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donaidk · 3 years

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Rhythm of Time - Part III

New year, new part, new banner, same old me with my ramblings... Not gonna make it long, just the usual quick thank you for reading this and all the other parts/stories and hope you guys will enjoy this too :) Part II | You’re here | Part IV Masterlist

„ What do you want? ” I asked immediately not to give him any time to start talking about anything else. He always had a reason to search me out, and it was never about anything usual for a lovely father-daughter chat. It was never that simple.

„ Congrats for the job with Haas. I knew they will realise your talents. ” He said, a smile getting on his face, which made my stomach turn. „ Don’t really know what you think of me. Can’t I congratulate my own daughter? ” He asked back, making me roll my eyes. I was just relieved that Mick already left and this was a private conversation.

„ You mean your personal slave? ” I bit back, crossing my arms in front of my chest while not taking my eyes off his ones. „ You never want to just chat. There’s always something ” I shook my head a little, as not one bit of my body wanted to be in his vicinity.

„ Oh, even you know that was only a misunderstanding. I would never do something like that. ” Dad let out a sigh but he could never make me rethink my decision about any of his business offers. They were all dirty traps, well covered by his connections.

„ Just like you would never hurt anyone else either. Right. ” His words made me roll my eyes again, and it didn’t help that I saw nothing like regret in his eyes after my question. „ Look, I have a real job to do, not like others… I would appreciate it if you could just get out of my way and not try your dirty tricks out on me. I know you too well already. I’m immune. ” I shook my head, rather walking back to the paddock, to get a car with someone else from the team, as I didn’t want to waste one more driver’s time for just one passanger.

„ Mona… Don’t be like this to your own dad. ” He came after me immediately, but as soon as I felt his hand around my wrist anger pumped through my veins and I tore my hand away from him.

„ Don’t you dare play that card. You lost your right to do so years ago. You have nothing to do with me, and I would be the happiest human on this Earth if I could never see you again. I rue ever getting to know you. ” I glared at him, turning back just so I could push him back from myself. I never felt so much hatred towards a family member prior to the day I realised all his wrong doings. Him calling my name again just restarted the fire inside me, once more. „ I don’t have your name for a reason. Do me a favour and forget me finally. You should be fucking grateful that Mum still believes you. ” I poked his chest before turning on my heels so I could finally get to our garage as soon as possible, where I knew he wasn’t allowed in.

I let out a sigh as soon as I was finally inside and sat down next to Pete who was still going through data before they would have to get the garage packed up. The car was already back in it’s place and even though it was covered on most parts you could see the broken suspensions sticking out. I knew they would have to start fixing it for the next race, although they had more time for it as the next one was in only two weeks time. It was probably lucky that it wasn’t during a race that was followed by another immediately. Made everyone’s job easier and gave them time to completely fix it and get it back where it was before. With a sigh I looked back at the screens even though I knew I couldn’t really help them in any way. This wasn’t really my field and I would have probably either messed up everything or I just wouldn’t even be able to comment on any part of the data if they ever asked for my opinion.

In the end I stayed until they all were done and gladly helped packing up as I really didn’t feel like going outside of the pitlane, and giving a chance for my father to try talking to me again. I didn’t know if he had the balls to stay right until he would be kicked out with the last few visitors, or if he gave up after my response to his approach. Maybe I was giving him too much credit with the second option, but I wanted to believe that it was possible. It would mean I was getting closer to finally getting fully out of his grasp. The media coming up with rumours involving him and I twice a year was truly enough for my mental health. I didn’t need him giving them even more to report on, breaking down my reliability day by day, pushing me further away from my goal of working in the sport without being connected to him. changing my name was one step, but I knew quite well it wouldn’t solve everything and people will still know who I am and who brought me up until my realisation that he was no good as a parent and I could finally take my own decisions.

It was already quite late when the car that took Pete, two of the mechanics and myself, back to the hotel arrived at the destination and we could get out. I dragged myself to the elevator, taking it up to my level where I separated from the guys and went to my own room. The little LED on the lock just turned green and I was about to push down the handle when the door two down from mine opened and I turned towards the sound, getting caught off guard by the movement I saw from the corner of my eyes.

„ Hello. ” Mick greeted me as he stepped out of his room, making me nod in his way. „ Are you coming to dinner? ” He asked again, making me stop in my tracks and step back before I would be inside my own room.

„ I already ate, but thank you. ” I lied and shook my head a little, but before I would have stepped inside I forced myself to look up at him. „ Sorry for the car situation. He can time his ’visits’ quite terribly. ” I added with a sigh hoping that bringing it up won’t just make it even more awkward. There was only silence after my apology, making me want to take back everything I said. I was just about to do that when he was quicker and spoke up.

„ Do you want to talk about it? I mean that usually helps… if you talk it out with someone. ” He surprised me, as I anticipated him trying to get out of the situation rather than offering help. „ It doesn’t have to be me though. You probably have your own friends who usually help you with these things. ” He shrugged a little, almost leaving for the diner when I nodded my head.

„ I would appreciate that. ” I added to my gesture so he would know for sure what I meant. „ Only if you have the time to do so. I don’t want to take up your free time. ” I spoke up quickly again, realising I had no right to change up his whole schedule with my own problems. He probably had better things to do than listen to my rambling about my dad being an asshole.

„ I’m completely free. I’m just gonna get dinner and head back here. Take a shower until then. ” He offered, making me nod again and finally enter my room as soon as he was further away from me, already at the end of the hallway to get into the elevator. Before he would turn around and see me still standing there, I stepped inside closing my door.

His idea did plant a seed in my head, and even though I didn’t plan on it, I took a warm shower, putting my hair up in a towel in the end as I got some clothes out of my suitcase, to change out of the robe. I would have probably just got my pajamas on, but knowing I will have someone over I thought it would be better to get normal clothing out. I was just about to brush through my hair when there was a knock on the door, making me confused for a second, before I got to the door and opened it up. Mick with two containers of food wasn’t a sight in front of me that I anticipated. As soon as I stepped aside he came inside, handing me one of the containers.

„ Robert sent it, knowing you didn’t eat at the track and wasn’t going to do so here if you didn’t come down with me. ” He answered my silent question that my risen eyebrow held, making me smile a little. Some of the crew knew me too well, I guess. „ So, a movie or just chatting? ” He asked, making me look up to see him take a seat on the couch like it was his room we were in. Somehow it still didn’t make me feel abashed as it felt strangely normal.

„ We can start something if you want. Won’t promise that my mind will take it in though. ” I let out a sigh, getting the remote from the TV in front of the couch before sitting down on the other side opposite to him. I watched him take it from my hand before switching it onto a channel that was playing the highlights from today, making me chuckle. „ Guess that won’t strain my poor brain. ” I shook my head, opening the top of the container to see one of my favourites inside.

We watched the replays on the screen as we dived into our food, although there wasn’t really anything we haven’t seen before. I felt myself tense up when they showed the only crash of the race, which was of course Mick’s, but I was glad to see that wasn’t one bit affected by it now. They usually got over them easily, if it wasn’t anything serious or life changing. I was about to finish my meal when they changed to some interviews and immediately felt sickness take over me when I saw the name Jason Hackett written out on the screen and just seconds later the camera turned to show my dad with a full on grin, standing in front of a microphone. They were asking him about rumours of him bringing back the Hackett name into F1 and even though he denied to have any plans like that right now he did hint on having talks with one of the teams. My stomach turned in a way I thought was impossible, at the idea of my father getting to work with another team after how the last occasion like this ended a few years ago.

„ Guess we know why he was there today at least. ” Mick sighed next to me, although I couldn’t break my glance away from the TV until he went off screen finally. „ Although it’s quite a bold statement that someone would like to work with him, taking the outcome of his last sponsorship with a team into account. ” He added with a scoff, making me nod in agreement. I really didn’t know what to think about this all together.

„ You know he’s my father, don’t you? ” I asked him when I was finally out of the trance the interview caused me to fall into. „ Stupid question. Probably everyone knows, however hard I’m trying to keep it from them. ” I poked at a piece of a chicken angrily, almost poking myself in the hand through the material of the box.

„ I wouldn’t say everyone knows. Your friends for sure do, but for example the mechanics probably never even thought you have a connection to him. Only way if they really looked into the cases back when they happened. ” He shook his head a little, mostly just looking at his own food, which wasn’t the sign I was looking for. I had to make myself remember that he was still the one to bring this up and come to my room. „ You’re not running around telling everyone, and also joined the team after all the changes, so they didn’t even have your ’real’ name to start off on. ” He added with a shrug looking back up at me, my worries fading away about him feeling trapped in this conversation.

I had to agree with him, as I really didn’t give myself away for everyone. Why would I? My only dream was to finally get out of his shadow so I could be my own person finally and not just a puppet of his. We stayed in silence watching the TV as they changed to some biking footage from the previous day, while I was still in my thoughts mostly. It was probably one of my worst traits, spending at least two quarters of my time inside my thoughts, completely shutting the outside word out. It gave me the chance to work things out inside without getting anyone worried about me, but I mostly stressed about things that weren’t worth it anyways, making me waste my time.

„ Did you know back then? When I still had his name? ” I asked him, still looking straight at him as I really didn’t want to miss his expression so he couldn’t lie to me. He took a deep breath, probably debating how he should put his words.

„ They made sure I knew. They told us who he was as the accusations were quite fresh back then. But I didn’t know that you’re his daughter. ” He shook his head, looking quite truthful and I believed him. He didn’t give me a reason to do otherwise. „ When I woke up, I had texts from the PR managers that there were photos of the two of us talking with a group of people. They asked me to keep clear of you until I had my contract signed, so photos like these won’t bring my future team an unsure feeling about me. ” My hand stopped in the middle of lifting the fork to my mouth, resting the silverware down on the box again. That wasn’t something I thought about.

„ That’s lovely. Although, I understand their fears. Even I know how messy he leaves everything he touches. There aren't many who can steal millions and still stay out of jail. ” I rolled my eyes, closing the top of my box as I lost most of my appetite. „ Lucky that I stood up against him, isn’t it? At least I’m not someone in their eyes who may interfere with things for him. ” I sighed, crossing my arms in front of my chest. It was the only thing I feared, losing all the respect I worked for in the past few years just because they think I’m here thanks to him.

„ How did you end up at Haas actually? You never mentioned that before. ” He questioned me, making me look up from the floor again.

„ Erica was a family friend of ours who stood up against my dad when he was accused of stealing money through sponsorships. Back then she was still in F2, and then she helped me get my voice heard after he messed up again just with an F2 team. ” I started my story that I never actually told anyone before. Not many were curious enough to actually ask. „ Then when I started university but realised it wasn’t what I wanted she took me as a trainee and helped me get my education in PR management in a way that was compatible with our travelling, so I would have the qualifications if I wanted to look for something outside of Haas in the future. ” I finished up with a smile on my face from the memories. I could only thank Erica for me. She was almost more family to me than my own blood. She trusted me, even when they considered me a wild card in the media.

„ Guess everyone needs a mentor in their life? ” He asked with a similar smile on his face and I could only nod in agreement. Having someone guide you wasn’t too bad of a thing, until they only had good intentions. If someone, Mick probably understood my position the best out of the team members we had.

#mick schumacher #mick schumacher fanfic #mick schumacher oneshot #mick schumacher fanfiction #mick schumacher imagine #f1 #f1 fanfiction #f1 oneshot #f1 imagine #f1 fanfic #rhythm of time #bydonaidk

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anarchistsuggestion · 5 years

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hey, vaccinate your kids you jerks!!!

thanks for coming to my essay! now that i have your attention, i think we should stop talking about anti-vaxxers like theyre all backwards hyper-religious dumbasses. like, im frustrated too, and i agree that "personal/religious reasons" should not allow someone to keep their kids unvaccinated. furthermore, as an autistic person, i despise the myth that vaccines cause autism. i especially hate that it scares people into avoiding vaccines, because theres nothing wrong with me.

but ridiculing these people will only make the problem worse, and here's why: i think that a lot of anti-vaxxers and their communities are used to feeling like the most important aspects of their cultural identities are universally mocked or demonised (im not qualified to say whether these feelings reflect reality in every case, but either way im just talking about feelings, ie, what people think we believe about their culture). for instance, my only knowledge of amish people comes from jokes ive seen others make about them. yes, none of these jokes were very serious, and its easy for me to laugh at them because im not amish, but despite my low empathy i can understand that it just feels bad to hear a whole bunch of jokes about something important to you. i'll get back to this point in a moment.

anyway, i bring up the amish because in 2014, there were measles outbreaks in some amish communities in Ohio. and i think that a lot of the people who dont vaccinate their kids are used to being ridiculed for their "weird" or "new age" or "hyper-religious" or "unchristian" lifestyles, so they just see our concern as more of that mockery. we all sound the same to them, and cant you see why?

"ughh all these people ignoring science and being stubborn about vaccines because their church said--" you sound like one of those atheists. if you cant say anything productive, please stay out of the discussion. why do you act like ridiculing people will change their minds? we should be reaching out, instead.

we need to make the effort to approach anti-vaxxers in a way that distinguishes us from those who only converse with them to mock them.

i want more people to understand that the best way to change someone's mind when they're defensive is by listening. you need to be willing to accept whatever they might rant about, and respect that, even if their fears seem ridiculous, even if their fears are rooted in ableism, their fears still terrify them. thats why theyre called fears. you can validate someone's feelings of anxiety and confusion without validating their bigotry, and you must be willing to accept that this is work. this is difficult. it's much, much harder than yelling your opinions. it's exhausting, and sometimes it doesn't even pay off. sometimes you just can't convince somebody, and you have to be able to accept that.

if this seems too hard for you, i have good news: you do not have to do it. this kind of thing is not for everyone, and it's okay if you just don't want to. this doesn't have to be your responsibility.

i only ask that you stop making things worse by (performatively, in the case of yall who arent in danger of dying/losing a loved one to a preventable disease) mocking anti-vaxxers, because we are the ones who need something from them. we are asking them to face their fears (which were sometimes instilled in them very early in their childhood) for the good of humanity. i don't know about all of you, but i'd be hesitant at best to face even my third worst fear (spiders) for the sake of strangers who regularly mock my culture and heritage, and i know for a fact that most spiders cannot harm me!

this is natural. this is human. it is easy to dismiss things you dont understand, and it's even easier to dismiss them when all the scientific evidence agrees with you. however, your evidence does not make these people's experiences and fears less real for them. it does not lessen the effect their fear has on their choices. knowing that a tarantula won't hurt me if i follow certain guidelines will not stop me from shaking and having a breakdown if i think too hard about touching one. knowing that nothing bad would happen doesn't motivate me to go over to the science building at my college and ask to hold their fucking tarantula.

there are no shortcuts here. if we want anti-vaxxers to accept vaccines and stop putting so much effort towards keeping their children unvaccinated, we have to convince them that they don't need to be afraid of vaccines. we need to actually address their concerns. telling them their fears are ridiculous is just not convincing no matter how much scientific evidence you have. this discussion has become too performative. people just tell anti-vaxxers to vaccinate their kids, and they dont bother to address the fear that motivates their opponents. they don't care that they're asking people to trust a yelling internet stranger with their child's health.

it is inconsiderate to demand things from people without stopping to think about what you're asking for. please think about it from their point of view. if vaccines were dangerous, and they vaccinated their kids, then anything bad that happened to their kids due to the vaccines would be their responsibility. and remember, these people have not been given a convincing reason to believe vaccines are harmless. okay? they do not want to be at fault for their children getting hurt. yes, they are wrong. yes, they are frustrating. yes, they are endangering immunocompromised people like my dad, but there is a huge difference between being malicious and being misguided. please do not treat them like they set out to hurt you.

also? stop telling them to care about other people when you don't care enough about them to respect that they're doing their best with the resources they have. stop saying "i dont know how to explain to you that you should care about other people" when you really just want them to magically stop being scared. maybe you say it out of genuine frustration and bewilderment, but when everyone is saying it, it comes across like a smug 'gotcha!' phrase that excuses you from spending more energy on the debate. you can just say youre tired and stop.

i am trying to explain to you that you should care that these people have felt scammed/hurt by the medical industry enough times that they feel justified in risking the health of their whole family (assuming they even think vaccines work). you should care that theyve never been given a convincing reason to trust remedies promoted by rich strangers who make claims that sound too good to be true. the government has promoted harmful things to underprivileged people before, like milk (it took me a half hour to sift through unrelated stuff about soy milk to confirm this, so i'll go ahead and link my source). it is logical to mistrust an industry that operates for the profit of people youve never met. not everyone trusts the FDA to keep the pharmaceutical industry in check, and it's actually pretty smart to rely on direct accounts from people you know personally when you aren't sure how well something actually works, and you dont trust the ones selling it to you.

with that in mind, talking to people is probably the best way to tackle this issue, but many of you haven't bothered to compile introductory information about vaccines. you havent bothered to present these resources in a way that doesn't ridicule people who are scared. i am trying to explain to you that you shouldn't debate with people if you won't treat them like humans. i am trying to explain to you that "you dont actually care about others" is a hurtful and manipulative sentiment, and when you say it to people who are trying their best, you become part of the problem. you reinforce their mistrust. i am trying to explain to you that trusting doctors doesnt make you morally superior.

put yourself in their shoes for a moment. imagine that someone comes up to you and makes it clear that they think the choices you've made as a parent are ridiculous. they make claims about your child without offering proof, or the only proof they offer also mocks you and people like you (or they just tell you to "google it"). furthermore, they tell you that unless you give in, something bad will happen to their own children, and it will be your fault.

this is manipulative. even if you are correct, it is manipulative. demanding that someone treat their child in a way that they consider harmful is just ridiculous and i don't know why you expect people to listen to you. do you expect this to be easy? do you honestly believe that if someone isn't converted within minutes, they're just being stubborn? do you think these people know the truth, and only persist out of spite?

these questions are necessary, because many of you talk about anti-vaxxers as though the answer is 'yes.' there is a difference between being correct and treating people right. please be more aware of that line in the future, and do your best not to cross it.

oh, and by the way, if i see any of you using this year's measles outbreaks as an excuse to be hateful towards jewish people, i will block and report you. antivaxxers usually arent malicious, and if you perceive orthodox jewish antivaxxers as being worse than other antivaxxers, you need to rethink your beliefs. they arent rejecting vaccines just to hurt you. maybe theyre tired of being demonised and blamed for everything from climate change to unemployment to dead kids*, and theyre unwilling to trust random people with something as important as the health of their children when a lot of us have never bothered to listen to their struggles. (* ive seen a whole lot of people saying things that border on blood libel without quite involving blood during these discussions, so can we all agree to be careful not to do anything that resembles that shit now that ive provided a handy link about what it is? thanks)

lastly, all of this criticism of anti-anti-vaxxers is very easy for me to say because i have less of a personal stake in the issue. i know it must hurt in a way i can't currently understand to lose someone to a preventable disease. if i have made anyone feel dismissed or invalidated in this essay post, i'm sorry for doing so, and i want to make it clear that it is okay if you hate anti-vaxxers. i know their fear has hurt you, and i wouldn't ask you to pretend otherwise. i dont want to make any of you feel like you shouldn't talk about your experiences and fears. i'm just asking that, before you hit the post button, you read through your post and edit out anything manipulative or guilt-trippy. your contributions to this conversation are valuable, and i want the people youre trying to convince to be able to read them without feeling like they have to defend themselves instead of listening to you. the culture around this debate has become almost hostile, and while we dont all need to work directly with anti-vaxxers to make it better, we do all need to agree to stop making it worse.

#vaccinate your kids #vaccines #anti vax memes #anti vaxxers #measles #this is almost 2000 words long jfhf #im exhausted #how did it come to this

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withinthescripts · 7 years

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Season 2 Cassette 2: Ulster Museum (1973)

[tape recorder turns on]

Welcome to the Ulster Museum in Belfast. I’m the director of collections, Mary Breathnach. As we enter the new decade of the 1970’s, we face many changes to the art world. Many national borders have fallen away, our world joining together in economic and political unity, but as history changes before our eyes, so does it stay the same.

The Ulster Museum, part of the collected museums of Western Europa, is proud to present “Red Love – the Passion of Claudia Atieno”, sponsored by the Harmon Family Trust. These are Atieno’s most popular works, many from the mid-1960’s when her career was at its height. “Sunshine Afternoon”, “Still Life with Tomato Plant and Sword”, and even a recently discovered repainting of “Still Life with Cat”. It’s been some months since anyone has seen Atieno. Some have even claimed her absence is sinister, that she is missing, that she may even be dead, a long and brilliant career possibly cut short at its peak. While we feel it’s best to refrain from sensationalist speculation, we are also loath to promise more art, when we cannot be sure there is more to come.

Thank you for choosing to take our audio cassette tour. Your audio guide today will be Roimata Mangakāhia, herself an esteemed artist and friend to Atieno. The audio tour begins at the south entrance of art gallery 3. The tour follows a counter-clockwise pattern around the exhibit. Each piece with an accompanying audio lecture will be noted with a blue star on the numbered title card, and there will be at one on the recording to indicate where you might pause the cassette before moving on to the next work.

Please enjoy your visit to Ulster Museum and the exhibit “Red Love”.

[bell chimes]

Painting 101: “Still Life with Tomato Plant and Sword”, by Claudia Atieno, oil on canvas, 1962.

It is one of her most discussed and debated works, and it’s one of the collection of paintings that shifted her career from successful artist to celebrity. As much a celebrity as a painter can be while still alive, of course. The painting sold at Sotheby’s in 1969 for nearly one million pounds, and is on loan to this exhibit.

Many critics admire the gentle and crafty hand at work here. Notice the thin strokes of orange and pink, creating the sunny glare on the tomato. Atiano nearly exposes the texture of the canvas with such thin passes of the brush. It looks almost like watercolors, rather than oil, and it is shallower than the rest of her painting.

Lean closely to the left side to see this remarkable detail. What is exposed? What is vulnerable?

You’ll notice that the titular sword is not visible here. But just past the trellis in the tomato plant you can see a nearly empty garden. The grass is mangy and uneven. But what appears is a large blotch of unusable dirt is actually a mound. The sword of this work’s title has been buried in the garden.

This painting premiered at the Berkshire Museum where Atieno was living at the time, as a resident artist in the former United States. Atieno’s home now is in Cornwall. It’s a large house somewhere along the road to disrepair. Sitting alone on an island, some distance from the mainland.

My first few visits to Cornwall, Claudia and I had tea at a café called Joyeuse, named for Charlemange’s sword. We were served sandwiches and scones and in the back, there was a small garden with sparse grass, and a small, insipid vegetable plot. The tomato plant was the only thing that grew well there, but often the squirrels stole them just as they reached maturity. The owner of Joyeuse, a petite-figured man named Jennifer, who wore square-rimmed glasses and wool leggings, hung his handmade replica of the eponymous sword just above the doorway to the garden area in the back. He had used a wood base and aluminium veneer. It was pulled slightly from the sheath which was emblazened with large jewels that hardly seemed real at all, but were stunning and smart in their own right.

In this painting, look closely at the upturned soil in the garden. Imagine Charlemange’s sword! [whispering] Imagine it now buried in the garden in this painting. Examine the uninspired tomato vines, their drooping and bare stalks fully revealed. But impossibly beautiful in Atieno’s rendition. How will you be remembered?

Atieno does not expect viewers to know about the now defunct Joyeuse café in Cornwall in Western Europa, but she certainly expects viewers to understand that if the title says there is a sword in the painting, then there. is. a sword in the painting, and it is your job to find it.

The garden at Joyeuse and even the sword to which it refers were clear influences on Atieno’s seminal masterpiece, and the longer I have looked at this painting, the more I wonder if the sword -is- buried in the ground, an underlined tribute to our post-reckoning international order of peace or perhaps – knowing Atieno’s wry sense of humor and love of subtle symbolic critiques, perhaps the sword has been dug up.

Look closely at the mound of dirt. The arch of the bound could suggest a burial of weaponry. But in the oblong black patch toward the top, I see the suggestion of a hole rather than a heap. The sword. is. missing. And Atieno does not know where it is. Perhaps the viewer themselves holds it?

Do you? Do you hold the sword?

[bell chimes]

Painting 102: “Marketplace Summer Afternoon”, 1965.

A painting of a crowded food market. Notice the almost boneless limbs on the merchants. The apple cart vendor in the lower right has an arced elbow that never quite reaches a point, her knees are nearly S-shaped. You can see the ocean over the tents in the background. Many books refer to this scene as St Ives. This is likely Plymouth.

I recognize that view from my brief time living near there. But perhaps I’m wrong. This is why we make art, to help us remember more beautifully, not more clearly.

[bell chimes]

Painting 103: “Stapler”, 1968.

It is a painting of a black Swingline stapler on a black background. The audacity of this painting irritated many older artists, as it looks like a poorly lit photo in an office supply catalog.

Look closely at the black of the stapler and the black of the background. Is all darkness the same? How absent is light, in the absence of light?

Atieno on the surface is displaying her technical skills. It is photographic quality in every way. It looks – like almost an advertisement here on the Ulster Museum wall. Perhaps Atieno was making a commentary on the commentary of the pop art movement. But most likely she’s simply showing off her technique. She was quite prolific in her art, and they’re all good works, as you can see here in Belfast. But in her mind, mastery of form was mastery of art. But in my mind, an artist can always do more.

In Cornwall, there were cliffs overlooking the sea. At high tide, I would take off my clothes and dive the ten meters’ drop. I encouraged Claudia to dive with me, but she couldn’t do it. These beautiful cliffs, along an endless cool sea, a scene she could paint and did, but not one she could truly explore. For fear of what? Not heights. She did not flinch at bending over the ledge. Not water, either; she swam regularly, when she could walk down to the shore.

I always wanted her to jump, to plunge. To risk pain or embarrassment, to feel bodily the glory of this rare nature. To paint something truly epic, busy, tall, complex, masterful. To make more astonishing what was already astonishing. To freefall into the vastness that contains both wilderness and tranquility.

But when eyes were on Claudia, she demurred. She believed in frightful conspiracies and intimidated power brokers of the new society. But when the world looked at her for commentary, she sometimes just wanted to paint staplers.

There’s been so much talk about Atieno recently, so much speculation. People say she’s disappeared. [scoffs] This seems ridiculous to me. Artists are reclusive sometimes. We need to be, the world is our inspiration, sure, but also our most dangerous distraction. It is more likely her so-called disappearance is not a disappearance at all but an absence, a hiatus, a time spent away from the pressures of celebrity, to rethink her artistry.

Look closely at the Swingline logo in the painting. What does it mean to be convinced to buy something?

[bell chimes] [tape recorder turns off] [ads] [tape recorder turns on]

Painting 104: “Fingers together”, 1967.

Atieno here has painted a self-portrait of sorts with her sometimes partner Pavel Zubov, a lesser known sculptor she had met in 1965 in St Petersburg. The painting shows two sets of fingers intertwined. The simple contrast in skin tones and the smooth lines of each knuckle create a crosshatch pattern that strikes the eye even from 50 meters away.

Look at the fingers. Can you tell which fingers are the woman’s and which are the man’s? In your mind – what signifies a male finger versus a female finger? Are race and skin color connected?

In Pavel’s skin you can see subtle indications of veins, the pulse one can feel in physical contact with another. Notice the soft brushwork, creating an almost gauzy effect. The natural inclination is to assume gentle love, young love even, giving the plump smoothness of each finger. Although given this was 1967, Atieno might be giving herself too much credit to paint herself with such supple skin. I would also caution you not to be accept too much naïve love in this painting. This work is a popular poster to be hung in university dormatories. Its brash idealism is hiding something harsher.

Look closely at Atieno’s nails. Short, chewed down, an indication of stress. Zubov’s are keenly manicured, almost sharpened. His little finger is out of view. Some writers have suggested that she deliberately did not paint it as a symbol of the child they lost only two months before birth. At best, that is a weak symbolic gesture for the immense tragedy of a miscarried child. [angrily] At worst, it is a lie conceived by hack writers trying to sell papers, as Atieno never carried Zubov’s child. The little finger is not missing. It is hidden from view at this angle, a symbol yes, but of Zubov’s opacity in love. He had many partners.

This should have been fine, their relationship was polyamorous, as were all of Atieno’s relationships. But even with permission, Zubov felt the need to conceal. He convinced each lover that was monogamous, hiding each from each.

I lived with Claudia for a time. It is large, that house. And often full of people, Claudia obviously and Zubov most of the time. They were passionate. Sometimes both naked in front of me, sometimes leaving their bedroom door open. I admired their free spirit, their ability to confront each other with ideas and personal jabs and even great gulping kisses. It was clear that others who lived in the house from time to time were unused to this passionate couple. In that house, the borders between friendship and otherwise were blurred. I can personally attest to this. Lack of transparency to Atieno was equal to deception. If you did not say how you felt to her, whether it was about her art, herself, someone else, or even what kind of tea you would like that afternoon, she believed you to be hiding something. She likewise would be completely honest with you. And as Zubov never brought any other sexual partners to the he house as Atieno did, she suspected he was hiding something. And she was right.

Look again at the intertwining fingers in the painting. Is Atieno being completely honest with you? Are you being honest with anyone?

[bell chimes]

Painting 105: “Sunshine Afternoon”, 1968.

One of Atieno’s lesser known works, Zubov found it in his basement two years ago. It is a painting of sunlight slicing through grey clouds over what is presumably the Celtic Sea. The water in this picture is choppy. Look – at - the choppy water.

[bell chimes]

Painting 106: “Self-Portrait with Cat”, 1972, unfinished.

This painting was recently discovered by Zubov in his home. Atieno already had a painting called “Self-Portrait with Cat”, despite claiming never to have had a cat. I asked her about this painting once or twice, and she was completely unwilling to discuss it. I got the sense she simply did not like this work, but yet here is another version of the same picture. In what you can see of her face, she’s making the same facial expression as in the original: a wry smile, her eyes fixated to something distant, but her face is older, as is the cat’s. Its eyes and neck sagging. The light coming in the window is orange. A sunset.

Look closely at her eyes. Are those the eyes of a woman holding a cat she does not own? Whose cat is it? Look at where the brush strokes end in this unfinished work.

Why would she paint this painting again?

Zubov eventually admitted to having four other lovers, but he refused to tell any of them about the others. He only told Atieno because, as he said, he loved her more. He added, “I would leave them for you, Claudia. I would leave them for you.” But she threw a salad fork at him. And she said she couldn’t love him back, if he did not love the rest of the world as equals. While I believe this sentiment is suffocatingly idealistic, I understood that Atieno saw Zubov’s deception as a lack of respect for himself and the other men and women he was seeing. He priced comfort over truth, and Atieno could not abide that.

Over the few years I knew Claudia, we grew close. Which is to say we were with each other often, and intensely. Claudia fought and argued with me. She sometimes called me names, but as long as I said how I felt, we could work through our disagreements and convince each other of [whispering] almost anything. We talked of her ending her relationship with Pavel. Sometimes she threw things. Sometimes I couldn’t speak for fear of crying in front of her. Eventually it was thought that Pavel should not come back, our conversations were so full of passion, honesty, intimacy. [chuckles] I still wonder who thought this thought first.

Perhaps it was Claudia’s idea, all along.

She ordered Pavel to leave, and he returned. She ordered him to leave again, and he returned, although later than before. After the third command to leave her alone, he seemed not to return at all. But every so often Claudia would receive parcels with no return address. These boxes would contain a single piece of an animal: a tooth from a fox, or large rodent. An ear cut off a rabbit. And one time a field mouse, cut in half at the torso, and all of its blood drained. I urged Claudia to call authorities, but she said Pavel always sent her studies of new sculptures he was working on.

Atieno began this redux painting “Self-Portrait with Cat”, featuring Atieno in her wicker chair on her enclosed patio, the cliffs below her. On her lap, the calico cat. Behind Atieno in the self-portrait along the cliffs, there is a small figure near the ledge. As she did not finish this painting, it’s difficult to say her intention with this rough blotch. Most assume it is a tree, but I have been in that home many days, and there is no tree there. It is a human, or at least a man. I do not know who the man is or what he wants or intends.

This painting is unfinished because Atieno disappeared. Rather, she left her Cornwall home without taking it with her, and left no forwarding address.

[whispering] I do not think she has disappeared. I don’t think she’s done anything so dramatic.

Claudia was last seen at her home in Cornwall in October 1972. Pavel arrived while Claudia was at the market. I answered the door. Pavel and I nodded at each other, but otherwise did not communicate. I left that afternoon to give a lecture at the rebuilt Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, and I-I’ve not seen Claudia since.

I don’t want to imply Pavel in her disappearance, nor give into suspicions that she is dead. I think, or hope, or some word like that, some word like that, that she’s back home near (Dedoma), or in a commune in Halifax or perhaps in another cottage by the sea, wanting us to wait for her next work. Something the profilic artist rarely required of us. [wistfully] Wanting to challenge and provoke and amaze us.

I think that. I hope that. I something something that. [tape recorder turns off]

Within the Wires is written by Jeffrey Cranor and Janina Matthewson and performed by Rima Te Wiata, with original music by Mary Epworth. Find more of Mary’s music at maryepworth.com. The voice of Mary Breathnach was Sarah Maria Griffin.

And please rate and review Within the Wires on Appel podcasts and tell your friends about our immersive little show. Also you can get Within the Wires T-shirts and posters at withinthewires.com Within the Wires is a production of Night Vale Presents. Check out our other podcasts, like Welcome to Night Vale and Alice Isn’t Dead and The Orbiting Human Cirucs of the Air and Convesatioins with People who Hate Me, and coming this month, a brand new podcast from Joseph Fink and John Darnielle called I Only Listen to the Mountain Goats, and a brand new fiction podcast called It Makes a Sound.

OK, our time is done. It’s you time now. Time to stop by the museum gift shop. Grab yourself a souvenir book of paintings about potato canons. Pick up a poster featuring a vulture in a tuxedo. And buy a commemorative vase made out of baby back ribs.

#within the wires #season 2 #season 2 cassette 2 #ulster museum #sorry for being tardy

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wildlove836 · 7 years

Text

2017

wow. okay. when I said 2016 fuck me up I didnt mean literally.

but god damn, once again I’ve rung in the new year heartbroken as can be, but wait there’s more. I fell in love with someone. he’s somehow worse than the last guy and hell I love him a thousand times more.

I’ve dealt with so much shit this year. I’m in a relationship with a drug addict. I didnt know it until about 3 months ago. I mean I knew, but I didnt know.

He asked me to marry him literally the 3rd day we spent together. no I didnt say yes, but apparently I did because now hes calling me his fiance n shit. I ‘lost’ my virginity to this guy. It sounds fucked up but it isnt as bad as it seems. or maybe it is and I still have a long way to go before I figure it all out.

I think I really love him. I think he really loves me. But people keep telling me he’s going to love those little crystals more.

I’ve seen some shit. My humdrum life has done a fucking tail spin in the last 6 months. I went from a full tank of gas and watching netflix all day to $1.43 in my bank account and needles hidden in the dresser drawers.

I’ve seen junkies, I’ve had shit stolen. I’ve watched him physically and mentally change without even noticing.

I’ve been choked and pushed and bruised and screamed at. I’ve done the same things back in a rage I didnt know I was capable of.

I’ve heard stories from child hood that make no sense but make perfect sense and I know I cant change the past but I’d very much like to.

I smoked weed and that shit was great at first but now its the only way I cant really talk to you, it seems. you told me that wasnt it but trust me. i’m too afraid to tell you the truth when we’re not...chill.

I’ve cried and screamed and walked away. I’ve waited hours upon hours for you to call. I havent slept and I’ve slept too much. I had a real panic attack for the first time in my life.

I’ve sat in the ER with you for 6+ hours after you crashed your car from being on adderall. I watched you literally mentally and physically break down in the pizza hut parking lot while normal fucking people watched and wondered what the fuck they could do for you and I just sat there next to you counting change from your pockets because you lost the receipts.

im sorry. i lost them somehow. who fucking knows. i’ll take the blame for it though if thats what I have to do.

i walked across train tracks wondering if maybe my foot my get caught while you told me you were addicted to sex and of course I should have already known this but surprise I didnt. its still my fault though.

we missed trick or treat with your daughter because you were on acid.

then the other day you brought her to my house and slept the whole time. you said what does it matter my parents see me taking her out of the house. well what the fuck do you care right. if you’re playing the part of dad. you son of a bitch. i love that girl and I know you do too but you better try harder. you better or you’ll lose faster if you have her.

I’ve seen you coming down down down. with a knife in your hands and the doors locked and the lights off. I’ve watched cops drive by thinking you were already dead.

I’ve had the best sexual experiences with you and only you. I got drunk and gave you a blow job after knowing I’d never have a dick in my precious mouth.

you called me perfectly imperfect for a while, now that i’ve lost my innocence you call me your miracle. these days I feel like a burden. enabler is the word i’m trying not to say because I know its the truth. but i didnt know. i swear i didnt.

and not in the fucking physical sense. i’m not giving him money or anything like that. im stressing him the fuck out. BUT FUCK HE NEVER MAKES ANY SENSE. and im stressed out too. doesnt anybody see that?

everybody knows him like I know him now. a fucking mind fuck. this little twat can turn a sentence around on you so quick you’re wondering what you even said in the first place. this mother fucker can have you so god damn confused you’re rethinking your whole life.

he does it on purpose. I think so he feels more normal on the inside. the only question I have is, was it the meth that brought it out of him or was it destined to come out eventually on its own. the crazy will never subside and I must admit that’s what somehow attracts me to him.

feeling like a complete dumbass after every conversation we have. BUT YOU ALREADY KNEW THIS. he’ll say, like I already knew it. and then i’ll realize I did already know it. he was telling me all along, but in his own way. like a secret language. and I cant fucking afford the rosetta stone for crazy talk.

half the relationship i spend KNOWING this shit isnt right for me and here i am thinking i have to do this i have to do this but i still dont know what love is. its breaking the god damn futton i know.

there’s no doubt about what i feel but really is it worth it. will he kill me. will i kill him. ive done things i never thought i would do. ive seen things i never thought i would see. the world is my fucking oyster over here. anything is possible. anything can happen. anything.

regardless, here I am. alone and wondering what hes doing. if he’s okay. a thousand and one fucking questions because he doesnt have a phone for me to call. and somehow now it feels like its my fault. it is my fucking fault and im crying a lot right now because of it. and im alone. so he can calm down. but i cant calm down without him. i need him. i need him. I NEED HIM. and im going insane worrying and wondering and crying and feeling okay for a little while.

now im just mad because hes okay without me. hes okay. and im not okay. it isnt fair. FUCK YOU. it isnt fair. do you even love me? DO YOU EVEN CARE. DO YOU EVEN DO YOU EVEN DO YOU EVEN LOVE ME. duh.

WHY DID I QUIT MY FUCKING JOB. I had what I needed. besides clarity and sanity so fuck, you cant blame me. hes been driving me insane since he spotted me.

but I know he fucking loves me. crazy people dont fuck around with shit like that. if they mean it they mean it. i feel it. I know it. I love it. its the only thing I understand ever. is my love for him. is it true. is it real. who fucking cares. its real and its ever present and its mostly reciprocated in good and bad ways. if i could walk away from it i already would have . i swear. i already would have but i havent so get off my fucking back.

but love is hard they tell me. love is fucking hard as hell and you’ve got to suffer before you can enjoy that shit, otherwise its not worth it. I realize this is too long and i’m not gonna reread it so nobody else is probably going to read it. thats okay. i needed to get it down on ‘paper’ just in case.

god just fucking pray for me or something. every time I feel like something is going to get worse it does okay. I had people burning up spoons in the trailer we were supposed to live in just to shoot up heroin and I was too busy making sure my boyfriend wasnt killing himself in a shed to realize.

old dude (thats what they call people in fairdale) literally over dosed in the bed that was supposed to be mine. in the bedroom that was supposed to be mine but I cant say anything about it? I CANT SAY ONE GOD DAMN WORD ABOUT IT?

nah because bf is too nice to people who ‘care’ to realize what they’re really doing in the big picture. she put her clothes in the closet that was supposed to be mine. mine. FUCKING MINE. but i cant be mad because shes homeless and has cancer. what a fucking lifetime movie. I DIDNT NEED THIS TO KNOW I WAS A SELFISH PERSON. I ALREADY KNEW. I’M GOOD AT HIDING IT. I WANT MY CLOSET SPACE BACK. I see drug abuse and friendship and something strikes me as sketchy. OMG. and dont get me started on the cheating.

he cheats on me. he puts his dick inside his best friend while they’re fucked up on whatever. they tell me she says no everytime he asks but this time she didnt. oh wow. what a perfect picture of a life im stuck in. what a romantic gesture. WHAT A FUCKING ROMANTIC COMEDY OF LIFE. i can keep my perfect pussy to myself and he cant go one fucking day without trying to put his dick in something. I WILL BUY YOU A FUCKING GRAPEFRUIT TO FUCK IF THAT WILL KEEP YOUR DICK OUT OF OTHER PEOPLE.

he says hes taking a shit when he goes over there but he takes a shit every time and they’re long shits. idk if its to fuck or whatever but its for sure about drugs. drugs that tear people apart and keep the glued together and they’re fucking ripped seams. god this sounds like fucking trash and it is. it literally is. and I know it but I cant do a damn thing about it because I love this trash. hes not trash. but he acts like it.

I know he’s not trash because somehow he has it all figured out. its like his autistic niche is seeing into the future and knowing for god damn sure that something is going to turn out the way it is but he wont fucking tell me. just straight up tell me the truth.

naaaah. that’d be too logical. he’d rather tell me the alternative lie. to keep me safe. HA. OKAY FROM WHAT. my life is so fucked up now.

needless to say 2016 has royally fucked me up. there’s probably a shit ton of stuff I forgot to mention and I should of because this is my collective fuck up recap but oh well. its not the last of it anyway. I know that for damn sure.

I just hope that when we get married or whatever the fuck next big thing happens in our lives. I hope it balances out the bad shit. because the bad shit is getting really hard to deal with. like really hard. like my hands are shaking sometimes hard and i feel like i cant kill myself because even in death i’d be worried about you and its nobodys fault but its our fault.

I know it is. he’s not even supposed to be in a relationship right now and what does this fucker do. he falls in love. true love with an innocent girl who has no idea what shes about to fucking go through. god damn. somebody help me. somebody really help me. I know I will always love him. more than the other mother fuckers I thought I cared about. I will fucking love him.

I FUCKING LOVE HIM. it makes me angry how much i love him. because it hurts me. a lot. but I wont stop. I cant. i wont. i never will. even if he stops loving me. i dont see how. but if he did. i’d still be calling and showing up and waiting outside and peeping in windows like a fucking nutcase. its my fucking ride or die. even if we broke up and i met someone else. god its not gonna be like this. it might be better. it might be a fucking dream. it might be date nights and morning kisses and flowers at work. but it wont be this. it wont be what i have with tey. nothing will ever be like this.and i fucking love that. im obsessed. im entranced. im in deep heartache love.

and ironically he does literally the worst thing he could do. the worst thing. he could. is love me irrevocably. whole heartedly. stubbornly. passionately. intentionally. desperately. in return. a love that i could live with for eternity. without a shadow of a doubt love. til the day we die in each others fucking arms.

its killing him. its killing us. but its keeping us alive.

how sobering is that shit.

#2017 #NewYearNewMe #relatinship #boyfriend #love #writing #spilledink #addiction #drugs #help me #literally #im so lost #and so in love

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metoershowers · 6 years

Text

Studio VI - Conceptual & Contextual Statement

Conceptual Statement

(The majority of the following text is written by Rachael Li. Other group member inputs are referenced.)

Most people tend to just forget about trash once it is in the bin. Out of sight, out of mind. It just “disappears”, but where does it go? This is the aim of this project, to show a scenario where your trash may potentially end up if it not able to be recycled and to also educate how it will affect the consumer. Ultimately, the plastic used by the consumer will affect them somehow. We specifically look into microplastics cycle and its effect through a narrative.

The mentality we followed for the entire semester was that “If we had to stand there and explain our project during Open Studio, then what is the point of it?” Meaning that if you had to explain the project then it means that it didn’t work. Your project should explain itself.

We looked into many different areas of study and problems to look at as the brief given was very broad. The chosen topic we looked into was pollution in New Zealand, specifically looking into littering and waterways. After research into those topics, this was then narrowed down into microplastics as it was widespread and also affects everyone. As for the actual project itself, there were also many broad concepts and ideas, from fear mongering using live fish to hopeful documentaries. It was still too broad. From looking at similar projects, we realized that they all had aspects of interactivity, education and communication. These are the things we would need in our project, communication using interactivity and education. Using these aspects we came up with an interactive infographic poster combining narrative and relevant statistics.

Educating the audience was something that we wanted to focus on as a group, we felt educating through immersion would be most appropriate for our concept. This is how we would get our main message across, to let the audience know, be aware and learn of the extent of the problem and to look into solutions to better themselves and the world around them. The education aspect of this project would be the statistics that show up with smaller objects. These are carefully selected statistics aimed to impact the audience to reflect on their actions, their consumeristic idealism and their contribution to the trashing of single-use plastics.

Interactivity was another important aspect of this project. Humans are curious and learn by interacting whether it is with an object or another human. By incorporating interactivity with conductive and reactive graphics on an infographic, we aim to leave a lasting impression or lesson in the mind of the viewer. Hopefully educating the consumerism mindset of buying for the sake of having. The obvious interactive aspect is the touching of the actual infographic. The deeper interactive is the actual storyline of the large objects. The intention of these was to give the audience a scenario of how their single-use plastic usage contributes to the larger problem of how microplastics in the environment affect the flora and fauna and most importantly, our health. We believe that if we can show the user how they directly relate to the issue, they will be more likely to consider their actions in the long-run.

Contextual Statement

Although banning of plastic bags is gaining traction in New Zealand, it still is not enough (Ministry for the Environment. (n.d.)). The effects of the reduction of plastic bags are barely noticeable when we are still surrounded by so many other single-use plastic packaging items. The plastic bag ban may temporarily help with a consumer's guilty conscience about the effects of plastics on us and the environment.

Plastic pollutants, littering and illegal dumping are a problem in the Auckland area. The restoration and upkeep of New Zealand’s environment are necessary for the preservation of a “clean and green” image (Ministry for the Environment. (n.d.). This is important not just for our tourism industry but also for the enjoyment and education of our future generations. There is obvious plastic pollution that you can see such as plastics and litter on the streets, beaches and parks. However, there are more plastics that many of us can’t see, such as plastics on the ocean floor or small plastic particles in the environment called microplastics.

For this project, we have decided to look into the invisible dangers of microplastics (Orb Media. (n.d.)). Some plastics can only be recycled through manmade processes, leaving the rest of single-use plastics to end up in landfills and other areas. The plastics that are not recycled do not biodegrade, they gradually break down into smaller pieces through physical and called microplastics.

The invisibility and the widespread of it is quite concerning. Plastics are harmful in the natural ecosystem. The ingestion of plastics may cause harmful effects on the entire ecosystem, microplastics are ingestible to small aquatic organisms (Zeng, E. Y. (2018)). The plastic additives and the absorbed toxins leach into the gastrointestinal tract of a small ocean organism, the ingested toxins are concentrated into the surrounding body and flesh, when eaten by a larger organism, the toxins move up along the food chain (Frederic Gallo, Cristina Fossi, Roland Weber, David Santillo, Joao Sousa, Imogen Ingram, … Dolores Romano. (2018)). Ultimately, being ingested by those at the top of the food chain, us (Johnston, I. (2017, July 26)).

Plastic has been around for 100 years, the production of plastic has drastically increased and it is now a commodity. However, we never really looked into effects it may have on us and the natural environment or how to properly dispose or recycle it. Now that it has reached the point where everything around us is plastic, what can we do with it?

Consumerism is a factor in the demand and production of non-recyclable materials. This is a mindset we hope to change eventually. To make better purchase choices and to always question whether it is that you need it or just want it. In the average consumer's minds, the usefulness and convenience outweigh the damages it may cause(Miles, S. (1998)).

There are many different organizations and campaigns already targeting plastic pollutions. However, as a group, we have decided to focus on the effects of widespread microplastics. Looking at similar projects such as Plastic Oceans (Plastic Oceans. (n.d.)) and 4Oceans (4Ocean. (n.d.)), we have realized that communication and connection is key to educating youth and the general public. This is a good way to make them aware of consumer tendencies and the dangers and effects of singles use plastics on the entire planet and even themselves. As seen, this could be done through many different mediums such as campaigns, powerful documentaries or even recycling waste plastics into an object that someone could purchase.

References

I. Ministry for the Environment. (n.d.). Single-use plastic bags to be phased out | Ministry for the Environment. Retrieved from http://www.mfe.govt.nz/news-events/single-use-plastic-bags-be-phased-out

II. Miles, S. (1998). Consumerism: as a way of life. London: Sage Publications, 1998.

III. Zalk, N. (2017, August 31). Why are New Zealand’s waters so polluted? Retrieved from https://www.aljazeera.com/blogs/asia/2017/08/zealand-waters-polluted-170831090454283.html

IV. Our clean green image: What’s it worth? (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.mfe.govt.nz/sites/default/files/clean-green-aug01-final.pdf

V. Pressures on our water environment | Ministry for the Environment. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.mfe.govt.nz/publications/environmental-reporting/state-new-zealand%E2%80%99s-environment-1997-chapter-seven-state-our-3

VI. Waste generation and disposal in New Zealand | Ministry for the Environment. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.mfe.govt.nz/publications/environmental-reporting/state-new-zealand%E2%80%99s-environment-1997-chapter-three-production-3

VII. National Ocean Service. (n.d.). What are microplastics? Retrieved from https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/microplastics.html

VIII. Zeng, E. Y. (2018). Microplastic contamination in aquatic environments : an emerging matter of environmental urgency. Amsterdam, Netherlands : Elsevier, [2018]. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.aut.ac.nz/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=cat05020a&AN=aut.b2532469x&site=eds-live

IX. Frederic Gallo, Cristina Fossi, Roland Weber, David Santillo, Joao Sousa, Imogen Ingram, … Dolores Romano. (2018). Marine litter plastics and microplastics and their toxic chemicals components: the need for urgent preventive measures. Environmental Sciences Europe, Vol 30, Iss 1, Pp 1-14 (2018), (1), 1. https://doi-org.ezproxy.aut.ac.nz/10.1186/s12302-018-0139-z

X. NZ Herald. (2018, September 20). Microplastic pollution much worse than feared. Retrieved from https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=12012070

XI. GreenFacts. (n.d.). Marine Litter: 3. What are micro-plastics and how do they enter the marine environment? Retrieved from https://www.greenfacts.org/en/marine-litter/l-2/3-micro-plastics.htm

XII. Johnston, I. (2017, July 26). Plastic microparticles found in the flesh of fish eaten by humans. Retrieved from https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/plastic-microparticles-fish-flesh-eaten-humans-food-chain-mackerel-anchovy-mullet-a7860726.html/

XIII. Orb Media. (n.d.). Invisibles. Retrieved from https://orbmedia.org/stories/Invisibles_plastics/

XIV. 4Ocean. (n.d.). 4ocean is Actively Cleaning our Oceans and Coastlines. Retrieved from https://4ocean.com

XV. Plastic Oceans. (n.d.). Rethink Plastic. Save Our Seas? Plastic Oceans Foundation. Retrieved from https://plasticoceans.org/

#ctec709

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interwhatever · 6 years

Text

How Videogames Generate Meaning

I’ve recently read a book that was a mind-expanding experience, and I’ve been recommending it to everyone I come across: A Play of Bodies by Brendan Keogh. It offers what is (to me at least) a fresh perspective for how videogames might be understood on their own terms. I’m going to attempt to summarise some of what it argues here (with my own spin on some of the concepts), but the book itself is approachable and conversational and very well written, so by all means go and read it yourself, I highly recommend it.

The Text

In literary criticism circles, the text is a central concept. Simply put, a text is anything that can be “read” in order to obtain a message of some sort. A few simple examples of a text include a newspaper article, a short story, a paper published in an academic journal, a novel. But the word can also refer to a film, or a theatre play, or a street sign, or even a painting, or a piece of music, or a style of clothing. It doesn’t have to be written using words, what’s important is that there is a message somehow encoded in it, and by “reading” it - putting yourself into the position of audience, consciously or otherwise, and imbibing it in whichever way makes the most sense - you can potentially extract and understand this message yourself.

Much of literary theory and criticism relies heavily on the concept of a text, and much theory has been developed that deals with texts, across all types of media. What this means is that if we consider a videogame to be a text, or at least to have textual content, then we unlock access to this theory, which is sorta great because this theory is, after all, nothing more than the ideas of a lot of clever people over a long period of time on how meaning works within cultural objects. Perhaps videogames could also provide literary theory with new challenges, new angles for discovery, new depths, new levels of detail? This is an exciting possibility. There has certainly been a lot of interest in the past few years around understanding videogames through a film lens, and a whole bunch of it has yielded fruitful insight - but what if we could flip that around, and understand films (or books) through a videogame lens?

Uhhh..?

So where might we find the text for a videogame? The obvious place to start looking is in the dialogue - the things that the characters say to each other. We can also read meaning from the images that the videogame uses to tell its story, or the music and sound effects. Looking at them through this lens, understanding videogames appears similar to understanding film - we can talk about acting and sound design, and lighting and cinematography, and even structural components like editing.

But something is missing with this perspective, and that is the fact that videogames are fundamentally interactive. They do not progress, and do not reveal themselves to the player, without interaction. When I play a videogame, my actions influence what happens on a moment-to-moment timescale, shaping what happens immediately (do I kick or punch or run away) and sometimes even the shape of the narrative as a whole. Often, it is this ability to influence what’s going on which is exactly the reason why I want to play a videogame as a videogame rather than just watching it as a film. The cutscenes in the Uncharted games are entirely non-interactive, and the set-pieces are very linear, but the fact that I need to make Nathan Drake jump onto the right crumbling ledges for the story progress is exactly why I’m playing Uncharted, rather than just watching it.

So This Must Be New, And Unique To Videogames, Right?

Well, not really. There are already several decades worth of ideas floating about how to deal with this so called problem of interactivity. When the internet was young, the concept of “hypertext” (text with links embedded in it pointing to other texts - i.e., how every website works), was new, and it was already challenging the idea of a text as something static, and along with it the assumption that the process of reading was a one-way activity. (For more on this, have a read of N. Katherine Hayles' essay Translating Media: Why We Should Rethink Textuality.) If I can click on a link and instantly jump around to a different part of the text, then it’s not much of a leap to ask if there is really a singular text any more. Does clicking like this change the text? Does that shift its meaning? How can two people read the same text if each of them clicks on different links?

A couple of strategies for dealing with this have come out of literary theory tackling electronic text in general, and hypertext in particular. One of the most interesting for our purposes is the following: the physical manifestation of the text matters. That is to say: if we are talking about a book, then the fonts used, the margin sizes, the size and shape and weight of the paper it is printed on, the place and the year it was published - all these things make a difference to how we read the text. Consider a cease-and-desist notice written in a Serious Font on heavy, textured paper and delivered in an envelope sealed with the mark of a notary public, vs exactly the same set of words (i.e. exactly the same text) printed in Comic Sans on a stained paper napkin. Physical properties of the text affect how we treat it and how believable we find it, or what we might think about the author’s relationship to the subject matter, to the perceived authority or sources of wisdom on the subject under discussion, and to us as a reader.

The Real World Matters

This is important, because although a videogame may have plenty of content which plays out in some sort of “virtual” space, the actual experience of playing a videogame comes about through entirely physical processes: images reach our eyes as light, and music and sound effects as waves of pressure in the air; our fingers make physical movements to press buttons and move thumbsticks, and our hands feel the vibration of the gamepad as the game acts and reacts to us. All of these occur because of choices that the videogame author has made, and by tweaking the algorithms behind them, or adding or removing elements, a game can come to feel completely different. Keogh uses Grand Theft Auto IV as an example of how this contributes to meaning-making in a videogame. From the moment you pick up the controller, GTA IV feels heavier and weightier than the previous entries in the series. The character walks slower and feels somehow more solid, the cars feel weightier, the violence less cartoony and more brutal - and this shift in the feel of the interaction is reflected in the darker, more self-consciously serious nature of the story that the game tells via dialogue and cutscenes and characterisation.

In other words, the meaning that a player may read from Grand Theft Auto IV is delivered not only through the stories it tells explicitly via its written and spoken dialogue, but also in the way those stories feel, in a very real, physical sense. What’s important to realise here is that in order incorporate this physical sense into our understanding of how videogames transport meaning, we have to look outside the virtual world that the videogame presents to us. We have to consider the physical person sitting on their couch holding their controller, sensing the heaviness of the vehicles and the brutality of the violence through the way those things feel in their fingers. We need to look beyond immersion as it is understood to apply to videogames and realise that engagement with videogames happens through very real, very physical body parts - fingers, thumbs, ears, eyes. If you’ve ever watched someone else leaning left and right as they play a racing game, or tense up as they round a corner in a competitive PvP match, you have seen the physical body of that player responding to the virtual world of the game.

We need to include this physical involvement that players tend to have with videogames in our understanding of how they generate meaning. If we consider the text of a videogame as occurring entirely inside a virtual world, then we’ll have difficulty talking about the physical involvement we tend to have with videogames - despite it being one of the things unique to videogames, something that makes them so interesting in the first place. With solid understanding of this physical aspect, a videogame author/director/developer can make the player feel that their actions have a certain heft, or a certain quality of motion, or a certain subtlety or delicacy, well before any narrative content has been presented. Thematic matter in the game can be supported or undermined by sound effects, by input lag, by physics engine parameters, by screenshake and vibration and particle effects (or lack thereof), all things which happen outside of the virtual world of the videogame and cross over into how the videogame presents itself via physical hardware to the real world. If any of these things are conveying meaning, none of that meaning survives a reading of a videogame which doesn’t take its physical properties into account.

We Write Ourselves Into Videogames

There’s another, more abstractly philosophical thing worth considering when looking for the text of a videogame. Traditionally, a text is a static object that the reader consumes without modifying: words, fixed on a page, that the reader can take in as-is. The relationship of reader to text is one of subject to object: the reader is a single unified entity with a clear boundary, and they encounter the text also as a single unified entity with a clear boundary. The act of reading does not change the text, the borders between text and reader remain airtight; the reader doesn’t mix themselves up in the text, and the text doesn’t mix itself up in the reader. The same text can be read by someone else, who has the potential to be able to read it in exactly the same way the first person did.

This is clearly not the case with videogames. As soon as a videogame player chooses a path to explore in an open world, or makes a different narrative choice in a narrative adventure, or even chooses to press a jump input instead of just walking, the videogame alters itself for them. They will literally encounter different things to someone who chooses a different path, or chooses to walk slowly instead of running and jumping. This point is both more and less subtle than it seems, but for comparison, consider the following. In a film, if a character jumped up and down and ran around while another character was giving a monologue, this would likely give a totally different meaning to the scene than if they stood attentively and listened to the speaking character. (Imagine the arrival of Darth Vader if one of the stormtroopers in the crowd was running around in circles, bobbing up and down, punching other random stormtroopers and breaking into spontaneous dance moves).

Videogames Write Themselves Into Us

A player’s skill level and prior experience can also deeply affect the reading experience. Someone who has played more videogames in general, or who has played this particular videogame before, will require less time to complete it. How can we talk about the text of the videogame being “the same” for two players if the first player takes five minutes to beat the first boss, but the second player takes an hour, has to retry twenty times and finds it a frustrating grind?

When we play a videogame, we enter into a feedback loop that involves our bodies, software, and hardware. Our bodies produce input via the controllers; the game responds with images and sound; we in turn respond to this with further input via the controllers, and the cycle repeats. Sometimes it takes time to learn how a game will respond, but once we’ve reached a certain level of competency this feedback loop happens automatically and unconsciously. I don’t have to think about what I’m doing in order to press the correct button so the character on screen dodges at the right moment - I just dodge, with the sense that it is somehow me that dodges, even if the actual physical me remains sitting on the couch. Videogames work very hard to rapidly build this feedback loop, and gameplay programmers have become very good at making this happen without the player noticing.

Subjectivity is Really Really Really Important

The above doesn’t look at all like the kind of object:subject relationship implied by a traditional view of textuality, where the text can be considered a static, abstract object that arrives essentially the same to all potential subjects. Rather, this is a kind of messy, two-way relationship, where my reading (playing) of the text alters its content on a moment-to-moment basis, and where no two readers will encounter the text the same way, or experience it the same, especially if the two readers (players) have different levels of skill.

This appears to be radically unlike other kinds of text. Movies don’t have scenes that you can’t get past until you’ve watched them a certain way (like with one eye shut, or something). Books can have difficult passages, sure - but this is a different kind of difficulty, somehow. There’s a subset of videogame players who perhaps try to to avoid this problem by claiming that only one type of reading of the text can be a correct reading and that other readings are somehow bad or incorrect - these are the players who cry “git gud” and participate in the (often gendered) shaming of other players who use low difficulty settings, or who play without a high level of mechanical competency. Coming from any kind of a literary or critical perspective, however, this line of argument just doesn’t make sense: there are no ‘incorrect’ readings of a text, just readings that are supported or are not supported by evidence found in the text itself.

So how do we deal with this? Well, if we look beyond this fixed kind of object:subject relationship, then traditional written texts already have the quality of alteration-through-engagement that appears to be unique to videogames. When I read a written text, I bring to it my whole personal background of knowledge, ideas, and experience. A significant text may leave behind traces in my mind - new turns of phrase, a new perspective on something, sometimes a complete alteration of my world view. If nothing else, it may leave behind memories. I walk away from reading a piece of text a changed person, every time. The text crosses the boundary between itself and myself, and becomes a part of me - and if the text is one that is good, or meaningful, or at the very least memorable, then it may stay a part of me for a long time to come.

Let’s Do This

Let’s make videogames that have more meaning, that have more impact, that leave lasting memories in the player. And let’s not do this by making videogames more like books or more like films - let’s do this by making videogames more like videogames. Build characters without relying on cutscenes. Let players feel things without equating feeling things with feeling powerful. Embrace the messy cyborg nature of videogames, and learn to express the ideas we want to convey and the stories we want to tell via that messy cybernetic nature, rather than in spite of it. Let us make our statements first and foremost by how our games feel to play.

#videogames subjectivity criticism text theory

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adambstingus · 6 years

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Why were ditching Demo Days

Ross Baird Crunch Network Contributor

Ross Baird is the founder and executive director of Village Capital.