My Personal Connection with Hauntology
ARTICLE STILL WIP LOL Despite overcoming multiple hurdles of introspection, I still cannot fully escape the past inside the present, and the way it shows on others.
Haunto-what?
Hauntology essentially runs in my blood. This medium hid beneath the surface of my consciousness for years, only becoming noticeable until last year. Yet its traces were always there, reflected in the works that captivated me throughout my adolescence. Artists like The Caretaker, Boards of Canada and Broadcast have altered my psyche considerably. At times, it has been my only answer to how society twists, disrespects, and radically disposes of its memories while they perpetually linger. Hiding from the bigger picture. It teleports me to a rather peculiar ritual where I ruminate on the decades of negative pattern recognition I spot on people and society, utterly revolting sensations that consume my mind beyond belief.
Sensations that permeate my psyche into a state of utter confusion, nostalgia, and perpetual disappointment of what could’ve been. The same feelings portrayed in the media I’ve been consuming for so long, yet been so blind to dissect. When I started noticing it all fell under this label, I felt like I have finally been heard, and even understood by the art mediums I consume for the first time. Media representation is often advertised nowadays as prioritizing performative concepts that often appeal to the lowest common denominator for cheap cash grabs instead of actually making a connection on the receiving end. This is one of the big reasons why more and more people are drifting away from the profitable mainstream into more niche artists in order to find that personal sense of understanding the corporate slop content machine generator simply doesn’t provide.
First contact
If I had to trace back to my beginnings in hauntology it would be when I got introduced into BoC fan videos back in 2020. I liked the ambient sound they brought to the table, but the second I saw the fanmade YouTube Music videos online, I felt like something was off… I was puzzled by the old footage and references in music videos like (Insert music video here made by blank) that showed footage like (talks about the footage).
The more I got into BoC and starting analysing the music I consumed more often, I finally realized why i gravitated to the awkward forms of media I do. I always felt that most mainstream media was relatable to me, but never bonded to my personal experiences nor felt it clicked in my brain. Geogaddi evoked pure angst of how the past has created so many despicable actors and were let permeate over the world as if it was nothing.
After looking at so many situations over different cultures repeat with such mutuallity, I started to sink deeper into the rabbit holes that hauntology portrays. (Research examples)
We really do live in a society
Feeling so unheard from the media I been categorized to consumed by society was what graviated me to hauntology.
Relationships
It has also drastically affected the way I view relationships as a whole, in both good and bad ways. The ways that negative thoughts from someone linger in their brain, ready to be detonated at any given point, unresolved and heavy thoughts waiting to be unleashed, haunting the present with its bitter conciousness. Good/Emotional = Nostalgia/Yearning, Bad/Toxic = Resentment/Contempt.
No other form of media has evoked this emotion or caused this much impact on my psyche. What’s (dare I say) haunting, is that we are currently having it taint the present as we speak, it is practically the art of overthinking the past through the present. Makes it click with my anxiety considerably.