Ouija futures: Learning to live with ghosts

Grappling with the futures of Marxist theory and practice following the collapse of the USSR, philosopher Jacques Derrida asked: how do we learn to live justly? For Derrida, living is learned from those between life and death – that is, from ghosts. Presents are haunted by injunctions from pasts compelling pledges to futures, and justice can only be created in relation to past and future ghosts. Building on a model for using Ouija in human-centred computing design, ‘Ouija Futures: Learning to Live with Ghosts’ offers participants a guided Ouija session for futures thinking. Ouija boards offer participants access to unconscious or embodied knowledge through ideomotor responses: small, unconscious movements expressing thoughts and feelings. This unconscious or embodied knowledge is collective, since Ouija typically engages two or more participants. Ouija boards might therefore be a tactile tool for exploring collective, embodied, unconscious thinking about futures: for treating with the ghosts inside us.