In search of the ultimate proof that ghosts exist, during 2 years Peeters has been exploring the damp tunnels that connect science with magic or horror with technology. He reappeared regularly to present his findings in different forms: from dance-piece over installation to a radio-play... ‘Apparitions’ is the most recent in this series of works, and takes the shape of a fully fledged show.
Convinced that magic can enrich our relation with reality, Peeters takes on the role of an illusionist and quickly gets lost in his own illusions. Using some 19th century optical tricks, he blows life into his own shadow and resurrects some ghosts of the future. In a kind of visual delirium echoes of Méliès or Houdini bump into the 22nd Century. Here, the dead might very well be alive, and the future turns out to be the present.
Some press articles:
- Anaïs Heluin, 30/03/2022, journal La Terrasse (FR)
- Mathias Daval, 12/03/2020, I/O Gazette (FR)
- Belinda Mathieu, 09/03/2020, Télérama (FR)
- Dimo Riess, 19/06/2019, Leipziger Volkszeitung (DE)
- Dimo Riess, 13/06/2019, Leipziger Volkszeitung (DE)
On a cold december morning in 1877, a young man shows up at the offices of the magazine Scientific American in New York. Without much fuss he places a small machine in front of the editors, and activates it with a crank. To the astonishment of all, the machine says: “Hello. How are you? I am a Phonograph.” – Total consternation! The machine had spoken. It had a voice.
This young man, named Thomas Edison, had invented the first instrument possessing the sinister capacity to bring back to life a voice that had in reality already been extinct. His 'ghost-machine' could tear the voice out of the body that emitted it, then preserve that voice (beyond death even) and revive it indefinitely. Like a wandering soul. To the people back then this seemed more magical than scientific.
Exactly 40 years laters that same Thomas Edison, who had turned grey and famous in the meantime, appears on the cover of Scientific American. Under his portrait-picture the intriguing title: «Those of the beyond - and why I seek to communicate with them.» In the interview the inventor discusses his 'necrophone': “I have been working for some time now on a scientific apparatus allowing personalities that have left our world – the dead – to communicate with the living.”
It is this story that sparked ‘Apparitions’.
