(2/2) Specters in the Computer: A Hauntological Interpretation of Vaporwave

A post by Borna Šućurović

**This is the latter part of the article; the former comes before.

Fisher's Intervention: Lost Futures and the Spectral Not Yet

Before we bring Derrida's hauntology in connection with vaporwave it is important to note two additional points, the first of which has to do with terminology. Throughout the French original of the Specters of Marx Derrida uses two 'names' for specters: la spectre and le revenant. While the former tries to express at once all of the properties explained in the previous chapter, the latter places particular emphasis on the reversible function of spectral existents. Le revenant – in both French and English languages – denotes a 'returning ghost', one who returns from somewhere. By using this name Derrida is attempting to show how specters return into temporal planes they do not belong to and within which certain forms of the work of mourning are already underway. As Merlin Coverley writes in the third chapter of his Hauntology;

(1/2) Specters in the Computer: A Hauntological Interpretation of Vaporwave

A post by Borna Šućurović

Introduction

 

On February 29th, 2016 a video entitled S U N D A Y S C H O O L was uploaded to YouTube and quickly became known as one of the first examples of what has since been dubbed simpsonwave. The video follows Bart Simpson's time spent going to Sunday school and getting to know Jessica, the daughter of reverend Lovejoy with whom he falls unhappily in love. While these events are taking place, the song Teen Pregnancy by Blank Banshee – in which an androgynous voice repeats the phrases "I'm just a kid" and "It was just a little mistake" over the beats of synthesizer-infused music – is playing in the background. A VHS filter is present throughout the entire duration of the video, giving off the impression that the footage was saved from a video cassette from the mid-1990s and subsequently digitized.