#also think Speak Now WAS this formative text for me & represents/influenced the way i relate to love and like. SIGH. well i am thinking

[gayfranzkafka]

(insane post incoming) okay i've been a taylor swift re-recordings hater since the beginning but the Speak Now re-recording is making me INSANE i think it's partially just that i'm having a weird time emotionally anyway but like "Timeless" made me TEAR UP like bro WHAT like something about it being soooo essentially of that era but new like the novelty of it BONKED me over the head with a reminder of what it felt like to hear all those songs off Speak Now for the first time when i just had this IDEA of what love was & hadn't actually experienced it yet (& wouldn't for many years!!) like way before i even knew i was a lesbian just listening to taylor sing "enchanted" alone in my bedroom wondering who the guy she was singing about was & if she ever saw him again (because i was #blessed to not have internet access and therefor not know it was the dude from owl city she was singing about alsdfhaklsdhfasdh) & i remember just pouring through the little lyric booklet & its pictures & intro & mostly it was just me & the music & this picture of her in a ballgown in my head & this made up but hopeful romantic idea of what love is and like S C R E A M

#anyway i'm doing fine in case you're wondering #not to overshare but i think it's like. also because in my relationship rn we are like having to work through some things & like not even #anything out of the ordinary like just compatibility stuff that comes up for any longterm couple but we started talking about like spending #the rest of our lives together in very hypothetical way but still like really early in the relationship & now my gf is more like 'okay i #do really want to date you but i want to focus on working through these things & it feels overwhelming to talk about the longterm future rn #like not even in a way where i don't trust them & us to work through this but i'm just like. at the end of the day i guess i AM a romantic #& do have this idealized version of love that i believe in like i think that can be a bad thing (part of what kept me with my abusive hs ex #& i think it can also be a strength like i think it's NICE that i can still so clearly see & believe in a future with my gf even when we ar #working through hard stuff & when they feel overwhelmed but like. it's like is that DUMB or just like. i feel my feelings in a really inten #*intense way that i DO think is (sigh) like taylor a LITTLE BIT & it's like oh what does it mean for other people to not necessarily share #my same relationship to love like even the people you love will have a different relationship to love than you if that makes sense which li #*like duh but is also feeling like a mindfuck rn ANYWAY in conclusion i don't think my feelings are REALLY just about speak now but i DO #also think Speak Now WAS this formative text for me & represents/influenced the way i relate to love and like. SIGH. well i am thinking #about it. and i DID listen to 'timeless' on repeat & feel so emotional over it i literally felt like i was going to throw up <3 #and it's objectively like not even THAT good of a song asdlfjashdfasdfahsdf #anyway hiiiii how is everyone

[zukkacore]

Whitewashing in AtlaLok: the Western & Christian Influence on s2 of LoK

Ok, so i’m not a big brained expert on all things indigenous or even all things asian but I do think bryke's christian & western worldview seeps so far into season 2 of LoK that i think out of every season it’s by far the most unsalvageable out of everything they’ve ever done in the Atlaverse and is a very insidious kind of whitewashing. I know that sounds hefty but here’s what I mean

For the record, I’m a mixed filipino person & while there is religious diversity among filipinos, more than i think ppl realize or that the catholic majority is willing to let on, when we were colonized a large percent of the population was indeed forced to convert to catholicism so that’s my background, & i don’t know everything about taoism or the what the tai chi symbol represents but the way Bryke westernize the concept of Yin and Yang is honestly… kinda bewildering. They get so many details about yin & yang wrong?? & Yes, it’s possible they could’ve been trying to create their own lore that differentiates itself from the traditional depictions of Yin & Yang, but in the end i think it doesn’t matter b/c the lore they invent is a very obviously western interpretation of the concept of “balance”.

The most important and honestly worst change they make is that concepts of “light” and “dark” are completely oversimplified and flattened to represent basically “good” and “evil” (which, the light and dark side are a bit more complex than representing just “peace/order vs. Chaos” like the show might imply but we don’t even have time for that, but is funny how they get the genders wrong. Like. Traditionally, light is usually coded masculine and dark is usually coded feminine, but never mind that, that’s just a tangent). This really simplifies the nuance of the s2 conflict and makes it a lot less interesting, not to mention just—misrepresents a very real religious philosophy?

And for the record, a piece of media going out of its way to do "the show, don’t tell" thing of stating in the text that “oh, light and dark are not the same thing as good vs. evil” without actually displaying that difference through the writing is just lip service, and its poor writing. A lot of pieces of media do this, but i think s2 of LoK is particularly egregious. The point of this philosophy of balance is that you aren’t supposed to moralize about which side is “good” or “bad”, or even really which one is “better” or “worse”. Even if the show states the concepts are not interchangeable, if the media in question continually frames one side (and almost always its “chaos/darkness”) as the “evil” side, then the supposed distinction between “light vs. dark” and “good vs. evil” is made moot. And besides the occasional offhand remark that implies more nuance without actually delivering, Vaatu is basically stock evil incarnate.

This depiction of conflict as “defeating a singular representation of total evil” isn’t solely christian, but it is definitely present in christian beliefs. And I think those kinds of stories can be done well, but in this case, in a world filled entirely of asian, Pacific Islander & inuit poc, to me it feels like a form of subtle whitewashing? B/c you’re taking characters that probably wouldn’t have christian beliefs, and imposing a christian worldview onto them. Not to mention removes what could have been an interesting conflict of any nuance and intrigue… and honestly, sucks, because I do think s2 has the bones of an interesting idea, mostly b/c there are potential themes that could’ve been explored—I know this b/c they were already explored in a movie that exists, and it’s name is Princess Mononoke! It has a lot of the same elements—tension between spirits and humanity, destruction of nature in the face of rapid industrialization, moral ambiguity where there are no easy or fast answers and both sides have sympathetic and understandable points of view. (Unsurprising b/c Miyazaki is Japanese & Japanese culture has a lot of influence from Buddhism, Taoism, Shintoism, etc)

Bryke’s western & christian worldview also totally seeps into the characterization of Unalaq, the antagonist of the season which is a real problem. I’m in the middle of rewatching s2 right now and what struck me is that….. Unalaq comes across kinda ecofash AND fundamentalist which is 1) seems like an odd combination but maybe it really isn’t? 2) i think is a really tacky choice considering that the water tribes take the majority of its inspiration from inuit and polynesian indigenous cultures.

I honestly forgot abt this but Unalaq gives this whole lame speech abt how the SWT & humans as a whole suck b/c of their lack of spiritual connection & it was really eerie to me b/c "humans are morally bankrupt and they must be wiped out/punished for their destruction of the environment" is total ecofash logic bc it blames all of humanity for damage caused by those in power—be they capitalists or whoever. It’s a worldview that blames the poor and powerless for something they have no say in, and has real eugenics undertones bc with every implication of culling, there has to be someone who appoints themself the job of culling—of who is and isn’t worthy of death.

This belief also struck me as......... kinda christian in it's logic as well which is WEIRD b/c once again........ their cultural inspirations are DEFINITELY not christian...... The whole "man is inherently evil and must spend their whole lifetime repenting/must face punishment for it’s wickedness" thing and the way that christianity treats humanity as born with original sin or inherently corrupt—as well as above or separate from nature are really stronger undertones in Unalaqs worldview....... which isn't really an indigenous way or thinking.

I'm generalizing of course but from what I have seen from the indigenous people who speak on this is that (feel free to point out or correct me if i’m mostly generalizing abt Native Americans and not other indigenous cultures & there are some differences here) is that while native tribes are not monolithic and do vary wildly, there are a lot of common threads and that reverence and respect toward nature and your surroundings is an important tenant of indigenous beliefs. (I specifically remember the hosts on All My Relations saying essentially that we humans are a part of nature, we are not separate from it, and humans are not superior to animals—I’m paraphrasing but that is the gist of it)

So, yeah, I think it’s just really distasteful to write an indigenous character who is characterized in a way that’s way more in line with a christian fundamentalist & wants to bring about a ragnarok style apocalypse end of the world when that isn’t really a tenant of our beliefs? (btw, the way the end of the world is framed is also kinda fucked up? If i were being charitable, I could say that maybe s2’s storyline is a corruption of the hindu depiction of the end of the world, but even that sounds mildly insulting for reasons I won’t get into b/c i am Not The Expert On Hinduism. I will say that once again, the framing of the concept is all wrong, the show views the idea of apocalypse through a very western lense)

To wrap this up, I think the depiction of Unalaq could *maybe* work b/c he is the antagonist, so someone who strays from the NWT cultural tradition in a way that makes his view of morality more black and white wouldn’t be a *horrible* idea for the bad guy of the season. Especially because the introduction of capitalism to the A:TLA universe could probably cause a substantial shifts to… idk, everything i guess, b/c capitalism is so corrosive. Like. Sometimes people are just traitors. I do think it would be interesting to portray the way capitalism manifests in a society without white christians. Like… I do think there are a lot of ways secular christianity and capitalism are interlinked. But Unalaq is not portrayed as an outsider, he’s portrayed as hyper-traditionalist in a way that’s vilified? I guess rightly so, he does suck, but it’s just hard to conceptualize how a person like Unalaq comes to exist in the first place. In the end, I don’t really think it makes sense, in a world without white people, I don’t really know where this introduction of black and white christian morality would even come from in the avatar world?

TL;DR, Bryke applying western christian morality & world views to non-white characters in a world where white people have NEVER existed to affect our beliefs is a subtle form of white-washing. It imposes simplified “good vs. evil” world-views & cultural beliefs onto its characters. Any attempt to represent or even just integrate our actual beliefs into the A:tla lore are twisted and misrepresented is a way that is disrespectful and saps out any nuance or intrigue from the story, and alienates the people its supposed to represent from recognizing themselves within the final product. And Finally, on a more superficial story level, these writing choices clashe with the already existing world of ATLA--and is honestly just poor world-building.

#shut up Janelle #lok #Atla #lok crit #legend of korra

[macgyvertape]

So how’s Trials of Osiris now?

I’ve been wanting to do a follow up to on my essay “Trials of Osiris has been corrupting Guardians with Darkness“, and I figured no better time than when Bungie made a lot of changes to Trials gameplay.

No leak info or spoilers beyond week 1 of s15, this season’s Trials weapon is available in game from turning in last seasons bounty. I’ll cite like (this) the name of the lore, it can all be found on ishtar-collective since I’m having issues with links.

 to recap: before Stasis and before Savathun!Osiris, Trials was a corrupting influence related to the Darkness, affecting both Ghost and Guardian, and driving them try to perma-kill each other.

What I find fun about this storyline, is that it has shifted from being about creepy unknowable Darkness into a story about the clash between Guardian’s use of darkness powers vs faith in the Light, that’s clearly meant to continue the themes from Seasons of the Drifter and Opulence. Bungie isn’t going to put this plotline ingame, so IMO it’s fine all the lore implications are obscure.

thesis: in universe characters directly list the obvious parallels for Shayura “"You're no better than the Dredgen ," he says ... "…or Malphur ."” (SW, Shayura's Wrath) but also Shayura is set up as a foil to Aunor Mahal.

Since Season of the Chosen where the Trials Armor lore detailed Shayura’s descent into some degree of madness from 3 points of view; the lore has mentioned that while Savathun!Osiris is interested by guardians being corrupted by Darkness they aren’t the cause of it, and didn’t know of it till Saint-14 brought it up (In Memoriam Shell) (IH, Igneous Hammer).

Basically Shayura’s belief that the Traveler wants her to do this, and her willingness to kill Guardian is her own (PAB, Pyrrhic Ascent Bond) (Shayura's Wrath). Although there is confirmed final death for a Hunter in Shayura’s Wrath lore, it is implied that she has killed an unknown amount of Stasis users “Fragments of Ghost shells are scattered atop the console” (PAB)

There is an additional trophy “the Human skull sitting in the middle of her command console. Its hollow eye sockets stare back at her” (SW) following Shayura’s attempted murder patterns, I’m guessing that skull was her fireteam member Aisha who is one of the few humans mentioned in the context of Shayura’s breakdown, and who “betrayed” her by using stasis. Further evidence would be that Shayura’s story was told from the 3 points of view of her fireteam: the only point of view since the Shayura Wrath lore has been from that of Reed-7(Reeds Regret).

side note: it doesn’t seem like Shayura is treating her Ghost well either. “A Ghost reduced to little more than a bare sphere of metal, deprived of a shell” (SW)

Dredgen Yor:

It’s hard to make direct comparisons with Dredgen Yor, most of his lore is from D1, and contradicts in points where it seems like it was handled by different writers. The other point of similarity besides being infamous and reviled for murder of other Guardians is the lore being clear that they suffer from the emotional toll of endless war.

Shayura:

"Can Guardians be unfit for duty?" Shayura wonders aloud, her voice muffled by the tabletop.

"I mean…" Aisha replies. Her hesitation has a palpable sting. (PAG, Pyrric Ascent Gloves)

Yor:

To Rezyl, the Captain was already an afterthought. ... Rezyl’s attention had shifted to the unknown, but inevitable, battles to follow.... Rezyl was growing tired of small wins, however meaningful. (Rezyl Azzir - War Without End)

It’s not the same emotion, but it’s not often Guardians doubts in their role in such a way. You could say Shayura is the Light version of what Dredgen Yor was, but while the Darkness encouraged Yor (Ghost Fragment: Darkness 4), I HIGHLY doubt the traveler is encouraging Shayura the way she thinks it is. (Pyrrhic Ascent Boots)

Taking the the ending words of "I killed an agent of the Darkness," Shayura says, ... .Bile rises in the back of Shayura's throat."They come in many forms." (SR). I don’t think its much of a stretch to think the lines refer to her as an agent of darkness as well.

Shin Malphur:

Shin Malphur and Dredgen Yor, have a fair amount of parallels, especially considering Shin Malphur = Dredgen Vale twist, but it’s unclear how widely known that twist is in universe and if that is what the dead hunter was referring to.

Shayura’s Wrath item text “"But here you are. This is truly a beginning…" —Shin Malphur” (SW) parallels Dredgen Yor’s last words “But here you are. This is truly an end” (Ghost Fragment: The Last Word 4)

it’s heavily implied Shin is speaking to Shayura, but do I think Shin Malphur would be helping Shayura? Not unless Bungie is planning on changing his characterization yet again. There are obvious surface parallels: two solar wielding vigilantes who hunt Guardians who wield Darkness and love extra-judicial murder (Source: too many pages to count where Shin talks about culling those who have gone too far into the darkness). But Shayura’s zealot belief in the Traveler and her crusade against darkness wielders are the opposite of Shin’s beliefs of using both Light and Dark:

“the building of a new world, one where absolutes cower to the might of compromise, where Light tempers dark and the dark opens new insight into the Light's many undiscovered gifts.” (Nothing Ends: The Long Goodbye)

“the shadows of dark power that tempt us are not inherently evil. In fact, they are simply another tool to be used if we hope to bend the unknown to our will, an impossible feat we must learn to master if we wish to push back the ever-aggressive tide of extinction.“ (Nothing Ends: The Liar's Trap)

I think in the end Shin Malphur is more of a contrast than a comparison to Shayura, I’d also be suprised if Bungie brings him back as they’ve had him give his retirement twice now (Letters from a Renegade, Nothing Ends)

Aunor Mahal:

both are/were members of the Praxic Order, both strongly oppose Guardians using power of darkess.

A key difference is Aunor still has faith in the Vanguard while Shayura does not (Pyrrhic Ascent Hood). Shayura is what the fandom who only listened to Drifter’s side of the story thought Aunor was, someone more than ready to kill Guardians and Ghosts.

While Shayura only consideres execution, Aunor has faith in rehabilitation

“You're costing us Ghosts—means to fight enemies of humanity. These Guardians represent more than potential Dredgens” (The Warlock Aunor: The Salt Mines).

Following the Trend of other corrupted Guardians like Sola or Trestin, whom Aunor confrots; I’m expecting to see Aunor eventually confront Shayura, it seemed implied in the Igneous Hammer lore.

Side note:

Even before Guardians used stasis, its clear there was a ramp up from when Gambit appeared with Guardian’s going too far with the darkeness to the Guardian and ghost corruption seen in Trials

 “will face Praxic justice. Perhaps exile. We haven't had to lock anyone up in decade“(Message from Aunor VIII)

to

"It's affecting Ghosts now too. We should bring them back to the City. This makes five." (Temptation's Hook). “ You think she'll be lucky number…  how many are we up to now? At this point, the only chance I'm giving them is the chance to kill me first” (The Messenger)

Shayura mentions she was locked up and escaped (SW), and it’s clear that the Praxic Order is stretched thin

“Aunor scowled. She was perhaps the most diligent of the Hidden ...Each time they met, she seemed a little gaunter than before. A little testier" (IH)

Aunor’s morals and loyalty to the Vanguard are some of her defininging characteristics and I don’t see that changing. But if this storyline continues in Witch Queen then I see things hitting a breaking point.

#destiny 2 #destiny lore #trials of osiris #shayura #aunor mahal #dredgen yor #shin malphur

[yamayuandadu]

Rider of Clouds

A a loose adaptation of the Ugaritic Baal cycle of myths, with some changes and the holes patched up with other myths and historical trivia. It will probably go on and on as some sort of silly “myth crossover” thing. Mount Saphon, the spiritual center of a large but poorly defined area spanning from the Mediterranean Sea to the Euphrates and the residence of many gods, needs a new king. While the former king of the gods, El, favors his distant relative Yam, this decision is not popular with the other deities and would be a disaster for their human followers; however, few dare to question El decisions in public. The exception is Baal, the heir(ess) of El's popular but not very ambitious rival Dagan, determined to take Mount Saphon to the bright future of the late bronze age.

Protagonists

Baal (Hebat) – the eponymous Rider of Clouds (a real title used in myths and cult texts), a young weather deity born to Dagan and Shalash (not pictured), semi-retired agricultural gods who settled in Tuttul on the Euphrates shortly before Baal's birth. Dagan hails from Mesopotamia proper, while Shalash is Hurrian. While the mythical  Baal Hadad is male, my version is a woman – the idea started as a joke about conflating Baal from the Baal cycle with Baalat Gebal, a female figure associated with another levantine bronze age city (BG's actual identity is an object of much scholarly debate) being more valid than conflating him with much later Baal Hammon from Carthage (or rather with Roman hot takes about this deity), which happens a lot online, but I got attached to it o now here we are.   She nonetheless uses a male title inherited from her father, much like a few historical female rulers did. In my version “Hadad” is only a title (or rather a me, eg. divine attribute), and her real name is actually Hebat. Irl Hebat was, among other things, the name of a goddess mentioned in one inscription as Dagan's daughter, and thus a featureles sister of Baal. As the levantine/syrian Hebat lacks a defined character in real mythology (”another” Hebat was regarded as the Hurrian storm god's wife but was at times replaced in this role by the more interesting sun goddess of Arinna and that's about it; I'm not going to use that one in my story) it should be fine to conflate her with Dagan's best attested divine child, I think? Baal is impulsive and follows a moral code which, depending on the point of view, might be either naive or heroic, which means she's not exactly the optimal person to get involved in n-dimensional divine politics (the ideal person to be the protagonist of an Ugaritic epic poem, as evidenced by history), but that's not enough to stop her from trying; the popularity with humans helps, too. The story documents her rise to the position of the head god of the pantheon residing on Mount Saphon, ruling over Ugarit and other surrounding areas.

Astarte (it should be Ashtart for maximal accuracy but everyone knows the later form of the name better so...) – a goddess of humble origin and no particularly well defined attributes, who attaches herself to Baal initially in hopes of advancing own career, though the two eventually develop a more genuine relationship. She patterns herself after the much more famous Mesopotamian Inanna, seeing her as an ideal to strive for. While Baal has the name recognition and disposition fitting for a major deity, Astarte is the part of the duo actually capable of navigating politics, and takes the title of Face of Baal, negotiating support for Baal's bid with other gods. The image of Baal she projects differs slightly from reality, though not enough for most onlookers to notice. Astarte is also a connoisseur of foreign clothing (as pictured above) and art.

Anat (art courtesy of my girlfriend who sadly isn’t on tumblr but who helped a lot with figuring out a lot about this story) – the younger daughter of the ruling couple of Mount Saphon. Her philosophy differs greatly from her parents' and as a result she isn't really seriously considered for succession. Her hobbies include bladed weapons, gambling and heroic epics; in the past she attempted writing her own self insert one. Her temperament means she was never considered for succession, which she doesn't particularly mind. She's deeply invested in Baal's ascendance, and is probably the god Astarte wants to recruit for their cause the most.

Gupan and Ugar – two minor gods who might be some of the only allies Baal recruited herself rather than with Astarte's help. They play a minor role in the story as her messengers and heralds (just like in the real myth!). They're also a couple. The cuneiform on their coats says “Baal.”

Kothar-wa-Khasis – a craftsman god who, by own admission, only works part time in Ugarit and travels the world for the rest of it. He's kind and dependable and his wares are both affordable and of great quality, but his real motives are hard to ascertain. His real identity is likewise a subject of much speculation among other gods – while his preferred manner of clothing hints at an egyptian origin, nothing is known for sure. His true name is that of the god Ptah of Memphis; he spends most time outside it and incognito because he thinks smaller pantheons on the periphery of Egypt's influence offer more artistic freedom. He speaks in a very poetic pointlessly complex way (basically... imitating the style of ancient poem translations). While an architect first and foremost he a reneissance man - architect, sculptor, engineer, armorer, musician. He isn't very fond of Yam due to the latter's lack of aptitude for art and cost cutting suggestions.

There are actually two gods hiding behind the title “Kothar-wa-Khasis,” with the second one hailing from Caphtor (Crete) from where  Kothar arrives when commissioned to build Baal's palace in the real myth. She's shy and refuses to reveal her real name and hides behind the title “Mistress of the Labyrinth” and the labrys symbol. Her arrival is generally a sign of the duo taking a project particularly seriously.

Shapash – El's firstborn daughter, serving as “the torch of the gods”, a royal herald and solar deity. She also handles her parents' “foreign policy” on their behalf, which in practice means figuring out how to placate neighbors whose decisions aren't guided by the need to avoid angering various reviled figures.

Antagonists

Yam (right)  – a sea monster more than a god, presiding over the nearby section of the sea and all that dwells in it, including the commercially significant sea slugs. He's also the son of the formerly influential Anatolian god Kumarbi, banished to the underworld by the current head god Teshub due to his many past misdeeds. As a result of his father's past influence over the world (and current influence over the ruling couple), Yam gained El's support and received many titles, which de facto makes him the most likely to succeed El as the king of local pantheon.  He's capricious and inconsiderate, but maintains a larger than life public image meant to make him palatable to potential backers. The exact circumstances of his arrival in Ugarit are shrouded in mystery, and may or may not be responsible for his unusually strong hatred of Baal. Mot (left) – profoundly unpleasant and unsociable being kept around by Anat's parents for unclear reasons. He resides in the great offering pit in the abandoned city of Urkesh, formerly the center of Kumarbi's sphere of influence, reduced to a ghost town.   While his equivalents in neighboring areas generally view themselves as impartial or as a necessary evil, Mot gets his kicks from posing as a personification of death itself, and is notoriously corrupt. El and Athirat – the ruling couple of Mount Saphon and parents of Anat and Shapash, currently pondering retirement, which stirs many contenders to the throne into action. El is a lifelong opportunist changing views and allegiances as he sees fit, though he pretty consistently favors his distant relative Yam as his main underling ever since the latter arrived in the area.

El was originally Amurru, a courtier of the sky god Anu, overthrown by the nefarious Kumarbi. For unclear reasons Kumarbi made Amurru his vassal and bestowed the name Elkunirsa, or El for short, upon him.

Athirat is largely responsible for El maintaining his title for so long, and is a much craftier politician than he is. She comes from an influential dynasty of sea gods, but lacks dominion over the sea herself.

She and Yam are related, as seen here.

Abduyam – an attempt at developing an obscure figure from the original myth, Yam's nameless and seemingly rather rude and infuriating messenger, into a full blown character. The theophoric name he uses (there are real theophoric names invoking Yam, surprisingly) is just a pseudonym, and his real identity is a mystery. He interned under a variety of famous mythical villains in order to gain a greater understanding of their ways, and currently serves as Yam's messenger, adviser, doorkeeper and punching bag.

Ashtar – a feeble opportunist who sides with Yam, hoping to receive a share in the gains he's making thanks to El's blessings. He's pretty content with playing the role of a toady though his aspirations might be different, as Baal and Astarte suspect due to his love of gaudy imported textiles. Megalomania doesn't necessarily equal malevolence, though. He also loves sea slugs.

Foreign dignitaries

(ignore the ?, it’s just Baal) Marduk (right) – the tutelary deity of Babylon, a prominent and internationally renowned god. While technically the area encompassing Mount Saphon, where the events of the story take place, isn't directly under the control of the Babylonian pantheon, as one of the oldest in the world and the source of the writing it nonetheless has a tremendous impact on smaller neighbors. Formally Marduk is merely a representative of his father Enki and the assembly of the gods in Nippur, but as the old gods are not very mobile, he's the de facto acting head of the pantheon in foreign relations. He doesn't have a unified mythical narrative about himself yet at this point in time, despite his position, which is a source of insecurity for him. During travels, he's assisted by his personal aide and biographer, Nabu (not pictured), and his pet mushussu, Tishpak. Seth (left) – in real life, ancient Egyptians equated many gods of their neighbors with Seth; therefore in Rider of Clouds Seth serves as an ambassador of the Egyptian pantheon, usually residing in Gebal near Mount Saphon – a city whose gods (and human rulers) take pride in trying to be more Egyptian than the Egyptians themselves, and regard Seth as their spiritual liege (under the title “Lord of Lebanon”). While ultimately Marduk's judgment matters the most, Seth gets the right to veto his decisions when it comes to validating claims to local thrones. On good terms with Kothar-wa-Khasis, which is a subject of much gossip among other gods. Teshub (center) – the head of the Hurrian pantheon, technically capable of projecting the most power in Mount Saphon politics due to the Hurrian influence on huge number of other local pantheons, including that of the Hittites, thanks to his marriage to the Hittite sun goddess of Arinna; however, as the local gods for the most part share closer affinity with Mesopotamia than Hatti, he competes with Marduk for political influence. As he and Baal are a very similar type of god, he's the most outspoken supporter of Baal's ascension to the throne out of all 3 foreign dignitaries. El’s support for his nemesis is probably a factor, too.

Kubaba – the head goddess of Carchemish; much like the king of Carchemish served as a Hittite viceroy taking care of affairs of the vassals irl, she acts as Teshub's ambassador in the southeast, mediating between the Anatolian and Syrian gods. She hopes that Baal's rise will normalize foreign relations to the benefit of her human followers – El's erratic behavior and sympathy for a number of widely detested figures made that rather difficult. While she's not much older than Baal, she poses as an ancient deity and dresses like someone twice her age. She also seeks opportunities to insert herself into suitably ancient narratives. In another time and place she'll be known as Cybele, and eventually as the Roman Magna Mater, but this is not the story about it.

Plot-relevant but not present in the story physically

Inanna – the celebrity superstar of every pantheon from Hatti to Elam. After being elevated to one of the foremost positions among the gods she started a profitable franchising business, offering help with setting up own cult system and the right to use the title of “Ishtar” and the eight pointed star emblem in exchange for a share in potential profit and a spot in the franchisee' home pantheon. As her fame is unique even among the greatest of the gods, this isn't that bad of a deal. Other benefits of the franchising program include free tickets to the annual Ishtar meetup in Uruk and a 24/7 tech support line ran by her sukkal Ninshubur. Asides from Astarte, prominent members of the franchising program include the Hurrian Shaushka, the Elamite Pinikir, and the night goddess of Kizzuwatna.

Kumarbi: an agricultural god of the Hurrians who seized the kingship of their pantheon violently before being overthrown himself by Teshub and his allies. Now he resides in the underworld and plots, aided by a network of allies – some opportunistic, some stupid, some simply malevolent. His will is usually carried out by an unspecified number of identical fate goddesses, possible to differentiate only by the numerals on their veils. At the core he and Baal's father Dagan are very similar gods in function, but not in temperament.

#Rider of Clouds

[divineknowing2021]

viewing guide

At its core, divine knowing is an exhibition about knowledge, power, and agency. It’s become a more common understanding that governments, institutions, and algorithms will manipulate the public with what information they frame as fact, fiction, or worthy of attention. Though I am early in researching this topic, I've only come across a minimal amount of mainstream discourse on how the initial threat limiting our scope of knowledge is a refusal to listen to ourselves.

In a world faced with so many threats - humans being violent toward each other, toward animals, toward the earth - it can be a bit unsettling to release the reins and allow ourselves to bear witness for a moment, as we slowly develop a deeper awareness of surrounding phenomena and happenings.  

divine knowing includes works by formally trained and self-taught artists. A majority of the artists are bisexual, non-binary, or transgender. Regardless of degree-status, gender, or sexuality, these artists have tapped into the autonomous well of self-knowing. Their artworks speak to tactics for opening up to a more perceptive mode of being. They unravel dependencies on external sources for knowledge and what we might recognize, connect with, or achieve once we do.

The installation Femme Digitale by Sierra Bagish originates from a series she began in 2017 by converting photographs of women that were taken and distributed online without the subject’s consent into paintings. Her practice at the time was concerned with female abjection. Sourcing images found via simple keywords and phrases (e.g., passed out, passed out drunk) she swathes a mass-circulated canon of internet detritus that articulates and produces aggression towards women. With her paintings, she circumvents the images’ original framing mechanisms and subverts these proliferated images through a sincere and personal lens.

These paintings divulge the blurred space between idolatry and denigration these online photos occupy, asking whose desires these images fulfill and what their propagation reveals about the culture producing them.  While Bagish's work contends with political motivations, she also remains keenly observant of form and the varying utilities of different media.

“I use the expressive potential of paint as a vehicle to intervene and challenge ideas about photography as a harbinger of the real and everyday.”

Chariot Birthday Wish is an artist and angel living in Brooklyn. They have seen The Matrix 28 times in 2 years and love horses. The tarot series included in divine knowing is their most intuitive project, something they revisit when unsure of what to work on next. The Major Arcana are composed of digital collages made from sourced images, the Minor Arcana are represented by short, poetic, interpretative texts about the cards. The series is played on shuffle, creating a unique reading for each viewer. This is a work in progress that will eventually finalize as a completed deck of digital collages available for purchase.

Chariot's work emerges from a constant consideration of apocalypse and connection. They reference technology in tandem with nature and a desire for unity. Underneath their work's surface conversation on beauty, care, and relationship exists an agenda to subtly evoke a conspiratorial anti-state mindset. Through a collective imagining of how good things could be and how good we want them to be, we might be able to reckon with how bad things are in contrast.

“I think about texting my friends from the middle of the woods...

Humans are a part of nature and we created these things. There's this Bjork quote where she says that "You can use pro tools and still be pagan." I'm really into the idea of using technology as a tool for divination and holy connection with nature. I imagine a scene; being in moss, it's absolute bliss, and then the connection of texting, sharing an image of moss with a friend, sharing that moment through cellular towers.”

The album "adding up" by thanks for coming is composed of songs Rachel Brown wrote during what they believe to be the most challenging year of their life. Rachel now looks back on this time in appreciation, recognizing they grew in ways they had never imagined. The entire year, they were committed to following their feelings to wherever it may lead.

“If I hadn't been open to following the almost indiscernible signs I was being sent, then I would have missed out on some of the most important moments in my life.”

Kimberly Consroe holds a Masters in Anthropology along with degrees in Archaeology, Literature, and History. She is currently a Research Analyst at the US Department of Commerce. Her artwork is a passionate escape from a hectic professional life and touches on themes of feminism and nature.

Her works begin as general ideas; their narrative complexity growing with the amount of time she invests in making each one. Her decoupage process starts with cutting hundreds, if not thousands, pieces of paper. The accumulation of clippings sourced from vintage and current-day magazines overlap to tell a story. In Domestication, Kimberly borrows submissive female figures from found images of Ryan Mcguinness's work and places them in a position of power.

“I believe intuition is associated with emotion and experience. It is wisdom and fear, empathy and outrage, distrust and familiarity. It is what we know before we know it. This relates to my artwork in that, from beginning to end, there is never one complete idea concerning the outcome: it is a personal journey. It emerges from an ephemeral narrative that coalesces into a definitive story.”

Anabelle DeClement is a photographer who primarily works with film and is interested in relationships as they exist within a frame. She is drawn to the mystery of the mundane. Intuition exists in her practice as a feeling of urgency and the decision to act on it  ---  a drive often used to describe street photography where the camera catches unexpected moments in an urban environment. Anabelle tends to photograph individuals with whom she has established personal relationships in a slow domestic setting. Her sense of urgency lies in capturing moments of peak intimacy, preserving a memory's informal beauty that otherwise may have been forgotten or overlooked.

Gla5 is a visual artist, poet, bookmaker, production designer, and educator. Play is at the center of their practice. Their process is an experimental one embracing impulse and adventure. Their compositions are informed by relationships among bodies of varying shapes, materials, and densities. Interests that come up in their work include a discernment between symbols and non-symbols, dream states, the portrayal of energy in action, and a fixation on forms such as cups, tables, and spoons.

“I generally think of my work as depicting a layer of life that exists underneath what we see in our everyday lives.”

Gladys Harlow is a sound-based performance artist, comedian, and activist who experiments with found objects, contact mics, textures, range, analog formats, present moments, and emotions. Through raw, avant-garbage performance art, they aim to breakdown societal barriers, abolish oppressive systems, and empower communities. Gladys was born in Queens, NY, raised in Miami, FL and has deep roots in Venezuela. Currently haunting in Philadelphia, PA, Gladys is a founding member of Sound Museum Collective. SMC holds space for reconstructing our relationships to sounds by creating a platform for women, nonbinary, and trans sound artists and engineers.

Street Rat is a visceral exploration of the mysteries of life. Attempting to bring heavy concepts to your reality, it is the eye on the ground that sees and translates all intersecting issues as they merge, explode, dissolve, and implode. Street Rat is Gladys Harlow's way of comprehending, coping, feeling, taking action, disrupting the status quo, and rebuilding our path.

All Power To The People originated as a recorded performance intended to demystify sound by revealing the tools, wires, and movements used to create it. All Power To The People evolved into an installation conceived specifically for this exhibition. The installation includes a theremin and oscillator built by Gladys, a tarot deck they made by hand, and books from the artist's personal collection, amongst other elements. Gladys has created a structure of comfort and exploration. They welcome all visitors of divine knowing to play with the instrument, flip freely through the books, and pull a tarot card to take home.

Phoebe Hart is an experimental animator and filmmaker. A majority of her work is centered around mental illness and the line between dreams and reality. Merry Go Round is a sculptural zoetrope that changes in shape and color as it spins. Its form is inspired by nature and its color by the circus. The video’s sound was produced by Hayden Waggener. It consists of reverbing chimes which are in rhythm with the stop animation’s movement; both oscillate seamlessly between serene and anxious states.

“I often don't plan the sculptures or objects I am fabricating, there is a vague image in my mind, and my hands take care of the rest. I find that sometimes overthinking is what can get me and other artists stuck. If I just abandon my judgments and ego, I can really let go and create work that feels like it came inherently from me.”

Powerviolets is the solo project of multi-instrumentalist Violet Hetson who is currently based in New York. After experiencing several false starts while bouncing coast to coast, recording and performing with several lineups, Hetson has finally released her debut album. ~No Boys~ namesake is a sarcastic sign she hung on her suburban CT teenage bedroom door. Violet Hetson grew up primarily listening to punk and hardcore. She parses elements of these genres with influences from bands such as X and Suburban Lawns. ~No Boys~ takes a softer, melodic approach to Hetson's punk roots. Powerviolets' music is linear, unconventional, dark, and airy with a sense of humor.

Mary Hunt is a fiber artist specializing in chain stitch embroidery. This traditional form of embroidery uses vintage machinery and thick thread to create fibrous art and embellishments. They use an approach called "thread painting," which requires each stitch to be hand guided by the turn of a knob underneath the table while the speed of movement is controlled by a foot pedal. Chainstitch works can take anywhere from 20 minutes to 200 hours, encouraging a slow and thoughtful process. Mary uses a Cornely A machine, made in Paris more than 100 years ago.

“I think we are sent messages and guidance constantly. Our intuition is simply our ability to clear the path for those messages. The largest obstacles on my artistic path are usually self-imposed negative thoughts. I simply do things to take care of my spiritual well-being, first and foremost, and the rest follows. If I can trust the universe, trust the process, then I am much more likely to listen to the messages sent my way.”

Jes the Jem is a multi-media artist working with acrylic, watercolor, mold clay, and whatever else she can get her hands on. She uses vivid color to bring joy into the lives of those who view her art. Jes the Jem has experienced a great deal of pain in her life. Through that unique displeasure, she has been gifted a nuanced perspective. She aims to energize the present while paying homage to the past events that shape us. In her art, her life, and her interpersonal relationships, Jes the Jem appreciates the gift of all of life's experiences.

“The pursuit of happiness and understanding is instinct.”

Pamela Kivi pieces together visual scraps she has saved over the years, choosing to fuse them at whatever present moment she sees fit. Her work reflects on creative mania, fleeting emotions, and memories. Pamela's collages are a compilation of unexpected elements that include: old notebooks, cut-outs, text messages or Facebook message conversations, nostalgic cellphone photos, and visual materials she has chosen to hold onto. She prints out, cuts up, scans, edits, repeats. Pamela's artistic practice is deeply personal. It is a submittal to the process of dusting things off until a reflection can be seen, all enacted without an attachment to the end result.

“I rely on intuition and whatever state of mind I am in to whisk me away. In life, I often confuse intuition with anxiety- when it comes to creative work, I can decipher the two.”

Through sobriety, Kendall Kolenik's focus has shifted toward self-discovery and shedding old adaptive patterns, a process that led her to a passion for helping others heal themselves too. In autumn, she will begin her Masters in Social Work at Columbia University.

“I love how when I'm painting my self-doubt becomes so apparent. Painting shows me exactly where my doubt lies, which guides me towards overriding it. When I paint something and lean into doubt, I don't like what comes out. When I take note of the resistance and go with my gut more freely, I love it. This reminds me of my yoga practice. What you practice on the mat is a metaphor for how you show up in life. By breathing through the uncomfortable poses on the mat, you learn to breathe through challenging life moments.

I think we all grow up learning to numb and edit ourselves. We are taught not to trust our feelings; we are told to look outside ourselves for answers when we already have a perfectly good compass within. Painting is an archway back to that for me - rediscovering self-reliance and faith in my first instinct. When I'm creating these rainbow squares, sometimes I move so fast it's like something else is carrying me. I sort of leave myself and enter a trance. Like how you don't have to tell the heart to beat or the lungs to breathe - thinking goes away and I can get so close to my knowing that I become it. I love how art allows me to access my love for ambiguity, interpretation, and an interpretation that feels closer to Truth. I find no greater purpose than guiding people back to safety and reconnecting them with themselves. The most important thing to ever happen in my life was when I stopped trying to deny my reality - listening to your intuition can be like a freefall - no one but you can ever know or tell you - it is a deep trust without any outside proof.”

Lucille Loffredo is a music school dropout, Jewish trans lesbian, and veterinary assistant doing her best to make sure each day is better than the last. Lucille tries to find the music rather than make it. She lets it tell her what it wants to do and what it wants to be. The Wandering EP was in part written as a way to come out to herself. She asks all listeners to please be gentle.

“Change will come, and it will be good. You are who you think you are, no matter how far it seems.”

Whitney Lorenze generally works without reference, making thick, graphic pictures with precise forms conceived almost entirely from her imagination. Images like a slowly rolling car crackling out of a driveway, afternoon sun rays shining through a cloud of humidity, or headlights throwing a lined shadow across a black bedroom inspire her.

“As it concerns my own practice and the creation of artworks generally, I would define intuition as the ability to succumb to some primal creative impulse. Of course, this implies also the ability to resist the temptations of producing a calculated or contrived output.”

Ellie Mesa began teaching herself to paint at the age of 15, exploring landscapes and portraiture. Her work has evolved into a style of painting influenced by surrealism where teddy bears will morph into demons and vice versa. Her work speaks to cuteness, the grotesque, and mystical beings. The painting "Kali" is an homage to the Hindu goddess of creation,  destruction, life and death. This was Ellie's first painting after becoming sober and is an expression of the aforementioned forces in her own life. Through meditations on Kali, Elli has been able to find beauty in the cycle of love and loss.

“To me, intuition means doing the thing that feels right whether or not it's what you want it to be. When I'm painting or making a sculpture, I give myself the freedom to follow what feels right, even if that means starting over or changing it completely. I allow the piece to present itself to me instead of forcing something that doesn't want to be.”

Mari Ogihara is a sculptor exploring duality, resilience, beauty, and serenity as experienced through the female gaze. Her work is informed by the duality of womanhood and the contradictions of femininity. In particular, the multitude of roles we inhabit as friend, lover, sister, and mother and their complex associations to the feminine perspective.

“Intuition is an innate, immediate reaction to an experience. While making art, I try to balance intuition, logic, and craftsmanship.”

All Of Me Is War by Ames Valaitis addresses the subconscious rifts society initiates between women, estranging them from each other and themselves.

“It is an unspoken, quick, and quiet battle within me as the feeling of intuition purely, and when I am making a drawing. I am immediately drawn to poses and subject matter that reflect the emotion inside myself, whether it is loud or under the surface. If a line or figure doesn't move me, after working on it for a few minutes, I get rid of it. If something looks right to me immediately, I keep it; nurture it. I try to let go of my vision, let my instinct take hold. I mirror this in my life as I get older, choosing who and what to put my energy into. The feeling is rarely wrong; I'd say we all know inherently when it is time to continue or tap out.”

Chardel Williams is a self-taught artist currently living in Bridgeport. Her biggest inspiration is her birthplace of Jamaica. Chardel views painting as a method for blocking out chaos. Her attraction to the medium springs from its coalescence of freedom, meditative qualities, and the connection it engenders. rears.

“Intuition for me is going where my art flows. I implement it in my practice by simply creating space and time to listen. There are times when what I'm painting is done in everyone else's eyes, but I just keep picking at it. Sometimes I would stop painting a piece and go months without touching it. Then, out of nowhere, be obsessed with finishing. I used to get frustrated with that process, but now I go with it. I stopped calling it a block and just flow with it. I listen because my work talks.”

[processproductionsophielindsay]

LORNA SIMPSON

Lorna Simpson, The Water Bearer (1986)

https://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/02/arts/design/02lorn.html

Lorna Simpson, Guarded Conditions (1989)

https://www.artspace.com/magazine/art_101/book_report/representing-the-black-body-lorna-simpson-in-conversation-with-thelma-golden-54624

Lorna Simpson, Necklines (1989)

https://mcachicago.org/Collection/Items/1989/Lorna-Simpson-Necklines-1989

Lorna Simpson Wigs (1994)

https://www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning/lorna-simpson-wigs-1994/

Childhood

Born in Brooklyn in 1960, Lorna Simpson was an only child to a Jamaican-Cuban father and an African American mother. Her parents were left-leaning intellectuals who immersed their daughter in group gatherings and cultural events from a young age. She attributed their influence as the sole reason she became an artist, writing, "From a young age, I was immersed in the arts. I had parents who loved living in New York and loved going to museums, and attending plays, dance performances, concerts... my artistic interests have everything to do with the fact that they took me everywhere ...."

Aspects of day-to-day life lit up Simpson's young imagination, from the jazz music of John Coltrane and Miles Davis, to magazine advertisements and overheard, hushed stories shared between adults; all of which would come to shape her future art. The artist took dance classes as a child and when she was around 11 years old, she took part in a theatrical performance at the Lincoln Center for which she donned a gold bodysuit and matching shoes. Though she remembered being incredibly self-conscious, it was a valuable learning experience, one that helped her realize she was better suited as an observer than a performer. This early coming-of-age experience was later documented in the artwork Momentum, (2010).

Simpson's creative training began as a teenager with a series of short art courses at the Art Institute of Chicago, where her grandmother lived. This was followed by attendance at New York's High School of Art and Design, which, she recalls "...introduced me to photography and graphic design."

  Early Training and Work

After graduating from high school Simpson earned a place at New York's School of Visual Arts. She had initially hoped to train as a painter, but it soon became clear that her skills lay elsewhere, as she explained in an interview, "everybody (else) was so much better (at painting). I felt like, Oh God, I'm just slaving away at this." By contrast, she discovered a raw immediacy in photography, which "opened up a dialogue with the world."

When she was still a student Simpson took an internship with the Studio Museum in Harlem, which further expanded her way of thinking about the role of art in society. It was here that she first saw the work of Charles Abramson and Adrian Piper, as well as meeting the leading Conceptual artist David Hammons. Each of these artists explored their mixed racial heritage through art, encouraging Simpson to follow a similar path. Yet she is quick to point out how these artists were in a minority at the time, remembering, "When I was a student, the work of artists from varying cultural contexts was not as broad as it is now."

During her student years Simpson travelled throughout Europe and North Africa with her camera, making a series of photographs of street life inspired by the candid languages of Henri Cartier-Bresson and Roy DeCarava. But by graduation, Simpson felt she had already exhausted the documentary style. Taking a break from photography, she moved toward graphic design, producing for a travel company. Yet she remained connected to the underground art scene, mingling with likeminded spirits and fellow African Americans who felt the same rising frustrations as racism, poverty, and unemployment ran deep into the core of their communities.

At an event in New York Simpson met Carrie-Mae Weems, who was a fellow African American student at the University of California. Weems persuaded Simpson to make the move to California with her. "It was a rainy, icy New York evening," remembers Simpson, "and that sounded really good to me." After enrolling at the University of California's MFA program, Simpson found she was increasingly drawn towards a conceptual language, explaining how, "When I was in grad school, at University of California, San Diego, I focused more on performance and conceptually based art." Her earliest existing photographs of the time were made from models staged in a studio under which she put panels or excerpts of text lifted from newspapers or magazines, echoing the graphic approaches of Jenny Holzer and Martha Rosler. The words usually related to the inequalities surrounding the lives of Black Americans, particularly women. Including text immediately added a greater level of complexity to the images, while tying them to painfully difficult current events with a deftly subtle hand.

Mature Period

Simpson's tutors in California weren't convinced by her radical new slant on photography, but after moving back to New York in 1985, she found both a willing audience and a kinship with other artists who were gaining the confidence to speak out about wider cultural diversities and issues of marginalization. Simpson says, "If you are not Native American and your people haven't been here for centuries before the settlement of America, then those experiences have to be regarded as valuable, and we have to acknowledge each other."

Simpson had hit her stride by the late 1980s. Her distinctive, uncompromising ability to address racial inequalities through combinations of image and text had gained momentum and earned her a national following across the United States. She began using both her own photography and found, segregation-era images alongside passages of text that gave fair representation to her subjects. One of her most celebrated works was The Water Bearer, (1986), combining documentation of a young woman pouring water with the inscription: "She saw him disappear by the river. They asked her to tell what happened, only to discount her memory." Simpson deliberately challenged preconceived ideas about first appearances with the inclusion of texts like this one. The concept of personal memory is also one which has become a recurring theme in Simpson's practice, particularly in relation to so many who have struggled to be heard and understood. She observes, "... what one wants to voice in terms of memory doesn't always get acknowledged."

In the 1990s Simpson was one of the first African American women to be included in the Venice Biennale. It was a career-defining decade for Simpson as her status grew to new heights, including a solo exhibition at New York's Museum of Modern Art in 1990 and a series of international residencies and displays. She met and married the artist James Casebere not long after, and their daughter Zora was born in the same decade. In 1994 Simpson began working with her grandmother's old copies of 1950s magazines including Ebony and Jet, aimed at the African American community. Cutting apart these relics from another era allowed Simpson to revise and reinvent the prescribed ideals being pushed onto Black women of the time, as seen in the lithograph series Wigs (1994). The use of tableaus and repetition also became a defining feature of her work, alongside cropped body parts to emphasize the historical objectification of Black bodies.

  Current Work

In more recent years Simpson has embraced a much wider pool of materials including film and performance. Her large-scale video installations such as Cloudscape (2004) and Momentum (2011) have taken on an ethereal quality, addressing themes around memory and representation with oblique yet haunting references to the past through music, staging, and lighting.

Between 2011 and 2017 Simpson reworked her Ebony and Jet collages of the 1990s by adding swirls of candy-hued, watercolour hair as a further form of liberation. She has also re-embraced painting through wild, inhospitable landscapes sometimes combined with figurative elements. The images hearken to the continual chilling racial divisions in American culture. As she explains, "American politics have, in my opinion, reverted back to a caste that none of us want to return to..."

Today, Simpson remains in her hometown of Brooklyn, New York, where in March 2020, she began a series of collages following the rise of the Covid-19 crisis. The works express a more intimate response to wider political concerns. She explains, "I'm just using my collages as a way of letting my subconscious do its thing - basically giving my imagination a quiet and peaceful space in which to flourish. Some of the pieces are really an expression of longing, like Walk with Me, (2020) which reflects that incredibly powerful desire to be with friends right now."

Despite her status as a towering figure of American art, Simpson still feels surprised by the level of her own success, particularly when she compares her work to those of her contemporaries. "I feel there are so many people - other artists who were around when I was in my twenties - who I really loved and appreciated, and who deserve the same attention and opportunity, like Howardena Pindell or Adrian Piper."

The Legacy of Lorna Simpson

Simpson's interrogation of race and gender issues with a minimal, sophisticated interplay between art and language has made her a much respected and influential figure within the realms of visual culture. American artist Glenn Ligon is a contemporary of Simpson's whose work similarly utilizes a visual relationship with text, which he calls 'intertextuality,' exploring how stencilled letters spelling out literary fragments, jokes or quotations relating to African-American culture can lead us to re-evaluate pre-conceived ideas from the past. Ligon was one of the founders of the term "Post-Blackness," formed with curator and writer Thelma Golden in the late 1990s, referring to a post-civil rights generation of African-American artists who wanted their art to not just be defined in terms of race alone. In the term Post-Black, they hoped to find "the liberating value in tossing off the immense burden of race-wide representation, the idea that everything they do must speak to or for or about the entire race."

The re-contextualization of historical inaccuracies in both Simpson and Ligon's practice is further echoed in the fearless, cut-out silhouettes of American artist Kara Walker, who walks headlong into some of the most challenging territory from American history. Arranging figures into theatrical narrative displays, she retells horrific stories from the colonial era with grossly exaggerated caricatures that force viewers into deeply uncomfortable territory.

In contrast, contemporary American artist Ellen Gallagher has tapped into the appropriation and repetition of Simpson's visual art, particularly her collages taken from African American magazine culture. Gallagher similarly lifts original source matter from vintage magazines including Ebony, Our World and Sepia, cutting apart and transforming found imagery with a range of unusual materials including plasticine and gold-leaf. Covering or masking areas of her figures' faces and hairstyles highlights the complexities of race in today's culture, which Gallagher deliberately teases out with materials relating to "mutability and shifting," emphasising the rich diversity of today's multicultural societies around the world.

[dahniwitchoflight]

Candy 12-14

Even Jake’s having his proverbial love triangle troubles

It’s clear he genuinely cares for both Jane and Dirk, but if he’s being honest with himself, the one he romantically loves would be Dirk, the one he would prefer to be with, who he’d choose if they were equal options, would be Dirk

But he’s also right that it’s not like Jane’s a bad choice either, sure it’s not his preference if he’s being honest, but he’s also not about to look the gift horse in the mouth if it falls right into his lap

13 is where we start start to see the unraveling happen I suppose though

Again, everyone is acting so drugged up in Candy

Jane and Jake getting literally inebriated and Dave acting like he’s going through Dirk withdrawal

Then Gamzee being the weird ugly poster child of both drugs and candy, honestly it really did make sense to shove him into this timeline in a weird and uncomfortable ham fisted way, it gets that “are you fucking high right now” feeling across really well

Gamzee really being the cloud cuckoolander here though

hold on let me un-gamzee-ify it just reading his text quirk makes me feel like im on drugs

Gamzee: you don’t got any need to go and concern yourself with his mortal flesh body out here in this candycane whirlpool beyond the infinite black wink of the wicked singularity, my ninja.

Gamzee: a sack of meat and bones in one life or the next is only a means to the final totality that will damn and raise us all in brilliant apotheosis.

Gamzee seems clearly meta aware of the situation he’s in which is interesting, This is indeed a candy swirled timeline hidden inside an infinite black hole singularity

the second line seems to be describing the meat timeline in a way though too

a sack of meat sounds worthless, but it is apparently only a means to a truer end, it has to happen for something else to happen

Essential, but irrelevant, again

funnily enough he’s also seems to be referencing gnostic concepts, not that i’m surprised really at this point

one sack of meat, or, one body in one life or the next

so reincarnation

is only a means to an end that both damns and raises a person into apotheosis, or their “zenith” their highest point

which, i mean, yeah, you live life again and again, differently each time, becoming closer to ascension, and ultimate consumation of every version of you is the basic tenet of the reincarnation gnosticisms

Also, a lot of text was put into describing Gamzee haphazardly crashing into things and setting off rube goldberg machines, which I guess sort of describes his escapades through Homestuck lol

“cinder block, crusty puppet, and Japanese sword in a tornado’s radius off balance and avalanching them catastrophically onto the hapless clown’s torso. “

So the Sword is Dirk (or AR) the crusty puppet is Caliborn (because Lil Cal) which I guess leaves the cinder block as Equius? He’s built like a brick shithouse? eh only problem sleuth stuff comes up so 2/3 ain’t bad

Speaking of Equius, oh look, A feminine half finished robot in Dirk’s basement

the uncomfortable Equius vibes ping once again though I don’t think this is robo-Aradia, but likely something meant to serve a similar purpose and almost DEFINITELY Rose related if reading meat wasn’t already obvious and if the skull for an inner head thing wasn’t immediately referring to the headaches Rose was known to have

though it’s also uncomfortably a symbol of her Doom

---14---

“A flip of the cosmic coin has rendered your entire life completely inessential.”

yup what did I just say, Meat is representing the essential bits of the story, candy is decidedly, not

hm, Dirk’s going to kill himself for the supposed greater good of his own making again

not unsurprising, but a guy like him always like to make an escape rather than give up, is he thinking death will unlock this part of his conciousness and send the memories back to the ultimate self? probably

“and one final act of relevance that can bequeath your meager energies to the cosmic well from whence they came.”

yup!

Though as much as he keeps saying none of this matters he did leave an explanatory note specifically for his friends to find, so there’s still something in him that cares

Don’t like how the bigger blacker text is basically instructing this version of Dirk to kill himself though, that again implies there’s part of Dirk that are subservient to other parts, so again it’s a question of if his ultimate self got tainted through the connecting pieces of Arquisprite > Lord English > Doc Scratch, then who’s actually pulling the strings in Dirk’s Ultimate Self and directing the behaviour of “Dirk” in general

Is it Dirk Strider? Or Doc Scratch? and does that even matter anymore since it’s all DS all the same anyway?

“In a certain sense, you’ve never felt so free.

> Kill yourself.”

That’s hilariously also a JailBreak reference, I think, but definitely played for the morbs instead of as a joke lol

https://www.homestuck.com/jailbreak/109

Literally this MC kills himself when his friend dies and he’s now alone in a vast cosmic emptiness and the text is:

“Yes! Finally! Free at last!

Though the victory is bitersweet. Your friend has died of blood loss.

This is no victory. The feeling is vast emptiness. You are no longer bound by bars or concrete, but you feel more incarcerated than ever. You come to the heartwrenching conclusion that the only true prison... is loneliness.

There is only one thing left to do.

> Continue”

and it just resets him back to the first panel but this time he makes choices differently

ironic that Dirk does literal the exact same thing but comes to exactly zero of the same conclusions

“Just as your epiphany occured at sunset, your death must occur at sunrise to complete the ouroboros of symbological harmonic resonance that is your personal arc. It is the very last moment of narratively consequential action that will happen in this whole, barren world.”

I wonder what about this death makes it so narratively significant? just because it passes along the knowledge of what not to do back to the Ultimate Self so he can avoid it? Probably nothing more than that

“but there really are no words that can adequately express the sound someone makes when they die. It’s a phenomenon that happens on two levels. First, there is the literal termination of organic processes, which is to say, the destruction of the meat. Then follows the dissolution of the ego. And you have quite the ego to dissolve, one that has flown so high above the forest that not only can it no longer see the trees, it cannot even conceive of the trees as material substance with objective meaning.”

funny it mentions a forest which is also where that happened in JailBreak

Basically describes how death in general works in Homestuck, the body dies but can leave a ghost/ego behind, but eventually that dissolves as well

Again though, making a compariosn between the Meat and the Body/Flesh and the Candy and the Spirit or Ghost

or another pun between Candy and Drugs if you take Spirit to mean alcoholic spirits

Candy seems ironically and symbolically the place where Breath Meets Void, no wonder John and Roxy hook up here lol

Does that make Meat then the place where Blood and Light meet? I have before put significance into the crossover of those symbolisms in Homestuck before, but couldn’t really conceptulize it as a solid symbolic thing and the Meat and epilogues in general did a really good job of conjoining them into the idea of the story what with the Narrative having importance but also Veins and the idea of Karkat as being reliable narrator etc etc

Meat’s as good a symbol as any for that I suppose

“ When you think so little of yourself as a moral character, any act of self-termination will result in a death that is Just. “

so this line seems to imply that Dirk’s death was permanent and Just here because he thought so little of his own moral character aka deep down he knew he was terrible person, amount of remorse felt over that not applicable, and because of that perception of his, the clock tick tocked over on to Just

Again reinforcing that the Clock is less of an ultimate moral judgment from down on high and much more like an influenceable moral compass, given form by the person affecting it at the moment

I actually kinda like the new spin on that it gives Vriska’s original just death, since that slow ticking of the clock was not just a decision, but a battle of wills between herself and Terezi, it could have easily gone either way depending on how each saw Vriska

neat!

#Homestuck #Meat or Candy

[jkflesh]

Transcribed a rare interview with Kevin Martin from Spanish. Covering projects like Techno Animal, God, Ice, inception of The Bug... Run through an auto translator  —  pardon for the broken English at some parts. Self Magazine n15 (15 June 1999)

BLOOD AND MEAT / KEVIN MARTIN / TEXT A.C. NAÏA

Far from the wake of mundane media and glares, the name of Kevin Martin still resonates as one of the best kept enigmas of the new English experimental era. Antithesis of the unscrupulous corridor, this unclassifiable nihilist accumulates nevertheless every year, and with a disquieting discretion, an exponential number of crucial projects. Redefining the foundations of extreme rock, the abysses of the cybernetic dub or the electronic musical hell trails, his productions tear at the listener all feelings of indifference and comfort. Superficiality and lightness are also notions banished from their unstable world. Although he loves to bara-jar letters under various pseudonyms (God, Ice, The Bug, etc.) Kevin Martin does not cheat. It is in the depths of himself, in his wounds and anguish, that he draws the necessary energy for the singularly ardent expression of a creativity without stylistic excesses.

--------------------------------- 

- Can you tell us why you are often inclined to work with the same core of people (Justin Broadrick, Alex Buess, Dave Cochrane ...)?

The people you mentioned are musicians that I admire very particularly and whose musical steps I respect and greatly appreciate. They are beings without equivalents that, at the individual level, are very close to me: it is very difficult to find such a way of thinking, of approaching events and music in my opinion. Besides, it's true that I tend not to be very social in London. I have made a very cynical judgment about the types of bands that exist in London. People have, in effect, a tendency to form very closed groups that frequent certain bars, certain clubs, which are among themselves, say initiated by such a journalist or such a musician, around people of such stamp; It is especially shocking for people who claim to be in electronic music: they are always the same people who always walk together in the same place, with a kind of pre-established codes that prevent any openness, any tolerance from others. It is not difficult for musicians to be part of this genre of groups, it is simply the idea of ??clan or band that I dislike: I think that in it they lose their identity, their personality, since they must think, in some way, as the group and not by themselves. Justin and I, due to our past, we have many points in common in our sensitivity to the everyday, in our way of approaching musical creation. What seems almost a form of alienation that we should try to get rid of a bit (laughs)! Justin is almost a brother to me, the way we work together depends almost on telepathy: I have never met someone who could have the same tastes, the same musical aspirations as me. It is impossible for him or for me to live without music. It has become an almost unhealthy obsession to be in a permanent process of creation, we have constantly need to feel the extremes, to grow back always beyond the limits. As for Alex, when I created God I thought that no one had yet done what I wanted to do, that is, this idea of ??fusion of very extreme music, especially through free jazz and contemporary classical music, to create a dynamic on the sonorities, a kind of sensory impact. After some years with God I realized that someone had already specified a certain kind of dream that I had projected in God: a group that was called 16/17. - Finally you have worked with many musicians next to Mick Harris. Why have you never undertaken any project with him? At a given moment we wanted, in fact, to work on a common project; on the other hand, Justin [and he played many times in the old club that I had in Brixton. But Micky is a person with whom it is very difficult to work! (laughs) Micky is someone who does not want to think and least admit the idea of ??dialogue; On the other hand I think that today his music lacks something ... If he manifested something of animosity it would be against 90% of [people that there are on the world and not for the 10% of the people that I respect and love: That's why I do not understand how someone like Micky can be bad with certain people who count as his friends. - From God to The Bug, the variety of your projects is quite impressive. Is it that this multiplicity covers a particular desire to express itself in different ways? In fact I have never had the conscious will to accumulate the projects because of any frustration: God was, for example, a very free project in which I never imposed anything. By nature I am someone who never rests, who likes to work constantly. And I also like to work with people, because for me the music comes from a permanent learning and in that sense it has almost a religious dimension. It is a belief in itself. For me music must represent your own thought, your way of living and of conceiving things. If you think too abstractly, something will always be missing and, above all, you will not be honest with yourself. In that case it is essential that my music reflects the state in which I find myself and where I live, otherwise it feels a kind of betrayal. - Despite the multiplicity of names, there seems to be a profound similarity between all your projects. Do you have the feeling that after all you are trying to explain a single and always the same story in different forms? Yes, absolutely, but I do not know if because it is a state of mind, a particular attitude or simply the two things: Justin and I refer almost systematically to a 'hardcore' approach, but I never speak from a 'hardcore' cliché that immediately suggests a 'pu nk-bou rrin' trend, but to that authentic and profound element that can be found in every musical form, be it country, free jazz, hi hop or metal , called 'hardcore', that is, integrity, the fact One make no decision for commercial or business reasons, know how to save the unity of your creation without any commitment to the industry: it is what I call having a 'hardcore' attitude; it is this attitude that remains as a permanent plot after all my musical work. - It is found in your works (in the titles or the letters of the feet) very strong oppositions between your religious and mystical references with others related to sex or violence. This makes me think of writers like G. Bataille or also of sado-masochism ... Totally, but what I think is important is to consider this sadomasochistic dimension as inevitable, because it participates in the very nature of human relations, forms part of life. I am sorry to see that certain groups emphasize this particular aspect, as if it depended on the domain of the extraordinary. For me there is nothing abnormal or particular about this idea of ??sado-masochism. What interests me, anyway, is what allows me to really feel that I live: all the sensations that allow me to be or to exist. I deliberately put aside all the codes, programs or pre-established responses that society wants to impose, so sex remains one of those rare things that allow us to achieve ecstasy - and without artifice - and pleasure of this life. - Is it because the media have a hard time fencing and appreciating your music the reason why so few interviews and information about you are found in the press? I think I would lie if I said that we have done everything to avoid or reject the press or the media in general. Justin, more than me, has been very required because of Godflesh and has received some attention on his part. For mine, I have not done anything in favor of any personal promotion because it does not interest me and rather makes me uncomfortable. In fact, I think I am rather in disagreement with the feeling, with the interpretation of certain music magazines. And since I myself have been a journalist at The Wire, it would be ridiculous to say that I am against the press; but, on the other hand, I am precisely more aware of the sometimes erroneous vision of people who believe they have understood a music and that in the end it has gone from Largo to the essentials. In addition to all this, I think that today most of the musical compositions are totally impersonal and are directly related to the business, which immediately falsifies the starting data. I believe in music that is personal, I play a music that comes from me and from nowhere else. I do not have W1, 'journalists come to find out no matter what about what a part of the truth represents in me. It may seem like a cliché, but I think we play before us before we think about the audience or about the people who are going to buy our records. It may seem selfish, but it is just the truth, a very simple feeling: we like to play for ourselves! - Can we say that there is finally a direct relationship between strong elements of your past and your current musical production? Totally yes, particularly when I think about the influence that punk has had on me. It is the form of music that has revealed in me a particular feeling of freedom and of 'non-commitment', which has been in the end the most inspiring throughout all my projects. I remember very well the moment I ordered a Damned or Stupid record by mail - I do not know exactly - and instead I received an EP of Discharge: it was a kind of shock, almost a revelation. The music I listened to was usually very methodical and formal, and that, the first time, was a true deflagration of noise, without melodic consideration, far from the harmony or the traditional structures. Now I can assure you that it was thanks to that I heard that single that I thought about creating a particular sound. Punk in a general way - before becoming a caricature, and I think in particular of the Crass label - represents the freedom to create, independence and individuality, using music as the only means to interrogate the environment, the world , society, human relations, and non-commercial purposes. Punk has had a strong impact on the perception that I still have of music today. - Going back to the names of your different projects, Techno Animal refers to a kind of duality, an almost impossible mixture between technology and what belongs to the realm of instinct, of the animal ... Yes, completely, and there is a certain perversity that like in this association of words: it evokes the fusion that runs the risk of arriving in the coming years, the next stage of man is to merge with technology, and that will be the only way to survive. But Techno Animal also refers to the contradiction between technology, that is, everything that is machine and mechanics, kingdom of the scientific entity, which has nothing to do with the animal, either in form or in constitution; There are almost two associations that make sure that they will not work if they are merged. - Can Ice be considered as an extension of God? Let's say it was not thought in this sense, but based on the facts, it almost happens like that. Somehow I felt frustrated in God since I had to try to like too many people. For me, the music must be part of a democratic framework, a framework that I have not found more than in Techno Animal with Justin, since in fact we are so similar that the fusion between us is inevitable. The only problem is that there is no criticism between us ... With God everyone wanted to have their part of participation, their part of promotion, of notoriety in relation to their own instrument, that's why I ended up feeling frustrated since I did not could use to create more technological means. It became clear that if I wanted to work in the studio with the machines, I needed to form a new group. God was a group made for the scene, while Techno Animal was entirely a studio project - but recently we have started working with live instruments - and Ice is much closer to the idea of ??arranging the live music in a study. Somehow Ice gets a little closer to Techno Animal and has never been conceived to be a continuity of God. If God continues still in the future it will be in a radically different form. In fact in all my projects I try to translate my dreams, to make abstract ideas become alive and real. And if one day I lack ideas, visions or dreams, there is no other way for me to continue. It would be dishonest to follow by simple custom or for commercial reasons. This year I really had the impression that that moment had come, I believed that everything ended, that it reached the edge of the abyss. But in reality everything has started again, especially working on Ice's next album. - If you follow your record evolution, one realizes that your recent projects are more instrumental. Do you have the tendency to think that the voice does not contribute anything interesting? Interestingly on Ice's next album there is a voice in all the songs. I think it's a bit of a reaction to all the previous projects that, in effect, were becoming very instrumental. In fact the two years spent with this album have been a kind of lyrical catharsis in relation to the lack of communication or the use of the instrumental alone. I have the impression that in the new album the lyrics have been a kind of relief. Anyway I had an irresistible desire that this album was the most 'sung' of all that had been able to do before. I have spent hours in the studio to multiply my voice and transform it into 36 different effects to change all the intonations in each theme. But it is true that I think I have sinned little by little in my projects to reduce any need for verbal expression, because I can not stand the idea that the person who sings in a group is the focus of attention of the audience or listeners, when the other musicians are so important or sometimes even more so. For me a group is conceived as an entity and being honest with myself I would not stand to become the main focus of attention, simply because I sing or write lyrics. This hierarchy does not interest me, but unfortunately it is the most frequent. - The new Techno Animal album has been developed in collaboration with Alec Empire. Why have you chosen to work precisely with him? Because we do not like it (laughs)! I'm not kidding. I think he is someone who has managed to achieve a certain notoriety not because of a fashion issue but because he is full of energy and because he is entirely dedicated to his music, a little as if it were also a vital need in him. When we met him on the tour it was absolutely fantastic: it has never been a matter of ego or other nonsense of this kind as it happens with many musicians or groups. So the audience rather was disturbed by our live performance and he was the only one who stayed on the edge of the stage venting like a nutcase. We liked everything he did, I have written numerous articles about him and Justin has adored him since the first meeting. It is a question of attitude and Alec reacts in the same way as we do.    - Can you tell us about this album of Techno Animal remixes made by Tortoise, Alec Empire, Wordsound, etc. which will be released under the City Slang label?    It is another example of the work done with Alec Empire. Actually I would not say it's an album of remixes but rather of 'soundclash', it really is the most appropriate name. It is more a collaboration than a remix, the groups send us their sounds mixed with ours and then we return them after having also worked on ourselves. Everything is almost finished, we only wait for the band of Alec and Thomas Köner to finish the album. - What about the other name behind which you hide: DJ Dissector? (Laughter) It's just a joke, I wonder where you got the information from. Actually I was fed up with all this hype that there was around a so-called 'Dj culture'. What I really love to see and put on the highest point are the 'Scratch Djs' from the US, in general people who remain invisible to the public and who nevertheless have tremendous talent, but I do not like to accept that pseudo-idea brought by people that are not Djs about a culture of Djs. - About the Djs, what do you think about the New York phenomenon-not the illbient and its figureheads like DJ Spooky? Recently I discovered a group called Priest, from which only one single appeared and which is related to that movement and I found the topic interesting. As for DJ Spooky ... I respect Paul D. Miller for his communicative side: it's fun to hear him speak, to see the body of knowledge that, on the other hand, he handles with a certain mastery. As for his work, I think he is not up to what he wants to do, I think he is benefiting from a certain fashion phenomenon that does not really reflect the quality of his work; I know many DJs darker than him who do better things and innovate more than him. I remember the tour we did in January with Alec and Spooky: I was surprised to see that all the attention was focused on him and that nobody cared about Alec, when for me the work of this one is better, more experimental. I also believe that most of the ideas that support the illbient movement do not come from Paul D. Miller, but from others like David Toop, etc. But Spooky has managed to impose because he likes to be under the light of the projectors and I think he is strong enough to do his own promotion. It is funny because many musicians that I have been able to find detest Spooky, and in particular, because of his way of seeing things, of all his knowledge. I think very honestly that he is a very sympathetic guy and that in a very intelligent way he adapts to different media and knows how to adapt his language, even if he is before a rapper or a composer like Xenakis. But I do not like his work, I do not consider him as a Dj. I think what he has said about trip hop or elscratching is not coherent: he has the tendency to dilute the great importance of hip hop while I think it is one of the values ??of the future, since in three years I am sure it will be a lifestyle completely separate, taking into account the passion and quality of work of people who are fully involved in this move. The underground hip hop of New York is absolutely extraordinary, but unfortunately many DJs stay in anonymity and it is Spooky who always monopolizes the most attention. I think that this is due to the journalists who are stronger in the art of creating phenomena from little ... - The last project of The Bug with DJ Vadim until now is an auditory adaptation of the film 'The Conversation' by Francis Ford Coppola. How did you come up with this idea? In addition to the album, The Bug was not really a collaboration with Vadim. He contributed the sounds of the drums and I did all the rest. But hey, for reasons that I will not need here, I could not be the leader of another formation that was not Techno Animal. However The Bug is not another group at all, but hey ...! I met Vadim about two years ago and I loved his way of approaching things and treating them. Then he asked me to work on a project and six months later I had the idea of ??an imaginary soundtrack that would be completely electronic, but later I saw that it was an outdated idea since I had worked it last year. If The Bug continues, the idea is to try to make soundtracks of films that you want to listen to or that would replace those that already exist because they do not convince us in relation to films. I saw the film for the first time ten or twelve years ago and the only thing I remember is a set of very strong feelings about violence, the obsession to be both voyeur and paranoid in front of the characters. I have seen it again and then I have proposed to Vadim to make a new sound interpretation of 'The Conversation' because it seemed to me that some very strong elements of the film had remained hidden or in a residual state in the soundtrack. It was very marked by the way in which the film shows the internal and external duality of the characters, I found it extraordinary. - You seem rather disappointed about the record industry. Ice's next album, however, is on WEA ... Yes, I'm really cynical about everything that can be done about the groups and the music itself, but this interests both the big and to the independent labels: most of them are not worth much, you only have to see the Earache stamp that has made me go through the tube to me as to other groups. This label has become worse than one of the big ones! For me it is not contradictory to make an album in a big label because in any case the relationship is simple: they exploit me, but I also exploit them with a rebound, all the maximum and in the longest time I can ... (laughs) I understand completely that I can be criticized for this, but I do not care. I always think about 1 to 5% of the people that interest me and that reciprocally are interested in my work, and for me it is a kind of important victory against the commercial machine every time I can get an album with a big house: it is the case of Isolationism 'with Virgin; I was very happy to see that God finally appeared in the department store and that the group received a certain popularity. Do not forget that it is an authentic war that takes place in musical circuits and to receive something, you have to be in permanent struggle.

#kevin martin #techno animal #ice #god #the bug #justin broadrick #alec empire

[5questions]

Richard Wehrenberg

Richard Wehrenberg was born in Akron, Ohio and is the author of Abracadabrachrysanthemum (2018), Hands (2015), and River (2014), co-written with Ross Gay. Their work has been published in The Academy of American Poets, Peach Mag, Bad Nudes, Monster House Press, & elsewhere. They are a poet, writer, artist, & designer living in Bloomington, Indiana.

I want to start with the cover. I admire its minimalism but also the way that minimalism allows the title to speak for itself, carrying the reader along as they go to the next page. What are some of your favorite book designs? How has your own design aesthetics changed since you first started designing chapbooks and websites over ten years ago? Do you have any sort of codified process for your design work?

I perceive Text as Image and Image as Text, in a kind of infinite stirring/reworking. My aesthetic/process for design feels necessarily influenced by how my specific body-form perceives/reads the world, via its various miracles and supposed ‘deficiencies’—ie. having one barely-able-to-see (left) eye and one incredibly-over-achieving (right) eye, as well as having benign hand tremors (ie. my hands shake, inexplicably). I understand designing as the praxis of ‘de-signing' (ie. removing the signs from) this Earth/traditions/meanings/images. To quote one of my fav poets, Mahmoud Darwish—“I love your love / freed from itself and its signs,” which to me means: I love you ‘best’ when we shed the layers/masks/images that bury us in stories, when we dwell in our original and base-form—which of course has to be, for me—Love—the desire to see the world as un-riven, as One, despite everything working against the infinite forms love embodies. I feel my design aesthetic as ‘spiritual,’ or at least to me it feels like it springs enigmatically from a spiritual impulse/condition/base. All to say—my style/praxis is mysterious, even to myself, and my design depends on this kind of unknowability/improvisation. For Abracadabrachrysanthemum (and Three Crises by Bella Bravo, which share almost identical design elements), I viewed the circle on the covers to be a kind of gravitational wormhole into the book’s work, like you implied. A simple entranceway that has, like a planet or black hole, its own gravity to pull/cull others in, to merge and connect worlds. As far as design influences—I love love love Quemadura’s work (who you probably know as Wave Books’ designer.) I remember seeing their stark, simple, text-based covers as a younger poet/designer and being moved by space they allow for the text (exterior and interior) to become its own image/meaning apart from other visual suggestions. Also, Mary Austin Speaker’s work—who does design for Milkweed Editions—is always so precise, gorgeous, and enchanting. Outside of the poem-world, I am constantly inspired by fellow Bloomington designers/friends Aaron Denton and Sharnayla. The beauty they channel is astounding. Since I began designing, I feel that I’ve just become better and faster at designing, and my core aesthetic has mostly stayed the same. Being self-taught, you kind of just pick up little preferences, skills, and potentialities randomly along the path of work. I’m in a constant state of knowledge-acquisition re design and thus my process is really just experimentation. One codified process I do have is to meditate on a book’s content, to summon its image by intentionally dwelling on it within an unconscious states of meditation, dream, trance, etc. Usually I can call up a color palette, or image/font/et al that each individual book/design is calling for via these means. I believe in this kind of prayer/listening in my work, and I cite the unconscious as my main source of artistic capacity and production. I’ve also dreamed book covers before. That’s the best.

Many of the poems in this collection have geographic allusion, descriptive precision, and a general sense of place becoming character. This reminds me in many ways of your book RIVER, co-authored with Ross Gay. While that was prose and this is poetry, this is something I have noticed in your writing. How would you describe your aesthetic connection to geography? nature? environment? This book seems to expand beyond America in ways previous writing of yours doesn’t...

I can’t not attempt to constantly locate my Self in this World—can’t not see/feel/attempt to understand where/how/who/why I am in relation to ‘others’—to the land, rivers, oceans, to other animals, to the incredible manifold instantiations of plants, to the water with which without we would vanish, to all the ostensibly separate “I’s” on this shared Earth/consciousness/World surviving, dwelling, praying, creating—Being. I am an empath and embed/imbibe my surroundings almost automatically/unconsciously into myself. I become wherever I am. And thus its violences and gorgeousnesses alike become my own. And thus I speak for them, to them, of them, with them, in service and toward the healing of them/us/I/we. I unbecome my self to reset my churning and lumbering around this planet, to geographize ‘my’ position within this unpositioned House we find our selves. I am also quite of the mind that we are indeed both Here and Not Here. This Not Here is completely devoid of the drama of the body/ego, which we so often encounter and identify with today (and have since arriving on Earth.) My body, it’s specific forms and desires, languages and impulses, with yours, in conflict with theirs, with the scarcity, the low amount, the abundance, the never-ending forsaken nothing-everything, all of it, all the time, ever, ever, never-enough or always-too-much, the never-quite-right. You compared to me, thine in yours with mine of we. In spirit realm, there is no time and ID like we think here. Both Here and Not Here are real/valid places—the corporeal realm and the spirit realm—and I know, at least for now, I live in both places. I realized recently one of my main hopes for my writing is for it to re-embed the divine into the every day, re-pair it with the quotidian—to reunite these worlds-torn. What I mean is: I identify heavily with wherever I am in this 3D reality called life, and also identify heavily with the spirit realm as an (un)geographic place where I also reside. Over-identification with either realm leads to misery/suffering or disassociation/location, to paraphrase A Course In Miracles.

There is a sense of unity between the voice of these poems and everything else in the world, seen best, in my opinion, in “Signifying Brown Bear” wherein a stuffed animal becomes a virtual tunnel into all sorts of real human and existential experiences. Do you think something fundamental has changed in contemporary consumer society from ancient or medieval or even early modern societies, in which we have too many outlets for our emotions and experiences? Maybe too many is good (whatever "good" means)? In this poem, the stuffed bear almost represents your own yearning to connect as fully as you already are with universe around you. It has many of the conceits of a love poem and, at times, a tongue-in-cheek tone. In the end, the poem is what makes us think. You have turned a mirror on the reader. Was this your intention? How do you decide when to write in second-person versus first person etc.? Is any of this interpretation at all on point?  In “Signifying Brown Bear,” I am referring to an actual brown bear (ie. Ursus arctos) and the poem is just kind of about how people/entities who I become close with can begin to feel like sweet-tender-almost-cryptozoological-creatures to me and I want to also just be a sweet-tender-almost-cryptozoological-creature—or hell, I’ll settle for even a plant or a rock—back to them. Anything but this warbling, incomplete, stammering-maunderer of a human being! (Exaggeration.) I do not want my humanity at times—my human-being-ing—which has been categorized, documented, and shrink-wrapped for societal use and relation, who is part of the decimation of Earth via capital. I want the freedom (and I’m sure we could say unfreedom) of the brown bear who is in relation to the Sycamore by the river, and the salmon floating above the stones, the water gliding over, ever-thinning rock into sand granules—slowly—and back again—and back. I don’t want to be (and can’t be, is perhaps my thesis) relegated to the realm of signifiers and signs imposed via any of the manifold categorization machines we navigate on the daily to obfuscate these kind of otherworldly, ancient connections I feel as Real. To decimate that last paragraph—I also believe in becoming fully-embodied/present in the form we are in in this life, too. So, it’s confusing, this ever-always-transforming-ing perceptioning. The confusion about what energy/thing I am and what you are is a little about what that poem is about, too. I was reading Agamben’s The Use of Bodies and came across this ancient Greek word, poiesis, which appears in the poem and means, “the activity in which a person brings something into being that did not exist before.” I love that idea, and think it is what we are here to do, in part. So often for me the unprecedented-something we are trying to bring into existence is ourselves and the art/energy we carry in us must be made into song. I want to always make the reader aware of their presence in my writing—to me writing is a collective act and readers are always existent, even if they never ‘read’ your work. The imagined, the dead, the unborn, the spiritually uncanonized, the already-gone-never-was reader, writer, seeker, be-er. I switch between tense often and freely, because in poetry, at least for me, we feel/fall into each word/line we write and there’s less of a need to be ‘coherent’ in the sense of the popular notion of storytelling/fiction, which (I might have another thesis here) feels like a symptom of capitalism, too. Of course it feels really nice to have a coherent story. I love television and pop culture. I want to write for television. I want to be perceived as coherent. But I want to say too: the ‘incoherence’ of poetry is a kind of coherence, a prayer toward a ‘new’ form, if you will, despite being so old itself. Poetry coheres to a perhaps more experimental way of telling a story, a precedentless next-ing, and this variation is vital—these unforeseen forms, stories, ways of being. We are a species that evolves, and because the mouth/mind is the site of evolution now, I am playing accordingly.

What ended up happening with MHP?  Why did you decide to stop active involvement in it? What are you doing now in terms of day-to-day life? Monster House Press has evolved through many forms. In 2010, it began, semi-naively, as a collective publisher of zines and chapbooks in the eponymous punk house. It then expanded and evolved into a project I was maintaining, mostly on my own, from 2012-2016 in Bloomington, Indiana. In the summer of 2016, MHP rose again as a officially collective project—an amorphous mass, as we liked to call it—primarily because the workload had become unsustainable for me to do on my own, and we were doing more and more, gaining recognition, et cetera. We decided to lay MHP to rest at the end of the 2018, as many of us involved in keeping it going are moving onto graduate school and/or starting new projects/lives. It felt apt to end this specific instantiation in my career-form of publishing, as I have moved away from the punk/DIY scene from which it was born, and the name itself has too become divorced from its origin and who I/we was/were then. I’m sure I’ll always be editing, publishing, reading, designing and helping steward others’ work in this world, as that impulse is something part and parcel of my being, this collaboration; however, the terms and boundaries within this specific modality as MHP have expired to me. In my day-to-day life, I am a freelance graphic designer, artist, editor, and writer. I usually sit at my house with my dog, working on whatever project I have in my docket at the time, or go out to a coffee or tea house to do work. I also just finished auditing a graduate poetry workshop called Joy & Collaboration with Ross Gay, which was, in a word, divine—and I currently spend my days/time helping out with the growing at a communal greenhouse as well as generally just reading/writing/watching/listening to the Earth/Universe, hoping to be of service, use, and care.

What future projects are you working on? Do you still play music with organized groups? Have you thought of writing long-form fiction?

I’m hoping to start my MFA in Poetry next year. As far as writing projects—I’m writing a collection of sonnets about my alcoholism/being an alcoholic in the United States. (I’ve been sober for 5 years now.) The sonnets are these kind of little, tender love-songs to my alcoholic/former self (who I can never fully extinguish) which—I hope—also reckon with and help shed light on addiction, malevolent masculinity/whiteness, and which also seek to forgive and release—to heal. I also have this big, kind of far off ditty of a dream to open a Poetry Center one day, in the Midwest ideally, kind of a little like Poets House in NYC, where events, workshops, reading, writing, and magic can happen. A hub for poetics/healing/joy/collaboration. There will probably be an herbal/plant element too, somehow, as I love working with/growing plants. And music! I haven’t played music in an organized group in a while, but enjoy being able to play piano and saxophone here and there, when I can, however that happens. I helped transpose, sing, and record a score for a little art movie project, along with Ross Gay and Lauren Harrison, which was super delightful. Music is the literal heart of the world, imo. I listened to 36 days of music this year, ie. for 1/10 of the year I was listening to music, which was kind of staggering and incredible for me to realize. I love writing long and short form fiction, but have found it removes me from the world too intensely, which, I feel I am supposed to stay more rooted/involved in the World in a proactive sense, so I tend to write poetry and other forms over fiction. I am interested in the hybrid essay form—with poetry hidden inside—and creating/seeking new hybridized forms. There’s so much potential for greatness—and so much to come.

#richard wehrenberg #monster house press #hybrid essay #fiction #poetry #ross gay #lauren harrison #music #midwest #mfa #graphic design #wave books #andrew duncan worthington #bloomington #indiana #cleveland #akron

[twilight-adamo]

As Dreams Are Made On: The Mixtape - Liner Notes

Hello everyone! I am currently in the process of gathering my thoughts on Brave New World and trying to get the next installment of These Our Actors (which will focus on Rosalie) just right, in addition to trying to find my thread on Out of the Blue and other non-Twilight projects. This has been complicated by the fact that I’ve been fighting a couple rather nasty nose and throat bugs of late, and so this weekend I’m doing my best to relax and recover.

In the meantime, I thought I’d start offering up my notes on the Spotify playlist I posted a while ago and why I chose the songs I did. For anyone who didn’t see the link, here it is:

https://open.spotify.com/user/12153099402/playlist/5IYjYDbcM6qvQ2hgGnOCGF?si=orkjWU50SjKm7xbPSF_r5w

Since many of my choices do relate directly to specific plot points, there are potential spoilers ahead, so I’m putting this behind a cut. I won’t get through every song in this post, but I’ll add additional notes in subsequent posts as time allows.

As I think I mentioned before, I find playlists to be a very useful tool in my writing. It’s possible to spend too much time tinkering with playlists, of course, so I try not to do it in place of writing or outlining - this is just something I work on when I’m occupied with non-writing tasks that allow for a certain amount of downtime. Each song tends to relate to a plot point or an emotion I’m trying to evoke in a certain part of the story, and the sequence generally follows my outline of the plot, though I’ll sometimes put the playlist on shuffle if I’m feeling stuck and want to try and shake things up, and I sometimes end up adding, removing, or resorting various songs as my understanding of the plot evolves. Since As Dreams Are Made On is done, the current version of the mixtape - all 49 songs - is now pretty much in its final form, but when I’m working on a story, the associated playlist is very much a living document and subject to change.

Music has always been a hugely important part of my life, thanks in large part to my mother, who was an influence on much of my creative output. I tend to think of myself as a visual and verbal person first and foremost, but music has the power to set my mood, to reawaken old memories, to align my thoughts, and to soothe my emotional turmoil. My personal tastes are fairly eclectic - my mother favored country, and I’m still fond of the genre, but I also listen to a lot of pop, classical pieces, musical theatre, folk music, movie scores, and so on. Spotify has been kind of a godsend when it comes to building playlists, though there are unfortunately a few pieces which should be on the mixtape but aren’t simply because they’re unavailable on Spotify. I’ll try to make a note of those missing pieces in the appropriate sections.

Right, well, without further ado, let’s get to the songs.

Pieces and Pieces - The Rough and Tumble This song’s sort of a thesis statement for the whole story, in a way. The refrain, in particular, speaks to me of where I was going: Nothing is lost when it’s been found again / Everything’s found where it was lost. Cass/Bella (or CB, as I refer to her, when I’m not simply calling her Bella) has seemingly lost a great deal, but she comes to gain a great deal as well, and to recover things she thought lost to her forever. The line “I will make you mine again, pieces by pieces” also speaks to me of the story’s dramatic climax, where the nature of CB’s relationship with Alice becomes clearer.

Where Is My Mind? - Pixies Here’s where we’re getting into the actual sequence of events. This one might be a little bit of a cliché, but it reflects CB’s confusion when she wakes in the world of Twilight. It’s also just generally one of my favorite songs.

Turning Page - Sleeping At Last This is the first of many pieces pulled directly from the soundtrack of the Twilight films, and the first song that centers a character other than CB, as it reflects Alice getting hit by the mating bond full-force. It’s a lovely piece, but I think there’s an undercurrent of anxiety and some slightly ominous elements that suit Alice’s mood well. Love at first sight sounds like a pleasant prospect, but it’s also a frightening one, and neither Alice nor CB would have chosen it, given the chance to choose.

Iowa (Traveling, Pt. 3) - Dar Williams Another of my favorite songs. I listened to a lot of Dar Williams in college, and listen to her fairly often still, but I keep coming back to this one in particular. As a lifelong New Englander, famed for what my great-grandmother called ‘the Yankee reserve’ (which means we don’t tend to wear our emotions on our sleeves and generally we keep to ourselves), these lyrics in particular speak to me:

But way back where I come from We never mean to bother We don’t like to make our passions other people’s concern And we walk in the world of safe people And at night we walk into our houses and burn

So, to me, this song speaks of CB’s struggle with her own emotions as her life in Forks begins and she grapples with the mating bond and all it implies. And it also speaks to her background as a lifelong Bostonian, who doesn’t like to be a bother but nevertheless finds herself in a whole new social context and a position where she needs to reach out to others to survive.

Heads Will Roll - Yeah Yeah Yeahs This is Rosalie’s introduction to the story. I don’t really know why, it just seems to suit her, somehow.

Bela Lugosi’s Dead - CHVRCHES It may be physically impossible for me to write about vampires WITHOUT using this song. I just felt like I had to fit it in somewhere, and the first meeting with the rest of the Cullens (sans Carlisle and Esme, of course) seemed like a good spot.

Looking for a Place to Shine - Deidre Thornell Hear the Bells - Naomi Scott I’ll be honest, I don’t have a lot of compelling reasons for these two. They just seemed to fit the sort of transitional period between the first meeting with the Cullens and Leah’s introduction a little later on.

Red Eyes and Tears - Black Rebel Motorcycle Club Leah’s introduction to the story. Again, it just seemed to suit her.

New For You - Reeve Carney We’re back to Alice with this one. It sort of reflects her own emotional turmoil in dealing with the mating bond and having to accept that CB doesn’t necessarily reciprocate all her feelings just yet.

Fearless - Taylor Swift Well, this one actually comes up in the story, so you can pretty much guess where it fits in. Again, though, it’s one of my favorite songs, and speaks to the joy that I think love should carry with it, and the idea that love should drive us forward and make us better. It’s been a serious contender for the first dance at my hypothetical wedding for a long time (though “A Thousand Years” by Christina Perri may be beating it out now).

The Mercy of the Fallen - Dar Williams More Dar Williams! This one...I don’t know. Somehow, it speaks to me of love and acceptance, of individuals who are all burdened and broken in their own ways reaching out and comforting one another. And that, in turn, makes me think of CB’s first visit to the Cullen house: her first real conversation with Rosalie, her introduction to Carlisle and Esme, all of that. This is where she really starts to build bridges, I think, and where she and some of the others begin to open up to one another.

Bella’s Lullaby - Carter Burwell, Dan Redfeld and Elizabeth Hedman This is of course one of my favorite pieces from the Twilight movie score, and includes a leitmotif that comes up more than once in both the films and in my playlist. I couldn’t find the original version from the score itself on Spotify, but this cover works. Of course Edward plays it on the piano at this point in the story, reading it out of CB’s thoughts, and I think she adopts it in a sense as a sort of personal theme. Every time I listen to it, it makes me think of soaring pine trees and crisp, cold air, and I find the melody very soothing.

Missing Piece: Star by Star - Cassandra Lease and Melissa Carubia Someday I’m actually going to get together with the friend who helped me with the arrangement on this one and record it. It probably won’t go up on Spotify, but I’ll likely post it somewhere. This is the song I wrote for my mother’s memorial service; the lyrics are of course reprinted in the story in their entirety. This is probably one of the most personal elements of the story, the point where I really started to spill my guts across the page. I obviously backed off a little from my own life once I introduced Callie to the story, but there’s still a lot of my soul buried in the text; sometimes, I think, too much.

Bella’s Lullaby (Extended Mix) - The Twilight Orchestra I’m not really sure why this shares the name Bella’s Lullaby when it doesn’t seem to have much to do with the shorter piece, but whatever. This is just a lovely piece that sets the mood for Alice and CB on the rooftop and the events that follow.

Possibility - Lykke Li Similarly, this is more of a ‘setting the mood’ song. I don’t think the lyrics quite fit, in their entirety, but this basically represents CB awakening to the possibility of forming a real attachment to Alice, despite her qualms.

Shake It Off - Taylor Swift Another (highly anachronistic) Taylor Swift song that shows up in the story itself. I can be an extremely basic white girl at times.

Bad Reputation - Avril Lavigne The Joan Jett version isn’t on Spotify! I don’t know what to tell you! This cover’s pretty good, though. Another Leah song, and something I imagine might be playing in the dive where CB introduces Leah to fried pickles.

Nothing to Lose - Minusworld My friend Melissa’s band! Get their EP, Giant Blazing Sword, wherever you buy digital music! Listen to them on Spotify and Bandcamp! Anyway, I think this is the track playing during Leah and CB’s encounter with the scary assholes in the alley, and when Emmett and the others get their big damn hero moment.

In Place Of Someone You Love - Carter Burwell, Dan Redfeld and Elizabeth Hedman We’re skipping ahead a bit here. This piece comes after the shopping scene and CB’s attempt to analyze Rosalie’s abilities, when she’s in the dream of the burning house, trying to save her memories.

The Forgotten - Green Day This piece represents CB’s emotions after she wakes from her brief coma, as she struggles with losing her memories and burning away parts of the world she left behind.

Black Is The Colour - Cara Dillon And this piece represents CB’s acceptance of her feelings toward Alice, her confession of love despite her reservations. It took me a while to find a cover I liked, as I very much wanted to use a version that had a woman singing about another woman, for obvious reasons.

Okay, I think that’s pretty much all I can handle for now. More to come soon!

#twilight fanfiction #twilight fanfic #twilight au #adamo #as dreams are made on #adamo spoilers #the mixtape #bellice #alice/bella

[bakechochin]

The Book Ramblings of June

In place of book reviews, I will be writing these ‘book ramblings’. A lot of the texts I’ve been reading (or plan to read) in recent times are well-known classics, meaning I can’t really write book reviews as I’m used to. I’m reading books that either have already been read by everyone else (and so any attempt to give novel or insightful criticisms would be a tad pointless), or are so convoluted and odd that they defy being analysed as I would do a simpler text. These ramblings are pretty unorganised and hardly anything revolutionary, but I felt the need to write something review-related this year. I’ll upload a rambling compiling all my read books on a monthly basis.

The Man Who Was Thursday - GK Chesterton I bought the Penguin English Library edition of this book mainly because of a tweet that I saw slagging off the cover, saying that the sticks of dynamite in the cover pattern looked like tampons and that 'this could have been avoided if only one woman had looked at the cover’; this irritated me a lot because I know for a fact that the cover was in fact designed by a woman (Coralie Bickford-Smith, to be precise, an artist whose similar works I am also a good fan of), and I wanted to own this edition simply so that I could prove to myself and others that this is the case. However, whilst the cover of this book is indeed very pretty, the texts published in the Penguin English Library collection do not possess the handy introductory chapter at the beginning that the Penguin Classics include, and thus with no frame of reference, I was at something of a loss to describe this book. It is certainly an interesting read insofar as it seemingly refuses to stay as one genre for the whole book. The blurb describes it as a ‘strange and haunting novel’, and at the beginning, this is very appropriate; it depicts a sensationalist image of villainous anarchists and zealous unhinged detectives that is incredibly compelling, and I hold that the character descriptions of the members of the Council of Days (as introduced in chapter five) make for some of the best writing that I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading. By fuck is Chesterton great at characterising these dudes. The blurb describes the novel as a spy thriller, and all seemed to be going well on this front, with a melodramatic but consistent tone maintained for around the first half of the book, with some great twists scattered here and there for good measure. But then things start getting a tad daft, and I’m going to spoil a bit of the plot here because you need to understand how off the rails this shit gets. The adventure grows to involve much of the main cast of antagonists being revealed to be policemen in increasingly convoluted disguises, ridiculously overblown chases in different countries with the stakes being continuously raised in the stupidest and funniest ways, and the main antagonist, built up as a grand unknowable titan of crime and anarchy, escapes the protagonist by leaping over a balcony ‘like an orang-utan’, riding away on a rampaging elephant that he broke out of the zoo, and finally evading capture by flying away on a stolen hot air balloon. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of this sort of shit as a general rule, but by fuck does it seem incongruous in a novel such as this, that is so clever and so beautifully written and, whilst containing its few bits of sensational ridiculousness (as an overt parody of the genre or its tropes), generally quite a serious read. Similarly to The Heat’s On, if this book had just kept on the rails or channelled its madness into chaos that stayed within the genre’s boundaries, instead of just throwing its hands up into the air and screaming, ‘fuck it, put in an elephant chase scene!’, I’d have enjoyed it a lot more. As it is, it reminds me of the overblown nonsense of the 007 stories - this is a novel for dads, I reckon. After finishing this book I then found Beaumont’s introduction to the text, which describes the text as ‘antirealist’, and cites Chesterton’s description of ‘great works which mix up abstractions fit for an epic with fooleries not fit for a pantomime’. As a concept, I can fully get behind this - the juxtaposition of heroics and farcical nonsense puts me in mind of high burlesque, and I’ve always been fully against realism because fuck that noise. But you can’t stick with the idea of this book being wholly antirealist if it takes place in a world recognisable as our own and then suddenly changes to be ludicrous and laughable; that’s just inconsistent, and indeed mildly vexing when I was fully engrossed in the sensational spy thriller. Furthermore, attempting to justify this book’s content by saying that it is reminiscent of a ‘nightmare’ is a bullshit defence, because a) the word ‘nightmare’ could simply be used in reference to this book’s negative depiction of a world in which anarchists triumph in their nasty villainy, and b) it’s difficult to keep the idea of this book’s world supposedly being a dream forefront in one’s mind when it, as mentioned above, represents a view (albeit a sensational one) of reality, with dream nonsense hardly being a part of it at all. That is, of course, until the very end, when the book gives up all pretence of being a spy novel and instead wallows in metaphor and overt Christian imagery before ending abruptly. The ending is bullshit and I don't like it.

Dead Souls - Nikolai Gogol I’ve often cited Gogol as one of my favourite authors, but for the longest time I stayed clear of this book, somewhat daunted by whether what I loved about Gogol’s short stories would translate well to a novel form. This is a different beast to his short stories, but no less interesting to talk about, and indeed possessing many of the short story’s positive attributes, for all of the excellent writing, characterisation, and understanding of the fun nuances of society abounds here as it does in his shorter works. Apparently Gogol was attempting to recreate the structure and overall vibe of The Odyssey and other such Homeric epics in prose form, and although the overall setting and storyline does not reflect the grand awe-inspiring epics of the past, I’ll be buggered if the story’s writing and tone doesn’t somehow achieve it. This is not, despite what some critics have said, due to Gogol’s tendency to ramble on about unrelated digressions (a device apparently comparable to Homeric epics), or at least it didn’t stick out to me as such when I read it - that’s just kind of what Gogol does. No, it’s the writing and tone, as mentioned above, that seems to ape the Homeric tone, in such a way that you wouldn’t notice its explicit presence until after you’d been informed of it, and yet when you are aware of the Homeric influence you see it everywhere clear as day; I’d call it an ineffable concept but that’s just me trying to cover up for the fact that I can’t find the words, because I’m bad at writing these things. But I digress. Gogol’s excellent means of conveying character voices shines as always in this text, but I can’t feel like I’m missing the extent of it because I’m reading it in English. The introduction by Robert A Maguire describes Gogol’s extensive research into ‘all the prosaic rubbish of life, all the rags’, and makes efforts to incorporate such minor details as regional slang, official jargon, outdated terminology, etc. into his characters’ voices, but I fear that I’m missing some of the nuances of these techniques by my lack of knowledge in these fields or that some of the subtleties in language don’t translate as well as they ought to. Of course there are some characters which exemplify Gogol’s skill at diverse voices, such as some of the peasant muzhiks and one of my favourite characters Nozdryov (who draws from a wide array of sources for his dialogue with hilarious results), but there are some instances in which the character voices seem somewhat interchangeable, especially considering how a lot of individual personality is often subsumed by the necessity of upholding social decorum, and thus there are many characters who only speak in refined socially acceptable manners. The characters themselves are all bloody great, be they individual grotesque landowners or incredibly detailed and often brilliantly satirical descriptions of wider groups or demographics. Whilst the writing remains as excellent as ever, the characters in the second part of the book lack the grotesque simplicity of those in the first part - indeed, efforts are made by Gogol to give them complex fleshed-out characterisation - and subsequently these new characters are nowhere near as memorable as the fantastic personifications of negative traits that we got in the first part. Yeah, I forgot to mention, this book is technically made up of two parts, the first part highlighting the problems of society and the second part intended to delve into the resolution of some of these issues; of course, the second part does not exist in its entirety, because Gogol was a great fan of melodramatically burning his manuscripts, but it’s not a major issue because what does survive of the full text is amazing enough on its own (specifically the entirety of part one). Plus, I’ve delved into my thoughts of authors trying to ‘change the world’ through their works (in that I think that it’s a fool’s notion and only really serves to exemplify the author’s delusion), so I’m content with this text only portraying the detrimental aspects of society, as opposed to trying to fix them. I am quite fond of the narrator in this book. Similarly to his short stories, Gogol employs a narrative voice that exists almost as a character in of itself, and I don’t just mean that in the sense of ‘it’s got a lot of personality’. The narrative voice apologises for the story’s content and makes changes in an attempt to preserve decorum, it makes excuses for the story’s characters (especially the protagonist Chichikov), it often reveals information at the same rate as the characters within the setting discover things and have epiphanies, and it even establishes itself as a character with a physical voice as it only chooses to speak of Chichikov’s past when Chichikov himself is asleep, and apologises all the while lest he somehow slight the man. Bringing up this also gives me an opportunity to briefly mention the 2006 BBC radio adaptation for this, which establishes the narrator as a physical character in all scenes to humourous effect (and what’s more gave me yet more reason to love Mark Heap, who makes for a fucking excellent Chichikov). But I digress. Part two of the novel, as mentioned above, does not possess the same sort of wonderfully grotesque characters as part one, and considering that this is a novel defined mainly by its characters, this is somewhat problematic. The plot of part two is perhaps vaguely interesting, even though it seems to shunt the titular focus of dead souls to the side somewhat, but all in all I found it difficult to be too invested in this new story due to its lack of compelling characters. In addition, the Homeric epic tone of part one is somewhat absent, and without a distinctive narrative voice, the narrative suffers. I feel bad shitting on part two, since it was everyone else shitting on part two that catalysed Gogol to burn the manuscript (again) and possibly starve himself to death. Honestly, the first part is bloody amazing, so just read that and then be satisfied with the knowledge that your opinion of the book overall has not been tarnished by the shoddy second part. Sorry Gogol.

Complete Short Fiction - Oscar Wilde I’ve been vaguely aware of Wilde’s short fiction for a while now, having read a selection of his fairy tales and ‘Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime’ (a favourite of mine) for uni, so I decided to give his complete collection a shot. The Penguin Classics edition of his short fiction is separated into his different published collections, but can generally be categorised as either fairy tales or miscellaneous short stories. I’ve studied a shit load of fairy tale authors/compilers (Basile, Straparola, Perrault, the Brothers Grimm, Andersen, Wilde and whoever compiles the radical Russian fairy tales), and Wilde is certainly my favourite of the bunch. The specific blend of Wilde-esque traits incorporated into the fairy tale format make up my favourite fairy tales of any author - this is by no means all of Wilde’s fairy tales, but I’ll get into that. My favourite fairy tales of Wilde take place in a world vaguely recognisable as our own, or at least existing as an exaggerated facsimile of our own society, not just because the urban setting reminds me of Hoffmann’s ‘The Golden Pot’, but because such a setting allows for some heavy-handed but undeniably hilarious social commentary and satire. Such satire works especially well when juxtaposing the romanticised world of the fairy tale with the grimmer reality of Wilde’s society - the two tales that commence the collection, ‘The Happy Prince’ and ’The Nightingale and the Rose’, exemplify this excellently. Whilst I liked the satire attainable by setting the fairy tale in an urban society environment, similar levels of hilarity are obtained via Wilde’s satirical look at certain character archetypes (the titular character in ‘The Remarkable Rocket’ being my favourite example). The fairy tales obviously possess their morals and their teachings (though I was a fan of how this is subverted slightly by some characters actively avoiding, misinterpreting or arguing with the story’s moral), but the tropes that we’d expect to see in fairy tales - the morals from Perrault, the recurring overt ties to Christianity from Andersen, etc. - are not why I like Wilde’s fairy tales so much. The tales in the collection titled A House of Pomegranates are undeniably excellently written, and what’s more include some fantastic settings inspired by the Victorian obsession with the Orient that allow for phenomenal and evocative descriptive writing (the likes of which is not seen in any other of Wilde’s fairy tales), but they fail to capture my preferred positive attributes that the aforementioned tales possess. I cheekily skipped 'The Portrait of Mr W H' because I’d heard from a mate who had also read it that it was a long and dull read, and thus refrained from checking it out lest it tarnish my idealised view of Wilde. I’m sure I’ll live with myself knowing that I haven’t read Wilde’s entire body of works. Indeed, who gives half a toss about that when we’ve still got to talk about the last remaining collection contained within this publication: ‘Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime and Other Stories’, which is not made up of fairy tales but other ‘popular’ genres of writing. Taken at face value, the stories’ content of murder, ghosts, and mystery slot in nicely alongside the fairy tales, in that they can all be considered, at face value, writings intended to appeal to the low-brow interests of the masses. They are, of course, more than that, possessing some great subversions of genre tropes and Wilde’s typical social satire, which all comes together to make the short stories (in particular ‘Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime’ and ‘The Canterville Ghost’) hilarious and very enjoyable reads. The fact that these stories are written with the primary intentions of entertaining, rather than revolutionising the written form or making one think about grand philosophical themes, means that I can’t really offer anything about the stories other than that they’re fucking good and that you should go and read them.

Shit I read this month that I couldn’t be arsed to write about: A Short History of Drunkenness by Mark Forsyth (which I started back in December(?) last year, forgot about until now, and love immensely), and ��The Penal Colony’ by Kafka (it was much more enjoyable than the other works by Kafka that I’ve read, but that isn’t really saying much).

#book reviews #book ramblings #the man who was thursday #gk chesterton #dead souls #nikolai gogol #oscar wilde #lord arthur savile's crime #the canterville ghost #the happy prince #the remarkable rocket #the nightingale and the rose

[socialpracticegrouprca]

SGP 2020 Session 2: with Curator Louise Shelley 

April 21st 2020

Curator Louise Shelley created a brilliant session for us in April 2020, our first session after lockdown started. A time when zoom was new to us and everyone was trying to get to grips with this new way of working and connecting to others, and the sun was out a lot!

Louise sent me an intro quote which I really loved so I’ll post it here:

“What if, instead of providing a resolution, a direct answer, or a definite interpretation, a reading helped us to navigate the complexity of existence – attending to both its actual and virtual moments – its different positions, relationships and layers that also constitute us? Every reading exposes possibilities, reveals blockages, and shifts perspectives. Beyond the principles of non-contradiction and identity, readings design a space where multiple articulations of situations and events coexist without the imposition of a single meaning or direction.” -Denise Ferreira da Silva & Valentina Desideri, “Poethical Readings” Drawing from each other's practices Denise Ferreira da Silva and Valentina Desideri come together for experimental readings. They experiment with 'reading tools' inspired by well-known and newly-designed practices – such as the Tarots, Political Therapy, Palmistry, Fake Therapy as well as Reiki, Astrology and Philosophy. Relying on the kind of knowing that Walter Benjamin calls mimetic (intuitive) faculty and Carl G Jung associative thinking, these tools assemble a reading or an image. Reading as imaging, in their practice, consists in an assembling that exposes and navigates the complex context constituting the situation, event or problem that concerns a person or collective at a given moment and place. As such, it aims at expanding the horizon of interpretation, that is, to open up possibilities and unsettle realities.

Before the session Louise shared with us two texts to read:

- Pauline Oliver’s Sonic Meditations (famous and much used recently in listening and meditative collective sound work

- Ground Provisions by Tonika Sealy Thompson and Stefano Harney (an interesting text about a great project which is centred on ideas of reading together and reading as refuge).

Louise Shelley’s session started with telling us what was important to her:

The work that I'm interested in really centres collaborative practices and the politics that are inherent in that, so that means the sort of differences that we might all bring to the collaboration.

How can we do something together that still hold space for all of those differences in those polarities?

Thinking about how collective work can counter competitive landscapes that are dominant in our lives, and particularly in the cultural sector. And also looking specifically at what histories or ways of working collectively have come before us how we can draw from them and how we can sort of fold them into our own lived experiences or our own issues at stake, like now, for instance.

Collected formats can also be imaginative and playful and experimental

The exercises are taken from different forms of pedagogy, critical pegagogy and lots of different histories or ways of trying to have an embodied way of sharing and relating and thinking about power dynamics

Group check in - where everyone said their name, how they felt at the moment and what they could see in front of them. It was a good way to connect to the physical space and find out where in the world all the students were.

Counting game - as a group we played the game that focuses in on listening to the others in the group. We had to count from 1 to the number of the group - 17, one at a time without people saying the same number together, then you have to start again. It was tough but we got there! It really reinforced the idea of collectively straining to read the group, to leave gaps for others to speak and kind of anticipate when there is space.

Next Louise introduced her curating practice and a few of her recent projects, ideas and contextual references and approaches. https://curatorlab.se/louise-shelley

The Creative Commons

Learning and Unlearning

Working with Domestic Workers of the world.

Schooling and Culture ‘The State we’re in’ 

We did a listening exercise - from Pauline Oliveros

Louise: I wanted to do some exercises that draw on some of those ideas and also quite interested in ways to collaborate or work together that think about who has the loudest voice in the room, or who always steps up to talk and trying to create things that reflect on that. I'm quite interested in forms or exercises that don't prioritise language that maybe are about expressing or thinking through our bodies and as a way to, I guess, think about care or emotion and process knowledge or values that aren't of sort of articulated.

Practices that embody sort of slowness or contemplation or listening when we've been sort of forced into this position, it's not sort of in resistance to productive modes of capitalism that have been shaping us for decades. It's meant to be a habitual practice, a bit like the check in that the more you do it, the more you would be able to sort of work through blockages or sort of reveal things as a group.

Louise showed us this pink screen and read to us from Pauline Oliveros Meditations:

Try it yourself!

Intro: Sonic meditations are intended for group work over a long period of time with regular meetings, no special skills and necessary.  Any persons who are willing to commit themselves can participate, the ensemble, to whom these meditations dedicated has found that nonverbal meetings intensify the results of these meditations and help provide an atmosphere which is conducive to such activity.  With continuous work some of the following becomes possible with Sonic meditations heightened states of awareness or expanded consciousness changes in physiology and psychology from known and unknown tensions to relaxations which gradually become permanent these changes may represent a tuning of mind and body. The group may develop positive energy which can influence each other who are less experienced members of the group may achieve greater awareness and sensitivity to each other.

Sonic meditation 25 ‘your name, the signature meditation’

Considering the amount of time. Okay, so close your eyes.

Think about your name. And visualize writing it as slowly as possible. Visualize your name as you sign it mentally

Visualize your name with your eyes closed. And now with your eyes open. Close your eyes. Visualize your name in different kinds of writing. In script. Imprint. Very the sizes. From microscopic to gigantic

Vary the colors and very the backgrounds. Very the dimensions. Vary the spacing. Visualize your name backwards. Forwards. Upside down. And inside out. Visualize your name written with your left hand. Unwritten with your right hand.

Visualize your name on the horizon. Until it disappears. Now I want you to try and visualize someone else's name in the group.

Once you've picked that name. Visualize writing as slowly as possible.

Visualize the name with your eyes closed and now visualize their name with your eyes open. Close your eyes. Visualize their name and different kinds of writing. And script. In print. Very the sizes of their name from microscopic to gigantic

Vary the colors and the backgrounds. Vary the dimensions.

Visualize writing the name backwards. And forwards. Upside down. And inside out. Visualize writing their name with your right hand. And with your left hand. Visualize that name on the horizon.until it disappears.

Louise Shelley: Okay, open your eyes.

-----------

We did some collective group reading of texts with everyone taking turn to read out loud. This became really powerful, and it was important to slow down and do it for quite a long time I think. It also related strongly to the text Louise gave us in en email beforehand (Ground Provisions by Tonika Sealy Thompson and Stefano Harney)

Fred Moten’s The Undercommons

Seeds for change resources

Pablo Martinez

Casco - what we mean when we say commons

Nataša Petrešin-Bachelez For Slow Institutions

Barby Asante - Rights to the city

Louise asked us all to think about What is at Stake? In our own ways of working.

What’s is at stake for each of the students, in working collaboratively, the motivations?

She said ‘often I ask these questions that should answered with a few words:

-what can you offer to a collaborative project?

-what would you like to gain from a collaborative project?

-and a word of encouragement? 

#socialpracticegroup socialart curator politicalpractice

[kylerenpenning]

Audience Studies (3P18) Blog #2

Audience Studies (3P18) Blog #2

Week 6

In week 6, the material looks to cover the uses and gratifications of media theory for online users, outlining the criteria that determine what makes an audience, as well as, exploring what motivates users to consume digital media, and examining the link between audience members conscious choice and the unconscious effects of their choices. In the lecture, we discussed the uses and gratifications theory which was interesting because it offers a glimpse of the evolution we have experienced throughout the decade because the technologies that are now used to explore audiences has served researchers well and are being used to draw upon more detailed, accurate conclusions on audience behavior and interactions. The theory understands that audiences have a goal in mind (active), that they are selective in the content that they choose to consume, they can be discriminative towards opposing ideologies, and finally that audiences make choices and can explain why we are making these choices (self-aware). 

The most prominent example from my life where I can see this theory being applied is through my university experience. The students can be recognized as active audience members because we are constantly participating in literature in our classes with the goal in mind to graduate and get a job. Students at brock university like myself are selective in the content we choose because we were all given a large variety of choice for programs when we first applied, and each individual chose the program that best suited themselves and the one that would help them make a career from the content they will learn. Each program can be viewed as a different audience that is part of a much larger audience which is Brock University as a whole. With regards to the discriminative part of the uses and gratifications theory, I have experienced in seminars people being discriminative towards ideas students present because they do not agree with what they propose. Although it is in a respectful manner, many dialogues in my seminars throughout the years have involved a disagreement and the two parties are trying to find some sort of middle ground to agree upon. This flows right into the self-awareness aspect because within the dialogue they can elaborate on their positions and provide an explanation on why they support the things they do which proves that audience members are self-aware of their beliefs for the most part. 

           The next area of focus this week which was really interesting to me was reading the research article that looked at what motivates users to consume digital media. The article’s main concern was to distinguish the differences between gratification sought and gratification obtained from the consumption of media content. For this distinction to become a reality, they defined gratification as ‘expectancy of a certain outcome as a function of certain behavior’ (Mirjana Pantic. 2 April 2019) The article teaches us that media use as ‘functional’ is important to understand because it implies that audience members seek out some sort of goal in the things they do as audience members, and we as audience members are looking to gain a sense of gratification through obtaining the goals we set in place for ourselves. Whenever my friends and I get heavily into a video game we tend to start competing against each other to see who is the best one at the game. In this case, being considered the best out of the friend group would be considered the ‘expected certain outcome’ and the ‘certain behavior’ that would emerge in each of us would be more hours played on the game. We would also take the game more seriously because everyone knows they need to put time into the game and get better if they want the satisfaction of being the best out of our friend group which would be considered the audience. 

           Finally, we examined Blumer’s theory and the link between audience members' conscious choice and the unconscious effects their choices have. This essentially explains that the awareness we have of the thoughts in our head is what drives us to do the things that we do (conscious choice). However, our actions have an effect either on ourselves or others that we are sometimes not aware of (unconscious effect). For example, When I was a little kid I sometimes would say hurtful things to my parents and at the time my thought may have been that the things I say will get me what I wanted. Now I know that some of the choices I made in the hurtful things I said had an effect on my parents' mental health that I was not aware of simply because I was young, immature, and still learning. As a result of me agitating my parents, they would respond by being less helpful to me if I needed it and made me understand that I need to respect them because my choices have an effect on their well-being.  

Week 7 

           This week, we headed towards interpreting and decoding mass media texts which Sullivan describes as studies that are focused on gaining a better understanding of how audiences interpret texts, especially media that contains behavior that is considered to be morally reprehensible (Granelli & Zenor, 2016, p. 5058). In lecture, we learned that large media owners have a great amount of power in society because of their ability to send out messages that a mass audience is going to be viewing and interpreting in several ways. However, the CCCS recognizes that audiences are decoders themselves, and have the ability to pick and choose which messages they believe/support. An audience experience from my life that I can see this occurring is from my time spent watching YouTube as there are a number of vloggers on the platform and with that, I get a chance to examine several personalities of influencers that are put on a pedestal in society because of their persona and the way they live. I understand the deeper meaning behind YouTube giving so much exposure to certain individuals over others is because whoever is in charge of managing what gets circulated on their platform believes that these people are model citizens and good people to look up to. I am proof that users can decode media content and challenge certain individuals that YouTube wants people to see as model citizens and I know this because I develop emotional attachments the biggest vloggers on the platform. Some of the most popular vloggers I enjoy watching, while others I despise such as Jake Paul for his irresponsible, and sometimes dangerous behavior that gets promoted as ‘cool’ and eventually is normalized to his younger audience that is still learning the difference between right and wrong and building their morals. 

           Another key concept we discussed this week which is supported in Sullivan chapter 6 was the reception theory and the three different outcomes of audience interpretation. The Dominant view is the position that most people claim to make the most sense and is the most widely accepted view (Sullivan, 2013, p. 148) An example of a dominant view in my life can be seen through the expectations that people have for how to handle this covid pandemic. The current dominant view is that this virus should be taken seriously in Ontario and people should stay in their homes and wash their hands more than they are ever. This would mean that the reports claiming this pandemic to be a ‘hoax’ represent the oppositional reading which is when the audience goes against the dominant view and takes the opposing side (Sullivan, pg. 148) Since the majority of audience members to this pandemic, including myself, believe that this pandemic is real and should be dealt with in a serious manner it solidifies my understanding that the oppositional group is those who think covid is not something to worry about. The final outcome of audience interpretation we learned about is the negotiated stance which is explained as supporting some aspects of the content they consume while they reject other aspects and come up with their own conclusions on the subject matter (Sullivan, pg. 148) Using the same example of the covid pandemic, the negotiated stance would be the groups of people who although believe that the pandemic is a reality and not a ‘hoax’, they may lie somewhere in the middle of the spectrum where they think the severity of the pandemic has been ‘blown out of proportion’ by media outlets and that fewer policies would not make a big difference in controlling the spread of the virus. 

           Another topic of discussion this week was the four modes of audience reception which aims to answer why audiences engage with certain texts and form emotional attachments to characters and themes they see within them. The first mode of reception we examined was the transparent mode which is when individuals view the text as ‘life’ and experience deep emotional attachment to the content, essentially leading them to forget that they are engaging in fictional content (Michelle, pg. 191). This reminds me of when I enjoy a tv show and the more I watch it, the more I invest emotion and time into the show, and I begin to develop my favorite and least favorite characters and when I speak about the show like they are real people going through real-life scenarios and if something bad happens to a character I like then it may change my mood during the day. This is an example of me experiencing a transparent reception because I am getting lost in the fictional content of the TV show. The next mode is the referential mode which Michelle explains as when an audience interprets content as ‘life-like’ and compares the content to things happening in their own life that they can relate it to understand better. Another type of audience reception is the mediated mode which occurs when audiences look at text strictly based on its content, without an emotional attachment to characters or themes that they may see while indulging in the content. I think of my film class when I think of mediated audiences because we take one episode a week of a television show that was aired many decades ago and we are asked to analyze the television show from a non-biased point of view, strictly to analyze the textual creativity of the content. Since we move onto a different show each week it is hard to form any emotional attachment to the characters which is why I would not classify this experience as a transparent or referential mode of reception. 

Week 8 

           This week’s content looks at reception contexts which open discussions about the importance of digital screens being found relatively anywhere in today’s day in age, and how audience experience differs depending on the location/setting of the screening. In the lecture, it was interesting for me to hear what Sullivan had to say about how digital media has impacted Television usage. Sullivan says, “The introduction of new media technologies has not fundamentally altered the amount of television use in the home” (Sullivan, p. 171) When I look at my at-home-life experience I can see how some people would disagree with this, while others would agree with it. When I am living at Brock for school and it is just me and my roommates who are all considered ‘younger generation’ we don’t even have cable set up for our TV because we know which streaming platforms to use to watch the shows or sports we want to watch. However, when I am at home in Oakville living with my parents we have cable set up on multiple televisions because my parents, who are older, still use the traditional television for things like the news, sporting events, television shows, etc. Furthermore, I understand that television still plays an important role in society because the older generations are still around to make use out of it, but it raises the question of how will the television industry be affected in future years? When the older generation is filtered out of society in a few decades I believe that there will be a major decline in the television industry because by that point most people will have fully switched from using cable TV to using streaming platforms and alternative media sources to acquire the same kind of entertainment television has provided us with for the lat several decades.

           In this week's reading, Kihan Kim and Yunjae Cheong Kihan take on “an approach that examines how viewing experiences differ based on the venues people watch sports in, rather than specifying and examining individual antecedent factors of sports viewing. The theater condition and home condition differ on multiple features simultaneously, including not only factors driven by technologies, but also social drivers of sports viewing.” (Kim, K. pg. 390) He studied the difference in the audience viewing experiences of watching sports at home vs when they watched sports at a theatre. The article concludes that because of the bigger screen size, better video and audio quality, the possibility for a 3D viewing experience, and the social factors associated with a theatre such as audience reactions, theatres are understood as the more favorable viewing experience. I can agree with this because in my family we enjoy watching movies together and most of the time we would watch movies in our own home and make popcorn and just watch on our television while being in the comfort of our living room. However, when there is a popular movie that comes out in theatres that we are all excited to see then we will go to the movies to watch for the “best experience possible”. Recently, the new Star Wars film ‘The Rise of Skywalker’ came out in theatres and since we have all been big fans of the series for a long time my parents decided to treat me and my brother to the theatre experience. During this theatre experience, I noticed the screen was ten times bigger than the tv in my house, the sound was much louder and better quality because it has a surround sound effect. Thus, I agree that viewing experiences differ based on the venues people watch them in because each venue offers different features that alter the viewing experience. 

Another concept we talked about in this chapter is appropriation which helps us understand how we have formed our media contexts and rituals. This looks to examine how communication technologies are introduced into people’s lives and the different ways in which people build an understanding of what the technologies are to be used for. When I look back at my experience of being introduced to technology, I think of the first cell phone I was given for my grade 8 graduation. My parents were hesitant to give me a phone because they thought it was too early for someone who is twelve years old to have open access to the online world knowing the dangers that surrounded the popular platforms like Facebook and MSN at the time. This is what caused them to make rules like handing in my phone every night at a certain time or having to ask for permission from my parents to get certain apps. This is an example of appropriation because it focuses on the introduction of technology in my life and exposes the ways in which I have learned to use the media the way I do today. 

The last concept we went over this week was ritual contexts in audiences. Rituals are formed over a long period of time and it is when you consistently do a certain set of things in preparation for/during an event. The most prominent example from my life that I can see an audience start to form rituals is when my family attends my Dad’s work celebration for Canada day every year. With my dad being a police officer in the peel region, he does what most officers do and bring their families out to celebrate with the entire police department where there are games, food, live shows, and fireworks to end the night. Since we do this every year for Canada Day and it is the same gathering, I would classify this as an audience experience that has become a ritual in my family. 

Week 9 

           This week’s content takes a closer look at media fandom and audience subcultures. To start, we developed a definition for what classifies someone as a ‘fan’ which we concluded was a person deeply invested in content and religiously stays on top of new the content produced, as well as engaging with old content to strengthen their connection with the material. Something I found interesting when reading the Sullivan chapter was that he mentions that there are no clear boundaries in media outlets anymore due to computers becoming more affordable, and platforms that are putting a lot more power into the audience by allowing them to expand from original texts to develop their own understanding of what the content means (Sullivan, Chapter 8) A platform I see myself engaging in that aligns with Sullivan’s belief that media boundaries are difficult to see now is Reddit. Reddit is an open forum of discussion for relatively anything you want to talk about, and it happens in an online environment where anyone is able to enter a topic of discussion and converse with other random users that are interested in the same topic as you. For example, in my time on Reddit, I once entered a chatroom where people were discussing the events that took place in a movie I had recently watched called ‘Mile 22’ because I wanted to see how others' perception of the movie compared to mine. I found that the more I read through the discussions on the movie the further I advanced myself into the fandom by increasing my knowledge on the events that took place in the film through my interactions with other fans of the movie. In this case, the original text would be the movie itself, and fans on Reddit are the proof that technology has allowed users to expand from original texts, and develop their own understanding of what the content means

Week 10 

           In this chapter, we look at how the role of audiences has changed since the introduction of digital media through the formation of new ways in which audiences can break through the barrier of just being a consumer and begin producing their own content and meanings on certain texts. 

           The first aspect we discussed this week to deepen our understanding of how the audience’s role in media texts has changed over time is the concept of digitalization. This is when content that originally was only found in hardcopy versions such as books, newspapers, magazines, etc is moved to an online format where only a computer or phone is necessary to retrieve the content. The digitization of banking is a prime example of something where at one point in time, I had to physically show up to the bank to deposit cheques, view my account balances, or transfer money. Banks have digitized much of their duties so that audiences can do everything they would need to go to a bank for right from their phones. Participatory culture is another result of media text being moved online because digital platforms provide something that traditional texts could never do, which is to allow the audience to respond to the content and express their agreement, disagreement, or changes they would make to the content. When I think about my personal experiences engaging in participatory culture, I think of the course evaluations that I must complete every semester. Throughout the entire term, I am given new content that I have never seen before and in the past, it would be very hard for schools to collect data about the success of their ways of teaching. Digital media, specifically the course evaluations that are electronically distributed has opened the opportunity for me to provide feedback to my professors and TA’s without having to go through barriers that make it hard for my opinion to be heard. This proves that participatory culture has increased throughout my lifetime and will likely experience further increases in the future. 

           Another concept we touched on this week is user-generated content, as well as the idea that users are able to store, create, and distribute content. First, user-generated content is any form of content, such as images, videos, text, and audio, that has been posted by users on online platforms such as social media. Places where I find myself posting user-generated content are on my Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat profiles where I typically will post things that I find funny or interesting. I also sometimes store content because I know that it will be useful for me later like when a lecture is being presented and whatever is on the slide is too much content for me to quickly take notes on, I will use my phone to take a picture of the screen so that when I have the time, I am able to make the notes for the lesson. Not only does my experience prove that users are able to store content and put it into their own context, but it also exemplifies the concept of convergence because there is clearly an ability to show content across multiple devices such as the lecture screen and my phone screen. 

           In this weeks reading, we interrogate the dynamics and potentials of the big data paradigm in an era of user-generated content and commercial exploitation (Adrian Athique, p. 59) In the article we learn that since the introduction of media, large corporations are spending more time gathering analytics of what users are searching, posting, and buying so that they can produce products in the future that will have a greater chance of being successful in the market. I have had many scares in my life where I am shopping online, browsing through Amazon, or even just looking at imagines of commodities I am interested in obtaining and then, conveniently, the next time I go on YouTube for entertainment, an advertisement pops up on my screen for the exact same product that I was thinking about buying. This shows that corporations are using data they collect online to enhance their business success which is not necessarily a bad thing in my opinion because companies make more profit when they produce commodities and services that appeal to a larger audience. As a consumer, all this means is that as long as you are aware of the underlying meaning behind companies collecting big data and making personalized ads, you should benefit from this because, in the end, you are more likely to be exposed to products or content that appeal to you.

           Overall, this semester was filled with insightful concepts that I can see myself taking with me into the real-world and applying them into my thought process to give me a better chance at having positive audience experiences.

#FunTerm AudienceStudies NewMedia

[extemporaneousmusings]

There’s this page from a manuscript that’s in LACMA’s collections I’ve been thinking about for a good year. I discovered it when watching a GettyTalks livestream last summer by the GoT costume designer. I kind of forget the context in which she discussed it, but it totally captivated me and isn’t really relevant to the rest of her talk, as she moved on to discuss the more psychological and emotional underpinnings of costuming, rather than original source materials. I was so intrigued that I messaged the Getty tumblr that day to ask for the citation when I couldn’t find the image myself, and it’s just been floating around on my computer for the past year.

15th century Islamic manuscripts are worlds away from my wheelhouse, obviously, but there was something here that clung to the edges of an already fringe concept I had been toying with, that over the past year has become more and more relevant and pervasive.

The idea is hinged upon two major foci. The first is the development of the attribute through time, which is much more central to what I do...The basic synopsis of what I’d like to ultimately accomplish with my PhD is to try and connect grounded, known archaeological assemblages to contextualize and examine them within a more robust and experimental theoretical framework. The discussion of images is often divorced from their context, especially when it comes to more ephemeral objects like vases. (Note, this is the first time I’ve ever really used the word ephemeral in connection with vases, I need to think about this more!) The second is of the extended lifespan of Alexander the Great, both in images and texts, which persisted for thousands of years after his death, and was incorporated into many different cultural narratives.

An attribute, within iconography (which is at its very simplest, the study/interpretation of images and symbols) is an object or a shorthand that gives further information linked to the central character. Dionysos is one of the most attribute-laden lads in Greek art. To name a few, he has a kantharos, which is a specific type of drinking cup, leaves, wine, satyrs, maenads, which all in and of themselves, have nested attributes. 

Attic black-figure vase depicting Dionysos and a few of his typical attributes. (Musée de Louvre, MNE 938)

Athena has her owl, and gorgon head on her shield. Zeus has thunderbolts. All of these are small visually represented objects, yet convey a great amount of culturally loaded information. I’m just speaking from the Greek tradition at the moment, but iconography and attributes exist across time and space. Thor has his hammer, which is an extremely potent symbol that conveys a lot more than just his favorite accessory. The Statue of Liberty has a torch and books. You get the point.

Attributes have not remained the same, in terms of what they represent or how they are interpreted, throughout history. Narrowing back down to the Greek world, the Hellenistic period brought about enormous cultural shifts in nearly every arena, and art was one of them. It hasn’t really been explored through such a lens yet, to my knowledge, but the very power and intent behind attributes shifted dramatically. I am super intrigued in trying to find a way to trace the development of the attribute, and see how and when its use began to change.

Here we get to the point of contact between the two ideas. The Hellenistic period is a broad, uneven, inelegant term to discuss a period of time directly impacted by the death of Alexander the Great and the aftermath of his political and military campaigns, but before the Roman Empire became the main cultural and political power. This is, of course, impossible to define, but in reductive academic short-hand refers to the years 323 BC- 31 AD. The Hellenistic period also considers a much broader geographic scope than is usually incorporated into classical scholarship in earlier periods, because Alexander conquered so much land, and Greek ideas were then transmitted in very different ways to a broader swath of people and cultures.

I’ve now reached the point where this gets beyond me, for the moment. I’m not an Hellenistic historian, and the political and military narrative of history during these years is a fucking quagmire. The art produced during this time-period in many ways reflects this time of upheaval and constant change, because it’s experimental, bizarre, and all over the place.

Alexander was a brilliant commander and political thinker. He curated his image and controlled its dissemination. The dude had a whole host of personally commissioned artists at his command who produced sculptures/coins/jewels depicting him that were somehow regulated and presented a unified front, despite the geographical breadth across which they worked and he travelled. (This is precisely why you can always identify sculptures of him, even hundreds of years after his death, because they were all produced using cookie-cutter templates.) He used attributes and his own image to influence politics in a way that hadn’t been done before, and this continues long after his death.* This is picked up and totally incorporated into Roman imperial politics and art further down the road. 

At the moment, this is my (utterly unsubstantiated) half-baked axis: I think that the attribute had been developing and shifting in use somewhat, but that Alexander radicalized what it was, and how it was used. THEREFORE, not only can one continue to trace how the attribute continues through and beyond Alexander in Greek&Roman art, but Alexander himself through time and cultures makes a fascinating case study of the attribute. (Maybe??? Or maybe this is just two separate things just barely linked??? I’m gonna try to explain the second branch more.)

Alexander was, obviously, a big fucking deal. He went a bunch of places and did a bunch of shit. As such, he was remembered and mythologized broadly, for many different reasons, in many different ways. His actions were incorporated into the narrative fabric of many cultures and societies. Before I watched this Getty talk I had NO IDEA that Alexander appears in the Quran. Fascinating!!

He appears in the Quran as Dhul-Qarnayn which means “The Two-Horned One” in English. Scholars don’t know exactly why, but have tentatively suggested that perhaps it is because Alexander was sometimes depicted on coins as having curling rams horns. This is super dope, and I totally wanna buy it and argue for it BECAUSE, his use of the rams horns on coinage was a direct attempt to assimilate himself within a blended Eastern/Egyptian mythology. The rams horns were an attribute of Ammon, an Egyptian deity who is often considered alongside/culturally synonymous to Zeus. So, it is possible that his name in the Quran and further Islamic tradition is a direct reference to the way he, and then his followers, manipulated attributes to accomplish political goals.

Tetradrachm of Lysimachus depicting Alexander with the horns of Ammon. British Museum 1919,0820.1

Along with being incorporated into the textual history of these diffuse cultures, he is also depicted visually in a whole host of new and evolving forms. I haven’t looked into the artistic depictions of Alexander once he becomes Dhul-Qarnayn, or Iskander (his Persian name), but I think that’s probably what I should do next. By the time it gets to the way-aforementioned manuscript page he is completely transformed iconographically speaking. In this illumination Alexander/Iskander is depicted (the solo figure on the right) as an official from the Chinese court, visiting the Kaaba. He is, therefore, culturally reborn, depicted as someone from China, interacting with one of the most sacred monuments of Islam. This is so far removed from his original context, and yet one can trace the path of his transmission through time and media to this point.

Iskander at the Kaaba. LACMA M.73.5.462

As I’ve said. I’m not sure how these two concepts (the attribute and ~Alexander through time~) necessarily link up, or if they even productively can. It’s possible they should both be pursued as separate, though theoretically related trains of thought. I was hoping, through the course of writing this, try and figure out some more/gain further clarity, but unfortunately I don’t think any of the resources I’ll need to really dig down on this are readily available online, as I have discovered a rather scanty digital trail, even about Alexander in his extended legendary life.

*27/4/19 this is pretty bold and I'm not sure I'm currently equipped to defend the statement against a critical attack but it still feels right. 

If you read all of this, hey thanks! This was an attempt to try and mitigate the fact that I’ve just been crawling up the walls of my own mind and it’s been getting pretty bad the past couple of days. Injuries are really difficult for everyone, but coming directly from a summer of mobility and hiking and freedom in the place I love most, despite the fact that I wasn’t even in the field very much, and being utterly and completely grounded has been a devastating and crippling (pun intended) adjustment. Sitting in one place has never been something I’ve been good at, and I am really only just coming back into my own mind as I ease off the pain meds. SO, this was an attempt, inspired muchly by @post--grad’s fucking brilliant and captivating newsletter to just try and muse and think without any pressure or connected to anything that has any current relevance to my scholarly production. 

Let me know what you think, really! Even if you’re someone for whom this is all totally new, bc let’s be real, most people don’t spend their lives thinking about objects and images and The Past. I wanna know what you think! Does it make sense? Is it weird? What was the most interesting thing about this, if at all?

#mine #writing #iconography #some musingsofmaura #if you will

[spamzineglasgow]

(SPAM Cuts) ‘The Following Scan Will Last Four Minutes’ by Lieke Marsman

Cover by Pavilion Poetry/Liverpool University Press.

In this SPAM Cut, Jane Hartshorn looks at the sociopolitical, ethical and poetic implications of representing illness in Lieke Marsman’s poem, ‘The Following Scan Will Last Four Minutes’, whose English translation by Sophie Collins you can read here.  

> Lieke Marsman’s poem ‘The Following Scan Will Last Four Minutes’ is included in her recent collection The Following Scan Will Last Five Minutes, translated from the original Dutch by poet and translator Sophie Collins.

> The book takes the form of ten poems, followed by an essay drawing on Marsman’s experience of cancer. Collins then reflects on the process of translation, written as a series of letters to Marsman.

> Marsman was influenced by Audre Lorde’s Cancer Journals, as well as Illness as Metaphor by Susan Sontag, and the themes explored in both these texts are interwoven throughout the poems. She writes, ‘The difference in the tone and approach of these two books is huge, and it gets me thinking. How will I relate to my own disease? Is this a choice?’

> The question of how to ‘relate to [one’s] disease’ is one those who have experienced prolonged illness must grapple with. Do we assimilate the disease into our sense of self, or do we reject it as an alien ‘other’? Like the abject, the disease is both ‘me’ and ‘not me’; inhabiting a liminal space between subject and object. Emerging from within us, but not completely of us, it blurs the boundary between self and other, disturbing the notion that our identity is cohesive, fixed, stable.

> Marsman herself describes this difficult and often conflicted relationship in the essay which follows the sequence, writing, ‘Sometimes I refer to my tumour lovingly as my grapefruit, while on other days I vehemently detest it and fantasise about breaking into the tissue bank where it is being stored, in strips, in minus eighty degrees centigrade.’

> This reflects Lorde’s relationship with her own tumour, in which she expresses anger at her right breast, illuminating the process of bodily dissociation illness can engender. She writes, ‘I had grown angry at my right breast because I felt as if it had in some unexpected way betrayed me, as if it had become already separate from me and had turned against me by creating this tumour that might be malignant.’ The notion of the body in revolt is one that emerges in many illness narratives, often staging the body as a battleground where wars are won or lost.  

> This tension between self and other, the familiar and the unfamiliar is a theme that runs throughout the collection. For example, in ‘The Following Scan Will Last Four Minutes’, Marsman’s italicisation of ‘chondrosarcoma’, the name of her condition, gives it a dangerous power; a word only to be uttered in hushed tones. This lends it an otherworldliness, a mythic quality, and hints at its ability to threaten existence. Although receiving a diagnosis for an otherwise elusive condition can offer a sense of relief, it can also have an alienating effect. Medical discourse employs terminology that is unfamiliar to the patient, and this can estrange her from her body. The sick person loses autonomy not only through the illness, but also through the depersonalising effects of the medical establishment.

> Within the theme of defamiliarisation, the poem also explores the banality of illness. Phrases like ‘the morphinesweet unreality of the everyday’ echo Woolf’s description of becoming ill, where she writes of ‘the undiscovered countries that are then disclosed’ ‘when the lights of health go down.’ The juxtaposition of ‘unreality’ with ‘everyday’ speaks of how diagnosis, and in fact, illness itself, can be earth-shattering yet mundane. In a later poem, Marsman writes, ‘cancer is so quotidian / you hear about it on Wednesday morning / die on a Tuesday afternoon.’ And it’s the inability to perform the quotidian, such as ‘doing laundry’ or ‘balling socks’, that underpins the experience of prolonged illness. Illness is notoriously difficult to write about, and one of the reasons for this is due to its overwhelming mundanity; it cannot be dramatised, or driven by a linear narrative. Furthermore, there is often no easy resolution, or return to a pre-illness self.

> Marsman was initially misdiagnosed; the pain in her shoulder was thought to be a repetitive strain injury. Her GP suggests she could ‘get a new office chair’ or ‘set an egg timer to ensure [she] take[s] regular breaks from working’. Partly due to the negligence of a number of clinicians, she is put on a two-month waiting list for an MRI scan.

> Having ‘already inserted [her]self into the narrative of an overworked twenty-something-year-old’, Marsman initially believes she has ‘burn-out’, and the medical professionals she visits appear to encourage this self-diagnosis.

> When we become sick, we imagine it will be temporary. Within capitalism, our body is understood as a machine; one that only needs repairing in order to return to its pre-illness state. We are taught to believe that our value rests upon our level of production, or our ability to perform within a results-driven workforce. Arthur Frank explores the commodification implicit in the restitution narrative, writing, ‘what will cure the body is a commodity, whether that takes the form of a drug or a service, and however it is paid for.’

> This model of the body as machinery feeds into a larger ideology whereby the sick individual is perceived as somehow culpable for their illness, whether this is due to bad diet, unhealthy habits, or stress related factors. Sontag writes that ‘psychological theories of illness are a powerful means of placing the blame on the ill’, thus diverting attention away from possible environmental factors, or genetic disorders.

> Lorde, too, considers this culture of blaming the individual, writing, ’The idea that the cancer patient should be made to feel guilty about having had cancer, as if in some way it were all her fault for not having been in the right psychological frame of mind at all times to prevent cancer, is a monstrous distortion of the idea that we can use our psychic strengths to help heal ourselves.’

> Marsman’s own response to her diagnosis chimes with this; ‘Have I thought too often about which songs I would like played at my funeral? Should I have engaged less in Twitter feuds? Are my jokes a little on the mean side? I’m seized, now and then, by a deep, old feeling of guilt.’

> We need to be wary of discourses of health and illness that implicitly apportion blame upon the individual. Whilst remedies such as mindfulness, yoga, acupuncture can be helpful, they should not be offered as alternatives to medicine. As public health services strain under the pressure of government funding cuts, and as hospitals are increasingly understaffed and under-resourced, our health is being sold back to us as a commodifiable object.  

> Marsman is also wary of this discourse, writing, ‘meditation and mindfulness are helpful in terms of alleviating pain and fatigue, but where does the pain and fatigue come from in the first place?’ She goes on to argue that relaxation techniques are often the last resort of those who have been failed by the medical establishment, whose symptoms have been incorrectly attributed to stress. The poem, too, reinforces this:

Do you know what life has to offer or did those endless therapy sessions and that eight-week mindfulness course simply teach you how to tolerate suffering that every signal in your body can be temporarily expelled to the rhythm of some breathing exercise?

This belief in the individual’s power to ‘cure’ themselves understands the body on mechanistic lines, placing a degree of responsibility upon the sick person for their illness, which can then manifest as guilt or blame.

> The sequence is prefaced by a quote from the Cancer Journals, in which Lorde writes,

Every once in a while, I would think, ‘what do I eat? how do I act to announce or preserve my new status as temporary upon this earth?’ and then I’d remember that we’ve always been temporary, and that I had just never really underlined it before, or acted out of it so completely before. And then I would feel a little foolish and needlessly melodramatic, but only a little.

Returning again to the question of ‘how to relate to one’s disease’, maybe, as Lorde suggests, we need to embrace this notion of temporality. If we can reframe the experience of illness, and regard it as an ongoing process of negotiation, readjustment, and management, rather than as one of loss or lacking, then maybe we can challenge the existing binary of health and sickness, and the notion of the self as a fixed, unified entity positioned at either end of the scale. Havi Carel’s concept of ‘health within illness’ is a more accurate way of describing the experience of chronic illness, as it captures its fluctuating, overlapping, non-chronological nature.

> Perhaps, then, it’s not only a question of how the individual relates to their own disease, but a matter of exploring how cultural perceptions of and attitudes towards illness shape the individual’s experience of illness.

> Marsman wonders if she is ‘experiencing this cancer as an Actual Hell because that’s how [she] genuinely feel about it, or because that is the common perception of cancer’. Both Lorde and Sontag attempt to challenge the taboos surrounding cancer in their respective texts, and I think that Marsman does the same in The Following Scan Will Last Five Minutes, critiquing the societal structures that work to ostracise and marginalise those with chronic illnesses.

> The Following Scan Will Last Five Minutes is an actively political text. Through examining her own experience of illness, Marsman situates this within a wider socio-cultural framework; she explains to us that her experience of illness has enabled her to see more clearly her position in relation to the rest of society. She deftly manages to flip the question of how to relate to one’s disease back to us, asking, how does society relate to illness, and is this a choice?

The Following Scan Will Last Five Minutes is available now, via Liverpool University Press. You can order a copy here.

~

Text: Jane Hartshorn

Published 8/12/19

#SPAM Cuts #SPAM Cut #Lieke Marsman #Sophie Collins #Jane Hartshorn #review #reviews #poetry review #cancer #poetry #Liverpool University Press #Pavilion Poetry

[courtney-jadeneale-blog]

ESSAY: Feminist Journey

Introduction

 Feminism has been a prominent movement regarding the progression of women’s rights in western society. As social media and technology have progressed so has the circulation of political works of art. In turn, this has allowed the upcoming generations to join the conversation surrounding the treatment of minority groups.

This piece will further elaborate on feminist theory. This will be achieved primarily through the lens of illustrator Florence Given. Examined will be her approach to the 21st century feminist perceptions. For example, intersectionality and the newly disputed #MeToo movement popularised through avid social media campaigning from women’s movements. Through the evaluation of Florence Given’s illustrations, we are also able to discuss other feminist controversies such as the male gaze, and on a broader spectrum, social semiotics and the implications it has had on feminist evolution. 

Intersectionality

 Intersectionality is the social theory outlining the multiple risks of discrimination against an individual who’s identity overlaps with more than one minority group. This could be in health, race, ethnicity, gender or age. Minority groups intersectional experiences show that the odds are stacked against them. (Williams. S. (2017)) This proves that although the feminist movement is fighting for equality, some may be fighting for more rights than others; the movement is diverse and personal to each individual. Intersectionality has brought us movements like #MeToo. Me Too is a movement to raise awareness for “… the one in four girls and the one in six boys who are sexually abused every year …”. (The Telegraph. (2018)) The civil rights activist Tarana Burke founded the movement in 2006, this was due to her work with young women of colour and her constant reassurance to them; “you’re not alone. This happened to me too.”. Since then it has turned into a worldwide campaign, raising awareness about sexual harassment, abuse and assault within society. (Biography. (2018)) With the help of social media MeToo has attained global recognition after actress Alyssa Milano urged those who’d experienced a form of sexual harassment to share their stories with the #metoo, “If you’ve been sexually harassed or assaulted write ‘me too’ as a reply to this tweet.” (Twitter. (2017))

                                                  (Instagram. (2018) 1.)                                  

 Florence Given work is Social Realism, this is a term used for work produced by creatives that highlights the real socio – political conditions of the working class, criticising power structures. (Neale.C (2019)) This is an example within Given’s work of sexual harassment, as the nude illustration combined with the text ‘Looking Good for My Goddamn Self’ is representation of the sexist thoughts of western society. These thoughts state that if you are a woman with flesh on show, whether that be, cleavage, leg or bum you are asking for it. The use of red within the background has connotations of anger, showing how enraged this makes Given and also women in western society feel. This however in my opinion goes against intersectionality as all women are fighting for the right to walk outside in whatever they want without the common perception that they are asking for it.

­

Gender theory

We become who we are because of social conditioning in things like are parents’ values, culture and ideologies. This almost makes our identity a performance and kind of storytelling, as how we choose to dress, to what we eat and how we act can construct our identities further. This relates to the saying Cogito Ergo Sum, ‘I think, therefore I am’ by Rene Descartes. (Duignan. B. (2019))

‘I think, therefore I am’ heavily relates to gender in modern day society as more people are starting to understand the difference between sex and gender. Sex is biological and decided based on our reproductive functions, Gender is the social conditioning of being male or female.

Judith Butler the American Academic, identifies gender as a performance. This is because she believes “There is no gender identity behind the expressions of gender; that identity is performatively constituted by the vert “expressions” that are said to be its results.”. This is something Florence Given is constantly questioning within her illustrative work. 

                                             (Instagram. (2019). 2)

The text in this illustration; ‘How much of my femininity is who I truly am. And how much of it is a product of patriarchal brainwashing to exist for male consumption?’ refers to the social conditioning of a woman’s role in western society. This is due to the habituate that we are expected to act, speak, dress and groom ourselves based on our biological sex, for example women are expected to be emotional, cook and clean, appear thin and short with long hair. Contradicted to the male expectations of acting aggressive, taking care of finances, work and appear tall and muscular, with short hair. These ‘stereotypes about gender can cause unequal and unfair treatment because of a person’s gender.’; sexism. (Planned Parenthood (2019)) The use of colour chosen for the background of this piece juxtaposed with a female figure as the centre piece represents that females are conditioned to like pink and also given this colour as a depiction of femininity. In doing this she has made the piece hyperfeminine, an exaggeration of stereotyped feminine behaviour.  

 The male gaze

The term ‘male gaze’ was originated by Laura Mulvey in an essay she wrote called ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’ The Male gaze proposes that a women’s identity is rejected, attributing them to the status of an object, thing a commodity to be marvelled at for physical appearance. This is characterized in films being that the female roles only exist to give the male character further importance and interest. Mulvey states that a female personality has only two functions within a narrative, first being a seductive object to be admired within the narrative, the second a seductive object to attract male viewer ship. (SlideShare. (2013)) This representation within social media has grown men to objectify women. Furthermore, teaching women to objectify other women, for what they do or don’t have based on physical appearance.

                                              (Instagram. (2018). 3)                      

Florence Given’s piece ‘There is enough room for all women to be whole without tearing each other down’ is a perfect depiction of this. The constant eradication of female egos and girl power prohibits the feminist movement from reaching its full potential. As women as a whole should be united as we are all fighting for equal rights to our societal ‘superior’, however when we are tear each other down based surface appearance we aren’t making room for us all to succeed only the select few deemed by society as ‘perfect’. Again, the red colour palette has connotations of anger representing the distress this causes Given and again women of western society. The red colour choice also adds a seductive feel to the illustration enhancing the expression and bold features of the women within the piece, this could be a subtle implication to the male gaze.

Another creative that looks at the social realism of the male gaze is photographer Cindy Sherman. Sherman is ‘best known for her conceptual portraits’. (TATE. (2019)) Sherman look at the seductive oppression of mass media identities mainly focusing on women. Sherman fixated on make up within her photographs, as she considers this the main tool to achieve what we see circulating our media, basing her work around sexual desire.  

                                                     Madonna (1977)

                                                  (Neale. C. (2019))

This image suggests a portrayal of The Male Gaze, As the overall plastic look to the image along with the makeup and blank expression gives it a doll like affect. The use of black and white within this photograph also gives it a lifeless feel as no pink pigment can be recognised in the skin, meaning life cannot be identified. This fits with the theory than men view women as objects to be admired rather than their equals. Looking at the overall image from a social stand point I would say this image is a depiction of the value of what women are to men.

 Conclusion

The Feminist movement has broadcast to a larger audience due to social media. Movements like #MeToo and social realistic works of art that visually showcase socio-political issues are the reason feminism is now gaining the global recognition that’s needed for change. Florence Given for me personally is a massive influence in 21st century feminism. Given’s aesthetically pleasing illustrations highlighting key points of modern western society and the feminist movement in a creative way. This appeals to a much larger audience as they are able to visually see the modern-day problems of society apposed to hearing them on the news or reading the issues in news articles. I feel the next step in feminism is to educate people on intersectionality. Often feminism is misconstrued to a one size fits all scenario, as people think it only applies to women fighting for the same issues; this is not the case, the fight is different for each individual; its personal. Feminism isn’t just the fight for women’s rights, it’s a fight for equal rights for minority groups; ethnicity, LGBTQ+, religion, disability and men!

#100