“Haunting is historical, to be sure, but it is not dated,” Jacques Derrida wrote in 1993, in response to the End of History, “the witnesses of history fear and hope for a return.” Or, fear of the destined eternal return, as he believes that ghosts never die and that they are a part of the future. The Algerian Jewish philosopher coined hauntology in Spectres de Marx: “To haunt does not mean to be present, and it is necessary to introduce haunting into the very construction of a concept.”

After decades of drifting, Marx’s spectres eventually arrive at the other end of history – hovering over Victoria Harbour, as the senior officials celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Hong Kong Handover. History is looping spirally, upwards or downwards, with extreme velocity. 

The British ghosts of Mark Fisher are coming back too, in spatiality and temporality, to take vengeance for the cancellation of the future. The Goldsmiths’ teacher reactivates Derrida’s hauntology into two trajectories: the no longer and the not yet. The no longer remains effective as a virtuality (a destined pattern); for the yet to happen/born but already dead – the unfulfilled promise of lost futures, this unnameable thing haunts the present and arrives early in the form of revenants. 

For Hangover Haunted & their Lost Futures, photographic imagery intervenes to trigger a ‘spectral (re)turn’ of apparition. Adopted hauntology is localized as the triangular portal or app interface. The exhibition is conceptualized into three channelling. 

Gallery address: L2-02, JCCAC, 30 Pak Tin Street, Shek Kip Mei, Kowloon