Ghost Light 2019
Ghost Light is a two-channel, screen-based work that uses digitally altered 16mm film footage to reverse the connection between the surface of the screen and touch. The work favours agency over performance to empower the screen-based image and to transform the screen into a type of contact zone. Rather than being synchronic, the work is anachronic; the images on each screen intentionally fall out of time with one another to allow space for a visual dialogue across the screens. When writing about Ghost Light, Louise Curham notes:
Ghost Light emphasises the twin gestures of contemporary life, the swipe and the scroll. Using your device, your caress is alert to the delicacy of the glass and electronics. And, as you use your device, there’s ghosting going on. You are a partially-absent presence—you are there sitting or standing gazing into your device, your attention inside the pool of the screen, buying your loo paper, talking to your mum, checking out the activity of the internet. Your fingers are swiping and scrolling, making this happen but you don’t notice them. Inside Ghost Light, instead of fingers we forget all about, we find fingers that walk, fingers that are the centre of attention, fingers we empathise with.