ORRA magazine by Francis Gene-Rowe

Orr a ISSUE 5, MARCH 2013

the technology issue

brianaldiss,alansOndHEiM,adaMdiX&TiMPHilliPs, aOdánMCCardlE,JUdiTFErEnCZ,sTEvEnFOwlEr, KEnZaPaPEsXElnETbEirUT

Or CREDItS: JoHn GUILLEM editor-in-chief KHALID tEtUAnI creative director & designer SInG yUn LEE art editor & designer R. KIELy associate editor EnRICo tASSI assistant editor

Modern Warfare Internet Text Estates of Westeros Interview Transhumanism

Special mention:

Night Supplication in the Perfect

JoE StRAtton www.JoEStRAtton.Co.UK

The Colours of the State Interview

With thanks to: wILLIAM RowE SUMARRIA LUnn GALLERy StEpHEn MoonEy KAnIttA MEECHUbot wILL SCHofIELD pAUL KERRIGAn toMMy LM

Thick Walls of Theory To Those Who Would Oppress We'll See, We'll See Again Mechanical Animals

Cover Illustration:

The Inextinguishable Fire

bEtH HoECKEL www.bEtHHoECKEL.CoM

Lucky Dragon The Wake parts 3 & 4 Bridges & Brassieres

1728 A. RAMSAy Twa Cut-purses 5: And lay out ony ora-bodles On sma' gimcracks that pleas'd their noddles. 1791 J. LEARMont Poems Pastoral 188: Come an' spend a' ye're orrow hours 'Mang groves an' glades. 1886 R. L. StEvEnSon Kidnapped xxvii. 285: I daresay you would both take an orra thought upon the gallows.

www.ISSUU.CoM/tEnGEnMAG tEnGEnMAGAzInE@GMAIL.CoM

Яa ADAM GRIffItHS ALAn SonDHEIM StEvEn fowLER & bEn MoRRIS ADAM DIx & tIM pHILLIpS HALLvARD HAUG KEnzA pApES x ELnEt bEIRUt SCott tHURSton bRIAn ALDISS KHALID tEtUAnI AoDán MCCARDLE ALyonA LARIonovA LAURA ottInA bRIAn ALDISS JUDIt fEREnCz LoUISA LIttLE DIMItRIS ELEAS

or-ra, adj. Spare, occasional; odd, diﬀerent, strange, unmatched. of a person, esp. a servant or labourer: unattached, without (ﬁxed) employment; idle, disreputable.

our theme within this issue is technology. In the arts and other media there is a plethora of serious technological speculation, often accompanied by caution and concern, which appears more justified than ever before. Developments in the more “exciting” fields of research promise to transform the nature of our relationships with time and space more than any advances made previously. At present, devices which continually proffer both quantification and qualification in digital space and time fit snugly into our hands and pockets, with accompanying tendrils extending to our ears and mouths. However, already we are seeing the first of such products that can be worn, reducing their physical obtrusiveness even as their infiltration of personal experience increasingly annexes our attention. this particular trajectory is headed towards somatic implantation of the technology itself, which is very much an element of outcome. the informational capabilities available to us via such devices are desituated (or rather, they’re everywhere at once – “the wonders of the Cloud”) even as they situate us more than ever. this discrepancy is no oxymoron. As with the ostensible contradiction between ergonomic unobtrusiveness and experiential obtrusiveness, it signals and indicates new natural outcomes. Space technology, the primary vector of many of the best loved speculative narratives, is no longer outwardly focused. Instead, a blanket of satellites and accompanying wave activity increasingly reflect the data of our world back in upon itself. Rather than human space being enlarged, instead it is increasingly subdivided, as the density of electromagnetic activity in our atmosphere ever augments. bandwidth is consumed as though no limits exist to moderate its consumption. However, this subdivision of space does not create more inner space; rather, everything is externalised and concretised to a set of virtual objects which are just as actual for us as what we perceive (or rather they become the focal points of our experience). Instead of beholding sights we now look at images, from sensory experience to data packets, subject to the laws of digital information rather than the vagaries of sensation and recollection. Despite its ethereal characteristics, the new world of outcome is highly materialistic. It may not be “single vision,” but a hyper-rationalist opposition to the metaphysical is its prime trait. In outcome, we are still asleep. perhaps I have given you the wrong impression. As much as we are radical doubters, more so are we radical believers, and our radical naïvety attenuates our conviction. this issue celebrates potentiality. the postmodern dilemma presents a scenario in which the ceaseless transience and shifting of life ultimately brings no significant alternative, and it would be retrograde of us to assume such a stance given our acceptance of the cardinality of believing. we sense that a storm is coming, and this gratifies as much as it dismays. within what may become, so much is at stake. Somatically implanted devices are but one facet of the glorious and terrifying prospects of transhumanism. on the other hand, Cloud technology provides a practical simulation of omnipresence and, in a certain sense, omniscience. we can see the parameters of what has been considered divine shifting. nanotechnology (along with various nightmare scenarios) promises new symbioses within the human body as well as within human objects. And these are just three instances. JoHn GUILLEM

Modern warfare ADAM GRIffItHS

Collage inspired by transhumanism

ADAM GRIffItHS is a Manchester-based designer and graphic artist, and is one ďŹ fth of the award-winning

creative studio Not Now.

from Internet text ALAn SonDHEIM

PCMs

Years ago I designed a PCM, this was around 1970 maybe. PCM stands for Parameter Control Module; the idea was to create a unit which could connect and control other similar units. PCMs were digital but they didn't need to be. There were any number of inputs and outputs. The idea was that anything could be connected to anything else. In other words, there were standardized simple protocols in terms of voltage and bandwidth; everything functioned like blood in the veins of some untoward ganglion. In order to enter the PCM array, translation was necessary from an outside world into the protocols; this was the job of an input interface which could be tailored for particular situations. The interface was divided into two sections: the outer section was tailored to the world, and the inner, to the emission of protocols. So the input interface was generous in its acceptance. At the other end of the array, there was a similar output interface, divided into two sections; the inner section was tailored to the protocols, sending the signal current to the outer section, which was tailored to the world, and generous. For example, an audio input interface might take microphone signals and standardize them, sending them to the array; an audio output interface might take the array protocols and send them simultaneously to audio amplifiers and a lighting board. What made the array of greater interest, of course, is that input and output signals could also be applied directly to any particular PCM, bypassing the standard interfaces. The array as a whole, as a ganglion, would be in effect a ganglion open to the world at any place or space, both for input and output. One might think of the PCMs as formal neurons. Internally, the components of the PCMs might be smoothly voltage-controlled, with the possibility of directly inputting different equations; one might begin with standard smooth trigonometric functions and replace them with discontinuities of all sorts, including chaotic behavior. I believe to this day that designing the PCMs would have been a relatively trivial matter. Although the project remained stillborn, the concept behind it remains of interest to me. I've begun to think of the arrays, inputs and outputs, as an affair in which anything might modify or influence anything, including, reflexively, itself. The arrays in fact might be virtual and one thinks only of empty, undefined, space or air, a distant model of the real and external world, where such things happen. Thus anything here and now has the potential for affecting anything else, and anything might seem to turn around and talk directly with you, listening, at the same time, to your innermost thoughts, whatever you choose to reveal: here are the input and output interfaces. What goes on in such virtual arrays is only the ideality of the world itself, the ability to take-for-granted that there are always relatively stable domains for communication or dwelling, for work or discourse, and so forth. Any dynamic action, any action which changes in time, might be considered to be modelled thus; any static action might be one which leaves the virtual array quiescent. The size and power of the virtual PCMs are also of interest; as they decrease, one might argue that the granularity of the world is increasingly differentiated, just as their increase transforms the granularity into rougher constructs handled by integration. In the middle lies everyday life, where processing of this sort is kept to a minimum. I can imagine in this fashion thinking of the world as a vast complex of fundamental operations on the ordering of everyday life, just as Aristotelian logic and its laws of distribution appear to deal well with the uncanny lack of transience of everyday objects. The edges of such modelling, however, are always limit-points which a different kind of roughness appears, for example quantum phenomena or color vision or even corrosion. To some extent, these rough processes, including unknown one, can be imagined within the virtual array which would have additional signals, alarm signals, that anomalies were working their way into or out of the array; there could be, in fact, virtual interfaces utterly open to the real, whose sole purpose would be the conversion of such anomalies. One process would be that of the name, beginning with the proper name, and working towards untoward generalizations; another would be that of radical smoothing, and a third might be the cessation of array activity altogether. I think of this as burrowing or death, depending on the degree of destruction or rearrangement encountered. Likewise, there would be inverse processes, those of birth or emerging, in which partial identity transformations would remain and perhaps even be backwards-traceable, backwards-compatible in terms of the protocols. The whole, virtual and real, is a form of metaphor ready to be implemented. I can only conclude that the same is already in the world, and perhaps always already in the world, it is there and here, it is operational or quiescent as you like. And such would be the world and its dynamics; it is only a question of looking over your shoulder, back into the space you have just left behind, forward into the space you are about to enter. If you have the time, of course, without catastrophe or disruption.

*/the now/*

*/Bareword found where operator expected at now line 2, near "*/NOW" (Missing operator before NOW?) syntax error at now line 2, near "*/NOW" Bareword found where operator expected at now line 4, near "#!/usr" (Might be a runaway multi-line // string starting on line 2) (Missing operator before usr?) Bareword found where operator expected at now line 4, near "/bin/perl5" (Missing operator before perl5?) Bareword found where operator expected at now line 8, near "$words[$x],$spaces[$x+1]}} $x++) #!/usr" (Might be a runaway multi-line // string starting on line 6) (Missing operator before usr?) syntax error at now line 8, near "$words[$x],$spaces[$x+1]}} $x++) #!/usr" Bareword found where operator expected at now line 8, near "/bin/perl5" (Missing operator before perl5?) Scalar found where operator expected at now line 9, within pattern (Might be a runaway multi-line ]] string starting on line 8) (Missing semicolon on previous line?) Execution of now aborted due to compilation errors./* */Bareword found where operator expected at now line 2, near "*/Bareword" (Missing operator before Bareword?) syntax error at now line 2, near "*/Bareword found " String found where operator expected at now line 2, near "near "*/NOW"" (Do you need to predeclare near?) Semicolon seems to be missing at now line 7. String found where operator expected at now line 8, near "near "/bin/perl5"" (Do you need to predeclare near?) Semicolon seems to be missing at now line 13. Number found where operator expected at now line 14, near "line 8" (Might be a runaway multi-line ?? string starting on line 9) (Do you need to predeclare line?) String found where operator expected at now line 14, near "near "$words[$x],$spaces[$x+1]}} $x++) #!/usr"" (Do you need to predeclare near?) Semicolon seems to be missing at now line 14. String found where operator expected at now line 15, near "near "/bin/perl5"" (Do you need to predeclare near?) Semicolon seems to be missing at now line 19. Bareword found where operator expected at now line 22, near "#!/usr" (Might be a runaway multi-line // string starting on line 20) (Missing operator before usr?) Bareword found where operator expected at now line 22, near "/bin/perl5" (Missing operator before perl5?) Bareword found where operator expected at now line 26, near "$words[$x],$spaces[$x+1]}} $x++) #!/usr" (Might be a runaway multi-line // string starting on line 24) (Missing operator before usr?) syntax error at now line 26, near "$words[$x],$spaces[$x+1]}} $x++) #!/usr" Bareword found where operator expected at now line 26, near "/bin/perl5" (Missing operator before perl5?) Execution of now aborted due to compilation errors./* #!/usr/local/bin/perl5 while (<STDIN>) { @words = split /[\s]+/, $_;@spaces /[\S]+/, for ($x=0; $x <= $#words; $x++) $word_count{$words[$x]}++;if ($word_count{$words[$x]} == 1) {print $words[$x],$spaces[$x+1]}} $x++) #!/usr/local/bin/perl5 /[\s]+/, = {print <= <= $words[$x],$spaces[$x+1]}} split /[\s]+/, $#words; $x == @words /[\s]+/, (<STDIN>) $word_count{$words[$x]}++;if $x $word_count{$words[$x]}++;if while /[\s]+/, @words 1) $x $#words; split split $words[$x],$spaces[$x+1]}} <= #!/usr/local/bin/perl5 while (<STDIN>) { @words = split @words /[\s]+/, = $_;split @spaces /[\S]+/, = for for ($x=0; ($x=0; $x $x <= <= $#words; $#words; $x++) $x++)

$word_count{$words[$x]}++; if ($word_count{$words[$x]} if == ($word_count{$words[$x]} 1) == {print 1) $words[$x],$spaces[$x+1],$words[$x-8],"\n"}{print } #!/uhzr/loSYEl/byn/pyrl5 whyle (<hZTDyN>) { [...] #!/uhZr/loCLAWl/bayen/perrl5 whayele (<hZTDayeN>) { #hZ/([âeayeou+])e([âeayeou+][âeayeou+])/12/g; #hZ/([âeayeou+][âeayeou+])e(\hZ)/12/g; #hZ/eCLAWOO[]/not a CLAWlue1/g; hZ///g; hZ/([\Woo -]*)mufukufukulsh! ofukulsh! blaCLAWk fukuuzz(\Woo -)/1mufukufukulsh! ofukulsh! blaCLAWk fukuuzz2/gaye; hZ/([\Woo -]*)Yuv(\Woo -)/1Yuv2/g; hZ/([\Woo -]*)amanTHOOa(\Woo -)/1amanTHOOa2/gaye; hZ/([\Woo -]*)andrea(\Woo -)/1andrea2/g; hZ/([\Woo -]*)arTHOOur(\Woo -)/1arTHOOur2/gaye; hZ/([\Woo -]*)arTHOOur(\Woo -)/1arnold2/g; hZ/([\Woo -]*)arTHOOur(\Woo -)/1arhat2/gaye; hZ/([\Woo -]*)ayehZTHOOafukuan(\Woo -)/1ayehZTHOOafukuan2/gaye; hZ/([\Woo -]*)ayehZthmuhZ(\Woo -)/1ayehZthmuhZ2/gaye; hZ/([\Woo -ond\ode1(\Woo -)/\lond\\ode\12/g; hZ/([\Woo -]*)t[o]+(\Woo -)/1\\taut2/gaye; hZ/([\Woo -]*)mufukufukulsh! ofukulsh! blaCLAWk fukuuzz(\Woo -)/1haayer2/g; hZ/([\Woo -]*)wanedahZp(\Woo -)/1wahZp2/gaye; hZ/([\Woo -]*)wanedorn(\Woo -)/1worn2/gaye; hZ/([\Woo -]*)jugendlayeed(\Woo -)/1jugendlayeed2/g; hZ/(\Woo -)Woo -/1Woo -/g; hZ/(\Woo -)phaye/1phaye/g; hZ/(\Woo -)hZ([aeayeou+])/1hZwan2/g; hZ/(\Woo -)waned/1waned/g; hZ/ode/ode/g; hZ/B[e]+(\Woo -)/Brenda1/g; hZ/Brenda([e]*[âeayeou+][aeayeou+])/Brayetta1/g; hZ/CLAWOO/CLAWLAWOO/gaye; hZ/ELF-(\Woo -)/ELELF--1/g; hZ/Louvre/Louvre/gaye; hZ/QLUE/QLUELUE/gaye; hZ/hZ([^ZH])/hZ1/gaye; hZ/Th([aeayeou+])/THOOOO1/gaye; hZ/Woo -(\Woo -)/Woo -OO1/g; hZ/[\Woo +?/gaye; hZ/[tCLAWOO]ayeon/shunt/gaye; hZ/\\([ode-9])/1/g; hZ/l(\Woo -)/l1/g; hZ/b[e]+(\Woo -)/bre&1/g; hZ/bre&([e]*[âeayeou+][aeayeou+])/beayeng&1/g; hZ/CLAWOO([ayee+])/z1/g; hZ/CLAWOO/CLAWle0oô0/g; hZ/CLAWe(\Woo -)/CLAWent1/g; hZ/CLAWk/CLAWhakra/g; hZ/err/errr/g; hZ/fukulsh!(\Woo -)/fukulsh!1/g; hZ/fukulsh!/fukuuku/g; hZ/fukuo[u]*r/fukurayeeze/gaye; hZ/aye/aye/gaye; hZ/ayen([de])/9n1/gaye; hZ/lull/lulull/g; hZ/Louvre/lofukut/g; hZ/QLUE/QLUEle0oô0/g; hZ/hZ([^zh])/hz1/g; hZ/ternr/ternrn/g; hZ/th([aeayeou+])/THOOoo1/g; hZ/uCLAWe/uhZeth/g; hZ/waned(\Woo -)/odeoôode1/g; hZ/x-tasis/x-tasis-tahZayehZthmuhZ/g; hZ/+([\Woo -])/+1/gaye; hZ/z[e][ea](\Woo -)/z1/g; prayent $_; } 3. VR Improvised

Anything is possible in the virtual. Inscription is absolutely cut off from the real. Inscription cannot be sutured into the real. The virtual is disposable. The structure of the virtual is substitution. Substitution implies creation and annihilation. 0 may be substituted for 1. 1 may be substituted for 0. The formula of the virtual is [any][any]. The formula of the real is [1][1]. The real is sutured to the annihilation of inscription. The real de-; the virtual in-. Nothing is possible in the real. Suffering is ontology; the virtual Occupies epistemology. The real is neither here nor there. The virtual is multiple. The real is extruded from the real; the real intrudes on the real. The virtual divides infinitely; the real divides perversely. Neither the real divides the virtual nor the virtual divides the real. The ontology of number is practico-inert. The ontology of the virtual is imaginary. We know that the real and the virtual are imaginary. We know that the imaginary inhabits abjection. We know that abjection inhabits the imaginary. Abjection inhabits the real insofar as the imaginary.

The virtual expels abjection; abjection is beyond the Pale. The Pale is its own configuration. The Pale confines the real. Everything and nothing are possible in the Pale. The Pale is beyond the Pale; there is no interior. The real is multiple by virtue of the virtual. The virtual is fractured by the real. The virtual takes all the time in the world. The real takes none of it. The virtual takes all the space in the world. The real takes none of it. The Pale rides the back of the real; the real fucks the Pale. And in the virtual? Anything is possible in the virtual. my name lalulu

i'm writing this heading towards amnesia. my name is alan, my name is azure, my name is nikuko, my name is jennifer, my name is julu, my name... my name... what would you call me, were you to call me, call me forth, what is the employ, what chorus evolutes, meanders among them, waking me from my vast sleep, wolverine and granite, tourmaline and grey amphibole?

well, i'm writing this heading towards amnesia. my name is alan, my name is azure, my name is nikuko, my name is jennifer, my name is julu, my name... my name... what would you call me, were you to call me, call me forth, what is the employ, what chorus evolutes, meanders among them, waking me from my vast sleep, wolverine and granite, tourmaline and grey amphibole, among one and among others, we murmur assent, communal i produce nothing, i wait, i await, among horizons and auroras i await, among the deaths and births of stars, i await, this is the doings of mind, this is among neutrinos and muons, this shatters, is shattering, mica and schist, is shattering, is turning towards beginnings, i am yet among you, i am yet present, i am yet awaiting, a calling, a going forth, a murmuring

ululal demos thrope, thorn and thrown, borne among and bred among them, shorn ululal among them, smote and smoke, beryl and azurite, dig dig! among them, shorn ululal among them, smote and smoke, beryl and azurite, dig dig! among them, our primary! i produce nothing, i wait, i await, among horizons and auroras i await, among the deaths and births of stars, i await, this is the doings of mind, this is among neutrinos and muons, this shatters, is shattering, mica and schist, is shattering, is turning towards beginnings, i am yet among you, i am yet present, i am yet awaiting, a calling, a going forth, a murmuring, 13636

well, i produce nothing, i wait, i await, among horizons and auroras i await, among the deaths and births of stars, i await, this is the doings of mind, this is among neutrinos and muons, this shatters, is shattering, mica and schist, is shattering, is turning towards beginnings, i am yet among you, i am yet present, i am yet awaiting, a calling, a going forth, a murmuring already constructs wayward trouble for us, subverting the categories we take for granted. in collusion with the surface, i produce nothing, i wait, i await, among horizons and auroras i await, among the deaths and births of stars, i await, this is the doings of mind, this is among neutrinos and muons, this shatters, is shattering, mica and schist, is shattering, is turning towards beginnings, i am yet among you, i am yet present, i am yet awaiting, a calling, a going forth, a murmuring is 13636, womanly, among one and among others, we murmur assent, communal? but what is ululal demos thrope, thorn and thrown, borne among and bred among them, here, its thing? close to i produce nothing, i wait, i await, among horizons and auroras i await, among the deaths and births of stars, i await, this is the doings of mind, this is among neutrinos and muons, this shatters, is shattering, mica and schist, is shattering, is turning towards beginnings, i am yet among you, i am yet present, i am yet awaiting, a calling, a going forth, a murmuring, 13636, a murmuring

foliage and green, this is mine eye and seeing, among seeing, among air, this is mine, this brief moment, this small land, this breathing, aye, this breathing, and this murmuring, this whispering, this music, among land this music, among board and water, this music, aye, this whispering

i think i produce nothing, i wait, i await, among horizons and auroras i await, among the deaths and births of stars, i await, this is the doings of mind, this is among neutrinos and muons, this shatters, is shattering, mica and schist, is shattering, is turning towards beginnings, i am yet

among you, i am yet present, i am yet awaiting, a calling, a going forth, a murmuring, dubious, overly complicated...

i have already been in mourning ululal demos thrope, thorn and thrown, borne among and bred among them,:shorn ululal among them, smote and smoke, beryl and azurite, dig dig! among them,:i produce nothing, i wait, i await, among horizons and auroras i wait, among the deaths and births of stars, i wait, this is the doings of mind, this is among neutrinos and muons, this shatters, is shattering, mica and schist, is shattering, is turning towards beginnings, i am yet among you, i am yet present, i am yet awaiting, a calling, a going forth, a murmuring :among one and among others, we murmur assent, communal:2075:6:i'm writing this heading towards amnesia. my name is alan, my name is azure, my name is nikuko, my name is jennifer, my name is julu, my name... my name... what would you call me, were you to call me, call me forth, what is the employ, what chorus evolutes, meanders among sounds, waking me from my vast sleep, wolverine and granite, tourmaline and grey amphibole?:i produce nothing, i wait, i await, among horizons and auroras i wait, among the deaths and births of stars, i wait, this is the doings of mind, this is among neutrinos and muons, this shatters, is shattering, mica and schist, is shattering, is turning towards beginnings, i am yet among you, i am yet present, i am yet awaiting, a calling, a going forth, a murmuring :shorn ululal among them, smote and smoke, beryl and azurite, dig dig! among them...meht gnoma !gid gid ,etiruza dna lyreb ,ekoms dna etoms ,meht gnoma lalulu nrohs: gnirumrum a ,htrof gniog a ,gnillac a ,gnitiawa tey ma i ,tneserp tey ma i ,uoy gnoma tey ma i ,sgninnigeb sdrawot gninrut si ,gnirettahs si ,tsihcs dna acim ,gnirettahs si ,srettahs siht ,snoum dna sonirtuen gnoma si siht ,dnim fo sgniod eht si siht ,tiaw i ,srats fo shtrib dna shtaed eht gnoma ,tiaw i sarorua dna snoziroh gnoma ,tiawa i ,tiaw i ,gnihton ecudorp i:?elobihpma yerg dna enilamruot ,etinarg dna enirevlow ,peels tsav ym morf em gnikaw ,sdnuos gnoma srednaem ,setulove surohc tahw ,yolpme eht si tahw ,htrof em llac ,em llac ot uoy erew ,em llac uoy dluow tahw ...eman ym ...eman ym ,uluj si eman ym ,refinnej si eman ym ,okukin si eman ym ,eruza si eman ym ,nala si eman ym .aisenma sdrawot gnidaeh siht gnitirw m'i:6:5702:lanummoc ,tnessa rumrum ew ,srehto gnoma dna eno gnoma: gnirumrum a ,htrof gniog a ,gnillac a ,gnitiawa tey ma i ,tneserp tey ma i ,uoy gnoma tey ma i ,sgninnigeb sdrawot gninrut si ,gnirettahs si ,tsihcs dna acim ,gnirettahs si ,srettahs siht ,snoum dna sonirtuen gnoma si siht ,dnim fo sgniod eht si siht ,tiaw i ,srats fo shtrib dna shtaed eht gnoma ,tiaw i sarorua dna snoziroh gnoma ,tiawa i ,tiaw i ,gnihton ecudorp i:,meht gnoma !gid gid ,etiruza dna lyreb ,ekoms dna etoms ,meht gnoma lalulu nrohs:,meht gnoma derb dna gnoma enrob ,nworht dna nroht ,eporht somed lalulu

ALAn SonDHEIM is a cross-disciplinary artist, theorist, writer, and performer working through the borders and edge-phenomena of new and old media. He lives with his partner and occasional collaborator, Azure Carter, in Brooklyn. Below are four selections from Sondheim’s sprawling ‘Internet Text’, a continuous exploration of the phenomenology of the virtual and the real, written daily. The selections are: ‘PCMs’, a theory piece on analog and digital technology; ‘*/the now/*’, a perl program (perl is a high level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming language) chewing up perl programs, swearing as it digests its brethren (‘mufukufukulsh!’); ‘VR Improvised’, a written piece on the real and virtual; and ‘my name lalulu’, a piece written with a perl program Sondheim wrote. He has pitched language against technology: “I thought mechanization of the word picture would devastate language. No matter what method was used, the pathos of language remained.” Other extracts have been published in writing Under: Selections from the Internet text, published by the Center for Literary Computing in December 2012. Sondheim’s other published works include Deep Language (2010), vel (2006), and the wayward (2004). More Internet text materials at http://www.alansondheim.org/.

from Estates of westeros StEvEn fowLER & bEn MoRRIS

StEvEn fowLER has published four collections of poetry - Red Museum (Knives Forks & Spoons Press), fights (Veer Books), Minimum Security prison Dentistry (Anything Anymore Anywhere Press) and Recipes (Red Ceilings Press). He is currently undertaking a PhD at the Contemporary Poetics Research Centre, Birkbeck College, focusing on ethics and early 20th century avant-garde poetry. bEn MoRRIS is a London-based experimental musician, artist, and performer. He is a founding member of psychedelic free jazz group Chora.

IntERvIEw: ADAM DIx & tIM pHILLIpS EnRICo tASSI & SInG yUn LEE

The title of your exhibition at Sumarria Lunn (2012) was programming Myth. What is your take on the idea of myth and in what way is your work mythological? t.p. It can be easy to create a mythology or an idea of something that has a past and can be venerated through manipulation – a proposition akin to theatre. that’s the programming aspect of it, this veneer of history. A.D. the idea was to welcome the audience into this society we’ve founded. of course it doesn’t exist, but that was the myth. t.p. I was speaking with the gallery owner about the idea that with suﬃcient money and resources you could give credibility to any strange idea. Just look at Scientology: if

it’s got suﬃcient endorsement from certain people then others are going to think ‘this is something worth looking into.’ I think that the mythology aspect was more in terms of the show’s construction.

The technique behind Adam’s paintings can be very meticulous, and with Tim’s sculptures there’s a ﬁne degree of craftsmanship involved. A.D. I think both of us are quite methodical in the way that we work. t.p. that was initially one of the draws between each of us admiring the other’s work. there’s an obvious material sensibility in addition to the conceptual aspect, and I think we’re both interested in the equilib-

rium between those two sides. It adds another layer of significance to the work as well. when you’re trying to draw someone down the path of an alternative culture of relation with technology, it has to mimic the right forms, and thus has to contain a certain level of proficiency. If it’s a speaker, it has to suggest a speaker. It’s the same with painting as well. A.D. I feel that with elements of tim’s work – like the inlaying – there’s a craftsmanship and care to detail, and there’s a beauty to that which I think is also present in my paintings – a sort of sheen that’s reminiscent of a jewel, perhaps. So there are definite aesthetic crossovers.

ADAM DIx is an acclaimed artist residing in east London. Over the past three decades his work has been exhibited internationally, and is included in several notable private collections. tIM pHILLIpS graduated from Central Saint Martins in 2005. He has curated for Monorex in the past and his work has received wide recognition, particularly in London.

The technical proficiency is exciting to experience. t.p. yes, and in a way it’s funny because there’s a lot of sculpture these days that I find is reacting against that idea. there’s something a bit DIy or ‘thrown together’ about it. I haven’t got the cheek to do it… A.D. no, I haven’t! I can’t do it. I don’t like that lo-fi-ness. I’ve always appreciated good finish, and that’s why I’m interested in classical painting from an aesthetic perspective. with my work – and I think it’s the same with tim’s – there is a methodical way of plotting and working out what the end result would be, although you can never really be sure of the outcome. with my paintings I tend to make lots of studies beforehand, and I’ve got canvases with swatches of colour to see how things are going to work. but when I actually come to do it, there’s only so much control I have over the paint because it’s so slippery, and it takes on characteristics of its own. there is a formula, but there’s another layer which is more organic.

Tim, how did you get into inlay as a craft? t.p. It was my postgrad at the Royal College – there was already an aspect of print to my work, using a lot of ﬂat colours and material processes to ﬂatten and homogenise the mark. I was looking at modes, and I was examining ways of producing multiple marks, and the laser cutter was this really interesting piece of technology for printing a multiple mark, but with a sculptural element. And then the laser piece in the show – in terms of the inlay – became more a way of bypassing this idea of “the craftsman” and having a level of theatre and fakery; being able to reproduce the concept of the craftsman in creating a veneer of technical brilliance, which I don’t personally have. both of us have this side of our work where we try to create a new series of challenges. there’s always this aspect of getting very comfortable with your mode of production, whether that’s the laser cutter or something else. with Adam I think it was producing his

ﬁrst sculptural piece for the show, and then with me it was starting to use more fabric in the work, and using the speaker and such.

Adam, in your process too there’s a certain quality of the unknown, an element of misregistration.

A.D. both of us are always trying to push a bit further. As tim says, you don’t want to get sucked into your own methodology.

A.D. As an undergraduate, I studied graphics and illustration, with a print bias. what interested me with print was its surface noise, its quirks, the things which went wrong. Misregistration, fuzzy lines, especially in things like old litho. It’s almost like they’re a painted photograph. Having that background knowledge – when I was looking at the history of communication during my Master’s – I examined lithos from the Cold war, during which there was a spike in communications advances. I felt that if I made my process of painting echo that period, then a subtle timeline in history could be made available, taking you back to then. before that, my painting was almost ﬁghting the subject. So that started this process of painting always on the ﬂat where these meticulous layers are built up, which you have only so much control of because they’re going to bleed naturally. you can guide it to a point, but it’s quite nice that to an extent it takes its own course and you work with it.

And the reference in that inlaying; is it circuitry? A.D. yeah, it is circuitry, but it also references the materials we use today in modern technology. there’s a language and an aesthetic to the objects we use which make them attractive and subtle.

How do you come to decisions about what sort of materials you use? t.p. the choice of materials helps to create new challenges. by operating in new areas, you get different perspectives, like those of people proficient in their fields. the person who did some of the gold embroidery had all these interesting suggestions for other ways of doing pieces of fabric and such. It generates a lot of new ideas and new ways of working as an artist. A.D. working in art, in creative industries – it’s an exchange, isn’t it? My own palette came out of the idea of a homogenous set of limited colours, and how you can make an image from them. I want to develop that, and in the exhibition I had quite a monochromatic use of colour. now, after the show, I’ve taken it a little bit further and I’m starting to use fluorescent paint as well. It’s about taking it that step further, to push it to another level and see what can happen.

t.p. It bypasses that idea of the virtuoso. that image of the painter I really hate. I ﬁnd it disgusting! A.D. I’ve never been a lover of painting which is thick – it doesn’t appeal to me. I like shallowness; in other words, what you can get out of economy. It’s a sort of “no-depth” within the painting surface.

You’ve spoken of how you don’t like the idea of the brushstroke, or that you’re almost faking the inlay with the laser cutters. So what is the importance of fakery or fakeness in your works?

t.p. Into the unknown… t.p. Maybe not so much fakery, but more theatre. A.D. It’s illusion isn’t it? t.p. And with the illusion of theatre, there’s an invitation to the viewer to participate or

foreground: tALISMAn background: RISE of tHE EMISSARy

ﬁll in the gaps in order to believe it. with both our work it exists as well, because we’re setting out an alternative iteration of a cultural perspective on approaching individual objects and technology. And it’s up to the viewer to participate in that idea. A.D. they can take it or leave it. there’s that famous Arthur C. Clarke quotation – t.p. ‘Any suﬃciently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.’

It feels that in your works technology takes on a cultural significance above all else, but there’s also an ambivalence towards technological devices: that they could be considered sinister. A.D. It is sinister, but it’s also tongue-incheek. I think that comes out of this interest in science fiction. there was a golden period of science fiction running between the fifties and seventies when it was a vehicle for the human consciousness of that time. So yes, I’m hijacking that and putting it in my work. I think there is an uncertainty about technology and how it envelops us. I’m not a luddite, and I’m not against it, but the concern lies in how we respond to it. t.p. the more advanced it gets, as well, the

ADAM DIx

more there’s a veil of non-comprehension and passive acceptance. I mean it’s not possible for most of us to deconstruct the way that the latest Macbook operates because their whole design involves an incredible degree of intricacy. thus, we depend on the skills of a priesthood of those who know how to access the device, and how to change it and how to manipulate it. Everyone else has to accept the way this thing works, and when it goes wrong… A.D. If it glitches, delegate to the high priest. I remember going into the Apple Store on Regent Street just before Christmas, having been there before but not really registering it. It was almost like walking into a cathedral. As you walk in – all the desks where the devices are out for you to play with and test, they’re all laid out like pews, and they have this great big staircase going up to the “higher area.” Everyone was wearing red, like cassocks, and then they had this sort of amulet which hangs round their neck. t.p. there’s so much psychology behind ﬂoor creation and shops, designed to lead people a certain way, and to make them interact subconsciously with the space. I try to harness that premise in my sculpture, particularly in terms of leading people through

a certain route, or through a space and around certain objects.

Tim, I feel that with some of your work the use of space and angles both draws you in and rejects you at the same time. What is the connection between ideas and method here? t.p. there’s the sense of an invitation to, as it were, participate in the sculptures. but perhaps that impression of rejection is to do with lacking complicity with the ritual or process in front of you, which you could participate in or understand. with some of my work in particular there is that invitation to take part in something, or the feeling you might be witnessing some sort of anthropological documentation of a ritual act or point of remembrance. I’m not sure if there’s a direct thought process in terms of this sensation of rejection, though it’s interesting. A.D. perhaps in a diﬀerent way I quite like the feeling of playing with the audience, where you are cajoled into something which looks “not as it is.” And then as you get closer you start to piece it together and ﬁnd yourself on the back foot - to an extent. In a way it’s testing the audience, but it’s engaging them as well. with the way my paintings are made, as you get nearer, you see them

from pRoGRAMMInG MytH

break down into these little splodge marks. there is a premise supposedly underlying painting: ‘if I get closer, I’ll start to understand it a little bit more and see how it’s made.’ but actually as you approach it, it falls out of focus. t.p. Conceptually as well it’s that idea of the veneer of power or control, systems that you can approach but never step inside of unless you’re behind the screen already. A.D. those systems are like a closed society, so you’re not going to feel comfortable with it unless you’re part of it. t.p. this is something that we always talk a lot about at work; closed circles and secretive societies, a secret society of East London creatives…

Given the aspect of communication you’ve mentioned, are there any particular texts or authors you would cite? t.p. I do trawl the internet for a lot of fringe belief systems and things like that, and it seems that there’s a real ﬂattening of space where all ideas are given a certain level of credence. If there’s a particular level of gloss or glitz around something – whether it be the

tIM pHILLIpS

latest alien or corporate conspiracy – there’s a level of belief that these things accrue purely because they’re presented in a particular way. there’s a borrowing from corporate iconography that goes into a lot of these, which has the capacity to draw you in and make you believe and then question yourself at the same time. A.D. I’ve gone through loads of old sci-fi films. My favourite is Fahrenheit 451, partly because of the fact that there’s no written word. Everything is controlled by image, even the opening title sequence! In terms of literature, a lot of science fiction overall: Arthur C. Clarke, william Gibson, Kurt vonnegut.

Perhaps today we rely on technology in the same way that people have relied on myth to explain the way things work. t.p. I feel that there’s a way in which people can qualify world events and feel that they have a higher understanding through conspiracy theories. So they think that 9/11 was an inside job, or that such a thing as the Illuminati exists. It makes them feel that they are on the inside track – regardless of how legitimate it is – and thus aren’t as totally excluded from control, and the world seems

less chaotic. However much we want to call these people crazy – like David Ike and his reptiles – it’s totally understandable why people want to latch onto those things. Especially in the light of crumbling societies and lack of actual popular participation in democracy. It makes perfect sense. A.D. nothing’s changed though. I was in the national Gallery the other day and was looking at old religious paintings, observing the demonization within those scenes. these mediaeval ideas are still lurking about as superstitions. I think it’s innate, it’s within us, and we can’t shake it oﬀ no matter how we’ve “come forward.” t.p. Superstition is always there. there’s probably an evolutionary reason for it as well. Keep safe – extra caution. Don’t cross the road when you see the black cat. A.D. Except it’s probably not a black cat, it’s probably a great big Merc.

transhumanism HALLvARD HAUG

HALLvARD HAUG is a doctoral candidate and associate tutor at Birkbeck College, University of London, currently completing his PhD on the intellectual and cultural history of technologies of human enhancement. He has presented papers on eugenics, transhumanism and science-fictional representations of enhancement technologies, and has been published on the influence of science fiction on Jorge Luis Borges.

In the basement of a dingy house in a recession-diminished American city a group of “grinders” – people who hack their own bodies – implant magnets into their fingertips to extend their senses. In paris, a man who has permanently affixed a pair of computer-enabled glasses is violently assaulted when his server at a fast-food restaurant tries and fails to remove them. on television, sci-fi shows barrage us with visions of evolutionary next steps, ranging from the silly to the eerily plausible. technology is showing greater potential to change us, and some are taking this possibility very seriously indeed. Has transhumanism become mainstream? In a modern context, the first to write of transhumanism was Julian Huxley in the 1950s. for Huxley, it was a synthesis of his belief in a scientific humanism and a eugenic aspiration towards the improvement of humanity. by the ‘90s, transhumanism had been adopted by a group of libertarian techno-zillionaires as a name for their computer driven, quasi-eschatological yearnings. these days, transhumanism seems to be popping up everywhere, and though few will readily admit to being one, everyone is intrigued by some of the promises that it makes. the argument is a simple one: first, technology changed society, restructured it profoundly; now it’s poised to change us as well – not in a spiritual or psychological sense, but materially, merging out bodies with technology, even changing our genetic makeup. the transhumanists think we should embrace it, and what they wish to achieve reads like a teenager’s list of ambition: eternal youth, enhanced intelligence, super strength – and more. Literature is rife with warnings against hubris, but where such dreams used to be the provenance of magic and superstition, technological progress promises that these faustian yearnings will be fulfilled through science and not wagers with the devil. Recently, the American journalist and talkshow host Larry King announced that he wishes to be cryopreserved when he dies. According to proponents of cryonics1 (the preservation of the recently deceased at extremely low temperatures), we will at some point in the future be able to reverse the unfortunate condition that is death. King is the latest in a string of famous people who have signed up for such a deal: walt Disney’s frozen head is rumoured to be stored somewhere beneath the Magic Kingdom.

Such dreams of living forever are essential to transhumanism. Aubrey de Grey, a Cambridge computer scientist-cum-biologist, aims to halt ageing completely. with his long hair, beard, and mad plans, de Grey looks every bit the Arthurian wizard he sounds like. to him, age is a disease that needs to be cured – and no one else is doing anything about it! His project, SEnS, aims to reverse the ageing process through what he has identified as seven key areas of ageing and possible treatment. with the prospect of therapies to halt ageing, where future therapies would compound the effect, de Grey has suggested that the first human to live more than a thousand years may be alive today. but the wish to live forever is only one facet of transhumanism. It has become commonplace for students in the U.S.A. to use Adderall, an amphetamine derivative similar to Ritalin that is used to treat ADD, to stay focused while studying for exams. Lecturers use it to stay on top of the latest research; even school children, pressured by the requirement for good grades to get into a good university, will pop the narcolepsy drug Modafinil to pull all-nighters without feeling tired for the test the day after. websites that promote brain-training exercises to boost your IQ are booming. Everyone recognises that you’ve got to be smart to get ahead, but how do we get smarter? And what exactly is intelligence anyway? Is it computational? In Lausanne in Switzerland, the blue brain project aims to produce a complete computer simulation of a human brain by 2023. neurone by neurone, beginning with rat brains and steadily increasing in complexity. As soon as they achieve this, we will have an unprecedented possibility to study the workings of the brain — opening, the hopefuls believe, for ways of increasing our inborn intelligence. Henry Markram, director of the blue brain project, thinks that when they turn the simulated human brain on, “it will speak to us”. If (and it’s a big if ) it is true that consciousness is a computational pattern, it opens for the concept of ‘uploading’ information to a computer, Matrix-like. this idea was conceived by the American roboticist Hans Moravec in his 1988 book Mind’s Children. If the brain is computable, it is storable, and our minds would not be limited to a corporeal existence: we might be stored and run on a computer, ready to be copied endlessly.

At its most extreme, transhumanism reads like an amalgam of technofetishism and crypto-spiritual apocalypticism. According to Ray Kurzweil,2 biological evolution has stalled, and technology’s dizzying rate of bringing us to a rapturous event called “the singularity”. Science fiction writer vernor vinge theorised this event to be the point when computer speeds, which Moore’s law tells us are doubling every 24 months, approach infinity, allowing for an ever-increasing artificial intelligence explosion. our current models of reality will break down. After that, Kurzweil quips, “all bets are off ”.

If there is an essence in humanity, does it lie within our current limitations, or in our yearning to go beyond them?

well, not quite. Kurzweil claims he’s got an idea of what will happen: humanity is going to integrate with technology, we will have computer-augmented intelligence, nano- and biotechnology will give us with morphological freedom and limitless resources. we will be masters of ourselves, of space, of matter itself, reengineering reality in service of faster computer speeds. the apparent hubris of the blue brain project is unambitious in comparison. when we have control over matter, we can dismantle planets to build intelligent computers, so-called Matrioshka brains; the only limit the fantasists of such planetary megalomania can conceive of is of Einsteinian physics. A computer this size would have to take into account the speed of light to synchronise the computations. George Dvorsky, a futurist, recently made a somewhat more modest proposal: dismantle Mercury, and build a Dyson Sphere—a speculative solar-system scaled structure supposed to capture the total of the sun’s output energy.3 think of all that energy blowing oﬀ into space, unused… Such wild-eyed speculation, though fun, rings alarm bells for most of us if it is taken seriously. In the more “reasonable” wing of transhumanism such implausible dreams are down-played. to members of the transhumanist organisation Humanity+, which was co-founded by philosophers nick bostrom and David pearce,4 transhumanism claims to take advantage of technology to expand our abilities. Medicine should not just be ameliorative, but expansive, it should not just cure diseases but amplify our abilities. which brings us to a topic of current worry and speculation. the recent London olympics brought with it worries that athletes are attempting to push beyond the capabilities nature gave them, with the help of pharmacology. Lance Armstrong, who famously won Tour de France seven times after having recovered from cancer, was charged in June 2012 on suspicion of having improved his performance on the bike, and recently confessed to doping in an interview with oprah winfrey. that elite athletes will

resort to drugs to give them an edge is nothing new, but a new controversy has arisen. In 2007, the South African sprinter oscar pistorius created controversy when he was barred from competing; not because he had taken performance-enhancing drugs, but because he was a double amputee, and wished to race against the non-disabled. the argument against his wish was that his prosthetic legs were, in fact, an improvement on regular legs, allowing him to run faster than an athlete that still had the legs given them by birth. pistorius became the first to compete in both olympic and paralympic events, but not without generating some controversy. Coming second in the 200m finals at the paralympics, pistorius accused the winner, Alan oliveira, of having “awfully long” prostheses—the same accusation made against pistorius when he first wished to participate in the able-bodied events.5 of course, his claims have become more dubious since being charged with his girlfriend’s murder; interestingly, performance enhancing drugs were discovered in his home at the time. to transhumanists, such complaints are meaningless. they believe that there is an essence in humanity that should be preserved, but that we should not otherwise let ourselves be limited in our aspirations for expanding our abilities. not only should everyone with a need for a cognitive boost be allowed to use ADD medicines, why let our bodies be constrained by what was given to us? Give us gills to breathe under water! Make us convert sunlight into energy, like plants, so we can stay alive in space! or give us bionic legs that allow us to run faster. If there is an essence in humanity, does it lie within our current limitations, or in our yearning to go beyond them? technologies that were science-fictional are becoming reality every day; Faust and Frankenstein warned us of the perils and temptations that comes with knowledge and technology. technology pushes ahead relentlessly, and humanity accepts its challenge. when Julian Huxley first proclaimed a new faith in transhumanism in 1951, he envisioned a kind of positivist religion that was based on science and not revealed scripture, and a shared aspiration towards the evolutionary progress of mankind. It is easy to recognise that technology has the possibility to change us, that it is changing us. but does this make us all transhumanists? no. we can acknowledge the possibilities of technology without recognising them as imperative, a sort of futurist corollary to Hume’s law. A might be does not make an ought.

not to be confused with cryogenics: the study of extremely low temperatures. 2 A transhumanist icon, loved and hated alike; his 2005 best-seller The Singularity is Near was on the New York Times’ non-ﬁction list for months. 3 the Dyson Sphere is named after the physicist freeman Dyson who ﬁrst described it, though Dyson himself freely admits it was olaf Stapledon who described something similar in the 1937 novel Star Maker. 4 bostrom, director of the oxford-based future of Humanity Institute, became Internet famous for his ‘Simulation hypothesis’ which claims that it is more probable we are living in a simulated world than a real one. 5 the rules for the length of the prostheses are stricter in the olympics than the paralympics. Could pistorious have switched to a longer pair for the paralympics? perhaps it is not that simple: pistorious set a new world record in the preliminary heats.

nIGHt SUppLICAtIon In tHE pERfECt KEnzA pApES x ELnEt bEIRUt

I’m not asking you to understand me, I’m asking you to believe me, to have already have believed in me, because this is my right upon you as your sister. I read the ‘faatiha’ for you the other night. I remembered that time when you reminded me to read it. I’ve never really done it before, And I’ve never been so aware of my space. I dwelt in the silence after the last word And recognized the House of God, And the miles and miles of nothing, the good kind of nothing! peace be upon you, I will see you tomorrow—God willing. God will give you peace my darling, because God has already given me taste without experience.

KEnzA pApES studied at SoAS and is currently adding the ﬁnal touches to her book of poetry, platinum Million-Dollar, baby!, which is scheduled for publication later on in the year. ELnEt bEIRUt graduated recently from UCL with an MA in English. She collaborates often with KEnzA and KEnzo pApES, all of whom are close friends.

the Colours of the State for and after Rachel Warriner’s Red/Blue/Yellow SCott tHURSton

Scott Thurston is the author of Reverses Heart’s Reassembly, Hold, Momentum, and Internal Rhyme. He lectures at the University of Salford, co-runs The Other Room reading series in Manchester, and coedits the Journal of british and Irish Innovative poetry with Robert Sheppard.

step to the side unfold the abstract index sudden solidity tries different strategies beyond expectation sketches the shape of a thought and moves on neurological cast open mine shallow wake to a stunning pacific rhythm nonchalance by chance cheaply born or won to attest to tumult synthetic project catapult a series of solutions onto mezzanine bar what sound attempts bridge gaps in turned knowledge process to tamp down load in mysterious circs don’t doubt it fallen foreign subtleties lost on deranged swordship backed-up roundels over-expressed decks upended to siren dance smart water scan cable thieves punching through consciousness find that relation steady enough to paint an emotion passing through a membrane taut to string along the neat attempt I thought I told you to begin your renunciations of slides feints and falls into ignorance lovely show reserves attempt conserves contempt left to describe a longer turn around term to trace progress installing a model regretful derivation hide-bound extraction supportive inklings broken braced against a stupid blunt axle your deluded sacrifice attributed noble pose to justify base inequality and terminal terrace bottomed up to top in tight trauma of your free association simple words timed to expand waste expenditure drawn out over the troubled surface

capital invests with mystique what chance you slipped through a gap in that other life of yours hours to time a skilled landscape assault punched through the face whilst the state continues its ministry of misery too cold the tone of the whole in false recompense offered to burn itself off in refined conditions

bRIAn ALDISS interviewed by JoHn GUILLEM

Brian W. Aldiss, OBE was one of the principal pioneers of New Wave science fiction in the early 1960s. During his career he has authored more than fifty novels and over three hundred short stories, and in more recent times has been recognised as an accomplished painter, poet, and art collector. Some of the most groundbreaking New Wave anthologies were edited under his supervision, and he has produced significant works of non-fiction, most notably billion year Spree: the true History of Science fiction. Aldiss is the recipient of some of speculative literature’s most prestigious awards, and the Science Fiction Writers of America have honoured him with the distinction of GRAnD MAStER.

Q. Science fiction novels are often overtly or implicitly negative: there are many quasi or full-on apocalyptic outcomes in science fiction, your own Greybeard being an example. Is this ‘pessimistic’ outlook still relevant today? A. no one wants to read or watch something where everything’s going well, and in a sense I think that’s always been the case. but, to begin with, the American dose of Sf I think was… yes, things were rather uncomfortable, but it was mainly to show off the gadgets of the past.

think amounts to ninety – bloody hell! In the recent batch, there’s Harm, which is about whether the british army tortures people or not. well, I knew they did, because after world war II I was stuck in Sumatra for a year, and there we had evidence that people were being tortured, in a very crude way actually. whether that makes it nicer or nastier I don’t know, but for instance, a woman was beaten to death with golf clubs in a cellar. I mean, can you imagine it? And the people who were doing it came to our mess and boasted about it. It’s part of the decency of british troops that we said, “fuck oﬀ out of here and don’t come back,” and they didn’t come back.

I’m really sick of this term “Sf” because I don’t think it suits any longer. what it’s going to be, I don’t know. A long time ago Robert Heinlein was fed up with the science fiction label, and he wanted to call it speculative fiction; quite a good idea, but immediately the fans started calling it spec-fic, and it died. It sounds like a sort of eating disease!

So torture has gone on, and that’s what Harm’s all about. And, of course, you might say that it’s journalistic, but there’s an immense background of feeling about it. It seems to me that this is something that we shouldn’t do. war itself is bad enough, but torture is in a different category. where someone who is captive and powerless can be maltreated as the sadists feel like.

Every novel is written in a particular instant of time, and Greybeard was a time of disaster for me: my ﬁrst wife decided she wasn’t having any more of me or the marriage. She took my small children away from me, I had to sell up my house and give her all the money, and she went down with the kids to the Isle of wight. yes, I was sorry to lose that wife, but I was absolutely croddled to lose my two dear kids. I loved them very dearly, but it wasn’t for that reason alone: I also had had similar experiences in my own early life, which reinforced the miseries when I was coming up for forty. So, what did I do? I had a room in a rather slummy bit of oxford called paradise Square, and there I wrote Greybeard, which is actually about the loss of my kids. It’s about an England where there are no more children, and so the whole place is going to pot. that was the way I felt. A lot of people are in a vaguely similar situation – either their marriage has collapsed, or they’ve lost their kids, or something like that – and so, they might ﬁnd some comfort in Greybeard. So it went somewhere, as a masked statement of my feelings.

Q. A comment you’ve made before concerning the difference between science fiction and fantasy is that high fantasy in particular will take you back to the status quo at its ending, which will almost never happen in science fiction. with the science fiction outcome in a book, something has – or is – changing in how humans experience the world or the cosmos. perhaps in the real world we’re coming closer to a scifi outcome?

Q. Given this emotional current, is this not perhaps at odds with comments you have made in the past regarding the journalistic element of science ﬁction (or whatever we’re not calling it)? A. by journalistic traits I take it you mean someone who’s taking some notice of what’s going on in the present day? Although it’s a pejorative way of putting it, isn’t that what it means? Sometimes, there’s something that’s going on that upsets one, more than at other times. for example, on this long shaggy list of my books, which I actually

A. yes – well I suppose what I actually feel is that somehow things will always go horribly wrong. I can’t help it! that’s actually the way that my life was experienced. first of all, my parents didn’t want me and they kicked me out, and that start to life holds over you. I volunteered to become part of the Second world war; after public school it was nice to escape to the comparative safety and comfort of the british army. My whole life was a rumpus, and I spent four years in the east in what in those days was known as the “far east,” and that has had a great influence on me. Coming back to England, people were saying, “now we can get on with life” and “somehow things don’t seem to be how they were; you can’t get Hovis” or whatever they were complaining about, as though the vast upheaval of that war… sixty million people killed! of course things are going to be difficult, different too! And I think that they perpetually go on being different. we see now that China is looming – some people think that’s for the good, some for the bad. Certainly, the way Europe performs is changing – not to mention the financial scenario – there’s always change, which is never very comfortable, unless you are young, in which case the environment is in change because you yourself are in change.

An IntERvIEw wItH

Q. Do you feel then that writing, whether speculative or “mundane” (to borrow Samuel Delany’s phrasing), needs to engage with what’s changing now? A. this presupposes that literature – let’s call it that – has a purpose. but does it have a purpose? I’m not sure. people do write books that have purposes. there are a lot of women writing about, for example, child abuse: they produce a book with a purpose. very admirable, and sometimes I myself produce a book with a purpose. More often than not though I wake up and I’m partially in touch still with the subconscious, which has been flowing throughout the night, presenting me with dreams and so on. And at that point it’s more or less accessible by the conscious mind, and something quite freaky may come into your mind. but you know that’s valuable, because – well, I at least think of this river of subconsciousness as something that’s quite truthful, and useful as well. to return to the last question: tolkein’s a good example. when the chaps have done their business they go back to the Shire [laughs] – and most things go back to as they were. In a good science fiction book, the problem may be solved, but the world never goes back to as it was. It never does, and that to me seems a profound truth that people don’t grasp. And how different the world is now than what it was; take the sixties for example. Q. In Billion Year Spree there’s a comment on children. Adults are a kind of decayed state of children because they’ve gone into the hell that is society. Do we need to access our more child-like self? A. well, I think that one can have access to all these things. If you’re a rounded character, the way a plum duff is a rounded pudding, you can have all these things; perhaps vestigial, perhaps not. I don’t know the answer. I don’t quite see what exactly a human being is. Q. you say that you don’t know what a human is. Must we understand what a human is in order to be change one? Is this a reckless idea? perhaps we’ll never be sure what a human is… A. no. I don’t think that it’s reckless. but I’m still puzzled about something that we’ve possibly given up. I was watching a programme last night about elephants – how they’ve begun to adapt to poaching by growing shorter tusks. Can that be an evolutionary step within – how many generations? Shall we say three and not more; quite astonishing, isn’t it? we can evolve, and possibly we don’t need all kinds of things to evolve. Earlier this year the medical board decided that sleeping pills are bad for you. fine, throw’em away. well, I’d been taking sleeping pills for God knows how long – since my wife died, I suppose. I always felt a grudge against them, because I’d sleep well until three o’clock, and then the sleeping pill would give me a nudge and say, “Aldiss, I’m going off duty now, you’re on your own.” Immediately after I read that, I chucked them out. Everyone thought “extraordinary, why don’t you go off them gradually?” no, they’re no good for you, throw them away. Has it improved my sleeping? well, no, as you get older you sleep badly. Actually, doesn’t shedding these things tend to make you more human? you may suffer a bit more, but it seems that suffering is part of the deal of being an intelligent creature. Like, well, standing up gives you back pain, and so on. I think humanity could easily evolve, but I don’t know how. I can’t think. Have we become more intelligent? no, I don’t think so. but there have always been intelligent

people, and hopefully always will be. Q. you’ve suggested that people use the term “artificial consciousness” rather than artificial intelligence, as AI already exists. you’ve said that we’re unlikely to reach “AC” until we’re capable of understanding our own consciousness. Is there a concern that our own industriousness as a species has outstripped our ability to comprehend or process reality? A. It’s difficult to answer that. I think that there are religions, possibly buddhism… no, I’m thinking of something else… a religion without revelation; so that they have to work on what is within themselves. that seems to me very useful; why hasn’t it caught on? Anyhow, there are different ways in which one can live, and I would mistrust the artificial route. It seems to me to sidetrack something that’s vital within us. Q. perhaps the present state of the world is that many people aren’t in touch with an inward knowledge of things, but then would we – after a certain stage of “progression” – reach a level where we have no contact with a common sense, an inward connection, as everything becomes increasingly externalised. Are we then suddenly “no longer human?” A. I like your phrase “the inward knowledge of things.” that’s presumably what we’re seeking for. yes, it’s what I hope to have stumbled across when I’m writing. Every now and then, something miraculous comes along, like Darwin seeing the finches on the Galapagos Islands. He suddenly had this “inward knowledge of things,” where things do change to fit the circumstances. now, it appears that we actually haven’t – as yet at least – managed to fit our circumstances. I mean two world wars; sixty million dead in this last bloody conflict. It’s too terrible, too tragic to believe. And yet, we know that there is from this a rather miserable advantage, in that the world is overpopulated. that’s another curse with which we have to deal. If we actually saw that the world was overpopulated, then a lot of curious things would happen. for instance, I don’t think that we would any longer try to help the disabled and famine struck children of Africa. we would think it were better that they died, would we not? but there would be advantages though I can’t quite see what at the moment. this inward knowledge of things is very important – crucial even – and you meet people who have it, and you know they have it. you meet people like that, and you meet people who haven’t got a chance. why is this? why is it different? I don’t think it’s a matter of economics either, just a matter of luck. Q. It’s clear enough to register how you feel about the way in which people respond to their own beliefs and faith – A. people have such absurd faiths. If you believe in a fictitious god… which I suppose is well enough, plenty of people still do it. Having been brought up religiously as a kid, I like to hear the bells ringing on a Sunday; it seems to do very little harm. If everyone became rational, they would then have to decide a series of very difficult questions about “what are we about?” and “what is life?” and “how can we function best in life?” or, of course, the science-fictional question of “is there life elsewhere?” now, there’s this little machine called Curiosity, scouring the sands of Mars for traces of microscopic life. I think that is a very valuable thing to do. we would like to know whether life here is an accident. I mean, crikey! It’s a very large ques-

bRIAn ALDISS

tion. And God just gets in the way of that. I was going to say, when I die, I’ve left my brain and my spinal cord to science. So, they’ll come and rip that out before they cremate me. well, it’s a sensible thing to do. I’m a fan of science. Q. you’ve written of God as one of mankind’s better inventions. Do you think we’ll end up creating some sort of God-thing, and then begin to worship it? A. there’s an amazing short story by frederick brown, written some years ago, whereby all the civilized systems of the world become computerised, and they’re all on one big circuit. the president of the galaxy is asked to come forward and open this vast circuit, and he is free to ask a question. So he steps up, and asks this question: “Is there a God?” And immediately a terrible voice says “now tHERE IS A GoD,” and, at that time, I went to a party of young scientists. I heard one of these guys saying that he’d heard – not read, someone had told it to him – a marvellous story the other day, and so he told it to this other guy, who said “ooh, that’s wonderful.” And the name of frederick brown itself was lost, but they all thought that this was the great parable for the age. well, we’re a long way from that, but just supposing that we manage to get (as I suppose that we will; in another century?) to those interesting satellites of Jupiter: what will we find there? well, we might find some kind of life, but what we really want is something big and six foot tall and able to operate twitter and facebook, and then we can talk to them, and we find out much about ourselves, don’t we? Q. you’re keen on rationality and science, but also on compassion and nature, particularly animals. If we’re faced with a scenario whereby more and more species are going extinct, utility aside, what will we have lost? A. the loss of the polar bear; what will that bring about? well, I suppose very little, actually. but eventually we have to close down on everything. there are more gallant efforts made to spare animals: a lot of money goes into protecting the flocks of elephants. we can sympathise with that, because we see [laughs] what good mothers the mother elephants are to their children, in a way that human mothers are not always to their children. what is going extinct we really don’t know. but there has to be a time, surely, when it’s payback time? Q. this is something I noticed in a piece you wrote for The Guardian. you mentioned the concept of payback, along with the phrase “Mother nature.” A. Mother nature? Q. I was not sure how serious you were being. A. well, I believe in Gaia, which is a kind of Mother nature, in a way. Anyway, let’s not talk about Mother nature. Gaia is a brilliant concept, and somehow one very readily accepts it. I used Gaia for the basis of Helliconia. Is it going to take over? possibly. Q. what are you reading at the moment? A. I’m not a great reader of novels; I seem to have passed that stage, although I still read tolstoy. I’ve just finished reading his third novel, which is called Resurrection, for the eighth time. I’m never happy with the way it ends and I wish I could rewrite it for him. but other-

wise it’s a most marvellous book. It complains about everything that one could possibly complain about, including the Holy Church [laughs]. why are there people in prison in charge of those who are prisoners? what have these people done that they should be in charge? And what is art? Is art a function in itself, or is it meant in some way to make us better or of wider cognisance, etc., etc. He asks all these questions. Some he manages to answer, but – oh God – it’s an almighty book. Q. Reportedly Finches of Mars, your new book, is going to be your last science fiction novel. Could you talk a bit about the book, and also about why it’s going to be your last sf novel? A. I don’t know, I would think it’s probably to do with age. It’s more difficult to concentrate for long periods of time. to answer the rest of your question: I’ve read so many stories – not to my great advantage – about chaps slogging over the surface of Mars, hardly a woman there. this is set in a recognisably near future (I suppose), where various universities around the world are persuaded to cooperate more than they ever have before, forming something called the UU – United Universities. these go with nASA to fund the colonisation of Mars, and most of the people who apply are women. So, they’re established there, and six of these towers are set up: each tower represents one part of the world; for instance, Singapore has a very good university, so there’s a Singathai tower; there’s a Chinese tower, a western tower, and so on and so on. Six towers, and mainly women there, but not only the women of course. their duty is to carry out research into what it is like to live on another planet, and also a little into the surface as well. now, you can’t guess what it is, but when I tell you what it is, I think you’ll hardly be surprised. And that is: that the women, when they give birth, they give birth to stillborn children, because with the lighter gravity, there’s not the same pressure in the womb, to form the child. And so, the child may be broken skulled, or the brain hasn’t formed, or something is the matter: all stillborn. And then, there’s the dreadful question of what they can do to cure it. And they can’t do anything to cure it. when they’re pregnant, could they fly them back to Earth? well no, they couldn’t, because that would be even more deleterious, that dreadful flight and landing. ‘finches’ is something to do with Darwin. the women can’t do anything, but eventually they decide that, given a few more years, the whole physiognomy will adapt, and the children of the lighter gravity will then be living. that is what happens: it is the finches effect occurring. And in the final chapters – all sorts of other things go on – a great ship comes, by which point for various reasons the colonies have become more and more difficult to run. for instance, the supply of food – food always has to be supplied from Earth – it’s not working out… but this ship comes, and these are the successors of the early colonists, several generations on, coming from another planet, and coming back in time to help these predecessors who are in difficulty. for all these things, there is something approaching an explanation.

to those who would oppress AoDรกn MCCARDLE

to tHoSE wHo woULD oppRESS

III

AoDรกn MCCARDLE

Iv AoDรกn MCCARDLE is an accomplished poet, painter, and co-editor at Veer Books.

thick walls of theory Comments on tom wolfe’s Back to Blood KHALID tEtUAnI

My appreciation of tom wolfe’s fiction is always attenuated by mixed feelings of fascination and disgust. Like a eunuch at an orgy (as The New York Times’ John Russell once referred to wolfe), I have read each of his novels since The Bonfire of the Vanities with a practical indifference and an attendant, though impractical desire to join his ‘victors’ and ‘be where things are happening.’ wolfe’s proximity to the orgies he depicts might well be the cause for my confused reading, although one thing is certain: that wolfe has, once again, failed to balance—or indeed hide—these emotions. James wood summarized the uncertainty that characterizes wolfe’s fiction brilliantly in his review of Back to Blood for the The New Yorker: too often, one senses that what wolfe imagines to be an irreverent critique of strength is actually a reverent reproduction of the same. His own writing lusts for the power he so noisily depicts. the novelist issues his status reports— on the latest cool restaurant, or the state of the gym-toned body, or the enormous mansions on fisher Island, or the spending habits of the new Russians—in a register that is at once breathlessly mocking and breathlessly awed.

It is no surprise, then, that after having read Back to Blood it remains unclear whether wolfe’s latest 700 page balancing act should be celebrated or dismissed— but one might do well to hide from it. perhaps the length of wolfe’s new novel is a symptom of the $7 million advance the author auctioned the publishing rights for in 2007; or maybe it is his addiction to quantity in general—and his fervent belief in MoRE and MoRE research yielding MoRE and MoRE meaning—that was more likely to have determined Back to Blood’s excessiveness. Labouring in the shadow of the enormous critical and commercial success of The Bonfire of the Vanities, his next two novels, A Man in Full and I am Charlotte Simmons, were so well-done as to be burnt, and if these novels set a precedent, then Back to Blood is the latest instalment in a series of sensationally ethnographic, hyperrealist burnouts. the phrase “back to blood” first appeared in The Bonfire of the Vanities and is typical of the incendiary slogans wolfe has become famous for touting. An audience of African-American Harlemites begin to hurl anti-Semitic insults at the Jewish mayor who, noticing that

things have taken a turn for the worse, appeals to ‘Mrs. Langhorn, the head of the community board.’ She returns his glance with a look that says “I wish I could help you, but what can I do? behold the wrath of the people!’’ oh, she's afraid like all the rest! She knows she should stand up against this element! they'll go after black people like her next! they'll be happy to do it! She knows that. but the good people are intimidated! they don't dare do a thing! back to blood! them and us!

wolfe usually appears triumphant in interviews for having “foreseen” the Crown Heights Riot, which saw violent clashes between the black and orthodox Jewish community. this is because he writes jealously for posterity; he is more interested in becoming historical than he is in history, and his novels predict a riot much in the same way an amphitheatre provides for violence. In 1989 wolfe claimed that ‘within ten years political power in most major American cities will have passed to the nonwhite majorities.’ He asks, ‘Does that render these cities incomprehensible, fragmented beyond the grasp of all logic, absurd, meaningless to gaze upon in a literary sense? not in my opinion.’ Such insouciantly liberal statements abound in wolfe’s writings, and they demonstrate how dismissive he is of the fundamental interchangeability of colour within the American political elite.

Back to Blood follows the controversial career of Miami cop nestor Camacho, a character wolfe wields in order to balkanize the various ethnic groups in the city. newly promoted to the elite Marine patrol, nestor and his team are called to investigate a sailing boat by the Rickenbacker Causeway, which runs from Miami to Key biscayne. A half-drowned Cuban refugee has boarded a yacht and scaled its 70-foot mast. Determined to prove himself a good cop, nestor climbs up the foremast and brings the terrified—and technically dry-foot—refugee down, ready for repatriation. this is nestor’s first taste of the limelight; he is subsequently vilified in the Hispanic press and excommunicated by the anti-Castro community of Hialeah. Adding insult to injury, his girlfriend Magdalena decides to leave him for her new boss, Dr norman Lewis, a porn-addiction specialist.

Dr Lewis becomes back to blood’s eunuch at the orgy, quite literally. An unintended self-portrait appears in the ﬁgure of the excuse-making porn doctor who, like wolfe, presents sophistic arguments in order to justify his spectatorship. He aims to persuade Magdalena, whose analogousness to the reader is quite clear by now: “And to me, it’s not enough to gather data by listening to patients describe their lives. these people are weak and not very analytical. otherwise they wouldn’t let these things happen to themselves. we have to see with our own eyes. And that’s why I’m willing to stay up all night—to get to know these wretched souls from the inside out.” Jesu Cristo…this was the thickest wall of theory she had ever heard norman concoct! An impenetrable fort!... and an inimitable pulling the rug out from under any critic.

It would have been an inimitable pulling had the combined weight and unanimity of wolfe’s critics not been so heavy on the rug. the thick walls of theory supporting Back to Blood’s fort crumble too often, and no amount of opportunistic theory-dropping can save the shaky structure from falling down: John Smith, a young and ambitious reporter for the Miami Herald, is questioned by the editor-in-chief (with whom he shares alma mater, yale) concerning the subject he majored in: ‘“English… was theory still a big deal in the English Department when you were there?”’ the young journalist responds, ‘“there were some professors who taught theory, I guess, but I don’t think it was a big thing.”’ this kind of casual academic posturing demonstrates how wolfe enjoys prodding those in a position to assist his canonization. needless to say, it can make for an awkward reading experience. However, there are a few redeeming features to the novel. Some of the more enjoyable aspects of wolfe’s signature style give Back to Blood a sense of digestibility and entertainment: Leon Decapito and Kanyu Reade make an appearance at Art basel; Magdalena notices how ‘“norman’s love of norman would be embarrassing even if he was subtle about it, and Subtle About It is not norman in the ﬁrst place”’; and an incompetent cop fumbles his excuse hilariously, saying ‘“I’m not saying what I’m saying. that thing on youtube’s not what I was saying… I’m saying the bastard posts what I’m saying but he don’t say he’s cut out the part that made me say what I’m saying!”’ but these moments are too often overshadowed by the author’s immature use of onomatopoeia. the following description of an orgy was one of the many reasons Back to Blood was a strong contender (coming ﬁrst in a Guardian poll) for the annual bad Sex Award:

His eyes were pinned on a couple barely three feet from them—this Americano was behind a girl bEAt thung bEAt thung bEAt thung tHRUSt hump tHRUSt hump tHRUSt hump hump humping bEHInD her HUMp thung tHRUSt the turgid crotch of his trunks in her buttocks RUt rut rut rut…so hard, the front of his trunks all but disappeared into that ripe gulley… She was leaning forward to make the gulley wider, causing her bare breasts to hang down…with each tHRUSt they swung forward tHRUSt hump tHRUSt thong thong thong thong they lurched forward and swung back.

And the reader is forced to develop a habit of skim-reading the more tedious attempts at harmonising form and content: SMACK the Safe boat bounces airborne comes down again SMACK on another swell in the bay bounces up again comes down SMACK on another swell and SMACK bounces airborne with emergency horns police Crazy Lights exploding SMACK in a demented sequence on the roof SMACK but officer nestor Camacho’s fellow SMACK cops here in the cockpit the two fat SMACK americanos they love this stuff love it love driving the boat SMACK throttle wide open forty-five miles an hour against the wind SMACK bouncing bouncing its shallow aluminum hull SMACK from swell SMACK to swell SMACK to swell SMACK toward the mouth of biscayne bay.

In his defence, wolfe claimed in a recent interview that we are “constantly coming down on a certain word.” He then expounded on his theory: “we think in exclamation points. we don’t think in essays… we also italicize our speech more often than what’s written in down in an ordinary book.” In wolfe’s overampliﬁed world he speaks for everyone, including the characters he creates, which is the reason why back to blood reads like a variation on its author, rather than the variety of life it depicts. would Igor, the Russian art forger, celebrate by declaring nestor an ‘honorary muzhik’? or is it that wolfe’s source material for understanding contemporary Russian-American culture happens to be 19th century Russian literature? towards the end of Back to Blood wolfe critiques a recurring straw man in his writing: the art establishment. An art advisor (“A.A.,” no doubt an acronym, although there is a pun on the American Abstract Artists also) explains the method behind Jeb Doggs’ “De-Skilled art,” which involved the artist taking photographs of himself and a prostitute in ﬂagrante. the photos are then sent to “Dalique” who ‘reproduce the photographs in three dimensions in glass.’ the most important thing, however, is that there are ‘no Hands—that’s an important concept now. It’s not some artist using his so-called skills to deceive people. It’s not a sleight of hand. It’s no hands at all. that makes it conceptual, of course.’ further on, a character named Heidi Schlossel performs “De-

fucked” at the “native trash of the Day” exhibition inside the Instant Museum located in the Design District. Any resemblance to Jeff Koons and Marina Abramović is surely by chance. these artists are wolfe’s peers— competitors, it seems—in celebrity and status, and it is hard to accept what his critique implies; namely, that he is different from them. for example, the following quote from Back to Blood might well have been about Back to Blood: ‘contemporary art would be considered a ludicrous practical joke if otherwise bright people hadn’t elevated it to a higher plane…upon which a lot of money changes hands.’ wolfe is a Major League novelist—and his fiction is a mediating instance between many money-changing hands—so when once again the author commits to satirising the whims and caprice of the modern art market, is he not precariously placed to do so? It is difficult to tolerate wolfe’s anti-intellectual crusade when his overkill approach to research is reflective of a wider methodological hypocrisy. the author proudly identifies a phenomenon known as “information compulsion,” which accounts for the irresistibility experienced (by those who know) in divulging information (to those who do not). Back to Blood makes it abundantly clear that its author suffers from this disorder acutely. wolfe’s strategy of inundation creates an endless feed of status updates that speak more of his desire to be associated with them than with the realism he espouses. not surprisingly, wolfe stated in a recent 92y interview that he believes in “status theory”—by which he actually means the status component of Max weber’s three Class System—and did not object when it was suggested that his authorial technique consisted of fictionalising weber’s theories. Such a strategy hardly allows for the “crystalline” prose wolfe dreamed of writing as an undergraduate at washington Lee: ‘that was the word: crystalline. It would be a prose as ageless, timeless, exquisite, soaring, and transparently dazzling as Scarlatti at his most sublime. It would speak to the twentyfifth century as lucidly as to my own.’ what we have instead is the author’s own brand of reactionary realism: a blend of conceited grammatical idiosyncrasies and creative anxieties. these fears stem from a complaint he made in a 1989 essay published in Harper’s entitled “Stalking the billionfooted beast,” inside which he claimed that ‘the actuality is continually outdoing our talents, and the culture tosses up figures daily that are the envy of any novelist.’ this could hardly be the case if one were committed enough to producing crystalline prose.

we’ll See, we’ll See Again ALyonA LARIonovA

there is a myth which keeps resurfacing. In ancient times, when people had secrets that they didn't want to share – but also could not keep inside themselves – they would find a tree and whisper the secret into its trunk. these words would go down to the very roots and would be preserved there, never emerging again. the roots would stay underground, away from daylight, and so too would the secrets. young artist Alyona Larionova makes use of this story, visually expanding it further by adding layers of poetic reflection. Here the artist explores how words can actually travel. Her main interest lies in producing a new reality that is on the borderline between the real and the imaginary. the central focus of her site-specific installation is on the roots which are motionless and static but have also grown into something else, slowly but powerfully transformed. It could be regarded as a simple gesture, but the gesture simultaneously speaks about stability and progress, action and passivity. As organic as possible, the film-based installation attempts to foster the feeling that these roots have become a physical part of their architectural surroundings, as if superimposed onto the existing gallery space. viewers can see her works as short poetic investigations of some of the primal myths, symbols, and practices which still construct our inner beliefs. we live in a time where the flow of words and information is approaching the infinite, and sometimes it feels as though the meaning of the “actual story” has been lost. Could it be that this “actual story” is rooted in things which were meant to be forgotten but that keep resurfacing perennially? but what if as well these ancient trees are whispering their secrets in shared landscapes, passing them on through their roots?

Do we have secrets of our own at all?

Born in 1988, Alyona Larionova is a London-based artist who is currently undertaking her MA at Slade School of Fine Art and whose works have been shown at the Moscow Biennial of Young Art (National Museum of Contemporary Art), Paris Photo Week, and the Salon Gallery (London). we'll see, we'll see again is her ďŹ rst exhibition in Estonia, a project that is a result of her residency at the Temnikova & Kasela Gallery.

III

Mechanical Animals LAURA ottInA

‘StRAnDbEESt’, tHEo JAnSEn (ﬁg. 1)

throughout history humans have been fascinated with animation. Artificial creatures abound in myth and legend. Accounts of the lives of Mozi (470-391 bC est.), the primogenitor of Mohism (a now-defunct Chinese philosophical school), and his contemporary Lu ban (a renowned inventor), refer to the construction of flying wooden birds, and a moving humanoid figure to a 10th century king is described in the Liezi text (4th century bC). Hellenic inventors were known to have constructed intricate automata. the Greek god of technology, Hephaestus, is reported to have possessed a cohort of these machines. In the Middle Ages, the study of Greek mechanics in the Islamic world gave birth to the famous golden tree of baghdad, built in the 9th century, complete with singing and moving metal birds perched on its branches. the European inventors of the Renaissance revived the enterprise of these technologies, most notably Leonardo da vinci, who designed a number of mechanical creatures, including a lion which could walk and rotate its head. while many of the automata built over the following centuries were produced for the entertainment of the elite, others were used in scientific experiments that sought to simulate the operations of living organisms. In 1739 the Swiss engineer Jacques de vaucanson produced an ingenious mechanical duck which mimicked the digestive system, suggesting that a day would come when organic bodily functions could be replaced with cogs, pistons, and gears. the Industrial Revolution was a period of hyperaccelerated technological innovation, and the wonder for automata was increasingly accompanied by a growing fear, cultivated in victorian popular culture, not only that machines could one day live, but that they might also rebel. today, as our desire to redesign the world poses manifest threats to the environment, we find ourselves inexorably pulled towards a postnatural era in which the fusing of technology and biology pushes humanity into unknown territory. As our increasingly fantastic world seems to eventually play out the predictions and speculations of science fiction, technology has itself become mundane. but we are also witnessing the birth of an exciting new world inhabited by incredible creatures in which an elastic, hybridised taxonomy of the organic and the artificial emerges. A new form of unsettling and nightmarish beauty finds expression in visionary creations which combine the unfathomable imagination of Jules verne with the technical brilliance of Leonardo da vinci: uncanny mechanical creatures which mimic the movements of living organisms, bizarre hybrid sculptures designed as intricate combinations of organic and synthetic parts, and domestic robots disassembled and then redesigned, so as to behave erratically.

notable amongst contemporary artists who produce mechanical animals is theo Jansen, hailing from the netherlands. for the past twenty-two years, the kinetic artist has used pvC tubing, wood, bottles, and sails to build his immense ‘Strandbeests’ (fig. 1). these wind-powered examples of artificial life appear strikingly alive as they walk steadily along the beach supported by spindly plastic legs. Convinced that the separation between art and engineering is an arbitrary distinction, Jansen is applying an evolutionary method to improve the design of each subsequent generation of ‘Strandbeests.’ In an attempt to refine the intelligence of his creations, he has provided them with logic gates that enable them to reverse their direction when in danger. french robotics artist france Cadet modifies the shapes of extant commercial canine robots, and reprograms them to exhibit unusual behaviour (fig.2). these modified breeds are chilling reminders of how nature is abused in the name of progress, and of the urgent need to address the serious ethical questions raised by biotechnology. American artist Mike Libby dissects beautiful entomological specimens and combines them with components harvested from antique clockworks and other mechanical objects. the series, entitled Insect Lab, is Libby’s playful reinterpretation of the popular and traditionally ominous archetype of the insect-robot (fig.3). new zealand artist Lisa black uses a similar process to create macabre and frightening creatures that integrate taxidermy with intricate machine parts, while American Jessica Joslin combines animal bones and a wide assortment of discarded scrap metal into exquisite sculptures. Joslin’s unsettling hybrid skeletons are articulated and movable, and lovingly adorned with beautiful metal ornaments (fig. 4). these artists share a fascination for the complex design of mechanism, and find its highest expression in the beautifully crafted brass and wood machines of the victorian era. An almost maniacal passion for collecting and disassembling machinery is combined with the intrigue and creative challenge of reutilising parts built to perform very specific tasks in a different context.

‘GAUDE MIHI’, fRAnCE CADEt (ﬁg.2)

DynAStIDAE: EUpAtRoUS GRACILICoRnIS, MIKE LIbby (ﬁg.3)

‘CoSIMo’ JESSICA JoSLIn (ﬁg. 4)

California based artist nemo Gould builds kinetic animals, trophy heads, and robotic creatures from disparate found objects such as old radios, wooden barrels, electric guitars, rocking chairs, and vacuum cleaners. the humor and playfulness of his large body of work reflects his love for the imagery of comic books and sci-fi, as he tries to recapture the innocent wonder of youth through fantastical reinterpretations of rusted detritus. A similar quality of childlike imagination can be found in the detailed animal illustrations designed to look like the blueprints of “real” mechanical animals by the Russian artist vladimir Gvozdev (fig. 5). Upcycling artist Ann p. Smith of providence, Rhode Island, creates her fanciful animal sculptures out of a vast array of broken and obsolete electronics and appliances. After having taken the machines apart, and grouped the dissected components according to shape and size, she transforms them into body parts for her menagerie. whilst they aren’t actual operational, many of her sculptures feature fully opposable joints, and she is producing stopmotion animations in order to bring to life her expressive creations. In oregon, artist Chris Cole utilizes the knowledge and skill acquired through years of experience as a professional bicycle mechanic to transform discarded bike parts and other scrap metal into kinetic animal sculptures that explore “movement, functionality and aesthetics”. He gives new life to the waste filling our ever-growing wastelands. Similarly, french artist Edouard Martinet gathers recycled objects such as radio antennae, hair pins, electrical fans, and bike brakes, before elegantly combining them into clever and imaginative mechanical animals that bear striking resemblance to their biological counterparts. but perhaps the most awe-inspiring and strikingly complex kinetic sculptures are those created by Andrew Chase in Salt-Lake City. Chase welds together recycled metal parts from vehicles and plumbing to form fully automated animals that are capable of amazingly life-like movements, which he captures in his elegant photographs (fig.6).

‘StEAMpUnK’, vLADIMIR GvozDEv (ﬁg. 5)

Recent years have seen a proliferation of large scale creatures produced by groups and collectives of artists to present at international events and art shows. the burning Man festival has funded some of these projects, including a ride-on walking arachnid called Mondo Spider, and the 12 foot tall articulated land puppet Mantis. A permanent giant-scale display of mechanical animal sculptures can be found in the french city of nantes, birthplace of Jules verne. to promote itself as a hub of creativity and imagination, in 2007 the city invested €10 million in the theme park Machines de L’Ile. An area of its abandoned shipyards was converted into a workshop and gallery, where a group of engineers and artists led by françois Delarozière and pierre oreﬁce built a large bestiary of moving mechanical animals. the most popular attraction in the park is a ride atop a walking 6-foot-tall elephant. Last July saw the opening of a new gigantic addition, the Marine worlds Carousel, its three tiers pulsating with the mysterious movements of abyssal oceanic creatures. nantes is also home to the street theatre company Royal de Luxe, whose extraordinary performances around the world are based around the use of huge elaborate marionettes. Life-imitating machines may seem tied to the speculative realm of magic and myth, but the diﬀerence between the living and inanimate worlds is increasingly blurred. will Mechanical Animals help us realise the essential irreplacability of nature, or will they become a cloying surrogate for Mother nature?

‘ELEpHAnt’, AnDREw CHASE (ﬁg.6)

LAURA ottInA curates the art and design blogs Animalarium and Iconoclassic and teaches graphic design Masters classes in Florence. She runs popdesign art & design studio with her husband.

tHE InExtInGUISHAbLE fIRE

Derek barnes paced back and forth, thinking joyfully how wonderful he was. never had he felt such delight before. His ambitious mural had just been accepted by the town council. It would form the centrepiece of the planned memorial to the fallen of Royal Signals (financed by a wealthy local man who had served in Signals in ww2). that was a part of barnes’ developing artistic sideline. And on the same day that the mural was officially accepted, barnes had been appointed to a position he had long been fishing for, Chair of the Linklater Chair of popular Literature at the university. And he was thirty-two. on the way up! yes, he had good reason to think well of himself. He had always thought badly of himself, after his miserable upbringing and the oppression of a bullying father. Hardly able to wipe a smile from his face, he returned to his apartment in the street behind the university. the place had become more crowded: not only had more books piled up, but his paints and canvases and equipment had spread from a corner of the room to cover much of the floor. As he poured himself a small celebratory glass of pino grigio, he noticed that a message awaited him on his answerphone. It was his mother speaking. She said that his dad was seriously unwell – she emphasised unwell – and asked him to come down immediately. “bugger it! How can I? I’m too busy,” he told himself. He picked up the phone. Even while dialling the home number, he decided he must go as requested – as much as he disliked his father. He recognised the answering voice. not Monica, his mother, but Ram Ram. whom he had used to call Auntie Ram in earlier days. “oh, so you come to see us! your daddy is in a bad way, but we all wish to see you and give you some kisses!” She laughed. barnes made a couple of calls to his section before going down to his car on the forecourt. He phoned his friend Eva Iris, asking her to buy the local paper for him on the morrow. It

was a long drive south, and the sooner he got started the better. At just after six o’clock in the evening he reached the old family house. the day was still and overcast, with high summer cloud. the house stood alone, although a row of small terraced houses was nearby. the house in which Reggie Albert barnes lived isolated itself behind a tall brick wall. Many of the bricks were crumbling. Derek barnes hesitated by the front door. Silence confronted him, together with fossil memories of exclusion. A voice from a window above the door called to him. “Derek? I’ll be down in a moment. Don’t go away!” He waited. After some delay, Monica opened the door and let him in. She had aged since they last met. Her hair was grey and lax about her shoulders. She wore slippers and an old blue dressing-gown over a flimsy dress. “I’ll get him up in a moment,” she said. “Come in. Don’t stand there.” He followed her. Monica barnes was the divorced wife of Reggie barnes. She led him into the kitchen, where Ram Ram, Reggie’s second wife, a Hindu from Calcutta and also divorced, was preparing her ex-husband’s supper, together with a snack for them all. “Sit yourself down. He’s been like this for some weeks. Up and down, poor man.” She gestured with a soup spoon. “Heart attack after heart attack,’ agreed Monica. “Makes a terrible row.” “Awful,” agreed Ram Ram. It appeared that all the energies of the two exwives were concentrated on the sick man. they had no questions for Derek. He sat quietly at the table, sipping the cup of coffee Ram Ram gave him, regretting that he had forgotten Ram Ram’s real first name. Ram Ram she had always been. He liked her more than he liked his cold mother. Ram Ram had dyed her short hair black and reverted to a sari, so that she was the smarter of the two women. but they seemed united enough.

bRIAn ALDISS

Derek knew their histories. Reggie, his father, had run a grocery store. Monica was a village girl who worked for him. Reggie married her and ruled over her. She found sanctuary in the arms of a traveller, and so a divorce came about. Reggie, in quest of a more exotic aspect for his store, went to India in quest of ginger and other items. there he met Siri Mavo, a wellconnected lady, and fell in love with her. Siri Mavo had got herself into religiopolitical trouble and was happy to be invited to England. Her names being too much for Reggie (‘silly’ being his word for them), she became Ram Ram from the start. the customers of the grocery store were charmed by Ram Ram, but those customers were becoming scarcer. A new supermarket had opened down the street. Gradually, week by week, Reggie’s trade died. becoming bitter, he locked his inoﬀensive wife up in the store. She phoned the police. Reggie was placed under arrest, and that was the end of his store and of his second marriage. Derek was well aware of this history and of his own ill-treatment by his father. the question teasing him as he approached his father’s bedroom was, why were these two ladies, father’s ex-wives, so loyal to him? old Reggie barnes was fully dressed at this time, sitting on the side of his unmade bed. He looked pale and bedraggled. He brightened up at the sight of Derek. “It’s good of you to come and see your poor old dad. How’re you doing?” Smiling, Derek began to say that he had just had two enormous strokes of luck, and “Save it for later, old lad. I want to get out in the garden.” out into the small garden they went, Derek with a steadying hand on his father’s arm. the day was preparing to close down. Small rose bushes grew here, all neatly pruned, with standard roses between them. A little ﬁre was burning, away from the house. Derek, who took no interest in gardens, started to say to his father, “I’m doing quite well, dad. one of my biggest paintings has been accepted by –”

“Son, this painting business will get you nowhere,” said his father, firmly. “trade’s the thing. buy yourself a small grocery business away from these supermarkets. they’ll never last, and –” “Dad, sorry, you don’t understand. I’m a painter, okay? no argument about it.” the old man broke from Derek’s light grasp. “Life’s so difficult, so difficult.” He wiped saliva from his lips with the sleeve of his jacket. “you’d never take advice, would you? Always difficult, like everything…” with tottering steps, he walked over to the fire and stood looking down at its feeble blaze. He removed a small pair of secutors from his jacket pocket, clipped an inch off the nearest bush, and dropped the piece on the modest blaze. “I’ve kept this bonfire going for two weeks now,” he said with some pride. “two weeks. two weeks and one day…” Derek said nothing. tears came to his eyes. So this is how it ends… Surprised, he found he forgave his old father his cantankerous nature, all his errors, everything. He asked what his father did when it rained. An ancient metal washtub lay nearby. the old man hauled it up by a handle. His face broke into a proud grin. “I cover my fire up with this. So it never goes out.” father and son stood together. without another word, they watched a thin trail of smoke rising up from the flame. It seemed to go tremblingly but unceasingly into the air and dispersing. that evening, Derek ushered the two women away and sat by his father’s bed, on which the old fellow lay silent, head on pillow, mouth open. the low sun sent in a beam through the window which half-filled the little ground floor room with a solemn gold. once, the father moved restlessly under the blanket. “you all right, dad?” “fine, son.” And at about nine o’clock that evening, he died.

LUCKy DRAGon JUDIt fEREnCz JUDIt fEREnCz is an award-winning illustrator and lecturer in art & design. Her work has previously featured in Granta and Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s nice that, and she has been exhibited in various London galleries and spaces.

LUCKy DRAGon

JUDIt fEREnCz

LUCKy DRAGon

JUDIt fEREnCz

the wake pts. III & Iv LoUISA LIttLE

“fuckin’ ‘ell, the bell!” says Raych. I have managed to persuade Raych to come out; it doesn’t take much though. I forgot to tell her that we were on a mission to try and find out what really happened to tanya. She thinks I’m overreacting, about tanya’s death, but what about when Michele died as well? that was really sudden. Michelle had a heart condition that I think was genetic, if I remember correctly. nothing could be done about that. but an overdose is different. An overdose sort of speaks to you. Vodka and Coke and a pint of Stella please. Raych still drinks pints. I haven’t been able to drink a pint of anything since a couple of Christmas’ back when I drank three pints with a kidney infection and ended up in A & E. Raych had a vicar’s tolerance when it came to booze, so she could drink ten pints and still get up again tomorrow and do the same thing. first English person I ever met. Most of my late teenage conversations about going out – and things like that – went something like this: -[phone rings] -Alright? -Alright. -you ready yeah? -I thought I might just stay in tonight actually– -there’s gonna be a taxi picking you up – outside yours – in twenty minutes. Get in the shower will you. -Alright. “It’s just the same.” “I think they might have changed the… no, no it’s just the same.” “fuckin’ ‘ell, it’s Suzanne and Rachel. what are you doing here?” Is it Christmas? Christmas. Christmas was the last time I saw tanya. “Alright Lee, alright Eddie, alright fellas…” “Alright Suzanne.” It’s the one I slept with, the one I should have slept with, and their ten other mates, who I’m not sure yet which one to sleep with. the rugby beer boys. “Come and sit with us, come on, move up lads.” this is why I don’t go out in town. would love to but me and Raych we’ve got stuff to talk about – some personal stuff.” I think that should work. I know Lee hates personal stuff. “Up to you babe.” “what do we have to talk about?” Raych says. “nothing, I just don’t want to sit with them.” “oh right. fuck, is that Anthony?” I look up and look away. “It’s the fucking ghost of boyfriends past in here for fuck’s sake.” “How come we bump into all of your exes and none of mine.” “because all of your exes are cellists, and cellists don’t go to the bell, only alcoholics do.” “oh yeah. So how was The Wake?”

“Awesome. A little bit.” “How was tanya’s brother?” “bereaved.” “Make you any cups of tea did he?” “fuck off.” I want to say he wrote on my arm but (a) she wouldn’t believe me and (b) we are no longer thirteen. “Hi Suze I just wanted to say I’m sorry, about tanya – I heard.” It’s Lee. He’s come over. “Right well thanks.” “yeah, Danny was involved.” “Danny?” “the one with the shaved head. He drives ambulances.” “Does he?” “yeah, took her away and everything, said it was fucking awful and shit.” “where? where from?” “Manor Road wasn’t it?” “Shit, she died in 105.” “Is that where Rusty died?” no one says anything because it’s true, I think. “who’s living there now? Do you know?” “now? I don’t know.” “Right, cheers Lee.” “If you ever want to, you know, go for a drink, just let us know.” Still got it eh? Raych is trying to fleece me. “Drink up, we’re leaving.” *** Jesus it’s stale in here. this is an old man’s pub, edge of town, that way no one will see us. “Hello,” I say, and three old men look up at me a bit startled. I don’t think a woman has ever been in here. I know I haven’t. I feel like that time when I went into a bookies beyond out of place. “Alright love what you having?” thank God it’s Ethan. He brings in the cold and dark somehow. It’s making his eyes even brighter than normal. I don’t reflect on this for long though. “Er, just an orange juice please, thanks.” why do I perform Chastity when he’s around? “orange juice and a Kronenburg please,” he says. He doesn’t say shit like “my good man,” which is good. I like that. I find a table while he holds the drinks. we’ve got the whole pub confused. Are we becoming some kind of, fucking, young couple’s pub or something? Don’t tell me they’re gonna dance or some shit. oh no. I want to explain that we’re not a couple, that I’m meeting tanya’s brother to discuss some serious things. He’s married, I want to say. I notice that he’s not wearing a ring, maybe he never does? what’s his idea doing that? He could have married me, I mean, we could have done the thing. would that be so hard to believe? I’m not wearing a ring, of course, and I’m sure he’d know that… he knows that, I mean. “Hello?” He’s snapping his fingers impatiently in front of my face. “Earth to Suzanne, come in Suze.” “yes, hi, hello there.” God this is awkward. I don’t really

trust him. “you said you heard something right?” “Just the address.” “what?” “105: 105 Manor Road. Do you know it?” “no. but I do recognise the street name.” “Ah shit.” “that all you managed to get?” “nah I found out a couple of people who were there.” “names, Suze?” “I think I need to talk to them first – I don’t know. I don’t know who’s dealing, who’s taking, who called the coroner. I don’t know half the stuff I need to know. It’s just, I don’t know them, I don’t think I have a way in. It might be better that they don’t know me actually. that way they won’t be suspicious.” “I know.” Ethan has a light bulb moment. He looks so sweet when he’s excited. “we’ll buy some heroin!” That was my fucking idea. See, this is exactly why you don’t meet up with your dead friend’s brother when he’s still grieving. but grieving over what? He’s turning it into some egoscene. His grief, all his grief! *** “I really think buying heroin is a bad idea,” I remember saying to him. It’s a terrible idea, it’s the last thing I want to do. I’d rather visit my grandmother, which is just as close – maybe closer – to a near life-death experience. She drives me absolutely mad. I can’t handle the world she’s created for herself, the one that she shoves on you in broken words. She’s a relic of the generation of ideas. that’s when a lot of people got into trouble I reckon. A lot of people were hurt too. She doesn’t hide her favours on the mantelpiece: she tells you, crudely, how much of a liar she thinks you are. I had faith in you, just knew you wouldn’t hurt me. “Do you want to visit my grandmother? She lives around here, near here, somewhere.” “Does she sell heroin?” “I’m pretty sure she does. Let’s got and ask her.” “well I don’t think your granny’s responsible for my sister’s death.” “that’s because you haven’t met her, you prick! Look darling, it’s edgy,” I’m calling him darling; what would his woman think? I’ve already put my hands on his shoulders this time, “have you ever actually bought any drugs before?’ “well, no, not really.” “oh right.” for someone so sexy he’s led a sheltered existence. Maybe there’s a connection there. “then listen to me: I don’t think we should buy any blasted heroin. you can’t just knock on someone’s door and ask to buy some heroin. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t work like that.” “why not?” “because, well, first off they might think you’re undercover police or something. And because you just can’t. Do you look like heroin clientele? Saying that, you’d be surprised

the stories I’ve been told. fuckin’ ‘ell. Anyway, to get decent bits, to get anything from guys around here even, they have to know you. that takes a while you know. you need to recommend other buyers too, to gain their trust and respect. that’s more than just groundwork. that’s a lifestyle.” “Alright then, let’s do that.” His determination pisses me off immensely. I feel myself becoming irascible, like my grandmother. “Let’s get to know them for a bit, then buy the fucking heroin off them.” fucking idiot; they don’t even call it that. “Alright listen to me: we are not going to buy any blasted heroin, you complete idiot. And I’ll tell you why; because there are rituals. It’s like any other system, any other business. It has a map of its own. If you buy it from Him then you’re gonna have to prove yourself, prove it by actually taking the drugs with the dealer there with you, at least a bit. It’s like, I don’t know, wine tasting?’ Obviously, one has become a person of refined sensibility, and the others belong to our Man who breaks rules. by the look of his wife I think he’s gone wine tasting before. “oh, and, for your information, I’m not gonna take no fucking heroin, of course. I don’t know if I could get away with “being the girl,” I’m not sure if they make that separation. you’re not going to do it are you? not after what happened to your sister?” “oh,” he sighs, shit running down the sides of a float driving down the avenue of his parade. “but listen, don’t worry. they sell other drugs. we could get some coke if you like? or even just some weed?” I’m beginning to fancy a joint now, come to think of it. “Really?” He looks up, all hopeful and everything. I’m impressed with myself actually. I’ve managed to talk him out of something and into something else. that’s something, right?. “Alright let’s go pick up a draw then. I’ll ask some proper occupational junkies where it’s at.” I imagine his wife, docile and shit. I shouldn’t make myself out to be too much of an alternative. Right, let’s go up to B&Q and get some fence paint. I am definitely cooler than his wife but she is far more well adjusted to the language of men. She’s so adjusted, so far in, it hurts. “then let’s go and see your granny then.” “you want to get stoned and see my grandma? you really didn’t listen to a word I said did you.” Maybe that might work. Maybe if we’re stoned, we can listen to her talk backwards. Maybe she’ll make some sort of satanic sense after all. *** “well, I think that went really well, considering.” My double ‘L’s’ are sounding like ‘w’s’ at the moment. “I feel fucked Suze.” “no you’re stoned darling, it’ll wear off eventually. Have you never been stoned before?” “no, I haven’t, ever.” “well, just don’t worry about it alright.”

tHE wAKE ptS. III & Iv

“you know what else I haven’t done before?” Me. you haven’t done me. you haven’t fucked me until I can’t fuck again for a good week or so. you haven’t done that. you haven’t let me choke on you. I’d fuck you with her. Extemporaneously. “I haven’t met your granny before.” “no you haven’t, and you can count yourself lucky. I wish I could explain. She reads some Ayn Rand and thinks she’s-” “who the fuck’s Ayn-” “never mind, she’s a cunt. Anyway, she reads a bit of this woman’s books and that, and now she thinks she understands everything. now she wants to vote diﬀerently. Like her vote matters anyway. She’ll be dead soon. She’s just voting out of spite. She’s past her political sell by date. people like her don’t need to be represented; they need to be quarantined for fuck’s sake.” “I bet she’s beautiful.” “I wish my sister was here to witness this conversation. I dread to think what she would have made of this kind of talk.” “Just like you.” I no longer wish my sister was here for this conversation. “Don’t laugh at me.” “I’m sorry but your granny comment was hilarious. It’ll keep me amused for a little while yet.” “you’re cute when you laugh, you know that.” I’m a victim of your madness. Does weed make him into some kind of Lothario? or does he mean it? I’ve seen funkier shit happen to people. “Seriously, I want to meet the granny, I wanna meet her right now.” “you really don’t trust me.” “I bet she’s got biscuits.” He’s just stupid and hungry. Ah man! “She’s got loadsa biscuits Ethan. they’re a form of currency in the Randian economy she’s made for herself in that den of hers. you bring her biscuits and she says I won’t eat them, then she does. Stop looking at me like that.” It’s not fair for him to look at me like that, he’s already drawing the boundaries for a game. I won’t have a chance if he’s already going in. “but everything you say is just wonderful.” Has to be the drugs. He can’t articulate his sudden aesthetic sensitivity properly. He’s fucking me with his words, he’s fucking me with his eyes, I can see him do it to me. women, like money, is the sexual "use me" me of society. “My granny’s probably in bed, I think, and we should get you back home, to your wife.” “Ah yeah, my wife, she’s wonderful too. In her own way.” “yup, she really is,” if you like that sort of thing. *** “Someone called Ethan on the phone for you Suze.” “Er, alright, thanks dad.” what the fuck is he doing? My dad still don’t know and it doesn’t look like he’ll get it any-

time soon. “oi, what the fuck are you doing calling my parent’s house?” “I couldn’t get you on your mobile.” “I know, the reception is really bad around here. but hang on; why the hell would you want to call?” “It’s my wife.” I’m sorry, but that just isn’t a good enough excuse. “[What the fuck?] Right.” “She found that fuckin’ weed Suze.” “no…” She did look like a pocket-checker come to think of it. I should have warned him, if only he had stopped fucking me with his words. “well she confronted me about it and I told her that you bought it.” “you didn’t – ah thanks a bunch you cock.” “I was just thrown.” yeah, not far enough, you idiot. I thought he was a good actor. He was in a play once that I can’t remember. He must’ve been shit under pressure. “I said you gave it to me at the wake to cheer me up but I never smoked it. She’s pretty straight my wife is.” “that’s actually not a bad lie.” that’s such a fucking shit lie. that’ll give people the idea that I’m malignant, like grandmother Ayn. very poor lie, but it’s covered his own arse. “thanks. It still makes you out to be a bit of an insensitive bitch.” “that’s ok, because she’s never liked me anyway.” “fuckin’ ‘ell she actually said that’n’all. I mean, well, I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings or anything.” “you didn’t trust me. that doesn’t hurt my feelings.” “And I’m sorry as well about what I said about your Grandmother.” “Don’t be; now that was something I enjoyed. It was hilarious.” “but it was inappropriate, love.” “true.” “yeah so I just wanted to warn you in case you run into Danielle in tesco’s, or something; she thinks you give the bereaved weed at funerals.” “thanks. Maybe I should you know.” “Alright then, I got to go now anyway. take care.” “oK then. And Ethan; aren’t you glad I didn’t let you buy any heroin then?” “yeah, you are quite sensible like that.” “Cheers, I really am you know.” *** A little later the doorbell rings and I can see Ethan through the glass. this guy won’t let me turn the damn corner now will he. Raych is here, which is worse than my parents being here. She’s gonna start with all the tea jokes again. “It’s tanya’s brother.” “Shit really, what’s he want? Do I look alright?”

LoUISA LIttLE

“you don’t fancy him.” “I could if I wanted to. Are you telling me you wouldn’t?” “yeah but you don’t. we’ll go to a recital later on, hook you up with some tuba player or whatever is you go for.” “fuck off and answer the door to Mr tea-bag.” I compose myself. I stand like a conductor before the different signposts of my body. A train’s conductor, a travelling symphony, the rails making the music, not a emotionbound thing, just an attitude. It began like that, it started in motion. the mirror fails me; I stand back further to blur the details that displease me. I’m ready. “Hi Ethan, how are you?” He’s shocked by my come-correct formality. or he might have – fuck no !– heard me refer to him as Mr tea-bag. I curse my living friends. “oh, alright Suzanne, my mum asked me to bring you this; it’s some things that belonged to tanya. She thought you might want them.” bollocks. I take the bag touching only the handle. I don’t want to look inside at the things. “well thank you; thank your mum for me. I hope she’s oK, I hope she’s feeling a bit better.” “She isn’t really.” “no, no, she won’t be, at least for a little while yet. It’d be strange otherwise I guess.” Raych shouts from the kitchen, “Do you fancy doing me a favour by fucking Suze coming in and having a cup of tea?” She amuses herself, she’s selfish like that. “no thank you,” he replies, looking perplexed. “I want to go back to that house. with you. tonight. I want to go back to that house with you tonight.” “not my Grandmother’s?” “not your granny’s.” “Alright thanks Ethan, all the best to your mum then, good to see you again, bye now,” I say loudly and shut the door. “So not a tuba player then?” I ask Raych as I walk back into the kitchen. She’s narrowed her eyes; she’s fixed a supercilious stare on me. “what house?” *** what’s she doing here? I, well… “I needed to buy some drugs so I thought I’d come.” “but no one’s supposed to know about this.” “About what exactly.” “we’re just trying to find out what exactly happened to tanya.” “She overdosed.” “yes but we need to know the circumstances.” “the circumstances were she took too many drugs and died.” this is why I didn’t bring Raych to the wake. I can tell she’s already justified with herself that she should say to Ethan your sister’s dead, get over it, now go home to your boring wife. they both look pissed off. “well let’s go buy some drugs then.” to be honest, I wish we were buying some skag this time.

105 Manor Road “Hi Jenny.” “oh hi Suzanne and Chris. It’s you Mulder & Skully again.” “It’s us again.” “who’s your friend.” “I’m Hep. It’s short for Hepzibah; my parents were hippies.” fucking Raych. “Right oK, well come in.” It was just Jenny last time but I can hear a lot of people this time. the house is a fucking wreck. there’s no way I’d drink a glass of water in here. we go into the front room and there must be about fifteen people; four lads are snorting ketamine off CD cases in the corner. other than that people just seem to be toking on joints. I want to hold Ethan’s hand but I don’t. He looks at me like he wishes he’d gone wine-tasting. Then explain nothing to his wife. “Can I get a quarter? what have you got?” says Raych/Hep. “Is that skunk? oh I haven’t had skunk for ages!” Sore thumb. we sit down while Raych transacts with Jenny. we sit so close down on the floor our knees are touching, but I feel safe cramped like this. touching knees with a married man doesn’t seem like a bad thing to do when you’re in the house where tanya died. He glances at me and I hold his gaze. “Cosy, cosy you two innit?” “Skin up Curtis will you.” “It’s Chris’ I say and take the skunk because Chris/Ethan don’t have a clue how to skin up.” All of a sudden there’s this thundering sound coming from the stairway; it sounds like a body has been thrown down the stairs. this tall and mangy bloke with dark hair bursts in through the door. oh fuck. I do this thing where I let my hair fall down over my face so that you can’t really see me, only my hair is quite recognisable. I pray; I concentrate really hard on skinning up the spliff. the black-haired guy goes into the kitchen, comes back out, and goes back through the door the way he came in, stomping rapidly up the stairs. thank you God, thank you God. “wasn’t that?” I just look at Raych. I finish skinning up with the tenderness of a mother cleaning the bedroom of a deceased child. I tell them, “I don’t really want to smoke this now.” Raych just carefully takes it from my fingers as I stand up slowly telling them I’ll be back in a minute. Ethan looks worried. He doesn’t know me well but no one would want to use the bathroom in this house. I walk out into the hallway. It's colder without all the people and I walk slowly up the stairs. I come to the landing. I can't believe I'm doing this. there's music on in one room. His room. no doubt. His music. His room. His house. I have willingly walked. Into his house.

bridges and brassieres DIMItRIS ELEAS

both bridges and brassieres are places for romantic meetings. both of them are combinations of aesthetics, technology and beauty and both confront the issue of access head-on. the wonderbra is the bridge of Sighs in venice, while a La perla bra is a positive brooklyn bridge of a bra. Let’s imagine that you love a bridge so much, that you wish to fall into the abyss it crosses with it in a crumbling crash of debris, then the only way to get over the agony of that love is somehow to unloose the bra hooks of a woman that you meet on the bridge so that you can marvel at the cascade of breast that tumbles out. the trouble with releasing those bra hooks is that your hands are so busy with the dexterous intricacy of fingers, metal, and cloth that you never manage to get your head far enough back to be able to enjoy the sight of freshly freed “breast flesh.” bridges are often built over stretches of sea or rivers in which naked women swim. bodies in themselves often function as bridges. So many cases of unrequited love, in which a man has been forbidden from ever having the hope of opening his loved one’s bra, find a solution in a threat to jump off a bridge. the more you open or close bras, the better you know that the ease with which a bra is undone or done up is proportionate to the weight of its contents. while bridges are public works, bras are the most private articles of clothing. on bridges we walk with our feet. on bras we walk with our fingers. Just as bridges are useless without routes to get us to them, so bras cannot exist without panties. Just as bridges need gaps to cross, so bras need breasts to contain. the most precious of all bridges and bras are those that cover liquid, be it moving water or gently leaking milk. A bridge hangs between two pieces of land, whereas a bra is wrapped around a ribcage and a spinal column. Some few bridges open in the middle and are raised up and some few bras are opened or closed in front. bridges are built out of cement, wood, aluminum, steel, reinforced concrete or even plastic. bras are made of plastic, cotton, elastic, viscose, or silk. Some women have large collections of bras in their drawers. few of us are wealthy enough to own many bridges. Depending on the strength of the materials used, the marching steps of a battalion could destroy one; while equally the studied gaze of that same battalion could burst open the other so that it falls in a crumpled heap on the ground. bras are washed in washing machines, while bridges only have the rain to clean them. In the modem age bridges can go anywhere, even fly over each other. bras only ever sit one on top of another when they are out of use in a drawer. there is even a canal bridge that carries water and boats hundreds of feet up across a valley floor. Columns are the nipples of suspension bridges while nipples are the columns that suspend breasts. the charm of bridges is that they resemble bras hung out to dry, horizontally of course. In fact it is one of the great aesthetic sins of washerwomen to hang out a bra any other way than horizontally. Shouldn't we ask a woman “what size of bra is your bridge?” In that case a bridge should be asked “what size of bridge is your bra?” bridges and brassieres; Causes of Sighs.

– Δημητρης

Ελεας

writer - [focus on psyche*imagination*society XXXVIII years old, born Athens, based Brighton&Athens He lives by the sea []. He lives by a forest []. He lives by the valley of society [].]

Orra ISSUE 5, MARCH 2013 the technology issue

brianaldiss alansOndHEiM adaMdiX&TiMPHilliPs aOdánMCCardlE JUdiTFErEnCZ sTEvEnFOwlEr KEnZaPaPEsXElnETbEirUT

or-ra, adj. Spare, occasional; odd, diﬀerent, strange, unmatched. of a person, esp. a servant or labourer: unattached, without (ﬁxed) employment; idle, disreputable. 1728 A. RAMSAy Twa Cut-purses 5 : And lay out ony ora-bodles On sma' gimcracks that pleas'd their noddles. 1791 J. LEARMont Poems Pastoral 188 : Come an' spend a' ye're orrow hours 'Mang groves an' glades. 1886 R. L. StEvEnSon Kidnapped xxvii. 285 : I daresay you would both take an orra thought upon the gallows.