Ghosts in the Machine documents graffiti and rave subculture in the wake of a post-Thatcher Britain, as a disenfranchised youth finds social cohesion and identity through the act of graffiti. Meanwhile, rave’s rhetoric of social inclusion, set amid Thatcherism, resisted the binaries of boredom, race, class and gender, making it one of its generation’s most significant youth movements.

Written through the eyes of two participant observers, Christopher Stead and Nema, who witnessed these two movements in their infancy blossom into global sociocultural phenomena, the book contains seven chapters of imperfect histories, lucid anecdotes, and subcultural polemics to accompany 300 archival photos that capture the spirit of intervention amid an oppressive political climate, with a foreword by the artist and activist Jonny Banger.

Continuing into the 21st century, counterculture’s journey the book charts to an unknown future, questioning if the mass acceleration of communication has led to a freezing of time, leaving both seemingly stuck in a state of hauntological retrospection. Subculture has always had the capacity to resist and reflect the moment’s sociopolitical conditions, but what happens when the ghosts of their past haunt these conditions? With Brexit considered the miners‘ strike of our times, the spectres of social inequality continue to haunt today’s generation, creating a renewed thirst for countercultural change. Designed by Studio Aurèle Sack