In the heart of London’s media world, leading video artist Tony Oursler created a spectral son-et-lumière for Soho Square, as a kind of ‘psycho-landscape’.

Delving deep into the history of media, he has looked into historic shows that invoked the ‘spirit’ of the site, such as the phantasmagoria of the late 18th century, as well as the beliefs and superstitions that have haunted the media throughout the 20th century.

This new book documents Oursler’s most elaborate ‘deep history of media’ to date in an illustrated time line.

An interview by Louise Neri highlights the background to the project while Marina Warner and Carlo McCormick elaborate on points of historic reference and consider the influence of and relationship to spiritualism within the development of the media in general, and Oursler’s work in particular.