Neil Matheson & Sas Mays 
The Machine and the Ghost [EPUB ebook] 
Technology and Spiritualism in Nineteenth- to Twenty-First-Century Art and Culture

This stimulating new collection of essays and interviews provides a fresh perspective of society”s relationship with the spectral, the ghostly and the paranormal, viewed through our interaction with technology. Adopting a multidisciplinary approach and drawing upon case studies taken from photography, video and the visual arts, the book explores the ”hauntedness” of technologies and ways in which artists, writers and psychical researchers have produced and recycled the iconography of spiritualism and other mediumistic phenomena.The book provides innovative critical thinking on our continued fascination with the role of the paranormal and explores how artists and writers continue to draw upon this field in their work. Spanning the period from the nineteenth century up to the present, the book incorporates a series of case studies embracing such topics as landscape, spirit photography, photomontage, curation and sound works. Theoretically rich, it explores a range of approaches, from the vitalism of Henri Bergson to the ”hauntology” of Jacques Derrida.Contributors include prominent artists such as Susan Hiller, whose videos, photographic work and installations have contributed enormously to the creation of this field within the visual arts, and renowned specialists such as the writer Marina Warner. This book will appeal to a broad academic and cultural audience, particularly undergraduates interested in our culture”s fascination with the paranormal, and postgraduates and specialists within the field, but also those interested in art and culture more generally.