hIHfiT'5 Hi,eh Tech Lor,l
UP
Life Issue ?
Feb/l'larch
?gL7
LJIP EBITI0N
0nce more brith feeling,
ue retunn to nostalgia as a safe harbour from a LJorld ule can't seem to gel uith the nau hre ure're told to btJ prion iterations
But using technoloss to connect uith each other, ue can staue off our loneliness and sense of di,sconnect and use digital space to create something tangible and creatiue and genutne and neu
Lle can in this uatJ become architects Llhen i t is eass and honest,
of the futune
to feel as though there is no future at al !. l'lessages of despair and hope and love and hate and memori,es of klnder or crueler times Stream of consciousness LJrlttng to emote a single Uistons
moment
of the old r,rith the neu uhich is nou old asain is not a baffier to emotion and connection But rather Is a platform for shartng and creati,on The uerg act of r,lhich is an act of human spiri t And cannot be generated arttficial lu.
Technologtg
Throush our memories and expertences as people ure And not to express either good or bad,
feel
emotions
but rather, use cold steel to tel I stories from the heart.
In
140 characters or less, tel I me hou vou feel.
( ttst of collaborators urith UIIP EBITION EDITOR'S NOTE)
approprrate credits etc. r,rill go here -
FREfil{IHE
EUT ,,:j;r1:
I
uanted to ask
-;-ffi
in the mirror, do gou rememben
'
loue?
:ie.r
::
ni.ili
LJakins me up in the middle of the night, tas a dnunken man screaming quotes from Eroundhog BBg at nobods i,n parttcular. For some reason, it made me crg.
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'"' / '/' 'tl somet lmes I ulake up i,n the morning, ueru earlu, and throu up hlhen I think about mu l ife. I do, houeuer, enios hreakfast. ,*
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Specimens and Sangri,a: Crtiing at the I'luseum I used to be a I ifeguard, and I don't knou if sou knou thi$, but uhen you saue people from drouJni"ng, thes fight gou the entire time. I'ue had broken ri,hs, a broken sternum, a broken no$e, bruises, cuts, and burns from red neurotoxic algae thdt stupid people srrim in ang[Jag so I uould haue to 90 sEue them and hose off r,Jith a light chemicat tdash after. People panlc, and theg ftght uith euenJthi,ns thes haue to make me to drop them and let them droun
in the At lantic.
I'm not fr lifesuard them sink
anUmone.
I thtnk euentuallg, I
r,rould haue
iust let
I'ue seen all ki,nds of uiscena and corpse hloat on the heach. I'ue seen uellor,, and urhite coloured thick human fat stuck to shreds of skin couered in dried salt brine and seaueed uith those uei,rd little egs sacs in them sticking all together in a f leshy, messu ulad out of propeller blades before. It doesn't hother ilte, like it bothers other people. I've punched sharks in the open ocean and helped tag panthers and alligators in the Euerglades. Bobcats too, all sorts. There's not a lot of rdi,ldlife shit that gets to me, but that's mostlu because I haue probabls too much experi,ence, and I'm smart enough to at least make the effort to avoid trouble. It help$ to haue some god damn sense. Plus, g'knohr, all the shi,t on the internet and on the neus has made mU entire generation numb, or at least hgperauare to such a degree that there's so much fucked up shit that uhen rre process it all, ue iust haue to sas okas, urhateuer, f ine, or it uould fuc[< us up euen uorse.
All I
knou is there's urar on the TU and the sounds of f ighti,ns tn the street outside m9 brindobr, horns honking, gelling and f ighting at school, mg parents fighting, animals grouling, kids bulluing each other, tniuries hoth sustained and self-inf ltcted, and I guess I'm iust sarring that the urorld tsn't d nice or good place. trjell, the planet itself uas f ine, but ue fucl<ed it up. Humans as the domindnt spectes has not uorked out. Loot( at u,hat ue do to each other. Look at ulhat ue do to our home. The Pale Blue Bot. And ble rinsed it black uith ash. And the bitch is that it's onlg gonna get uorse before ue all eat shit for good. So realise hrhat tJou haue and uho gou are right nou, and reali,se that gou could get or deuelop a disease. Vou could di,e tonight, uou could be ki I led tomorrou. Vou euer get punched in the face bg a totdl stranger in the street? I hfrue. And I'll neuer knou hrhu. And masbe, sou'll sEt some brutallu shitty darJs, too. I'lost of mine are l,(inda !ike that, for uarging reasons. tje all haue our oun problems.
I'll neuer knou uhg, a lot of thinss. tlost of them beins thinss othen people do, on think, or sag. People don't make a lot of sense to me, and I bJorrg a lot about mgself. I trlonder about me, too. I knou a lot on the teehntcal leuel about humans, but uerg little ahout societu. But
to be okag uJith death to li,ue. And I'm standing in front of thi,s hundned or more Uean old sctui,d specimen, thinkins about al I this, and I sti I I loue seafood. No matter hou much dead shit (aninal or otheru,ise) I'ue seen in the uater, I don't care. Hot euen the unauoidable post-hurrtcane beach corpse euer put ne off a good fresh salmon. I'll eat i,t the same dag, euen. The ocean ts big. Our perspectiue {s small. Hothing matters except uhether or not uou had an o[<au time, in the end, real]9. Vou haue
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TOrestE
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a good time? Did this scutd haue a uhole life, a brhole experience of it's oun as a liuing being before some asshole scientist bagged it and put i,t tn a cube
Does angone haue
of preseruatiue? I'm not bei,ng anti-kill here, bv the uJag. It's necessars. To eat the squid, gou must f i,rst kill it. To learn about the squid, gou must f i.rst for suruiual. I'm a clinical kill i,t. Eating and learning are requirementsprobablU person about a surprtstng amount of thi,ngs, otding to mg deepseated emotional damage. If I don't let ngself have emotions, I can't crg ouer i,t, so it's fine. Plus, mu father i,s a sclenttst. I'ue helped uith thi,s kind of thi,ns before, personallg. But at the same time, I feel ueru deeplg. Euerething. It's a huse, insurmountable, extremelu damaging pnoblem to haue. So tuhen I sas I don't let mgself feel those emotions, bJhat I mean i,s that I haue learned to simplg be sad. sadness as a passive constant state is something 0f a buffer, a lager of protection, a safetg clause nestled betueen ennui and apathg.
and posed meticulousls, and I find I look at euersthi,ng in this room, dead it almost psrJchotical lg derrdnged. 0r penhaps sociopathical lv derranged is a more accurate statement, as there is a distinct lact< of emoti,on from euergone
else here.
Parents are leadins kids b9 the shouldens, truing to force them to look at these skin puppets and appreciate them, tuhen theg thenselues aren't intelli,eent enough to take a moment of mindfulness and think. Thinking deeplg dnd criticallg i.s imposstble, I suppose, Uhen 90u are a football mom hustli,ng a group of tuents violentlg loud, stickg, messg, uncoordinated children through a naze of dead animals, tourists, the e lder ItJ, and me.
fami,lv of German tourists, I am I iust realised that aside from a small the onlg person here that is not a parent urth children, a teacher uith
chi ldren, on an elderlg person.
I alhjags feel like I an outside of thinss. Ltke I am remoued, i,n a constant mid-phase, in a fog of dissociation, and I am bratching nvself uatching them. This is a pronounced version of that, perhaps an actual serious dissociatiue state, and so uhile I am betuJeen uJonlds (or outside of them al I ), I can feel a panic attack coming on. It's sad uhen an anxietg disorder i,s the onlg thins keeping gou from directlu falli,ns to the f loor in a hard reboot stupor, because ineuitdblg, gou end up making a scene no matter tuhat, and eueruone alreadg stares at me.
stare so much? I don't knou. I'll neuer knou. I Uonder hour the speclmens feel about being stared at. I thi,nk I haue more in common hrith the specimens than I do t'ltth the people in here, real ls.
ldhg do people
In fact, that is almost certainls true. There ane so mang peopte, not enough room, there's so much noi,se (I can't tolerate any noi,se, no talt{ing and no music, it's pant of ms dgscalculia) and mg claustrophobia and social anxietg are tag-teami,ng back and forth, and I can't focus on uhat specifical lg it is that is unfocusing mu eues and making m9 chest hurt and stoppi,ng me from breathing, and mv executiue
functioning i,ssues ane making i,t i.mpossible to focus on anu one thlns or stimulus or i.nput and I am screaming screamng screaming $cmreai,ng scneamng screaming screaming screami,ng i,nside m9 head I am screaming and I can't
breathe
mg PTSU starts to ki,ck in too and I remember and re-liue euers single pantc attack and euerg single cause of eueru stngle panic dttack and I black out, I think, brief ls, I don't l<nou. I keep telling people I don't knot'r, and I don't knou uhg people aluags replg rri,th "But gou're so smant"" or "Think harder" or similar such shit because that means nothing, that's not hou this uorks
I have at least some confidence in mU intel I igence, so fuck gou al l, but betng intelligent neuer cured angone of AIDS. LJhg uould it cure me of all of this? trlhv does euergone think I can fix mgself, or that I can euen he fixed? So nany gears of so mantJ doctors, and still people don't understand uhg I'm like this. I guess I must hide it spectaculanlg bJel l, or magbe the fear and pain and euertJthi,ns don't shoto to other people, or mavbe peoFle iust don't giue a shit about some tall trdiggy fa990t punk forei,gner dgi,ng next to the radiator. The fact that I don't sleep urith a blood couered matchhox of stnaight nazorblades under mg plllou ansmore is about as fuckine good as it's gonna set. I'n still fucki.ns ansrs that people expect me to be shg about all mg scans. Fuck gou, I suruived and gou're ureak. I uant people to see my scdrs. Vou couldn't liue like this, but I do, so fuck sou. I'm the High I ander.
It's ureird, being so fucked up. You uould think I uouldn't set quite so defensive over hauing get anotheF publtc breakdoun, but it's a uers vulnerable thi,ng. I think I'm a ueru uulnenable person. The personal ureapons and concealed ueapon/self-defense laurs of thi,s countrg freak me out, because I can't carrg mtJ protection around anymore. But it's fair enough, as I uouldn't euen use them if I had them here, fon fear of
getting deported. I'lentallg ill people tend to die earlier/more often, and I am also transgendered, ulhich ups those death numbers pretts fucking si,gnif icant Iy, and I am also from a broken home (domestic uiolence, verbal abuse, emotional neglect, the uorks) r,lhich again ups those numbers. I'tagbe bad people can tell ulhen someone isn't soing to be able to do anythi,ns, so people are albrags so shittg to me because the uniuerse and greater cosmos begond decided that these uere the atoms that ulere 9oin9 to comprise l,le, and
this is
hou
mU human
experience is.
It's less paranoia, and none iust betng aL,are and l<nouing the statistics and hautng the expenience and I tuing the I ife. I knou the numbers are right. I've liued them. Somehou, I uas not the friend that died. All of mg friends died on me, i,nstead. is hilani,ous i,f gou consider in retrospect hor,l much of mg li,fe I had spent freelg self-harmi,ng at ang and euerg opportuni,tu to do so, but then again, I neuer reallu rranted to kill mtJself . t'lost self-harmers don't urant to die. It's iust the onls relief gou can set. Nou that I'm olden, I can compane the sensatton of sli,tting mu uri,sts and douning five consecutive shots of Jack Baniels, and I can tell you tithout a single degree of doubt b,hatsoever that the end sensation ts uerg similar: A buzzv feeli.ns, Itghtness, like the tension is gone out of tJour shoulders. like you're reads for bed. (That last part ts sometimes the blood loss, although pensonalltJ I bJas ueny careful. I did the equivalent of pre-nedical school exam studs urhen I uas ten gears old, maktng sure I did it right. And I did, because I'm tellins gou this. In a decade of self harm, I didn"t fuct< it up. I became an expert at bleeding out the sorrou. trlhtch
Lrhat
do I do nou, 90u tnight
ask?
I am reminisci,ng on all manner of grim things in a hall of grim things, I am eniotling the breather. It is roushlg fifts or so degree$ Farenheit rtght nouJ, slightlg ouencast but brisht, r,Jindy but not cold. I'lu fauourite and
ureathen.
so redllg, actuallg, this i,s r,rhat happines$ is like for me. I am enioutng this exhibi,t. It probabls doesn't seem like it, but if I hated it, nobods told me to come here. I liue 3B minutes auau bg bu$, it's not an i$sue.
I could so home, but I am h,riting, and I am transf ixed bs all these fake glass taxidermied animal eges, and bs hoLJ much emptier the I iuing human eges look.
There i,$ a mother and son in front of a displau of a mothen and son pair of birds. The hird mother is feedins her son inside their slass case, delicately dropping a uorm into the fidseti,ng babs's mouth. A uery hasic thing, done in that uerg basic urag that onlg ani,mals can do. An animal doing something mal<es tt inherentlg fascinittine, I think. I appreciate the stillness and qui,et, and I imagine the sounds the birds are makins in mg head. It comes to li,fe, animated behind m9 eses, li,ke a transparencg sheet ouer the displag. I ltke to imagine uith sreat intensits. I eniog mg little not-qui,te-hal lucinatton, althoush it definitelu did moue (althoush the I knou i,t d{dn't}, and suddenlu shrieklns and mouement shatters moment, shocki,ng me enoush to become hrrper ahjare of mg puf f g eges from crging earl ier during ms panic attack.
i"f this r,Jill set off another one. (Then I'll iust go outside and handle it in the garden, then come home. Tuo pani,c attacks in one place aluass ends in angrg securitg guards strong arming me in the middle of a psgchologi,cal $tate of emergencg, r,rhich ends uith me not betns able to leaue my flat for the next three dass euerv time tt happens.) The human mother has grabbed her son bg the shoulders, auoi,ding his school backpacl< straps, manipulatins him roughlg in order to remoue the peanut butter from his cheeks and hair, uhere presumably a sanduJich ended up at some point in the last couple of minutes. The mother is smiling uridelu but her eses are heavi lu bassed and too shtns and empts, and the kid is ful ls unauare of hor,l little his mother cares for him. Don't get me urong, another mother doing the same thing to her son uould sttll be normal and eueruthing, it's not like it's abusiue to clean his face a little roughlg, especialls if the little fuct< uras one of the ktds runntng into euersthing earlier. (Kids and anxietg di,sorders don't mix, blhat can I sag?) But this mother in panticular, listen, mu mother didn't care for me either. I knou, that look. And in a feu uears, that kid i$ gonna real ise it, too. so I reallg felt a litile bad for the kid. I hate t{ids, as I hated my ourn chi,ldhood and other children even uhen I uas a child, and of course, ujith mtJ general psuchological state, it's best for all of us if I neuer haue to interact hrith ans of that shit. Euer. So the l,(id gets fussy, and $ure enough, the mother shakes him a little, and he starts to do that uhing-crg that small children do, and euen I don't l<nob, r,rhat the fuck is krong ui,th me sonetimes, because it made mg mouth tb,itch, the uag tcou do r,lhen gou smi le. I rarelg smile unless it's forced, so it took me b9 surprise. And then I realised that it's because I suddenls kneu LJhat this kid's life uas gonna be like. ftt least, his home life. That's not the loot< of a mother that cares, and I onlt, l4nou thitt becau$e I uill neuer forget questioning hrhg mg mother neuer loued ne tuhen she looked at me like that. Sure, therJ go through the motions. t'lg mother fed me, I neuer uent hungrg. I
u,onder
I
ru Lle'ne
I like
all relflted
doesn't angone remember that?
dodo hirds. Theg'ne as dead as ansthins can euer possihlu he.
I
had a noof ouer ms head. And of course, I appreciate that as much as should. But she didn't loue me. Hei,ther of them uere capable of louing me, or each other, or euen themselues. That's iust the truth.
angone
I mean, the t<id's probablg gonna be better off. He uas born in a countrg ulhere 90u can actuallu 90 set health care ulhen gou need it, for one thing. And hi,s mom ulas uith him on a field trip, uhich I don't thi.nk either of mg parents euen did euen once uith me. Theg neuer euen did parent-teacher meetings, and Lre liued less than a ci,tg block auas from the school. But I knou ulhen a mother doesn't loue their kid. And I ulatched them for a good long urhile, and I sau, ms mother in hi,s mother. There's looking tined, and then thene's beins bored uhen gour ki,d is crging and couered in their oun blood and screaming at uou to care. L,hich i,s me proiecting heauilU here, but at least I'm self aLrare. I'm talking shit nohr, I'm sure, but I had a panic attack, let me rest. This i,s half beeause of mg PTSD, it's making me keep thinkins about mu mom uhen I see al I these othen moms. and
I
hAUC tO GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE RIGHT
NOI,J. )
so I started out the dau pitsins a squid in a block of plastic, and bg the end of the dau, I am almost pitging this idiot human child, r,Jho has a mother that is possiblu at least someulhat like mine, Uhich I uould not And
r,rish on angone.
ktlled for science, or dging inside. (I Uould like to use this oppontunitg to note that I haue in fact alneadg been to the Bodies exhibit, seueral ti,mes at seueral different venues and shouing dates, and that I hishlg recommend goi,ng to the human oFgans section af ter intentional l9 tat(ing a smol<e break at that moment iust to come back insi.de and stare at the smoker's lungs. Trust me, theg're about as fucked as gou're imagining. HatJbe euen a little more fucked. It'$ a good hit of self -loathi,ng. fatali,sm, and contempt for life. Lle can dte inside both emotional l9 and phustcal l9 at the same ttme! Comorbidits! This is not something to celebrate, but it is something I did, albeit unintentionallg. I thi,nk doing it intentionallU r,rould be fucking incredi,ble, though. If gou send me a picture of gou doing this, I uill send gou back a pi,cture of me giui,ng uou a high fiue and/or thunbs up through the screen. Let's be miserable fucks tosether. ) HoU completelv and utterls fucked is that, thoush? I tuould imagine that lf humans u,eren't quite as intelligent and bi,rds uere senti,ent to a comparable degree or to the same degree ds humans in realitg, r,rould ule iust see the same thtng, in reuerse? lJould ue see stuffed humans behind glass, posed deep in the uncannu ual leg ternitoru of not-quite-perfect, iust unsettling enough to prouoke thoushts of life and death, uith the huperi,ntelligent bird rulers of Earth pecking at each other aggressiuelg, cauing and fluffi,ns up at each other, betng shittg li,l,(e humans? 0f course, bi,nds ane shittu like humans. Birds fuck ruith each othen all the time, theg iust get a pass as things are because theg'ne birds and not human-smart. I Uonder i,f htJperintellisent birds and bind-brained humans tJould fall into the same fuct(ed up self-destructiue behauiours as humans, or i,f bi,rd problems uould iust intensifg? Is our tntelligence urh8t makes us so fucking stupid? Look at eueru human feat of creation, of rilisdom, of stnensth, of unitu, of angthing. Look at uhat ue haue acEompli,shed as a speci,es. Look at the i,ntennet. LJhat d fucking incredible thing! lrJhat an amazing thing, and eueruone that b,,orks on it in ang capacitu is doing cool shit, incrediblrJ and amazinslg cool shit, Uhich nobodg appreciates or knous about because ue are all iust Goosling extreme fetish porn and ierking off or schlicking it (I uant to be inclusiue, I'm truing to auoid gendered tenms) to procrastinate to the best of oun abilities and avoid doing angthins to make things not the uag thev are uhile also bitchtng incessantlU and being lrJhat sucks more,
I
uonder? Being
ignorant desptte literallu unfathomable amounts of data and unparalleled capabili,tu to actuallU grokj and chanse shit, nah, uJe're all iust human and ure're tired and sad and fucked up and bre're human.
iust like this
and rre're
It's freei,ng, in a urag, knohring that this is r,rhat life is. There is a Japanese saging that encaFsulate$ the resi,sned uas I trudse to the bathroom, abrag from the li,uing dead animals and the Ualking dead people, and gentlg pat mg still-red eges. Hg makeup is fucked up. t',lu hai,n t$ fucked up, and mU hat looks dumb, so eithen hrag sucl<s. t'lu heart is still beatins too hard from the panic attack. I am still ketied up, and sbreatins, and exhausted. I'm stressed out about as much as anuone can be, and I feel
a ltttle fai,nt It is at this point I remember I haue not eaten in tulo dags. It's rare that I forset to efit, but ruhen I do, it makes it hander to sleep and mtJ heart hurts more than usual. If I forget that I haue forgotten to eat, ue haue a sreat reci,pe for me passi.ng out on puhlic transportation and possiblu throuring uF from al I that stomach acid hauing nothins to drgest except the kal ls of the organ. Shouganai: It is r,rhat i,t is. Shit happens. It can't be helped. In the end, I lit{ed this exhibit, mostlti because euergthing is dead, and it's dressed up like it's aliue" L,hieh is hou, I haue felt stnce 199P. Euergthing tn this room (I have been uriting on mg phone) smells uasuelu of settled dust that is so old it's hecome a uarnish on all the uood furniture, and the orange oi I from a hundred gears ago combines brith the filth to create a sticku lager that i,sn't euen stickg ansmore, that's hor,l old and dirts it i,s. I fucktns loue that. I f ind ulonder in $mall detail$. I don't knou uhat anu of this saus about me, but honestu is the best pol icu. This piece i$ unedited, copied and pasted direct lu from mu phone to mu laptop uia enail to be added to thts publication, to ensure the rau,l possible. experi,ence uas captured a$ accuratels Ers Thanks
that.
for bearing uith me, and I
hope the pictures are prettu and al
just
I
because I'm a goofg asshole: If Uou're readinB this on the tube, gou to make ege contact uith r'rhoever is sittins acros$ from gou. I dare Vou uon't do it, gou fuckin'Lriener. (I uouldn't do tt etther. Don't ever engage urith people, don't risk that shit. You're smart. I lit<e gou.) And
CK I'leeder
@effluuiah on Tuttter ef f luui,ah on Instagram
angrgqueenshakespeare on Tumblr (personal )
effluuiah on Tumblr (Blitch art) effluuiah on Issuu
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