ART/London
"Haunted"
Through October 30th
Mon-Sat, 12-6pm

Artist statement: "Since I was a child, I have always been interested in ghosts and other aspects of the paranormal. Since I moved to England, my interest has increased, fuelled by such a rich history of hauntings and amazing otherworldly phenomena.

What fascinated me the most was the fact that several books quoted various people who had experienced the same sensations -- being cold, feeling a draft, visions -- sometimes even years apart from each other. Even a vision of Francis Bacon's chicken was seen by two people on separate occasions! (The last sighting being in 1975.)

I started with my ghost project two years ago. I photograph the reported haunted location and then photograph my friends and acquaintances posing as the described manifestation. For the animals, I use my friends' pets or visit the zoo. I photograph with a 35mm Nikon SLR Camera.

The two negatives (location and manifestation) are scanned and superimposed digitally, although I am avoiding any further computer manipulation of the images in an attempt to maintain what I consider to be the "psychic integrity" of the location shots.

The outcome is my own imagination of how the manifestation would appear. In a way it is a very modern equivalent to Victorian ghost/seance photography.

I have never seen a manifestation at any of these sites, although once when tracing a haunted "phantom hitchhiker" road, my car did get very cold, the headlights faded, and the fuel gauge dipped to zero -- it was quite unnerving, lasting for (a very long) 2 minutes. Also since half a year ago my video recorder seems to turn itself on in the middle of the night.

It is an ongoing project, and I do not concentrate on English sites alone. The photographs are all black and white and measure 12"x16". I was lucky to obtain a collection of tape recordings of seances from the 1950s. I plan to have these playing when the project is exhibited."
- Ruth Bayer

Find it: The Horse Hospital
Colonnade (btwn Guilford/Bernard St.)
Bloomsbury, London
Get there: Metro to Russell Square, Piccadilly Line
Get info:(020)7833-3644

Find more art events in the OCT/NOV issue of "Arte Six".