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10. Did You Hear That?

Episode 10 of 10

Kirsty Logan explores a modern quest to capture a ghost in a machine. Why do some want to create ghosts of ourselves? From 2020.

'You set up a tape recorder and leave it running, recording silence. You ask your questions into the silence, leaving a sufficient pause for a response.

Later, you listen back to the recording. Through the mush and static, if you listen very carefully, you may be able to just about make out people speaking.'

Kirsty Logan explores the modern quest to capture a ghost in a machine, from Telsa and Edison feuding over a spirit phone, to the apparent capture of voices in white noise and on tape.

And she discovers that somewhere in the 21st century our wish to contact the dead has changed, we went from wanting to catch the spirit of the dead, to creating ghosts of ourselves.

Illustration by Seonaid Mackay.

Produced at BBC Scotland by Elizabeth Duffy.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in October 2020.

Available now

14 minutes

On radio

Fri 6 Nov 202609:30

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Kirsty Logan - The only time I think of you is all the time

Kirsty Logan - The only time I think of you is all the time

Photo Credit: Simone-Falk


Our Extra Content today is Kirsty Logan, writer of novels and short stories. My books are Things We Say In The Dark, The Gloaming, The Gracekeepers, A Portable Shelter, and The Rental Heart & Other Fairytales.


After 10 episodes exploring the evolution of ghost stories, our presenter Kirsty shares an original ghost story, one that shows the terror and destructiveness of obsessive love.

Broadcasts

  • Fri 30 Oct 202013:45
  • Fri 12 Nov 202114:45
  • Fri 6 Nov 202609:30