8. On Ghosting

Mira Kautto is one of the four friends we first ghosted with in April 2018. Since then, she has been pursuing and sharing a parallel Ghosting practice in Finland, where she lives and works. We invited Mira to write about her understanding of Ghosting.

http://cargocollective.com/mirakautto

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My first time ghosting was in early 2018 with Paul and Rohanne. Their practice was close, or easily relatable to things I had been working on myself, and I felt like through ghosting I found a further dimension to my own experiments of being invisible in front of others and imagining. 

Since being introduced to the practice I have done it in many different contexts with many different people. I had some doubts of doing and continuing a practice where my intention is to be invisible (something I, and many others have been and are encouraged to be constantly, less literally though..), but through conversations with colleagues I started trusting the agency invisibility offers in following one’s own desires, as well as being a space to recognise the situations where one might be systematically ignored. I find both things highly important to practice. 

I respect and thank Paul and Rohanne for having offered the practice to be borrowed and continued without them, as an open source practice. I see it as a way to stay generous and collegial in an environment that often directs us towards the opposite. It has led to idealistic conversations on all (artistic) work being open source with multiple authors and versions, depending who wants to spend time with the said practice. 

I will not try to write about my experiences doing ghosting in more depth, it has a logic and a feeling that I don’t expect my writing to express. Maybe I can say that to me it feels a lot like dancing, playing and what I imagine meditation to feel like, and it is a practice with an amazing capability to alter the experiencing of time. 

What I can share is a text I wrote in an experiment from spring 2018 when I did ghosting by writing with a group of colleagues. It was written in one hour whilst imagining the actions while being outside in the environments I wrote about. I think it depicts some of the layers of ghosting that I can’t otherwise explain. The text was originally handwritten in Finnish. Below it are the instructions for a ghosting workshop in the Finnish National Gallery from autumn 2019. 

The cars crash into each other
and I nick the man’s bag, 
he probably had a hunch because
he looked this way
Then this would float up to see through
everyone’s windows
The sun could warm me if
I could feel something
A man looked this way, maybe they sensed
me as cold air somehow
Then this goes under a car
and makes a small nest and
digs to enter inside the car
On the left there is another
ghost
Then it leans onto a skip for a long time
and tastes it and goes into a bookstore
The ghost listens to The Ramones
Then it rubs it ass to glass
and all windowpanes that it
sees in five seconds
I want I go for a massage but
no one can massage me
even if I try my best to 
express my need to be massaged.
I feel the cold pane, but I feel 
nothing else. I maybe fall through 
it. Again someone thought they saw 
me. I would like to go home 
to haunt. The ghost 
recognises the cashier from the nearby grocery store
For whatever reason the ghost has 
a shadow. I would like to swing.
I go to drive the car stopped on the 
bike lane away. And then just
push the car someplace else and roar
but nobody hears. Maybe their
ears will ache nonetheless. 
I want to swing. I strangle everyone
(mentally) who are swinging
in my way. I ride all the bikes 
that have red-yellow ribbons. 
Maybe the ghost is cold, can 
that be. The ghost goes home to grab
a good jacket, even if they don’t really
need it. The ghost gives 
nightmares to all. And eats
the basil from the window, or maybe only
stamps on it. I move the passing 
people in different directions. 
I think of a serial strangler. 
I see everything the wrong way around, as a negative. 
In reality the empty space is full and 
full empty. I know, because I am 
empty. A car drove down a staircase. 
The ghost wants a new hat. 
There is blood running down from ghost’s ear, 
is that possible. 

Spring offers:
	10e
-legs
-armpits
-lowerarms
	20e
-arms
-legs
-belly
-back

I want them all 110e. 
I walk on the car lane
8	2
1	6
8
1

The ghost decides where everybody is going. 
A green skip turns upside down, 
inside out, because I ask it to. 
In a windows of a house it says

F U C K I N G   I D I O T S

and for sure something else too. 
Others might not see it, and I am 
not sure if I myself or
someone else has written it there, 
or have the texts been there since 
the beginning. Because I am invisible
I can ride the tram without paying. 
I can sit on somebody’s lap if
I can be bothered to. The ghosts puts
shoes on a woman’s feet. Again I
have a shadow. 
Speedsquare* ghost
A ghost moving within
an hours radius. 
The ghost goes to helsinki’s favorite place
and makes the treadmills go so 
slow that everybody gets pissed off. Except
no one is on them. 
I wonder if my clothes are visible to others?
Could I tattoo a face for myself?
The ghost eats bread and sour 
fruity sweets. I grow a moustache 
and glue plastic diamonds everywhere. 
Maybe I start dressing like
the magician in the Moomins. The ghost 
goes to photobomb the news, 
the cameraman gets alarmed when I 
show up on the screen. 

*a square in Helsinki infamous for its drugtrade

Ghosting in Ateneum (Finnish national gallery), October 2019
Ghosts are invisible
Ghosts don’t communicate through language
Ghosts can see each other but don’t seek/gravitate towards company 
Ghosts can touch and move things (not larger than a chair), but they have to consider bypassers’ safety and accessibility of the space in the same way as outside on a street or other public space. Use the environment with respect and so that you and others have a safe surroundings.
Ghosts can not touch the living (people, animals, plants)
It is not the ghost’s intention to scare
The things that ghosts want to do, but physically can not can be written down (the only exception when words can be used) or imagined. 
Ghosts always inhabit the same space, forever, and are limited to that space only. 
The museum guards can sense the ghost’s actions without seeing them, and the ghosts comply to the guidance of the museum guards
Take care of yourself and try to find a space and a place where you can do the practice without feeling unsafe or threatened