrate and an alderman since 1936 he no longer had the inconvenience of being subject to popular election. As leader of the council as well as chairman of the Finance Committee he had masterminded the Croydon Corporation Act. Later, as a governor of the Whitgift Foundation he was able to influence the lease of the prime, 12 acre Trinity School of John Whitgift to Ravenseft Properties for £1 million, plus an estimated £200,00 annual rental and a share of future profits. As chairman of the Planning Committee, he was then in a position to rubber-stamp the plans which saw the site converted into a 460,000 sq. ft. shopping centre that included 537,000 sq. ft. of office space.

This hard-headed autocrat was in a sense comparable to an American-style town boss. What Marshall said, went. Extremely commercially minded and an orthodox Conservative. He got things done quickly – and they worked.  When I talked to him about the transformation of Croydon, he remarked wryly that ‘the best committee, is a committee of one’. (Marriot 1967:186)

Sir James remained an influential figure in Croydon long after his retirement in 1968. Upon his death, the eulogies included; “If you seek his monument, look around.” “He was the architect  of modern Croydon.” Indeed, Sir James is the ghost that stalks the concrete battlements of modern Croydon.

Ghost: I am thy father’s spirit, Doom’d for a certain term to walk the night, And for the day confined to fast in fires, Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature Are burnt
and purged away. (Shakespear, Hamlet, Act 1. Scene V)

Croydon is currently in the throes of its latest metamorphosis. ‘Croydon Vision 2020’ is a regeneration programme that seeks to promote Croydon “as hub of living, retailing, culture and business in South East England”. Five ‘master plans’ are currently under development in the latest bid to re-invent the town. These plans include the construction of yet more office space, residential tower blocks and the creation of a sprawling shopping centre. This programme of redevelopment follows earlier re-imaginings; ‘Croydon – The Future’ invited a host of prominent architects to prepare schemes for the regeneration of the town centre. This was swiftly followed by Will Alsop’s ‘Third City’ proposing an architectural makeover of Croydon. However, none of these schemes ever amounted to anything as concrete as the building they sought to obliterate.

This project is an attempt to analyse the hauntological qualities of absent-presence, and dyschronia that are expressed by the double file of stubby concrete slabs that line Wellesley Road. Croydon represents more than just laissez faire urban development. Its bleak concrete banality invokes the ghosts of capitalisms failed futures. This redundant office city is haunted by the spectre of a town that sold its soul to commerce.


Methodologies
My intention in defining a practical output for this project is to formulate a method of visualising the spectral dialogue that exists in the vacant space between absence and presence. To conjure the ghosts of forgotten futures by articulating the power of the non-thing the non-sign.

Thirty spokes are made one by holes in a hub,
By vacancies joining them for a wheel’s use;
The use of clay in moulding pitchers
Comes from the hollow of its absence;
Doors, windows, in a house,
Are used for their emptiness;
Thus we are helped by what is not,
To use what is.
(Laotze, quoted by McLuhan 1967:145)

Spectacular society has made a slave of meaning. It requires a ceaseless diet of signs and slogans in order to perpetuate itself. As a graphic designer, it becomes almost impossible to hold up a mirror to consumer society without merely adding to the mileu of the spectacle.

Everywhere one seeks to produce meaning to make the world signify, to render it visible. We are not, however in danger of lacking meaning, quite to the contrary, we are gorged with meaning and it is killing us. As more and more things have fallen into the abyss of meaning, they have retained less and less of the charm of appearances.
(Baudrillard 1988:63)

My intention, is the considered construction of a visual device. This signifier is a construct formed by a series of elements, some of which are merely inferred. Although the subject matter is clearly articulated the resultant meaning is open. This non-sign acts as a dialogue between then and now. The subject matter of Croydon’s arcane rationalisation is full of examples that demonstrate this lack.  The Croydon Ring Road, that formed the cornerstone of the original Development Plan was abandoned before completion. The concept of roads that quite literally go nowhere bears all the hallmarks of ‘trace’.


The historical data on Croydon has chiefly been obtained from the Local History Study Archive at Croydon Central Library. The information available ranges from newspaper articles and photographs through to 1970s’ planning maps. The architectural data included; building height, number of floors and total floor space. I was also able to trace the various names the individual buildings have been known by as well as the names of their architects and the original developers.

The focus of my research is the office blocks that were developed as direct result of the Croydon Corporation Act, particularly those that have since been demolished or redeveloped. The ghosts of these buildings and the failed futures which they promised, is significant. The idea of buildings existing beyond their physical limits is linked to the resonance of historical time. The structures that have gone are as much part of the dystopian legacy of the town as the ones that remain. This is the always-already, absence of a presence that defines the hauntological qualities of Croydon.

Contemporary data is concentrated around the media-spun council pronouncements and the commercial bricolage of Croydon’s letting agents. Each of these glossy presentations forms an interesting juxtaposition when compared to the dreary reality of the run-down town centre. These manifestos of hypereality typically contain over enthusiastic phrases such as: “strategic framework” “social infrastructure” “growth potential” “vertically integrated” “return on equity” “premium outlet” “exciting retail destination”. My intention is to détourne examples of this ubiquitous corporate double-speak in an attempt to turn it back on itself like some form of Ouroboros. By employing the tactics of post modernism I hope to expose its vacuous, logo-centric qualities.


A significant inspiration towards the establishment of a link between hauntology and Croydon was an 1970s’ issue of Suburban Press. Issue #5 ‘Lo! A Monster is Born’ focused on Croydon Redevelopment (1956 - 1972), and some of the characters, such as Sir James Marshall and Harry Hyams who were responsible for carving up Croydon. This apposite, 20-page blast of nostalgic counter-culture is dripping in hauntological connotations.

Suburban Press was a Croydon based, community publishing project with a Situationist, ‘shit-stirring’ agenda. It was co-founded in 1970 by ex Croydon Art School student, Jamie Reid, Jeremy Brook and Nigel Edwards. The graphic style employed by Reid is evocative of the low-fi samizdat techniques which existed before the era of the desktop computer. My deliberate use of single colour imagery, détoured headings and typewriter typography is intended to reference the graphic language of the Suburban Press.

A flourishing samizdat tradition continues to produce music, magazines, performance and political interventions in the spirit of ironic violence perfected by Dada; plagiarism, détournement and provocation remain the hallmarks of a thriving and sophisticated world of agitation. (Plant 1992: 176)

By employing the psychogeographical tactics of the flâneur whilst ‘drifting’ in the streets of Croydon, I was able to build up an extensive visual record of my experiences. These images represent the visual language of Croydon. They are comprised of the signs and symbols that litter the urban landscape, images of authority and direction. They also feature portraits of a selection of witness to this visual diatribe. These images of people captured on the streets of Croydon are in stark contrast to their glossy representation in the ‘media packs’ distributed by the marketing agents of Croydon.

Viewed in isolation, these symbols could connote the contemporary urban landscape of almost anywhere in the country. It is their specific association with one particular location that imbues them with significance. In effect, in each of these images, Croydon is the element that is consistently an always-already absence of a presence. Their interpretation can only be derived from what is not there.









 








 

Major Project Research & Methodologies

The bulk of this project was spent researching historical data, accumulating visual material and grappling with the scale of theoretical discourse. Every concept appeared to link into one another, strung out in a chain of metaphysical propositions. Derrida’s post structuralist concepts of trace appear to link directly with hauntology’s key principles. Hauntology’s nostalgia for the future fits the misplaced optimism that spawned Croydon’s ill-fated development programme. This, in turn leads to the social critique inspired by the Suburban Press and the work of the Situationist International. The unitary urbanism espoused by the Situationists was a by-product of psychogeography that attempts to map the psychological effects of the city – which brought me back to Croydon.

‘We are bored in the city, we really have to strain still to discover mysteries in the sidewalk billboards, yet are discouraged from expressing this boredom by the city’s insistence that it is the most exciting place to be”. Ivan Chtcheglov 1953 (Plant 1992: 57)

Early concepts involved the design of a generative method of sequencing a series of glyphs depicting the visual language of Croydon. I had also experimented with the concept of converting these images into a functional typeface. The position of these characters on the keyboard would correspond to their perceived hierarchy. Upper case characters would comprise of high rise buildings, while those accessed by the ‘command’ and ‘control’ keys would consist of symbols of authority and direction.

The design imperative was to conceive of a visual project which could evoke those emotions inspired by the bleak rationalisation of Croydon’s concrete canyons. Earlier experiments involved the construction of a series of towering installations, designed to intimidate the viewer. On reflection, the scale of these concepts rendered them impractical. 

From the outset I was determined to utilise concrete (or cement) as a medium to communicate the qualities of Croydon’s architectural malaise. It was also imperative to construct a vehicle which could act as a visual critique of the totalising dogma of town planning. The urban architectural model seemed to be the most obvious device to describe the urban landscape. The scale model is the ubiquitous tool of the urban planner, it gives these architects of control the distancing and empirical perspective of those who view the city from above – the god view. It was through this particular line of enquiry that I arrived at my choice of a final output device.

The construction of 43 cement maquettes representing each of the remaining office buildings (of + 1,000 sq. ft) constructed in Croydon between 1956 & 1972. Each marquette’s size is determined by the buildings recorded height and total floorspace. The overall scale of the model is based on the practical considerations of legibility. The rectangular formation of these signifiers is intended to emphasise the lumpish, brutal architecture of the period. The slab block is ‘the’ key component of the towns dreary image. The colour weight and dimension of the block is representational of the buildings physical occupancy of time and space. The fact that each of these blocks is essentially hollow is also significant. Theses building are all about space within space.

Each of these marquettes is laser engraved with a representational image of the appropriate building. These images are derived from earlier experiments which involved a psychogeographical mapping of the urban space. This architectural photography required compositional techniques in order to generate graphic representations which conformed to the spacial format of each block.

From early in its history, photography was adopted by architects as a means of idealising their buildings. As beautiful and heroic, as tokens of their ingenuity and mankind’s progress, etc. This debased tradition continues to thrive. At its core lies the imperative to show the building out of context, as a monument, separate from streetscape, from awkward neighbours, from untidiness. (Meades 2012)

The choice of engraving or etching is linked to the concept of memorial. The concrete office blocks of Croydon represent towering monuments   to commerce. They are the dead zones, relics of  a bygone age. In the majority of towns or villages with any discernible heritage, at the centre of the town is some sort of monument to the dead. This takes the form of either a church with a graveyard or a civic space (typically) with a war memorial where names of the fallen are graven in stone.
 
The commemoration services correspond fairly closely to religious phenomenon. They derive a particular efficacy from happening in a place where the intimacy between the living and the dead was once expressed in more everyday fashion: in many villages we still find the trace of a layout going back to medieval times, when the church, surrounded by the cemetery, lay at the very centre of the active social life. (Augé 1995:53)

In Croydon’s case it seems apt that these dead building, whose slab-like appearance is symbolic of the gravestone, should be found in the centre of town. The notion of a memorial concerns the construction of a tribute that completes this transformation of body to monument after death. This process allows the dead to exist beyond the grave and is linked to the concept of mourning. “The theory of ghosts is based on the theory of mourning.” (Ghost dance, 1983).

The 43 cement marquettes sit inside a compartmentalised box. This case represents the metropolitan zone in which the buildings are located. The box is divided into of 57 separate compartments. 13 empty compartments symbolise the buildings that were part of the original development phase, but have subsequently been re-developed. These spaces operate as a means of articulating the spacial dimensions of the demolished structures. In effect, these spaces function as the ghosts of the dead buildings.

The transparent lid which covers the case is detailed with icons which represent the visual language of contemporary Croydon. These glyphs are the result of earlier psychogeographical experimentation. They act as the lens of the present through which it is only possible to view the buildings that are synonymous of not only Croydon’s’ past, but also of its failed future. Perspex (as a practical substitute for glass), exists at a sort of zero level to matter. Its colourlessness, provides the eye with a means of entry. “Glass works exactly like atmosphere in that it allows nothing but the sign of its contents to emerge” (Baudrillard 1968:42) This process of Ideational metafunction allows a combination of elements relating to different eras to be viewed simultaneously as a single sign. This articulation of a time that is out of joint is key to hauntology. 

The central compartment is allocated to a Suburban Press inspired newspaper. This document functions as a Situationist critique of Croydon. In this publication I have employed a number of graphic techniques intended to evoke a historical resonance.

Photographs have been manipulated in order to emulate the type of over-saturation reminiscent of 1960s’ postcard imagery. I have utilised a type of collage technique employed by Jamie Reid which typically involves the use of consumerist imagery juxtaposed with material that subverts its original meaning. A combination of torn paper clippings and period typefaces emulate the low-fi aesthetic of Suburban Press.

By employing imagery and visual techniques that hark to a time associated with the incarnation of ‘modern’ Croydon, my intention is to make a commentary on the disturbance to temporality that hauntology evokes.


Critical Reflection
The size and scale of the output device as well as the permanent nature of the materials are essential characteristics of its monumental nature. This choice of format is the strength and simultaneously the greatest weakness of the design. The mass and composition of the individual elements are essential components to its intended meaning. The monstrous scale of the planning catastrophe which befell Croydon requires a project of equally epic proportions. However, its physical nature also limits the way in which it can be experienced. Much like the environment it commemorates, you are required to be in its presence in order to experience its effect. Translating the interaction between the viewer and the physical object into a series of still images, fails to fulfil the true nature of the experience, just as a tourist map fails to adequately describe the city.

Psychogeography proposed a means of mapping the psychological effect engendered by the urban environment in order to promote a revolutionary form of unitary urbanism. However, the methodologies employed by Situationists to articulate their experiences were vague and hap-hazzard. Although this tactic ensured their work was difficult to assimilate into spectacular society, it did contain a defined political perspective that regulated its interpretation. The problem with dictating an emotional response to the city is the fact that users may have an alternative experience.

The intension of proposing a psychogeographic memorial is intended to convey the ambiance engendered by a spectre from the past haunting a contemporary urban environment. The title: Sir James Marshall Psychogeographic Memorial: The Hauntological Convergence of Private Enterprise, Urban Planning and Ghosts... in Croydon, is featured prominently in order to convey the main zones of discourse, without dictating its functionality. Although the work contains no clear instructions on how it should be used or understood, I am hopeful that its open nature allows the user to enter into some form of dialogue in order to achieve a level of understanding.

The image is a form with an open structure that offers points of reference for interaction by the receiver, that is for the independent formation of opinions. (Van Toorn 2006:63)

Because the object has no obvious function, I can only hope that anyone who experiences it is able draw their own conclusions about how it might operate. It is my belief that the graphic design techniques I have employed are underpinned by solid theoretical reasoning. The individual components function independently and each of them convey key hauntological characteristics. However, my intension is that the convergence  of these signifiers combine to form a single coherent signified.

Major Project Conclusion

In essence, the objective of the final outcome is to visualise the non-visual. Hauntology is able to interrogate the concept of the spectre by means of articulating what is not physically there while simultaneously always being present. Just as the idea of a haunting
concerns the movement between the past present and future, so hauntology is able to explain the psychogeographical effects of time on the urban environment. History concerns itself with the past, whilst hauntology is occupied by futures that will never arrive. The landscape of the modern city consists of a series visual markers which map our understanding of time and being.

City planners from antiquity to modernism have tried to make the city into a mnemonic (memory aid), mapping into it chains of monuments or sites that would act as a sort of text, reminding the pedestrian of official history and knowledge. (Sadler 1999:99)

My research into the rationalisation of hauntology was a personal journey into the unknown. Every avenue of investigation appeared to open up into intriguing vistas of knowledge. These concepts contain enough raw material to inspire a lifetime’s worth of potentially rewarding design projects. The research was rewarding, both in terms of the stimulating philosophical debate and the acquisition of local knowledge. I have lived in and around Croydon for over 40 years but was unaware of the politics surrounding its dystopian incarnation.

In terms of assessment, I would hope the project would be judged on the depth and scope of the research as well as the level of engagement required to fully realize the project. I would also contend that the final outcome is innovative and avoids the clichés of traditional protest graphics. The revolutionary critique have contributed to an over-production of meaning. They propose a stylistic discourse which masquerades as activism but is actually designed for their own consumption. They impose imperatives of participation on a silent majority that has long since suffocated beneath a pornography of information. The need to conform to some form of stereotype by producing an artefact which is atypical of a certain political agenda has not been the driving force behind this project. My output device is the culmination of detailed research and is the culmination of a range of influences.

This project has focussed on the proliferation of office development in Croydon during a specific period of time. Croydon is not alone as a soulless totem of urban alienation. The world is littered with these ‘edge cities’. This research could easily be rolled out to encompass similar examples of dystopia.

I hope to develop this project further by experimenting with the use of moving image as a psychogeographic tool. I would be particularly interested in pursuing more Kafkaesque themes of bureaucratic subjugation. I plan to investigate the practicalities of drawing upon the work of Iain Sinclair, the ‘High Rise’ and ‘Concrete Island’ novels by J.G. Ballard and the 1965 Jean-Luc Godard film ‘Alphaville’.

Hauntology has revealed itself to be a useful tool for the visual communicator. It’s true power is its ability to give a form to the formless by articulating the invisible. Trace allows the designer to harness the power of the void.

Absences - of meaning, participation, reality and identity – can constitute useful tactics in the struggle to unmask the social and economic relations of contemporary capitalist society. (Plant 1992: 181)

Genuine agencies of dissent should look to the hauntological tactics of trace. Only the empty sign has the power to disarm the self perpetuating spectacle. In the same way that Dada employed the anti-art tactics of the random & absurd. So the sign which fails to signify stands in stark contrast to the ubiquitous images, simulations and reproductions which populate the milieu of hypereality.

Distinctive signs, full signs, never seduce us. Seduction only comes through empty, illegible, insoluble, arbitrary, fortuitous signs, which glide by lightly, modifying the index of the refraction of space. (Baudrillard 1988:60)

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Augé, M. (1995) Non-places, an introduction to super modernity. London. Verso.
Barber, B.R. (2007) Consumed. 2nd ed. New York: Norton
Bathes, R. (1980) Camera Lucida, London, Vintage
Baudrillard, J. (1968) System of objects, London, Verso Books
Baudrillard, J. (1988) The ecstasy of communication, Translated . New York. Semiotext(e).
Berger, J. (1972) Ways of seeing, London, BBC & Penguin Books
Brody, N. Wozencroft, J. (2011) Fuse 1-20, Köln, Taschen
Calabrese, A, Sparks, C. (2004) Toward a political economy of culture. Marylnd: Rowman & Littlefield
Collins, M. (2004) The likes of us. A biography of the white working class. London. Granta Publications.
Coverley, M. (2010) Psychogeography. London, Pocket Essentials
Crow, D. (2003) Visible signs. Lausanne: AVA Publishing
Debord, G. (1967) Society of the spectacle. London, Rebel Press
Derrida, J. (1967) Of grammatology. English translation 1976. Maryland: Johns Hopkins University Press
Derrida, J. (1993) Specters of Marx: The State of the Debt, the Work of Mourning & the New International. Paris: Éditions Galilée
Fisher, M. (2009) Capitalist realism. London: Zero Books
Fiske, J. (1989) Understanding popular culture. 2nd ed. London: Routledge
Fukuyama, F. (1992) The end of history and the last man. London. Penguin Books.
Gorner, P. (2007) Heidegger’s being and time, an introduction. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press.
Gray, C. (1974) Leaving the 20th century: Incomplete work of the situationist international. London, Rebel Press, new edition (July 1998)
Haacke, H. (1984) Volume II / Works 1978-1983. Tate Gallery London
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Freud, S. (1910) The uncanny. Translation published 2003. London. Penguin Books.
Marriott, O. (1967) Urban politics: The property boom. Reprinted 1989, London, Abingdon Publishing Company
 Marx, K. and Engles, F (1948). Manifetso of the communist party. Selected works, vol one. Moscow, Progress Publishing
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Sadler, S. (1999) The situationist city. London, MIT Press
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Zizek, S. (1992) Looking awry. An introduction to Jacques Lacan through popular culture. London. October Books.

Ghost Town

Research Proposition

In Francis Fukuyama’s 1992 book ‘The End of History and the Last Man’ it was argued that the worldwide establishment of liberal democracies and free market capitalism as the culminate form of government, may signal the end point of humanity's socio-cultural evolution. Fukuyama referenced Friedrich Hegel (1770 – 1831) who defined history as the progress of man to higher levels of rationality and freedom and that this process had a logical terminal point.
Critics of capitalist, post-modern society have explored this notion of history reaching an impasse as a means of explaining perceived cultural stagnation. As well as an end of history, the monopoly of neo-capitalism and neo-liberalism, it is claimed, has resulted in an end of art and philosophy and an endless craving for revivalism. It has also brought about an era of political sterility, where agents of dissent are reduced to a series of hysterical demands which they don’t realistically expect to be met.

It was aginst this philosophical backdrop that French philosopher Jacques Derrida published ‘Spectres of Marx’ in 1993. Derrida’s book was highly critical of ‘The End of History’, he proposed that following the demise of ‘real socialisms’ in Europe and the displacement of leftist political formations, the triumph of the neo-conservative agenda has resulted in record levels of suffering throughout the world. Derrida went on to detail 10 plagues of the capitalist or global system. The title; ‘Spectres of Marx’ is a refence to the prophetic statement at the beginning of the Manifetso of the Communist party, written in 1848:

A spectre is haunting Europe — the spectre of communism. All the powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre (Marx & Engles 1848)

Derrida predicted that the West will continue to be haunted by Marx’s spirit of radical critique as an antidote to the apparent ‘death of ideology’. It was within this context that he introduced the philosophical concept of ‘hauntology’;

To haunt does not mean to be present, and it is necessary to introduce haunting into the very construction of a concept. Of every concept, beginning with the concepts of being and time. That is what we should be calling here a hauntology. (Derrida 1994:161)

He argued that as history represents a relationship between a present and its past, this linear heirarchy can be deconstructed by the concept of ‘haunting’: “the spectre is the future, it is always to come, it presents itself only as that which could come back” (Derrida 1994:38).

I propose to conduct a visual investigation into some of the theoretic principles of hauntology. Hauntology - the logic of the ghost, is ephemeral and abstract. Its philosophical reasoning encompasses a range of metaphysical concepts; Culturally accepted notions of a haunting occur when the present is visited by a spirit from the past, usually with a warning about the future. This manifestation of space disrupted by a time that is ‘out-of-joint’ is referred to as dyschronia.

Dyschronia is manifest in the persistent traces of that which has never arrived, but which will never go away. [Fisher 2006]
Spectres are unsettling because they are never fully seen. An understanding of that which has never arrived and will never leave is linked to the concept of ‘trace’. Trace can be understood as the mark of the absence of a presence, an always-already absent presence. The metaphysical concept of ‘trace’ had been explored in Derrida’s earlier works “Writing and Difference” and “Of Grammatology” and forms an important role in the formulation of his critical concept of ‘deconstruction’. Deconstructionism challenges the spectral space that exists between binary opposites such as; ‘speech/writing’, ‘life/death’, ‘signifier/signified’. This process of metaphysical re-interpretation, involves overturning traditional hierarchies, adjusting their structure and altering their functionality. Derrida claimed that these contradictions are neither accidental nor exceptions; they are the exposure of certain “metaphysics of pure presence”, an exposure of the “transcendental signified” always-already hidden inside language. This “always-already hidden” contradiction, he referred to as ‘trace’.

Aims and Objectives

The end of history abandons us in an eternal present, in which events ‘retreat into a remote and fabulous realm of unverifiable stories, uncheckable statistics, unlikely explanations and untenable reasoning. (Plant 1992: 171)

History is increasingly understood in terms of design. History always constitutes a relation between a present and its past. The present can only be viewed through the lens of the past, with occaisonal glances into the future. Today’s cultural obsession with revivalism (retromania) represents a denial of the future in favour of the comforting reassurance offered by the ‘ghost’ of the past. This intellectual realignment of history is unsatisfactory and untenable. Hauntology proposes a positive alternative to postmodernity's 'nostalgia mode'.

If history has run out, hauntology only grows more relevant as years go on. Indeed, hauntology may be the closest thing we have to a zeitgeist. [Fisher 2006]

Where design was once a sign of ideology. Post modern, consumer society’s ceaseless craving for spectacular representation has rendered design to mere style and personal aesthetic expression. Advertising and PR is the culture of the consumer society. The free market economy and the ability to consume has become a more persuasive marker of freedom than the ability to vote. Capitalist culture’s ability to commodify and control renders all forms of criticism harmless. Radical style and commercial style become instantly inseperable. Design that was once deemed revolutionary now looks like standard commercial culture in the dazzling spectacle of infotainment.

We have reached the point where reality is permeated by the spectacle. The contradictions in political, economic and social life are being eliminated by the theatrical gesture, which is immediately and pleasantly consumable. As a result our discipline too has become a spectacle. (Van Toorn 2006:32)

Hauntology offers the opportunity for the designer to hold up a mirror to spectacular society without necessarily adding to the spectacle. The spectral rumour now resonates, it invades everything. “One hears”, Marx quotes, “millions of spirits speak through the mouths of people” The future can only be for ghosts. “Amnesia of the present, is the complement to hauntology's nostalgia for the future”. [Fisher 2006]. Late capitalism’s shift to a multinational, trans-global business model, has become more and more ellusive. Just as neo–conservative economic policies have sought to strip the state from the experiences of everyday life. These systems of control have becoming as abstract as phantoms.

Thirty spokes are made one by holes in a hub,
By vacancies joining them for a wheel’s use;
The use of clay in moulding pitchers
Comes from the hollow of its absence;
Doors, windows, in a house,
Are used for their emptiness;
Thus we are helped by what is not,
To use what is.
(Laotze, quoted by McLuhan 1967:145)

Post modern society is based not on ‘facts’ but of signs about facts which are encoded and decoded ceaselessly in order to formulate meaning. This meaning must be confirmed by some contingent piece of the real that can be read as a sign. The Revolutionary critique and agencies of the Left have contributed to an over production of meaning. The media impose imperatives of participation on a silent majority that is suffocating beneath the pornography of information. Genuine acts of subversion, intending to challenge the social and economic relations of contemporary capitalist society need to adopt the hauntological tactics of absent presence. Only the empty sign has the power to dissarm the self-perpetuating - society of the spectacle. In the same way that Dada employed the anti-art tactics of the random & absurd. So the sign which fails to signify stands in stark contrast to the ubiquitous images, simulations and reproductions which populate the milieu of hypereality.

The apathetic silence of the mass, which ‘never participates’, is its ‘absolute weapon’ the means by which it continually verges on the destruction of all forms of power. Apathy is a problem only for those already in power or the revolutionaries who would seize it, both of whom are desperate to identify meaning, Despite having been surveyed to death, however the mass always refuse to answer.
(Plant 1992: 156)


Context

Croydon is a borough of South London experiencing a crisis of identity. Historically, it once belonged to Surrey before becoming Greater London’s largest populated borough. It has since, made repeated, failed attempts to achieve city status. Successive borough councils have attempted to peddle their latest imagining of the towns forward momentum. They appear to spend time and effort wondering where they are going because they are less and less sure of where they are. Each new ‘vision for Croydon’ has been unable to divest itself of a reputation forged by the highly questionable city planning decisions of the late 1960’s

Between 1964 and 1972 nearly 4 million square feet of office space as well as a major ring road were dumped in the town’s centre, largely at the expense of Victorian housing stock. It was the scale of this re-development that is responsible for Croydon’s reputation of a bleak, characterless, concrete jungle. In hauntological terms, the ghosts of 20th century town planning, continues to haunt the splintered rationalization of this dystopian non-place.

A space which cannot be defined as relational, or historical or concerned with identity will be a non-place… The non-place is the opposite of Utopia; it exists, and it does not contain any original society. (Augé 1995:63, 90)

In 1970, ex Croydon Art School student, Jamie Reid co-founded the Suburban Press, a Situationist based, Proto-Anarcho’, Croydon based, community publishing project. They produced their own posters and magazines. They also printed leaflets for squatting movements, prisoner’s rights, the black movement and feminist women’s groups. Issue #5 of Suburban Press ‘Lo! A Monster is Born’ focused on the Croydon Corporation Act, and some of the characters, such as Harry Hyams who were involved in carving up Croydon. This apposite, 20 page blast of nostalgic counter-culture is dripping in hauntological connotations. Conducting a situationist style, psycho-geographical study of the borough is an obvious avenue of enquiry.

Croydon is currently in the throes of its latest metamorphosis. ‘Croydon Vision 2020’ is a regeneration programme by the London Borough of Croydon that seeks to promote Croydon as hub of living, retailing, culture and business in South East England. Five ‘master plans’ are currently under development in the latest bid to re-invent the town. These plans include the construction of yet more office space, residential tower blocks and the creation of a sprawling shopping centre. This programme of redevelopment follows hot on the heels of the riots of 2010 where the alienated and disenfranchised of South London briefly awoke from their slumbers and took to the streets of Croydon when they were presented with an opportunity to fully engage in the spectacle of conspicuous consumption.

Regardless of the actual booty, what the rioter really takes is the spectacle literally. The spectacle which offers itself as a whole is taken as such: the spell of the shop window is broken and the objects are revealed for what they really are in relation to their subjective appropriation – useful, beautiful, empty or worthless as the case may be. The real desire which begins to emerge is for the power to choose, to assign value, to control what is offered and that which is possible. (Plant 1992: 31

Besides the targeted spectrum of absent presence, the correlation of Croydon as a totem of capitalist society, communication design and zones of metaphysics is intriguing. Derrida’s hauntology is defined by its ambiguity; that is, it hovers in the spectral space, the threshold of being and presence, life and death, departure and return. Today, hauntology inspires many fields of investigation, from the visual arts to philosophy, politics, fiction and literary criticism. It covers issues of postmodernism, metafiction and retro-futurism, displacement and longing. It can even be seen as a way of describing the fluidity of identity among individuals, marking the dynamic and inevitable shades of influence that link one person’s experience to another’s, both in the present and over time.

Hauntology is also an aesthetic effect, a way of reading and understanding design. Works which might be considered hauntological are generally comprised of two opposing layers. The first layer (‘the past’) might express hope and confidence via the incorporation of optimistically archaic imagery such as those associated with ‘retrofuturism’. However, this layer can only be seen through the lens of the second layer (‘the present’) which casts doubt on the ‘truth’ of the first layer by expressing a sense of disillusionment. This is often achieved by using discordant ‘lo-fi’ effects, surrealism, fragmentation or collage. This process of obfuscation is a metaphor for memory.


Audience

The philosophical concepts devised by Derrida have had significant influence in the practice of graphic design. Différance was the term he coined to describe the way language depends on the play of difference between one word and another, whilest always deferring its true meaning. He also popularised the graphic device of ‘sous rature’ (under erasure) which had been devised by Martin Heidegger in his work ‘The Question of Being’ – where text is crossed out in such a way as to signify that the word is inadequate yet necessary. Sous rature has been described as the typographic expression of deconstructionism. Derrida’s influence is most closely felt in the output of the design department of Cranbrook Academy of Art during the 1980’s. It was here that Katherine McCoy and her husband Michael were responsible for the formulation of a design course based on poststructuralist litreary theory. Influential designers who prospered under this tutorlidge include; Jeffery Keedy, P. Scott Makela, Andrew Blauvelt, David Frej, Allen Hori and Edward Fella.

Hauntology offers the opportunity to re-open a dialogue on the philosophical significance of post-structuralist concepts such as ‘logocentrism’ and ‘différance’ on the discourse of visual communication. For the past 25 years, graphic designers have generally, been happy to difine their output as postmodern. This wholehearted embrace of so called ‘low’ popular culture, is a rather desperate attempt to remain at the shallow end of the popular arts. At its most basic level, hauntology has associations with faux-vintage photography, a genre of atmospheric, electronic music, and movies such as ‘Inception’, ‘The Shining’ and the TV series ‘Life on Mars’.

Any examination of the recent, social and economic evolution of Croydon would have obvious local interest. Although the condition of Croydon is singularly unique, its story does have resonance in other suburban zones. Slough for instance, has a similarly unglamorous reputation. An examination of the past, present and future of the concept of ‘home’ has an enduring anthropological appeal.


Action Plan

In a first stage of devising an output device, I have commenced an audit of the high-rise (+10 stories) buildings in central Croydon. As well as architectural photography, the information I have managed to source includes the building name and address, building height, number of floors, floor space, architects name, developers name, completion date, and primary use - commercial / residential / retail. I have included information of buildings either under construction or awaiting the commencement of works. In these instances I have used the architects CAD representations. To date, the number of high-rise buildings included in the survey totals 56.

Where I have been unable to capture data, I may need to explore alternative avenues of enquiry, this could include accessing council planning records or information held by the Land Registry. To these ends, I am in the process of developing a contact within the council planning office. I will typologies the resultant data, organizing the buildings’’ by size, age, use and provenance. Once these examples have been typologized it should be possible to analyze and critique their hauntological and cultural significance.

My research will aim to include data on buildings that were integral to the original Croydon Corporation Act but have since been demolished or redeveloped. The ghosts of buildings and the failed futures that they promised, has potential significance. The idea of buildings existing beyond their physical limits could be linked to postmodernisms appetite for a ceaseless diet of pastiche and revivalism. This mode of continual documentation and self-refence signifies the ‘loss of loss itself’, nothing truly dies anymore.

The concept of the Croydon Ring Road, that formed the cornerstone of the original plan for the town, is intriguing. The upheaval caused by the construction of fly-overs, underpasses and the imposition of a dual carriageway through the centre of the town, caused such uproar that it was eventually abandoned before completion. The concept of roads that quite literally go nowhere could be explored through the concept of ‘trace’. Documenting the prosaic architectural landscape of the borough is integral to defining the always already absence of a presence that defines the hauntological qualities of Croydon.

During the course of my local research I have been documenting the numerous council media spun pronouncements along with the marketing material for the abundant vacant office spaces. Re-presenting the commercial bricolage of the ‘Foxtons’ letting agent, or adopting the vacuous jargon of the thrusting young Turks in the planning office could provide an interesting juxtaposition when combined with the dreary imagery of the run-down town centre. These PR documents typically contain over enthusiastic use of phrases such as: “ strategic framework” “social infrastructure” “growth potential” “vertically integrated” “return on equity” “premium outlet” “exciting retail destination” “bridging the void” “ sustainable community strategy” “integrated transit hub”. Exercises, similar to those carried out during the word and image workshop could prove fruitful.

By packaging resultant visual material in a way which approximates the ubiquitous visual language of corporate double-speak is an attempt to détourne the media – to ‘turn it back on itself’ like some form of Ouroboros. Hans Haacke used similar tactics in ‘Mobil Observations’ (1980). By employing the tactics of postmodernism I would hope to expose its vacuous nature and demonstrate its logocentrist qualities.

Décolage involves the cutting, tearing away or otherwise removing, pieces of an original image. Offers opportunities to explore the practical process of deconstruction and trace. Alternative image making techniques I intend to utilise include photographic manipulation in order to approximate the type of over-saturated ‘1970’s postcard’ landscape imagery. I plan to incorporate relevant period portraiture from a series of ‘Fairburn System Visual Reference’ manuals. I have also managed to locate a ‘1977 Argos Catalogue’ which contains some wonderfully arcane / mundane commodities. By creating a series of images which are evocative of 1970’s Britain, I hope to make a commentary on the disturbance to temporality that hauntology evokes.

I also intend to experiment with the creation of a series of glyphs that represent the utopian / dystopian / hauntological aspects of Croydon. The correlation of a glyph image with its corresponding keyboard position could provide interesting connotations. For example; ‘upper case’ glyphs could be images of high-rise buildings, ‘lower case’ glyphs could represent the Croydon populous, as a commentary on their relevant hierarchies. Glyphs accessed via the ‘command’ or ‘control’ keys may be a series of images of authority and direction. Using the ‘alt’ key may access a series of abstract glyphs. The development of a generative method for displaying a random sequence of images may be a suitable device for achieving a non-sign or floating signifier, where interpretation can only be derived from what is not there.

A floating signifier may mean different things to different people: they may stand for many or
even any signifieds; they may mean whatever their interpreters want them to mean.
”… present as that which is absent; it becomes an empty signifier, as the signifier of this
absence” (Laclan, 1996: 44)

If during the course of my fresearch I encounter a practioner, whoes work I find particularly insightful, I may take the opportunity to instigate some form of dialogue in order to enhance my research findings.

Throughout each stage of the research process it will be necessary to conduct continuous visual experimentation in order to test findings and generate ideas for thje output stage. Although I’m keen to adopt an output solution which is a departure from traditional print tecniques, I need to take an even-handed approach in order to identify the appropriate field of graphic design for each line of enquiery.

Output devices may provide enhanced levels of meaning (or non-meaning). The photograph and television monitor (or ghost box) have obvious hauntological significance. Modern technologies manifest in cinematography and telecommunication, enhances the power of ghosts and their ability to haunt us. On the whole, new technologies encourage an unwillingnewss to commit to the present, fostering a ghostly presence / absence or ‘non time’. “I update therefore I am not”.

The man who is his own image in the digitally networked world, is simultaneously everywhere and nowhere – hypervisibility (Keen 2012)

The practicalities of projecting images of buildings onto buildings in Croydon could warrant exploration.



Bibliography

Derrida, J. (1993) Specters of Marx: The State of the Debt, the Work of Mourning & the New International. Paris: Éditions Galilée

Marx, K. and Engles, F (1948). Manifetso of the communist party. Selected works, vol one. Moscow, Progress Publishing

Ghost dance (1983) Directed by Ken McMullen. UK, Loosetard Ltd for Channel 4 & ZDF [digital download]

Derrida, J. & Stiegler, B. (2002). Echographies of television: Filmed interviews, tr. Jennifer Bajorek. Cambridge, Polity Press

Fisher, M. (2006) Hauntology as neurology December 24, 2006. Available online at http://k-punk.abstractdynamics.org/archives/2006_12.html

Harper, A. (2009) Hauntology: The Past Inside The Present Tuesday, 27 October 2009. Available online at http://rougesfoam.blogspot.co.uk/2009/10/hauntology-past-inside-present.html

McNeil, J. (2011) Past and Present in "Strange Simultaneity": Mark Fisher Explains Hauntology at NYU. Available online at: http://rhizome.org/editorial/2011/may/18/hauntology/

Fisher, M. (2006) Hauntology as neurology December 24, 2006. Available online at: http://k-punk.abstractdynamics.org/archives/2006_12.html

casualagent (2011) HAUNTOLOGY – preliminary notes Posted: December 7, 2011. Available online at: http://project47.org/2011/12/07/hauntology-preliminary-notes/

Gallix, A. (2011) Hauntology: A not-so-new critical manifestation 17 June 2011. Available online at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2011/jun/17/hauntology-critical

Hewicker, S. (2010) Hauntology Exhibition 2010 . Available online at: http://www.bampfa.berkeley.edu/exhibition/hauntology

Gildersleeve, J. (2007) An Unnameable Thing: Spectral Shadows in Elizabeth Bowen’s The Hotel and The Last September, University of Bristol egjeg@bristol.ac.uk

Dunn, M D. (2007) On Emediacy: The Internet as Occult Space / Perceiving the Human in the Electronic Realm mddunn@shaw.ca

Jameson, F. (1991) Postmodernism, or the cultural logic of late capitalism. London: Verso

Derrida, J. (1967) Of Grammatology. English translation 1976. Maryland: Johns Hopkins University Press

Fukuyama, F. (1992) The end of history and the last man. London. Penguin Books.

Zizek, S. (1992) Looking awry. An introduction to Jacques Lacan through popular culture. London. October Books.

Freud, S. (1910) The uncanny. Translation published 2003. London. Penguin Books.

Augé, M. (1995) Non-places, an introduction to supermodernity . London. Verso.

Reynolds, S. (2011) Retromania, pop culture’s addiction to it’s own past . London. Faber & Faber Ltd.

Plant, S. (1992) The most radical gesture. The Situationist International in a postmodern age . London. Routledge.

Gorner, P. (2007) Heidegger’s being and time, an introduction. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press.

Baudrillard, J. (1988) The ecstasy of communication, Translated . New York. Semiotext(e).

Berger, J (1972) Ways of seeing, London, BBC & Penguin Books

McLuhan, M. (1967) The medium is the massage, London, Penguin Books

Bathes, R. (1980) Camera Lucida, London, Vintage

Van Toorn, J. (2006) Design’s Delight, Amsterdam, 010 Publishers

Hawkes, T. (1977) Structuralism and semiotics, Reprinted 1992, London, Routledge

Poyner, R. (2003) No more rules. Graphic design & postmodernism, London, Laurence King Publishing

Crow, D. (2003) Visible signs. Lausanne: AVA Publishing

Barber, B.R. (2007) Consumed. 2nd ed. New York: Norton

Calabrese, A, Sparks, C. (2004) Toward a political economy of culture. Marylnd: Rowman & Littlefield

Fisher, M. (2009) Capitalist realism. London: Zero Books

Jameson, F. (1991) Postmodernism, or the cultural logic of late capitalism. London: Verso

Fiske, J. (1989) Understanding popular culture. 2nd ed. London: Routledge

Flintoff, JP (June 3, 2007 ) Thinking is so over, interview with net entrepreneur Andrew Keen. The Sunday Times

Keen, A (2012 ) Digital Vertigo. Available online at http://www.ajkeen.com

Postrel, V. (2003) The substance of style. London: Harper Collins

Poynor, R. (2001) Obey the giant. 2nd ed. Basel: Birkhauser

If it bleeds, it leads!

Robert Capa’s ‘Death of a Republican Soldier’ is one of the 20th century’s defining images. This iconic photograph preserves the moment a soldier, fighting in the Spanish Civil war, falls having seemingly just been shot. Although there remain some doubts over the authenticity of the image, it remains a powerful metaphor for conflict, republicanism and the struggle against fascism. It also takes its place in a pantheon of images that delight in depicting the suffering of others.

Examples of this genre are as rich as they are varied. They range from religious paintings depicting the tortures of saints, to engravings of public executions. Susan Sontag claims: “The appetite for pictures showing bodies in pain is as keen, almost as the desire for ones that show bodies naked”. (Sontag 2003:36) The advent of
photo-journalism provided increasingly frequent opportunities with which to inspect ‘the dripping bodies ready for the gaping trenches’. Edmund Burke testified to this insatiable appetite in 1757:

“I am convinced we have a degree of delight, and that no small one, in the real misfortunes and pains of others” “There is no spectacle we so eagerly pursue, as that of some uncommon and grievous calamity” (Sontag 2003:87)

When Cappa’s striking photograph, first appeared in July 1937 within the pages of Life Magazine, it did so as a left hand page image. Appearing opposite was a full-page advertisement for Vitalis men’s hair cream. At the time of publication, there was a stark contrast in the type of imagery used by editorial and advertising. Today that
distinction has become blurred.

Photographs are generally open to interpretation. They usually provide the viewer with a selection of reference points. Any meaning carried by these images is essentially ‘in the eye of the beholder’. The authority over imagination that photography seemingly possess, is attributable to its unique ability to make the past as certain as the present:

Photography’s relationship of signifieds to signifiers is one of recording, the absence of code reinforces the myth of photographic ‘naturalness’ (the mechanical process is the guarantee of objectivity). (Bathes: 1977)

Although the act of photographic composition involves editing and exclusion, the ‘truth’ of the photograph means that unlike other man-made images, they are permissible as evidence. It is this air of authenticity that is so appealing to the media and other agencies of consumerist manipulation.

An increasingly sophisticated range of techniques have been deployed in order to harness the power of the photograph and to control its meaning. Meaning arises from the interplay of signs, the world we inhabit is not one of ‘facts’ but of signs about facts which we encode and decode ceaselessly (Hawkes 1977:122)

The proliferation of these visual metaphors throughout advertising and entertainment, information and propaganda, has led to dislocation of ‘reality’. The media ensures that there is only representation. Indeed, the clamour for celebrity confirms that people themselves aspire to become images. Modern society has become a ‘society of spectacle’ and ‘infotainment’.

We have reached the point where reality is permeated by the spectacle. The contradictions in political, economic and social life are being eliminated by the theatrical gesture, which is immediately and pleasantly consumable. (Van Toorn 2006:32)

By reducing the images of the next atrocity to mere instances of vulgar representation, the media has neutralized much of their ethical impact with associations of commodification and contrivance. The ‘refexivity’ proposed by Jan Van Toorn, is an attempt to expose the aesthetic manipulation of visual communication. By freeing itself from the strait-jacket of advertising and production relations, design would be free to take a more emancipatory role. As visual journalists with critical ambitions designers would be able to construct a rhetoric where the spectator / reader is invited to participate in this dialogue.

The manipulations of both producer and designer of the message should be kept visible within the message, by referring to accepted values and visual codes. This strategy aims to reveal the conditions of the production relations in the mediated display and enables the message to be experienced as an argument – as an artificial product with an ideological background in the permanent debate on the conditions of social reality (pragmatics). (Van Toorn 2006:33)


Sontag, S. (2003) Regarding the pain of others, London, Penguin Books

Bathes, R. (1977) Image, music, text, London, Fontana Press

Van Toorn, J. (2006) Design’s Delight, Amsterdam, 010 Publishers

Hawkes, T. (1977) Structuralism and semiotics, Reprinted 1992, London, Routledge

A Round Journey

My research into the cultural significance of circular forms brought me to Braille. The representation in print (a process which obfuscates its functionality) of this universal code, was my gateway towards my chosen output solution.

Originally I was influenced by the Joe Magee’s 2002, Daily Telegraph images. The use of Braille gave the images a double effect. The graphic form of Braille lettering in its printed form, provided a modernist, high tech, digital age aesthetic. The second layer of meaning required the viewer to identify the code and to then translate the hidden message. Braille is obviously a tactile language designed for the blind, newspaper readers couldn’t be expected to be familiar with its functionality. This is apparent in the time it took for the publication to discover the nature of the coded proclamations.

My original output concept involved the development of a new tactile language derived from roman letter forms. I hoped that this would provide a 3D vehicle that could be integrated into the imagery in order to subvert their visual connotation with a politically charged tactile rhetoric. I felt that this could present a unique point of entry into material that can otherwise appear clichéd. On reflection, I was perhaps guilty of considering the final outcome & trying to bend the ‘problem’ to fit my version of the answer.

The feedback I received at the time suggested that I should treat my output proposal as two separate concepts. It was recommended that I choose to concentrate on either tactile languages (codes) or the subversion of images with politically charged text.
Reflecting on this formative assessment, I resolved to research methods of viewer empowerment. To devise a purposeful ‘made’ project that would allow the user to construct their own meaning from a combination of ambiguous images and signifiers that have been removed from their original context.

I concentrated my secondary research into the fields of coded paradigms and the methodology of visual grammar. I found the theory of semiotics, particularly the David Crow publications, hugely rewarding. The concept of type as images, images as type and the functionality of anchor and relay, gave my output proposal a new impetus.

The biblical story of the Tower of Babel is a powerful metaphor for language, understanding and codes. According to the story, the descendants of Noah spoke a single language – a universal tongue. Going against God’s will, they decided to build a city with a huge tower as a monument of their achievement, to ‘make a name for themselves’. There are obvious parallels with the modern day erection of skyscrapers – monuments to capitalism. The globalization of money and consumerism is today's ‘common currency’ or universal tongue. The Bruegel painting and the image of the Shard have been spliced together in order to construct an ideational metafunction.

The Maritime flag signals have been chosen to translate the proclamations of man. The flag is a device for identity and announcement. The inhabitants of Babel wanted to draw attention to their achievements. Flags are also the basis of the custom built ‘Semaphore’ typeface.

The arrangement of the icons of corporate and political identity is symbolic of the omnipresence of capitalism. These identities are the prosaic wallpaper of everyday life, a type of banal cultural backdrop – similar to the sponsor boards behind any celebrity interviewee or talking head. Each of these symbols has its individual ‘brand values’ that strain the limits of readability, thus becoming ‘hypographemics’ – the ideal vehicle to communicate a ‘confusion of tongues’.

Other devices I have used include the ubiquitous barcode and QR code, which operate as a form of consumer ‘emblemata’. Elsewhere, I have included various iconic signs and pictographic images, as a reference to a universal public information functionality.
For the artifact to operate in an ‘open’ way – free for the viewer to navigate and disseminate their own understanding, I have devised a deliberately polarized layout. No single element takes centre stage. Instead they are distributed, almost as a triptych. Unidirectional transactional vectors link various elements.

Where possible I have avoided too much over-layering of information. Issues of legibility would have removed much of the theoretical intentionality. I am hopeful that the final result, rather like studying a beautiful car crash, presents a blizzard of possible interpretations.

Hauntology

Research Question:

I propose to conduct a visual investigation based on the theoretic principles of Hauntology. Hauntology - the logic of the ghost, is ephemeral and abstract. Spectres are unsettling because they are never fully seen. Culturally accepted notions of a haunting occur when the present is visited by a spirit from the past, usually with a warning about the future. This manifestation of space disrupted by a time that is ‘out-of-joint’ is known as a dyschronia.

Dyschronia is manifest in the persistent traces of that which has never arrived, but which will never go away. [Fisher 2006]

The term ‘ Hauntology’ was introduced by French philosopher Jacques Derrida in his 1993 publication ‘Spectres of Marx’. In it, Derrida postulated that following the demise of ‘real socialisms’ in Europe and the displacement of leftist political formations. The West will continue to be haunted by Marx’s spirit of radical critique as an antidote to the apparent ‘death of ideology’.

“To haunt does not mean to be present, and it is necessary to introduce haunting into the very construction of a concept. Of every concept, beginning with the concepts of being and time. That is what we would be calling here a hauntology” [Derrida]

There is some conjecture that Derrida may have used ‘hauntology’ as a near-homophone to the word ‘ontology’. Ontology is the philosophical study of all phenomena that have existed and will exist, visible and invisible. The binary opposition of the concepts of hauntology and ontology, bears all the hallmarks of Derrida’s earlier    formulation of a type of semiotic analysis, called ‘deconstruction’.

Deconstructionism challenges the spectral space that exists between polar opposites such as; ‘speech/writing’, ‘life/death’, ‘signifier/signified’.  This process of metaphysical re interpretation, involves overturning traditional hierarchies, adjusting their structure and altering their functionality. Deconstruction questions how the external representation of a concept can become part of its internal essence - How the surface can get under the skin.

My research question is: 

How can hauntological concepts be expressed in the specific fields of graphic design?

Aims and Objectives:

Postmodernism as expressed in late capitalist society has instigated a cultural malaise. The sterility of the political landscape represents ‘the end of politics & ideology’. New technologies encourage an unwillingness to commit to the present, fostering a ghostly presence/absence or ‘non time’. The prosaic architectural functionality of airports, retail parks, and other homogeneous buildings, absent of any sense of identity are examples of ‘non-places’. Crucially, postmodernisms appetite for a ceaseless diet of pastiche and revivalism, signifies the ‘loss of loss itself’, nothing dies anymore. This lack of cultural momentum signals, for many, ‘the end of history’, as Hamlet said to Horatio, time itself, is ‘out of joint’.

If history has run out, hauntology only grows more relevant as years go on. Indeed, hauntology may be the closest thing we have to a zeitgeist. [Fisher 2006]

The present can only be viewed through the lens of the past, with occasional glances into the future. Today’s cultural obsession with revivalism (retromania) represents a denial of the future in favor of the comforting reassurance offered by the ‘ghost’ of the past. This intellectual realignment of history is unsatisfactory and untenable. Hauntology proposes a positive alternative to postmodernity's 'nostalgia mode'.

What is nostalgia if not an amnesia of the present (and future)? Amnesia of the present, is the complement to hauntology's nostalgia for the future. [Fisher]

I have a passion for visual innovation and digital experimentation. To have any substance, these examination require the consolidation of solid theoretical rationale. My recently completed Degree – Final Honours Project used Glitch Art to communicate the Derridian theory of deconstruction. I believe hauntology could offer the next logical step in that line of experimental enquiry.

Audience

Although the philosophical background of my subject matter may be considered ‘high brow’ my intention is not present any solution which might be considered elitist. Concepts of spiritualism and the supernatural have a wider cultural appeal. I would hope that any final output that successfully illustrates the sociological relevance of hauntology would have significant resonance.

Context

Hauntology is an aesthetic effect, a way of reading and understanding design. Works which might hauntological frequently incorporate optimistically archaic imagery such as those associated with ‘retrofuturism’ or ‘steampunk’. These are often represented using discordant ‘lo-fi’ effects, surrealism, fragmentation or collage.

Hauntological imagery is generally comprised of two opposing layers. The first layer (‘the past’) might express hope and confidence, but can only be seen through the lens of the second layer (‘the present’) which casts doubt on the ‘truth’ of the first layer by expressing a satirical doubt and disillusionment. This process of obfuscation is a metaphor for memory.

There is a long-standing link between ghosts and modern technology. A plethora of  contemporary horror films have featured the demonic possession of digital or analogue technologies. An examination of ‘ghosts in the machine’, or the echos of JPEG compression artifacts may be appropriate avenues of enquiry.

Other rich fields of hauntological examination are; the enigma of the ‘non place’ and placelessness, memorial and longing, transitional beings, displacement and disappearance, demonic manifestations, auras, elegies of nature, and the translucency of the psyche. At its most basic level, hauntology has associations with faux-vintage photography, a genre of atmospheric, electronic music, movies such as ‘Inception’ or ‘The Shining’ and TV series like ‘Life on Mars’.

Although the philosophical field of hauntology is relatively nascent and doesn’t have a huge epistemology. I believe there may be sufficient research material concerning related fields. Rather than a focused study on dyschronia, I may be able to use hauntology as a lens through which I can analyze graphic design processes that interrogate perceptions of life/death, future/past and presence/absence.

Related fields of study that I intend to study:

• Semiotics

• Psychogeography

• Retro futurism

• Philosophy (esp. post structuralism)

• Sociology

• State Censorship

• Samizdat

• Public information broadcasting

• Moving image and film studies

• X-ray photography

• Glitch art and databending

• Spiritualism and witchcraft

Action Plan

Methodology:

Derrida’s hauntology is defined by its ambiguity; that is, it hovers in the spectral space, the threshold of being and presence, life and death, departure and return. Today, hauntology inspires many fields of investigation, from the visual arts to philosophy through electronic music, politics, fiction and literary criticism. It covers issues of postmodernism, metafiction and retro-futurism, dyscronia, spiritualism and phantoms, displacement and longing. It can even be seen as a way of describing the fluidity of identity among individuals, marking the dynamic and inevitable shades of influence that link one person’s experience to anothers, both in the present and over time.

My task during unit 2 will be to rationalize the potential of these disparate zones to yield opportunities for visual dialogue. I will need to conduct secondary and tertiary research into examples of hauntological design in order to chart its development as a visual language. This will no doubt take the form of a visual audit that identifies examples of design which bear the hallmarks of hauntological rationalization. Once these examples have been typologized it should be possible to analyze and critique their methodologies as well as quantifying their cultural resonance.

If during the course of my research I encounter a practitioner, whose work I find particularly insightful, I may take the opportunity to instigate some form of dialogue in order to enhance my research findings.

Throughout each stage of the research process it will be necessary to conduct continuous visual experimentation in order to test findings and generate ideas for the output stage. Although I’m keen to adopt an output solution which is a departure from traditional print techniques, I need to take an even-handed approach in order to identify the appropriate field of graphic design for each line of enquiry.

Output ideas:

Although, at this point, I wouldn’t like to predict the format of any final outcome. This could take the form of a single project, multiple linked experiments or a thesis. I am confident that the subject matter will allow me to scope to demonstrate all the major learning outcomes: experimentation/ research, subject knowledge / analysis, personal and professional development,  technical competence/ communication and presentation skills.

Potential output ideas:

• Ghosts in the machine - digital compression

• Audiovisual piece based on hauntalogical soundtrack

• Echo’s - ancient radio waves from space

• Hauntalogical typographic study

• X-ray imagery based on Rotentgenizdat / Samizdat

• Presence / absence, etching on acrylic materials

Bibliography

Derrida, J. (1993) Specters of Marx: The State of the Debt, the Work of Mourning & the New International. Paris: Éditions Galilée

Fisher, M. (2006) Hauntology as neurology December 24, 2006. Available online at http://k-punk.abstractdynamics.org/archives/2006_12.html

Harper, A. (2009) Hauntology: The Past Inside The Present Tuesday, 27 October 2009. Available online at http://rougesfoam.blogspot.co.uk/2009/10/hauntology-past-inside-present.html

McNeil, J. (2011) Past and Present in "Strange Simultaneity": Mark Fisher Explains Hauntology at NYU. Available online at: http://rhizome.org/editorial/2011/may/18/hauntology/

Fisher, M. (2006) Hauntology as neurology December 24, 2006. Available online at: http://k-punk.abstractdynamics.org/archives/2006_12.html

casualagent (2011) HAUNTOLOGY – preliminary notes Posted: December 7, 2011. Available online at: http://project47.org/2011/12/07/hauntology-preliminary-notes/

Gallix, A. (2011)  Hauntology: A not-so-new critical manifestation 17 June 2011. Available online at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2011/jun/17/hauntology-critical

Hewicker, S. (2010)  Hauntology Exhibition 2010 . Available online at: http://www.bampfa.berkeley.edu/exhibition/hauntology

Gildersleeve, J. (2007) An Unnameable Thing: Spectral Shadows in Elizabeth Bowen’s The Hotel and The Last September, University of Bristol egjeg@bristol.ac.uk

Dunn, M D. (2007) On Emediacy: The Internet as Occult Space / Perceiving the Human in the Electronic Realm mddunn@shaw.ca

Jameson, F. (1991) Postmodernism, or the cultural logic of late capitalism. London: Verso

Lacan, J. (1977) Écrits: A Selection*, transl. by Alan Sheridan, New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1977, and revised version, 2002, transl. by Bruce Fink

Derrida, J. (1967) Of Grammatology. English translation 1976. Maryland: Johns Hopkins University Press 
Darian Leader: Introducing Lacan: A Graphic Guide 
Slavoj Zizek: Enjoy Your Symptom!: Jacques Lacan in Hollywood and Out 
Slavoj Zizek: Living in the End Times 
Francis Fukuyama: The end of history and the last man 
Simon Reynolds: Retro mania: Pop Culture's Addiction to its Own Past 
Esther Peeren and Maria del Pilar Blanco: Popular Ghosts: The Haunted Spaces of Everyday Culture 
Stuart Sim: Derrida and the End of History (Postmodern Encounters) 
Mark Simon Riley: An Aesthetics of Hauntology 
Thomas Mical: Hauntology, or Spectral Space 
Colin Davis: Hauntology, spectres and phantoms 
Marc Augé: Non-Places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity 
David King: The Commissar Vanishes 
Nick Vasey: X-Ray – See Through the World Around you 
Ann Komaromi: The Material Existence of Soviet Samizdat.

Malcolm Gaskill: Hellish Nell: Last of Britain's Witches