Installation views of Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Solarium (2023), multi-channel video installation, dimensions variable, at the Thailand Biennale, Chiang Rai 2023: The Open World, 2023. Courtesy the artist and Thailand Biennale.
‘I would like to thank all the spirits and all the ghosts in Thailand who made it possible for me to be here’.
– Thai film director Apichatpong Weerasethakul, as he accepted the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 2010 for his film Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010).
For years, the art circle in Bangkok has witnessed a range of strange goings-on. One local artist is said to have worn the finger bones of legendary late artists around his neck so he could create paintings that sold at sky-high prices. Before that, a former singer told the media that the ghost of a world-renowned artist who had passed away more than a hundred years ago had visited her — and he came to tell her that she owned one of his paintings.
At first, stories such as these sound like superstitious nonsense with no tangible evidence to back them up. However, they reflect the real beliefs of people in Thailand, along with the larger region of Southeast Asia, people whose daily lives were never fully cut off from the spiritual realm and magic by modernisation. This seems to hold true even in the most avant-garde of creative industries, such as the Thai contemporary art scene, which is deeply intertwined with these folkloric beliefs.
Apichatpong Weerasethakul (b. 1970) is one of the first Thai filmmakers who, unlike his contemporaries, made movies outside of the studio system. His films are thus experimental in nature, and they challenge, tease, and put a twist on the traditions of Thai filmmaking. Drawing on the plots of classic Thai movies, radio and TV dramas, and even old comic books that used to be sold for one Baht a copy, Apichatpong combines these plotlines with folk beliefs, local legends, and fairy tales. He also derives inspiration from Thai cloak-and-sword dramas, endowing the stories of ordinary or marginalised people in small rural towns with social significance. Using simple yet powerful storytelling techniques, his films break down the division between the realms of truth and fiction. Yet their understated style constantly reminds the audience that what they are watching is imaginary and unreal.
His film Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010) not only recalls the eponymous character’s countless previous incarnations, but it also features ghostly beings. These include the red-eyed monkey ghost, which was Boonmee’s long-lost son who vanished for years only to return in a monstrous, inhuman form, and the spirit of his wife who passed away more than a decade ago. These entities appear before the family in a mysterious and inexplicable manner.
Still image of Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, 2010, 114 mins. Courtesy the artist and Kiang Malingue, Hong Kong.
An earlier film by Apichatpong, Tropical Malady (2004), also draws inspiration from folk legends. It depicts tiger-men, which are creatures that Thai and Karen people believe inhabit the forest, into whose depths they drag and devour humans. The tiger-men are believed to be the result of either black magic or actual tigers that devoured so many humans that the spirits of their victims turned their bodies into those of tiger-men. These creatures usually maintain human forms, but they can shift into tigers in order to hunt at night. During these times, they may revert to human form to lure new victims, taking on the appearance of a spouse, child, or even a Dhutanga monk who meditates in the forest.
Apichatpong’s later film Cemetery of Splendour (2015) also explores themes of mysteries, ghosts, and reincarnations as it tells the story of a group of young soldiers afflicted by a mysterious sleeping sickness. The cause of the ailment is revealed to be the possession of their bodies by a powerful female spirit who has conscripted their souls to serve long-deceased kings from centuries past in their kingdom of dreams. The film was originally titled Cemetery of Kings before it was given its current title.
Apichatpong’s contemporary art practice is concerned with the supernatural as well. One of his recent works, Solarium (2023) — featured at the Thailand Biennale, Chiang Rai 2023: The Open World — reimagines the hollow-eyed ghost, or Phee Ta Boh, from a 1981 Thai film of the same name by director Nappon Gomarachun. The installation re-created a screening room for the movie Phee Ta Boh, which was projected onto a pane of glass (a technique Apichatpong previously used with Uncle Boonmee). The resulting images were hauntingly beautiful. The soundtrack, belted out of loudspeakers, additionally shook the wooden structure of the school building, creating creaking sounds like those heard in old Thai ghost films. In addition, the installation space was divided into a Side A and Side B, with Side B designated as an observatory area behind the glass screen, where audience members appeared to become ghostly apparitions from the other side.
Apart from the installation itself, the exhibition space — the former Mae Ma School, a deserted building in the Chiang Saen district, Chiang Rai province — along with other props, such as a curtain painted with a landscape, further evoked a sense of being enveloped in the fantastical world of Apichatpong’s films. He later revealed that he had been trying to re-create the set of his 2015 film Cemetery of Splendour in the room.
In addition to his films and artistic expressions, Apichatpong’s supernatural references also stem from real life experiences. In an interview with Freeform magazine in 2007, Apichatpong discussed how he views the spiritual realm as natural rather than supernatural, sharing his direct encounters with ghosts both in Thailand and abroad:
‘Once it came as a smell. I was working in an air-conditioned room on the second floor of my house when I smelled incense, which was preceded by dogs howling — you know, like they do when they see ghosts. First the neighbours’ dogs started barking, and when they stopped, my own dogs picked up. Then suddenly, there was a waft of incense in that closed air-conditioned room even though all the curtains were still. I turned around right away. Then, my dogs stopped barking and [the] next-door dogs began howling instead. I think it must have been a ghost because I couldn’t explain it any other way. And I also saw a ghost when I was in France. It was a translucent female ghost who stood at the foot of my bed. Being in a foreign country, I didn’t feel scared. I simply asked her what she wanted in English, but she faded out like in the movies.'
Even during shoots for his modern art-house films, Apichatpong performs ritualistic offerings to spirits and higher powers. This is a common practice on film sets in Thailand and other Asian countries with similar beliefs. As he explained in the same interview:
'When I shoot at a new location, I light incense sticks and ask for permission first. This ritual is especially important on film sets, at least to boost morale. It’s for the same reasons that I pay respect to Lord Buddha every night. I don’t do this to receive anything in return; I do it to calm my mind and stay focused during the shoot. Once, something strange happened at the Chao Por Khao Yai Shrine in Khao Kheow. We were using fortune-telling sticks there to check our luck, and we kept getting this really bad telling that nothing would work out. Despite trying several times, we kept getting the same number, and that day turned out to be a disaster for real — we couldn’t shoot anything at all.
I don’t believe in ghosts in the traditional sense, but I do see them as a form of energy. I also believe in reincarnation, which is why this theme appears in many of my films’.
Site visit by artistic director of the Bangkok Art Biennale, professor Dr. Apinan Poshyananda. Courtesy the Bangkok Art Biennale.
Apichatpong’s ghosts simultaneously serve as metaphors for the Thai political system that suppresses its people through fear. He once described his native country as one that operates on the currency of fear, where the state exploits the animism deeply rooted in Thai society to keep its people ignorant. According to state-sponsored logic, all of our actions require assistance from higher powers. Therefore, to do anything, we feel that we must consult fortune-tellers or mediums to get advice or find out an auspicious time to start an activity or event. As a result, the Thai people have become increasingly indecisive — and dependent on these sources. Apichatpong says that cinema is like a mirror reflecting who we are, as well as a tool that is used to dispel at least some of our fears. He has further admitted that in his most recent film, Memoria (2021), no sacrificial rituals were involved.
Even at the international contemporary art festival, the Thailand Biennale, Chiang Rai 2023, there was considerable attention and respect paid to the supernatural. This was especially evident in the exhibition spaces of the Chiang Saen district, whose history as a town of the Lan Na Kingdom dates back almost 700 years. The location is rich in otherworldly stories, and many rituals were performed during the installation of the festival’s artworks around town. At historic sites, in particular, experts were consulted out of fear that the installations would encounter problems with the local spirits and not otherwise be successful.
I can personally attest to this practice, as I was present at one of the exhibition spaces in Chiang Saen, which shall remain nameless. At the time, several artists were encountering numerous difficulties during their installations, especially those involving video or multimedia elements. The caretaker of the place suggested to the organisers that these persistent problems could be due to them not paying proper respect to a guardian spirit residing in a large banyan tree, a long-standing feature of the location for decades. A story also circulated that, ten years earlier, there had been a notorious incident in the area where ten people were killed during a robbery on a boat in the Mekong River. Locals believe that the vengeful spirits of the victims still haunt the area to this day.
In the metropolitan city of Bangkok, a similar belief persists. A gallerist working at a space in the heart of the city (who shall also remain nameless) shared with me that without proper offerings being made to the spirits and higher powers at the location, the installation process often runs into problems—and that videos and multimedia works are particularly vulnerable. They believe that these entities possibly emit a certain energy that can affect electrical devices.
Rituals involving supernatural powers played an important part at the Bangkok Art Biennale since its debut in 2018, especially at sacred sites such as Buddhist temples, which have been used at each edition since its debut in 2018. Apinan Poshyananda, the festival’s artistic director and chief executive, told me that a Brahmin master of ceremonies was officially brought on board to lead an opening ritual at each sacred site.
These occurrences have made me aware of what I consider to be the most startling paradox of the Thai contemporary art world. The realization came to me in 2022, when I had the opportunity to attend a lecture-performance by Hito Steyerl (b. 1966), a German artist known for her progressive and modern ideas. Working with moving images, installations, and performance art, the internationally recognized filmmaker, writer, and art critic incorporates cutting-edge technology to explore today’s digital age in extraordinary and unique ways. Her works are in a vein similar to those of the 1960s and ’70s Italian Arte Povera movement, artists who used old, broken, cheap, or seemingly worthless objects found anywhere to create art. The movement was a protest against the state-sanctioned standards of beauty and value, as well as a critique of the unchecked industrial and technological developments in Italy at the time.
Similarly, Steyerl creates art out of the seemingly worthless, low-quality digital photos she finds littering the internet — doctored images, mundane screenshots from people’s computers and smartphones, and viral online visuals. Her works therefore adopt a Pop aesthetic that references selfie culture and social media. Perhaps we could term this style ‘Digital Povera’.
Steyerl is fascinated by the digital images and information that bombard us daily, as well as the technology behind their production and circulation. ‘Poor, pixelated images are all over the Internet’, she notes. ‘They are easy to digest and considered good value. If we look closely enough, they even reveal certain secrets’. Her works examine these low-quality images and the information found across the digital landscape to explore their origins, meanings, and impact on human thoughts and worldviews in an era overwhelmed by information. She thus poses a poignant question: How we can assign value or even create art in a world where everything is digitalised?
In 2018 Steyerl held an exhibition in Thailand as part of the Ghost:2561 festival, which explored the concept of ghosts and spirits in multicultural and contemporary societies worldwide. Although different cultures have distinctive ideas about what ghosts are, they share the underlying belief that ghosts exist in a realm beyond human sight. Our collective sense of their existence thus unites us through a shared inner experience. These ideas were presented at the event through video installations and performance art that were innovative, fresh and avant-garde, with Bangkok, serving as the series’ first stop.
Shown at 100 Tonson Gallery during Ghost:2561, the video installation by Steyerl, titled Liquidity, Inc. (2014) used the motif of flowing water to tell the story of Jacob Wood, a Vietnamese refugee adopted by an American family who became a financial analyst and then lost his job during the 2008 recession. He then turned his mixed martial art (MMA) hobby into a career. The installation depicted his story by interspersing it with various representations of flowing water, from literal clips of water to the overflowing of online information, to artistic representations like Hokusai’s famous ocean waves (which also exist on Wikipedia), and the metaphorical flow of information and assets in capitalist societies. A YouTube clip of Bruce Lee, one of Jacob’s heroes, sharing his motto ‘Be formless, shapeless, like water’ was also included. Steyerl created this collage from low-resolution, low-quality information that floods the Internet, turning it into a work that is quick-paced, exciting, exhilarating, sarcastic, as well as thought-provoking. The video was projected onto a screen facing a blue styrofoam structure resembling stadium seats or a skateboarding rink, so that it seemed as if the audience were riding this massive wave of information that was about to crash into the screen.
Still image from Hito Steyerl, Liquidity Inc., 2014, video, 30 min. Courtesy the artist and Esther Schipper, Berlin.
Installation view of from Hito Steyerl, Liquidity Inc., 2014, video, 30 min, at 100 Tonson Gallery at Ghost:2561, 2018, Bangkok. Courtesy the artist.
In 2022, this same artist came to Bangkok again for the second edition of Ghost 2565: Live Without Dead Time, to deliver a lecture performance titled ‘Probable Title: Zero Probability, 2012’. The performance was ultra-modern and profoundly insightful. She also courageously criticizes the trend of NFTs and AI-generated images with which everyone seems to be enamoured, dismissing them as merely ‘a great PR move by the big corporations’.
Hito Steyerl and Rabih Mroué, Probable Title: Zero Probability, 2012, 2022, performance at Ghost 2565: Live Without Dead Time, 2022, Bangkok. Courtesy the artists.
Yet, shortly before the show began, I saw the artist standing with incense sticks in hand, solemnly praying to the house spirits of the exhibition space. The sight was such a stark contrast to her public image that I chalked it up to a case of ‘when in Bangkok, do as the Bangkokians do’. Nonetheless, I could not help but think to myself that even the formidable power of NFTs and AI pales in comparison to the spirits and higher powers residing in that building. Even Steyerl (and the organizers) did not dare to test their power for fear of electrical failures or other unexpected events. It was a reminder that we were working in a land with deeply rooted respect for the spirits.
Another work in the same Ghost 2565 series, titled SOO-KWAN2022 (2022) by Chantana Tiprachart, was inspired by an auspicious local Isan ritual, the Sookwan ritual. However, the artist depicted it within an atmosphere of desolation, darkness and fear. Glowing light occasionally filled the space, symbolizing an authoritarian political regime that suppresses people by shackling them with irrational beliefs within an oppressive system. It seems as if this regime is a ghost that constantly haunts and feeds off the living population. This piece serves as yet another reminder that this land has always been under the influence of ghostly spirits.
Chantana Tiprachart, SOO-KWAN2022, 2022, video installation, 20 min, at Nova Contemporary for Ghost 2565: Live Without Dead Time, 2022, Bangkok. Courtesy the artist and Nova Contemporary, Bangkok.