Clément Rosenberg, Hantises, habiter avec l’invisible

Hantises (Hauntings)
living with the invisible
The origin of the word haunt is “hantalon,” an old Germanic verb meaning to handle, to deal with, to trade. The word haunting, before taking on the meaning we know today, referred to our acquaintances, our ways of trading with someone, or something.
In the 19th century, a period when the whole of Europe was fascinated by Gothic novels and spiritism, the term referred directly to maintaining relationships with ghosts.
Haunting a place would therefore be a way of attending a place, while acknowledging its invisible nature, that is, what escapes our first glance, but also our modern reason.
“Then, a noise is heard in the house. It could be a cat, a rat, a hedgehog, or the beams being worked by worms, or a demon, or even a shadow.” This quotation from the treatise De rerum varietate, written by the famous Renaissance mage Jerome Cardan, already conveys the significance of the figure of the haunted house.
The invisible is as much the materiality of the wall, down to its occult layers, as the “immaterials” of the room: the ricochet of sound on the ceiling, the reflection of a light in a corner or the humidity felt. Added to this are the presences that inhabit the room without anyone noticing: plants, animals, household gods, and other representatives of the little people of our homes.
Hantises is an attempt to challenge the haunted house as a model for inhabiting the 21st century.