Ghosts in the Machine : the Hauntology of Graffiti and Rave culture 1990 - 2010
by Christopher Stead & Nema
Ghosts in the Machine documents graffiti and rave subculture in the wake of a post-Thatcher Britain, as a disenfranchised youth finds social cohesion and identity through the act of graffiti. Meanwhile, rave's rhetoric of social inclusion resisted the binaries of boredom, race, class and gender, making it one of its generation's most significant youth movements. Written through the eyes of two participant observers, Christopher Stead and Nema, as well as a foreword by the artist and activist Jonny Banger, the book contains imperfect histories, lucid anecdotes, and subcultural polemics to accompany archival photos that capture the spirit of intervention amid the oppressive political climates of the '90s and '00s questioning if the mass acceleration of communication has led to a freezing of time, leaving both seemingly stuck in a state of hauntological retrospection.
Available from: Alias Press
Hardback / 32 × 24 cm
360 pages / 2 paper types
300 colour photographs
ISBN: 978-90-81710-15-2
Hung Out to Dry
Gleaned electrical wires, ropes, and hand-torn ‘tagliatelle’ woven into industrial netting and hung with polymer-lichen canvas and printed debris nets
600 x 274 x 238 cm
Installed at the Pigeon Park 2 exhibition, Manor Place, London 2022
Installation view of the Autonomic Ambience Vol 1, solo presentation with Ruttkowski;68
At Pop;68, Cologne, Germany
2023
Synergetic Shelter
Gleaned electrical wires, plastic bags, industrial nets, polymer lichen & steel
Part of the Unfolding Traces exhibition, The Hangar Gallery, RCA, London 2023
Syntax Error
200 x 285 x 12 cm
Composite of repurposed computer parts, electrical wires, ropes, nets and hand-torn canvas, treated with alkyd resin, acrylic and oil paint, then bound to recovered mattresses
Part of the New Forms exhibition at Saatchi Gallery, London 2022
Installation view at the New Forms exhibition
Saatchi Gallery
London 2022
Monument to Nothingness.
400 x 500 x 295 cm.
Resin, acrylic and oil treated ‘Tagliatelle’ canvas strips, recovered wires, stuffed gabions, wrapped steel poles and found steel armature.
Part of the Pigeon Park exhibition at Manor Place, London 2021.
Things Fall Apart.
600 x 400 x 30 cm.
130 kilos of hand-torn treated canvas and found wires, weaved into industrial netting.
Five Hides exhibition, curated by Thorpstavri at Manor Place.
London 2020.