Sarah Sparkes ---- Guests, Hosts & Ghosts and how to make them: The GHost project – manifesting ghosts through visual art and creative research.

Guests, Hosts & Ghosts and how to make them: The GHost project – manifesting ghosts through visual art and creative research. Sarah Sparkes GHost is a visual arts and creative research project which, in homage to Marcel Duchamp’s artwork, “A guest + a host = a ghost”, takes on and explores the conceit of guests, hosts and ghosts, both metaphorically and practically, in its activities. To date, the project has had two central strands. Firstly, a consideration of the relevance of ghosts in contemporary culture which is centred around a programme of interdisciplinary seminars – so-called Hostings – held in Senate House at the University of London. Secondly, Ghost is composed of a series of exhibitions, screenings and performances designed to make manifest and, by extension, examine the aesthetics of ghosts and haunted spaces. Drawing on a number of case studies from GHost exhibitions and Hostings this chapter will explore how ghostly charactereistics are manifested in contemporary culture and art practice. The chapter will look at the ghosts of video art and film – literal apparitions as well as the more abstract notion of technology becoming the medium which channels the spirits – and the creation of the uncanny in installation and performance art. Particular reference will be made to the use of audiovisual and mechanical technologies as well as performance art to manifest ghostly apparitions and simulate haunted atmospheres. Drawing on the GHost exhibitions and Hostings, this chapter aims to provide some insights into the manifestation of ghostly aesthetics.