“I guess the modern ghost is a product of technology. On a psychological level, as soon as you get a moving image, its nearest analogy is a ghost or a phantom. Ghosts in the moving image have always been inextricably linked”
Mark Leckey, in Wallis & Coustou 2019, 17
Special effects have played an important part in films for over a hundred years. From the fantastical, A Trip To The Moon (Le Voyage de La Lune) created by Georges Méliès in 1902, through to King Kong (1933), and the amazing creature creations of Ray Harryhausen in the second half of the 20th century, that brought to life numerous tales of mythological quests and exciting adventures that spanned the past, the future, and both outer and inner space. Special effects have played a key role in transporting audiences to different worlds.
1977 saw the advent of something even more spectacular, for it was in this year that the cultural phenomenon that is Star Wars was released. I remember going to the picture house to watch this movie, it was the only time that my family as a whole went to see a film together. We’d never seen anything like it, and for myself, my siblings, and our dad, this trip began a lifelong love affair with that galaxy far far away. Now, over 40 years later, fantastical worlds have become far more ‘everyday’, almost commonplace. Not a month goes by when we aren’t introduced to the latest adventures of comic book heroes; propelled into space to come face-to-face with terrifying monsters, or bear witness to numerous re-imaginings of classic stories.
However, whilst we as the audience are transported to amazing locations such as Asgard, Wakanda, or Arrakis; and encounter gigantic sandworms, prehistoric sea monsters that have been woken from their slumbers through sudden empowerment by nuclear emissions, or mutant sharks, we are, in fact, gazing upon images of spectres.
During film and television production physical sets are erected and dismantled throughout the course of filming. However, the use of green screen technology in film and television production is becoming more and more prevalent.
“In movies and on television, actors walk – and sometimes fly – through elaborate and fantastic landscapes that simply don’t exist in the real world. They ride on dragons’ backs, grow crops on distant planets or visit magical realms with towering citadels inhabited by bizarre creatures. Sometimes the story takes place in a familiar city, but in the distant past – or the far-off future…”
Mindy Weisberger 2016
These adventures are enabled through the use of “Chroma Key”, more commonly referred to as Green Screen Technology, due to the typically vivid green colour of the backdrops that are used to create these astounding vistas and their accompanying otherworldly inhabitants. Yet these are landscapes that have never physically existed. Actors are working within spectral topographies, digital Brigadoons. Actors, who themselves, are ghosts in the making. Who, someday, will cease to physically exist, but who will haunt us forever through the digital medium.
“Sometimes when I watch TV I stop being myself and I’m a star of the series, I have my own talk show, or I’m on the news getting out of a limo, going somewhere important. All I ever have to do is be famous. People watch me, they love me, and I will never never grow old, and I will never die”
from John Carpenter’s They Live, 1988
When considering future ghosts within archaeological contexts, 2020 is a very good place to start. The ephemerality of the Black Lives Matter protests, alongside the lived experiences of homeless people around the world, are both akin to spectral landscapes. If people were not actively recording these events, these experiences; we would have (in many cases) no record of them. As time progresses, with memories growing hazier and recollections getting dimmer, they would be at risk of being lost forever. Although topographies that have been created through green screen technology have never physically existed, the landscapes that have borne witness to both the BLM marches and the ongoing struggles of homeless people to survive, do. Yet, through human intervention the physical imprints of both the BLM protests and the daily reality of life for homeless people are being swept away, leaving little to no material evidence. These actions are creating spectral landscapes, similar to those designed by green screen technology. We are at risk of only being able to access these peoples, their struggles, their acts of resistance, through the medium of the digital Ouija board.
Throughout the BLM protests there have been numerous acts of resistance undertaken around the world to physically highlight, and address, the wrongs inflicted upon people of colour. Statues of people who amassed significant fortunes from slavery, be it from the inhumane transportation of people from the continent of Africa to Britain and North America, to those who owned plantations and cotton mills in the 18th and 19th centuries, have been physically removed or daubed with paint and images decrying the actions of both the person commemorated and the individual(s) who commissioned the statue.
Statues (and buildings) have been covered with graffiti and digital superimpositions of famous black trailblazers. In the USA, these visual forms of protest have been applied to numerous Confederate statues. Photogrammetry is being employed to capture these digital images, whilst photography and video have been key in recording not just the graffiti applied to the statues, but also the material culture of these protests (placards, banners etc), as well as the protests themselves.
People, both ‘well-meaning’ citizens and Far-Right Supremacists, are removing graffiti, placards that had been left in situ next to contentious statues etc, and also, in turn, history. We also have to remember that a significant number of television broadcasters suppressed coverage of the BLM protests, and were so effective in this suppression that many people believed that the protests had ended. In fact, they continue to this day. It is through people documenting these events and the material culture of protest through photography, video, and other forms of technology, and subsequently uploading these images and films to the Internet, primarily via social media, that many of these ‘ephemeral’ acts are being permanently recorded and archived.
This is also the case with the huge BLM slogans that were painted upon significant thoroughfares within major cities in the USA, including Washington DC and New York City. These have now been removed, but thanks to the digital recording of these events, these landscapes of protest will survive indefinitely.
In 2020, as the numbers of homeless people continue to rise throughout the world, we are also at risk of losing these people from the archaeological record too. Governments, both at local, regional, and national levels, know that they have homeless people living on their streets. Sadly, rather than helping these people gain safe and secure accommodation, they’d rather have all trace of them erased so as not to offend ‘good, law-abiding’, accommodated citizens. This being the case, large-scale social-cleansing projects have been imposed, effectively wiping homeless people from the physical landscape, and the archaeological record. It is only through digital recording and dissemination via the Web, that future archaeologists may ever know that these people existed.
If we didn’t have these images, these events, these peoples’ lives and struggles could/would be lost to future generations. For even if archaeologists in decades, centuries, or millennia to come, could step outside to physically excavate, there would be no physical traces of these acts, these people, within the archaeological record. This is why I believe the advanced search engine will be considered of far more use than a trowel by our future colleagues.
So, I guess you may be asking yourselves, “Why is Lady Liminal discussing big-budget adventure movies alongside highly important political and social issues, such as the Black Lives Matter movement and homelessness?” Well, although these elements may appear to be completely disparate, I would argue that there is a correlation between imagined cinematic vistas and the landscapes of protest and social deprivation that are prevalent throughout the world.
This connection stems from my belief that all three aspects are spectral landscapes. The former having been specifically designed to exist purely within the digital medium. The latter having this forced upon them by Far-Right groups, governments who are sympathetic to those groups, and others who do not see these serious social issues as their problem, and who would rather not have these ‘inconveniences’ encroach upon their daily lives.
The physical removal of the material signs of protest; the suppression of reporting upon the BLM marches, as well as the forced removal of the homeless; all leads to these peoples being removed from the physical landscape, and therefore the archaeological record.
Sadly, it is becoming increasingly evident that these highly significant protests, alongside the social and immoral travesty that is homelessness, will only be visible to future generations through the intervention of people who are recording these events through mixed media and spoken word and subsequently uploading them to the Internet.
The physical traces that all of these people have left on the landscape have been (and continue to be) swept away. Now, (just a few months later in the case of many of the physical interventions staged by BLM protestors) we can only access the majority of these events, these life-changing stories, through a screen. And if you haven’t accessed these images and videos, you could potentially walk within the cityscapes where these people are still fighting for the right to exist, the right to live in safety, trying to survive without the security of a home or job; and you would be none the wiser to their existence.
The BLM protestors, and the homeless, are at significant risk of becoming, not just future ghosts, but ‘present wraiths’, forced to inhabit spectral landscapes that are only accessible through channelling digital mediums, not unlike the actors working within Chroma Key topographies. However, these people, unlike the majority of heroes and heroines in movies, are not guaranteed a happy ending.
Yes, we must continue to record these events so that they are never forgotten, but more importantly for us living in the 21st century, we must come together to collectively fight for the rights of people of colour, and put an end to homelessness. Technology is a strong ally in this fight, and the Internet is a powerful tool.
Connectivity is key…
“I have very high hopes for the Internet… if we’re entering a New Dark Age, the Internet could help to keep the lights on!”
JG Ballard 2004
REFERENCE:
They Live. 1988. [Film] Directed by John Carpenter. United States: Alive Films; Larry Franco Productions.
Vale, V., 2005. J.G. Ballard and V. Vale: 2004. In: V. Vale, ed. J.G. Ballard: Conversations. San Francisco: RE/Search Publications, pp. 9-42.
Wallis, C. & Coustou, E., 2019. Mark Leckey: O’ Magic Power Of Bleakness. London: Tate Publishing.
Weisberger, M., 2016. How Do Green Screens Work? livescience.com. [Online]
Available at: www.livescience.com/55814-how-do-green-screens-work.html
[Accessed 26 October 2020].