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March 29, 2024, 08:06:03 AM

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THings you find hauntological that no one else does

Started by George White, June 29, 2022, 11:01:17 PM

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sevendaughters

from the Prodigy thread

Quote from: dmillburn on July 20, 2022, 09:49:06 AMthe first time being a PA at Vision at Popham Airfield in 1992


dissolute ocelot

Quote from: Blue Jam on July 10, 2022, 07:12:01 PMI assumed it was two fries and a boiger "patty".

I find BRGR mildly hauntological:


Nobody can pass BRGR without making a strange grumpy growling noise, "brrrr-grrrr". It's the sound of someone dying in the tundra.

petril

Quote from: famethrowa on July 17, 2022, 03:03:52 PMOh god I remember that thing from school TV. Funny thing is it's not a cartoon, it's a puppet:



the fact it's made in inverse then has the colours inverted is another level of eerie

imagine having to work with it all day but it's all in the wrong colours, knowing that it'll be inverted and come out the right colours

it's like those sculptors who do the murder victim faces where there's only a skull to go off so they all look that weird flat brown shade


dissolute ocelot


Brundle-Fly

Quote from: Ron Maels Moustache on July 19, 2022, 12:42:08 PMThere is something spooky about how in footage from any era, Toby Jones has always looked around forty years old. Never looks younger or older.

And those little kids in that link would all be in their mid-sixties today. Food for thought.

Clownbaby

Quote from: flotemysost on June 29, 2022, 11:50:09 PMOn the theme of naff renderings of famous characters, I'd like to nominate the sort of art you get on fairground rides, and occasionally on the front/back of massive long-haul lorries - those spray-can portraits of instantly recognisable figures from pop culture. Marilyn Monroe. Kylie Minogue. Danny and Sandy from Grease. Miley Cyrus waggling her tongue. He-Man. Shrek.

Always in the same style, kind of hyper-realistic yet exaggerated in an almost grotesquely uncanny valley kinda way - their cheeks are just a bit too rosy, or their smiles are maniacally wide (also the men are always comically ripped and the women always have enormous globular tits).

I've always found them fascinating and a bit creepy - as a child, there was something quite darkly sexual about them, for something that was a regular fixture at family events. As an adult, I find it hilarious how shit some of them are, yet there's also a weird sadness thinking about all the effort that the artist must have gone to. Is there one artist who does the rounds of the fairground circuit? Who knows? Def big hauntological energy there for me.

Absolutely. The fairground ride aesthetic in general for me. I'm very scared of riding fairground rides. I find them fascinating to watch but the fully visible, bare looking mechanics churning rhythmically all for the purpose of hurling people around just feels so uncanny and like an impending disaster.

I went to the Carlisle Fireshow a few years ago and watched someone I knew using the centrifugal force of those spinning rides where everyone is round the edge like clothes in a spinning washing machine, to stand upright in a surfing position, not strapped down. I looked at that and thought "this person is a different species from me, would I fuck do that"

The pounding trash club music and sound effects/ride controller MCing and commenting on how much faster he's going to make the ride gives me the chills as well. "SHALL WE GO FASTER LADIES AND GENTLEMEN? 5. 4. 3. 2. 1. ARE YOU REEEAAADYYYYY" I have a memory though from when I was little of one of those churny rides that has the row of seats lurching round and round in a toothbrush motion being in town on a very hot day, and for some reason there was no pounding trash club music on and all you could hear was people wailing excitedly and the drone of the mechanical arms. Fucking creeped me out and even when I got home I was convinced I could still hear the ride droning all the way back in town while I was sat in my room. A right little fanny about rides, I am.

non capisco

Quote from: Clownbaby on July 24, 2022, 05:08:17 PMAbsolutely. The fairground ride aesthetic in general for me. I'm very scared of riding fairground rides. I find them fascinating to watch but the fully visible, bare looking mechanics churning rhythmically all for the purpose of hurling people around just feels so uncanny and like an impending disaster.

I went to the Carlisle Fireshow a few years ago and watched someone I knew using the centrifugal force of those spinning rides where everyone is round the edge like clothes in a spinning washing machine, to stand upright in a surfing position, not strapped down. I looked at that and thought "this person is a different species from me, would I fuck do that"

That's just made me remember a sketchy fairground full of jerry built rides that pitched up in Gravesend in 1989, I went on what I think is the very ride you describe and the bumper thing that's meant to hold you in place wasn't coming down properly at the start. My sister was next to me and started freaking out and screaming "MY BROTHER'S GOING TO DIE!" which was as relaxing as you can imagine so I started brown trousering it as well. One of the swivel eyed toothless carnies (failed attempt at adding visual flavour to this meagre story, it was just some bloke) trotted along on his cloven hooves (normal feet) and fixed it but it was a bit of a glimpse behind the curtain. What if it had started without them noticing our pathetic wails of distress? CAN you actually die at these things? WILL this goldfish I've won live more than five minutes? IS it true that these places are a magnet for paedos? IS that supposed to be Kylie Minogue or my mum's mate Cheryl?

flotemysost

Quote from: non capisco on July 24, 2022, 06:04:42 PMOne of the swivel eyed toothless carnies (failed attempt at adding visual flavour to this meagre story, it was just some bloke) trotted along on his cloven hooves (normal feet)

I remember being dragged onto the waltzers at Wireless festival years ago, at my friend's insistence, as she wanted to "make the most of visiting London" (said friend lived near Brighton. You know, Brighton, famed for its sad dearth of seaside pier attractions) and anyway, the lad operating the ride had bleached-blond curtains, one arm, and what looked like it might well have been a glass eye (I didn't want to stare too much. Not that I could anyway, given that my own eyeballs were shortly to be almost detached from their ocular nerves.) He was like a Platonic ideal of an ur-fairground ride operator.

Anyway, that one arm made short work of spinning the carriages so fast that I thought my spinal column was gonna snap in two and the £10 falafel wrap I'd just scarfed down would end up somewhere over in the haunted house, blapsing a rubber animatronic skeleton in the face. Horrible experience, 0/10, never again.

Proactive

Quote from: Clownbaby on July 24, 2022, 05:08:17 PMA right little fanny about rides, I am.

A very early memory that sticks with me is going on my first fairground ride and crying so heavily that the carny had to stop it to let me off. Always found it perplexing that people could enjoy them tbh.

non capisco

 
Quote from: flotemysost on July 24, 2022, 06:24:29 PMthe lad operating the ride had bleached-blond curtains, one arm, and what looked like it might well have been a glass eye..He was like a Platonic ideal of an ur-fairground ride operator.

Ah, good old Cousin Mungo. He works for London Underground now.

Clownbaby

Quote from: non capisco on July 24, 2022, 06:04:42 PMThat's just made me remember a sketchy fairground full of jerry built rides that pitched up in Gravesend in 1989, I went on what I think is the very ride you describe and the bumper thing that's meant to hold you in place wasn't coming down properly at the start. My sister was next to me and started freaking out and screaming "MY BROTHER'S GOING TO DIE!" which was as relaxing as you can imagine so I started brown trousering it as well. One of the swivel eyed toothless carnies (failed attempt at adding visual flavour to this meagre story, it was just some bloke) trotted along on his cloven hooves (normal feet) and fixed it but it was a bit of a glimpse behind the curtain. What if it had started without them noticing our pathetic wails of distress? CAN you actually die at these things? WILL this goldfish I've won live more than five minutes? IS it true that these places are a magnet for paedos? IS that supposed to be Kylie Minogue or my mum's mate Cheryl?

This is the thing that scares me most of all about these rides. The carnies will be so used to people freaking out and getting scared that they most likely wouldn't think anything of someone screaming "HELP, I'M GOING TO FALL OUT! I'M FALLING OUT!!! STOP THE RIDE!!!" They'd probably just assume it's someone (me) just panicking and being scared when in act fact I'm genuinely coming out of the ride. But they'll be thinking "there's always one drama queen" and then I'll slip out and get my hair caught in a gear and be flayed


seepage

On the hottest day of the year people were still riding on the similar thing on Southend seafront that has about a dozen degrees of freedom.

Ferris

I went for a shit in the sixth form toilets as a youngster because I was too cool for rules.

Inside the cubicles, someone had written "PINNERS USE THE CUBICLE" above the cistern. I still think about that sometimes.

George White

Just become obsessed with 70s PBS trails and continuity, which with its weird electronic, faceless continuity announcements, feels very dystopic.

Armed Traffic Warden


jamiefairlie

Quote from: George White on March 28, 2023, 06:00:11 PM
Just become obsessed with 70s PBS trails and continuity, which with its weird electronic, faceless continuity announcements, feels very dystopic.

Yeah very East German/Czechoslovakia vibe

George White

The countless cascade of idents, faceless, amateurish-sounding voices and disjointed images reminds me of those IBA transmitter information videos.

PlanktonSideburns

Quote from: Zero Gravitas on June 30, 2022, 02:05:57 PMThink of it like a ghost that haunts you backwards and sideways from the future timeline where things went all quite nice actually.

Oh, and the ghost isn't scary, it's nice, and that's hauntology.

Casper the hauntoligical ghost

Cuellar

In the gym earlier and on the TV there was some Repair Shop spin off seemingly about DIY shit or whatever, and there was a segment which seemed to be them showing part of a programme from, I dunno, late 90s early 2000s which featured a curly haired blonde woman and a man in denim who looked like Henning Wehn doing cheap and cheerful home decor projects with wood etc. and I'd seen it before but I couldn't say in what era or why I'd seen it, but it was like I was being haunted.

I don't know why Jay Blades and the beardy one were showing me this, the style of these decor projects was obviously wildly out of date. It made me wonder if anyone else was seeing it. Why would they give a segment of their show over to these ghosts?

Icehaven

Alright if stuff from the early 2000s is hauntological now I'm just going to curl up and die as it's clearly my time.

Quote from: Cuellar on March 28, 2023, 08:59:01 PMIn the gym earlier and on the TV there was some Repair Shop spin off seemingly about DIY shit or whatever, and there was a segment which seemed to be them showing part of a programme from, I dunno, late 90s early 2000s which featured a curly haired blonde woman and a man in denim who looked like Henning Wehn doing cheap and cheerful home decor projects with wood etc. and I'd seen it before but I couldn't say in what era or why I'd seen it, but it was like I was being haunted.

I don't know why Jay Blades and the beardy one were showing me this, the style of these decor projects was obviously wildly out of date. It made me wonder if anyone else was seeing it. Why would they give a segment of their show over to these ghosts?

"Big Strong Girls" from 1999, replaced by "Big Strong Boys" after one series.

https://www.pebblemill.org/blog/big-strong-girls-vanessa-jackson/

Cuellar



This is a bit of an odd one which I might have difficulty in describing, but here goes.

There's a very particular style of portraiture which doesn't seem to exist anymore but it's one I find very hard to describe as I can't locate a visual reference for it. It's a kind of very arch, "modern" (as of roughly thirty years ago) style, lots of clean, straight lines and flat colours, the image I'm trying to recall might have featured one or more elegantly dressed ladies staring straight out at the viewer (possibly holding cocktails) and there may or may not be multiple cats present, also staring directly at the viewer.

I associate it primarily with the upstairs bit in the local McDonalds where I grew up, as they had these kind of prints hanging up on the wall there. I'm certain these were not in any way high art, probably just the most generic "modern" style of painting you could buy anywhere, put up in a noble attempt to add a sheen of sophistication to a grotty little fast food outlet. But something about that particular style really haunts me, especially given the fact it seems to be fading into memory. An old idea of what once constituted "class" that the passage of time has completely forgotten. There may also have been one of a tiger as well in an identical style.

There's a whole load of sensations/memories associated with this, not just that ever-present but oddly comforting relishy background smell that all McDonalds at the time seemed to have. I'd often go there with my mum and sister as a treat after we'd finished shopping, the town library had a computer game section at that point and I would often be sat there at the little table with an Atari ST game in my sweaty hands, scrutinising the box and wishing we could get home quicker so I could try it out, and I'd be glancing up at these weird pictures the entire time.

Does anyone have any idea what I'm on about or am I pissing in the wind here?

Ambient Sheep

Yes, I think I know what you mean.

Borders in Swansea used to have similar in their café in the early 2000s, I think.

Beyond that, I can't help you, as in giving it a name, or anything.

willbo

I always think of a certain type of slick, stylish modern design from around 1990. Like the type of colours and shapes you got on (80s) Genesis and Supertramp album covers, but in paintings and ornaments. In the homes of uncles/aunts who would have been around 30 in 1990 and had cool decor in their rooms.

Feralkid

The entire town of Tandragee, Northern Ireland. Particularly the needlessly unsettling clock outside its weird, weird library.

https://www.geograph.ie/photo/1046410

I can't find any vintage images of it, but can assure you all that it had a weirder, eerier face in the 70s, 80s, and 90s.   

flotemysost

Quote from: willbo on March 30, 2023, 07:54:35 PMI always think of a certain type of slick, stylish modern design from around 1990. Like the type of colours and shapes you got on (80s) Genesis and Supertramp album covers, but in paintings and ornaments. In the homes of uncles/aunts who would have been around 30 in 1990 and had cool decor in their rooms.

I think I know what you mean. There's a rehearsal space I've used a few times that was formerly an office (presumably) designed around that era and it's all lime green/lilac paint jobs, glass brick walls, spiral metal staircases and boxy faux-leather sofas with chrome feet. Always feels like I've stepped onto the set of 90s sitcom.