Ghost in the Machine (2025)

Ghost in the Machine was a site-responsive performance installation conceived by Jill Martin Boualaxai and developed collaboratively with Alma Sua Lindenhovius, Fiona Oliver Larkin, Elvey Anna Stedman and the Sativa Drummers. Their live percussion became part of the work’s evolving structure. The project was created for Hidden Door 2025 at The Paper Factory in Edinburgh.

Set among three decommissioned machines, the work imagined a future folklore in which animal-like figures attempted to interpret the purpose of a vanished industrial world. Repetition, rhythm and ritual transformed the gestures of former workers into strange ceremonial tasks.

Together, the three machines became the temple-like centre of the installation. A wall drawing approximately 15 metres long and 2.5 to 3 metres high mapped the footprint of each machine while also operating as a performance score. Arrows, directions and instructions guided movement and gestures through the space. Objects from the factory were displayed as relics on small ceremonial plinths within three pits, while large collaborative drawings were transformed into suspended banners.

Across five evenings, movement, live drumming, drawing and painted mark-making accumulated throughout the installation. Marks, gestures and residues formed a changing record of each performance, creating an imagined archaeology written across the surfaces of the factory.