Whose ghost? Pepper’s Ghost!
Recently I came across an rather old, but interesting technology, called Pepper’s ghost. Toady, there are artists who utilize this old technology in their works, which I always found romantic in a conceptual way.
Recently I came across an rather old, but interesting technology, called Pepper’s ghost, that is traditionally used in theatre, cinema, television, and other performing media and has also been utilized in some of the fine artworks. Its purpose is similar to modern-day digital screens, before they were invented, which is to project an object off stage onto the stage. The technique was popularized by the English scientist John Henry Pepper, who also tried to summon rainfall by exploding gunpowder in the air (very entertaining scientist in every way), in 1982 for the theatre of Charles Dickens’ novella, The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain. The illusion is ultimately created with a mirror at a certain degree that reflects the object in a corner of the space where the audience can’t see. Though it is not widely used in entertainment as it used to be, there are artists who utilize this old technology in their works, which I always found romantic in a conceptual way.
One of these artists is Yoko Seyama, who collaborated with choreographer Fernando Melo from Norrdans to create the enchanting performance that literally named Pepper Ghost. The show combines choreography and the reflective, repetitive, and illusional quality of the technology to showcase an extremely surreal and ghostly beauty of the dance as the dancers’ images collide and separate like echoes of reality. Read more at here.
Another artist that I personally really like is Taree Mackenzie, whose sculptures almost exclusively use the Pepper’s ghost effect. Her works break the Pepper’s ghost from its performance background and the backstage completely, focusing solely on the magic of this technology and the visual vibrancy it can create. The geometric emphasis and the high saturated color may feel like the early 2000s, maybe the aesthetics of the screen saver of Windows computers. But its kinetic nature and physicality provide a timeless quality, as you are able to see the connection of the illusionary images that the technology creates and the engineering, which moves slowly but constantly. Read more here.
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