The Future Edition by Exetera Magazine

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FUTURE edition

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The Future Edition

EDITORS Emma Croft & Friederike Ach DEPUTY EDITOR Harry Bowley (harrybowley.co.uk) CREATIVE DIRECTOR Thomas Hanks (thomashanks.co.uk) COPY EDITOR Daisy van der Lande SALES AND MARKETING Ruby Holley DESIGN Thomas Hanks & Harry Bowley CONTRIBUTORS Charis Skafida | Clemmie Melvin Emma Croft | Luke Bromage-Henry Thomas Conant | Oliver Seaton Emily Garbutt | Harry Bowley Alyette Tritsch | Ned Botwood Ana Hampu | Emma Anderson Hannah Weiss | Alex Stenhouse Soey Kim | Daisy van der Lande Friederike Ach | Alfie Davies | Omar Abed

Exetera Magazine

A NOTE FROM THE EDITORS The Future edition envisions that delightful kaleidoscope of both possibility and uncertainty that awaits us. Technology is the red thread stringing our pieces together, and it’s changing the rules. As the world moves into a computerised sphere with 35% of current jobs in the UK at risk of robot replacement in the next twenty years, according to a research study at Oxford University and Deloitte, our creative lenses become our weapon of choice. In fourty pages, we have curated a snapshot, a moment in time. Our writers and artists have confronted old orders and unusually merged artistic forms: a melting pot of fantastical paradoxes, a futurism beyond the hovercrafts. We travel to the dark side of the moon through short stories, question society’s boxing of art as a secondary subject and break a couple of industry stereotypes while we’re at it. The selection of photography unifies future growth in present environments. There is stillness in change, liberation in restriction and a dystopian suggestion. For the editorial team 2016/17, our future looks a lot like graduation. An interview with Exetera graduate, Gareth Browne, transports us back from outer space into the realities of Mosul, Iraq. We have the tools to freely create, but we must also recognise our responsibility to distribute in a critical manner. We see this as fundamentally cool. As in the right hands, there is no limitation to what you can produce. After all, from strange and uncertain times, comes even stranger art. ~ Congratulations to Thomas Hanks, our fantastic Creative Director, on his engagement to his fiancée Kate Bacon. We wish both of you all the very best for the Future.

The Future Edition

CONTENTS LITERATURE As One by Charis Skafida | 06 “If it ain’t Baroque, don’t fix it!” by Clemmie Melvin | 08 Life after Exetera: Gareth in Iraq by Emma Croft | 10 Discovery and Amalgamation by Luke Bromage-Henry | 12 The Red Dawn by Oliver Seaton | 14 You Say You Want a Revolution by Emily Garbutt| 15 Enter Japan: Girl Play by Hannah Weiss | 34 GET IN TOUCH

@realDonaldTrump by Emma Croft & Thomas Conant | 35

Contribute: submissions@exeteramagazine.com

We Met Online by Alex Stenhouse | 36

General enquiries: exetera@exeteramagazine.com

Vogue 3017 by Daisy VDL, Friederike Ach & Soey Kim | 37 Outer Limits by Alfie Davies & Omar Abed | 38

PHOTOGRAPHY

Facebook: Exetera Magazine

Future Pop by Harry Bowley | 16

Instagram @Exetera

Le Livre des Légendes by Alyette Tritsch | 24 Nowhere Plans by Ned Botwood | 28 This Too Shall Pass by Ana Hampu | 30 Personal Glassworks by Emma Anderson | 32

Exetera Magazine

As One

words and photos by Charis Skafida

The Future Edition

n the beginning of March 2016, the exhibition As One veals the importance of living in the moment, without thinking took place at the Benaki Museum in Athens and lasted about the past or the future. This can be achieved by locking two months. It was the largest exhibition ever presented away distracting object that can disturb you from feeling the in Greece that aimed to familiarize the audience with performoment, like our phones, pushing us reminders about the time mance art. and electronic “things-to-do” notifications. In this way you give Fostered by the grandmother of performance, Marina time and space for yourself and become closer to it. Abramovic, the exhibition presented the Abramovic Method. I remember reading the guestbook outside There were 27 performances (by 24 Greek artists and 5 internathe exhibition, a space for visitors to reflect their views on the tional), from which six works were long-dumethod. I was moved by this one sentence, rational. The program was embellished with “thank you for reminding me of my lost workshops, discussions and other activities. self ”. This comment not only reflects the A key rule for the Abramovic Method was unbearable situation in Greece, but also the that visitors ought to leave their personal difficulty in dealing with personal problems belongings, most importantly phones and in life. The emptiness and relief that you feel wristwatches, in a locker. From this point in the method is especially powerful when speaking was not permitted. With the guidyou walk out of the space, and move back ance of selected and trained people, named into the streets and the world. It feels like ‘facilitators’, visitors participated in some being on top of a mountain, staring out at “cool-down” exercises. They then entered the endless view. ‘Museums in the Future’ the main space of the method, wearing eartry to capture this feeling. The artist Paulina muffs. There, the facilitators took the hands Olowska describes, they “will be shelters of of each visitor and led them to the main achumanity (and) will function like mountain tivities of the method, such as slow walking huts, offering respite from the hardships of or staring at colours such as red, yellow or Despina Zacharopoulou, Corner Time, 2016, “As One” daily walking”. The exhibition was based on exhibition, NEON + MAI, Benaki Museum. blue. By hosting this exhibition, The Benaki immaterial art. For me, this pointed out the Museum embodied the characteristics of the “Future Museum”. extent to how much we lack substantial human encounters. I first came across the idea of the “Future Museum” The alienation we experience today causes to fear each other. last September when I heard the speech, ‘the Museum of the This in turn intensifies our alienation, which seems to be a Future’ by Chris Dercon, director of Tate Modern London. In choice. his view, the Museum in the upcoming years should become a The title As One represented community and cooperpublic space. This will boost the circulation of ideas and stimation, which are derived from human interaction. This creates ulate new forms of art. There will also be greater interaction a strong bond and eliminates any forms of alienation. between people with art, and with each other. This was exact The exhibition came to end, and in less than three ly what happened in the Benaki Museum. For years, it was a days the museum had returned to its former appearance, ready museum exhibiting sculptures, photographs and paintings. In to present its next photography exhibition. Walking through March, the Benaki was transformed this empty space, you had the iminto a center of human interaction, pression that this enormous project “Thank you for reminding me of my lost self.” between visitors with the artists, never happened. However, I believe visitors with the facilitators, and that for those that visited or participeople between them. This constant emission and transmispated in the organization of this exhibition, many will have felt sion of energy fed the artists in their performances and was the the experience impacted their life in some way. I certainly felt pivotal ingredient for the method to operate. it’s unique bond. Although artists and facilitators were the energy basis As others might also agree, it greatly influenced my of the space, every minute different people entered the room outlook on everyday life. Even if for just a temporary exhibiwith distinct energy. This resulted in variations of the intertion, the Benaki Museum was highly successful in achieving actions between them. Each visitor had a unique experience the aim of a ‘Museums in the Future.’ since this encounter never happened again. The exhibition re-

Exetera Magazine

“If it ain’t Baroque, don’t fix it!“ words by Clemmie Melvin DISCLAIMER: After reading this article, the exam board Pearson has decided to develop a new history of art A-Level, which will be ready for teaching from next September. This piece saved art history’s Bacon.

he final A-Level art history course in England has been axed. Courtesy of Michael Gove’s educational reforms there will be no more students sitting AQA art history examinations post 2018. So what does this mean for the future study of art history? The study of art? Art itself? The stigma attached to “art history” as a school subject is undeniable, and in some respects, understandable. Many deride it as a subject for middle class girls to justify jamming up their Instagram accounts with trips to the Tate and Florence: a subject synonymous with elitism and pretension; a subject which focuses on the aesthetic and visual. But, by Gove! We live in a society saturated with images. As we conduct our daily lives we see, both intentionally and unintentionally, a multitude of images: pictures in magazines, advertisements plastered across bus stops, logos on food packaging, “Snapchat” stories – the list is endless. The internet plays host to an infinite cornucopia of pictures, whether it be on our Facebook feeds, or the BBC News Website. Now, more than ever we cannot escape the visual, so why cull a subject which primarily focuses on the interpretation of images? Why stop the study of the image when the skill to interpret images has undoubtedly never

been more relevant? Kim Kardashian’s persistent presence on Instagram recently resulted in a heist in Paris. This could be equated to a modern day robbery of the Louvre, the bandits targeting the subject of our contemporary images; Kardashian’s contrived selfies are quintessentially modern examples of self-portraiture. Kimmy K’s manipulation of lighting and skilled “contouring” rivals that of some of the most famous self-portrait artists: Kahlo eat your heart out. George Bernard Shaw: “Without art, the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable”. This decision could see the elitist stigma attached to the study of art history worsen. From 2019 the only schools where you will be able to study art history before university, are schools which offer the Cambridge Pre-U Art History Course; a course only offered in private schools. The inaccessibility of the subject will increase. You do not need an A-Level in art history to be able to study it at university, but by eliminating the choice to study it beforehand could push the discipline for many, into the realm of the unknown. The consequence of this could look like a reduced number of art history undergraduates.

The Future Edition

Ai Weiwei for DAZED

Thus, as an art history student myself, I fear the next question – will our degrees next be next in line for the chop? Or even, blacklisted as useless?

Campbell Soup Cans – an innovative artwork that satirically commented on the increasingly consumerist culture of 1960s America; an artwork that continues to mock the consumerist, capitalist nature of our lives in the 21st century. Or the photograph, emblematic of the Vietnam War, of a young girlrunning away from a napalm attack. The photograph that dominated front pages in 1972. The photograph that shocked people all over the world and still does today. Art is powerful. Art has the potential to unify. The communicative capacity of art should not be underestimated. Art is inherently global; it can transcend borders, oceans, continents. The visual resonates. Instead of alienating art history, make it more accessible! Lower exhibition costs! Rid galleries of their stuffy atmospheres and make them more inviting! If you deprive students of the opportunity to learn about art free of charge, at least provide them with an alternative! So, don’t be a (Jackson) Pillock and let’s put a stop to the marginalization of the arts! The cultural theorist Susan Sontag wrote in 1966, “From now to the end of consciousness, we are stuck with the task of defending art." So dear reader, even if you don't give Manet Fuck’s about art, the world we live in undeniably visual. Don't condemn the marginalisation of art history. Just go Gogh and embrace its education.

Maria Shriver: "Art is fundamental, unique to each of us…even in difficult economic times – especially in difficult economic times – the arts are essential." Not everyone likes art, but everyone responds to art. Not everyone knows how to read or write, but everyone can look at pictures. Even if you find galleries abhorrent and the prospect of Picasso stomach curdling, art manages to invoke some sort of emotion, even if that is one of disgust. Art can act as a window into the past, through which we can visualize the activities of ancient cultures. We can interpret the psychologies of individual artists through the analysis of their works. Or we can simply marvel at an artwork’s splendor. Art is personal. It’s a vital tool of human interaction, and a qualification in the study of it is vital too. People have created works of art since the dawn of humankind, and always will. Barbara Jordan: “Art can speak in many languages without a translator. The arts do not discriminate. The arts can lift us up." Art can give us a better understanding of our world – that includes cultural literacy, as well as being learned in maths and the sciences. We have all seen the infamous Andy Warhol ‘Pop’ prints of

Ai Weiwei: “Art is not the end but the beginning.”

Exetera Magazine

LIFE AFTER EXETERA: Emma Croft interviews Gareth Browne, an ex-writer for Exetera, who since graduating in 2016 with a degree in Arabic and Middle Eastern Studies has carved his way as a freelance journalist in Iraq. Interviewing Gareth from the frontline in Mosul, we talk stringer work for The Times and unpredictable days of great moments, and near-miss dangerous ones. With a one-way ticket to Iraq, Gareth credits the future of effective journalism to groundwork experience, critically harnessing the tools of social media and an industry that continues to invest in trustworthy news.

Describe your freelancing relationship with The Times. What is involved? I’m a stringer, which is industry jargon for a freelancer who is used repeatedly. Some days the paper will approach me to investigate a story; other days I’ll pitch ideas to them. Some days it can be reporting on hard news such as the capture of an important mosque, or killing of a high-profile ISIS commander, other days it might be about something a bit softer or less immediate. I prefer the latter; generally speaking it gives you a bit more freedom to tell a story. Your language can be a bit more colorful and you can really make it your own.

Great to speak to you, Gareth. How did you work your way into freelance journalism? In my final year, I did a week of work experience on The Times’ Foreign Desk, which was the week immediately after the Paris attacks of 2015 so it was immensely busy. After that I began working on Sundays at the paper. I also began freelancing for The Daily Mirror – using my rather rusty Arabic to translate information about ISIS into English and writing about then. After a few months at home after graduation, I saved up enough money to move out to Iraq. I booked a one-way flight and arrived in September. Once I moved out here, I already had contact with several editors, so they were more willing to give me chance.

Gareth Browne 2016

The Future Edition

GARETH IN IRAQ Less than a year since graduation, you have been reporting on the frontline at Mosul. Can you give us an insight into your experience - what is the most significant story you have covered out there? My biggest story was reporting on an ISIS massacre to the south of Mosul. A mass grave of several hundred bodies was found, and my editor asked me to go and work out what happened. It wasn’t the most pleasant of stories, but I managed to speak to people who had witnessed what had unfolded and work out exactly what had happened. In the UK a lot of the news is quite trivial, this was one of the first times I had truly felt that the story I was writing was important – I still do.

As the Trump inauguration approaches, the hot topic in the future of journalism is the issue of ‘fake’ news. How do you see the journalism industry tackling this? The industry just has to keep investing in raw journalism. There is a lot of fake news out there, but ultimately people will always go back to solid news, even those constructing fake news rely on the “main stream” industry to build their conspiracies. I think The Times is investing really well. At a time when Newspaper circulations are plummeting, last year ours increased – I think people will pay for news they know they can trust, that is what the industry needs to pride itself on, being trustworthy.

Can you tell us about your greatest moment...and the lowest? Being on the frontline is unpredictable; I think the lowest moment was demonstrated to be the best in November. I had been attending an army press conference in a neighborhood of Mosul just liberated from ISIS. In the middle of the conference we were ambushed by ISIS snipers and had to hotfoot it into our armored vehicles. Early on in the offensive, I entered a different area also newly liberated. A suicide bomber on foot then charged at my colleagues and I. His vest malfunctioned and he blew up far enough away for us all to be safe. These near misses are ten-a-penny, but they remind you of your own mortality and quite often strike fear into your heart, a type of fear that I had never experienced in the UK, so any of those could be described as low points. High points would be anytime my stories are deemed good enough to make the paper. Newspapers are getting more and more competitive and space is at a premium. Seeing your own name in print is something everything journalist strives for.

Graduation is the near future for many of us, what tips would you give other student writers wanting to break into freelance journalism? Work experience at the nationals or locals, even if it’s just a few days. Try and get in touch with other journalists and meet them for coffee, learn how they got into the industry. Start building your network now. Don’t bother with a journalism degree, you’ll learn far more if you spend that money on going somewhere and doing some actually reporting. So many people want to be journalists these days; it’s vital you can differentiate yourself from the crowd. In my opinion, the best way to do that is with practical experience. Writing for student publications is also a great use of time, a magazine like Exetera will help you find your own voice and style.

Finally, what do you hope for your next chapter? I’d like to be there when Mosul is declared fully liberated from Isis, so that should keep my busy for the next few months. That will be as much a personal thing as it will for any professional milestone. After that perhaps take some time off, but with so much going in the Middle East my plans could change at any minute…

Alongside reporting for The Times, you regularly update your social media with photos and video blogs from the frontline. How do you see social media as a tool in the changing face of journalism? Social media is very important, it helps me build a following and put my work in front of people who otherwise might not read it. It’s also a good tool for finding out what is going on and contacting people “on the ground”. That said, I’d be cautious about journalists who are too reliant on Twitter and Facebook and end up never leaving their desk, I think that’s the problem with a lot of journalism in the UK. There will never be any replacement for getting out there and talking to people to find out what has happened that’s true, whether that is in Exeter or Iraq.

www.twitter.com/BrowneGareth www.thetimes.co.uk/search?q=Gareth+Browne+Mosul www.garethabrowne.wordpress.com/ www.instagram.com/brownepower/

Exetera Magazine

Discovery and Amalgamation: A New Art As contemporary art continues to bemuse, the art of words emerge triumphant. Luke Bromage-Henry asks if we are awitnessing the birth of a new cultural tradition: could a visual artist win a prize for literature?

The Future Edition

words by Luke Bromage-Henry

illustration by Thomas Conant

his year Bob Dylan joins the ranks of men such as Samuel Beckett, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, William Golding, Saul Bellow, and Harold Pinter: he is the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature. To some this may come as a shock; the question may be asked, “Isn’t he just a singer?”. The permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, the body that awards the Nobel Prize for Literature, even expressed her hope that the Academy would not be criticised for its decision – but why should they? It is too easy to forget the Homeric roots of the Western literary canon and that early poetry was transmitted through an oral tradition. Music and literature are inextricably intertwined. One of the nation’s favourite hymns, Jerusalem, originated as a poem by William Blake. Even if one considers the fragmentary essence of what we now call modernism to thwart the adjacent timelines of literature and music, then one needs only look to the syncopations and improvisations of Jazz music. Music and literature are not the only art forms transcending their own boundaries. The visual arts are also expanding into new realms of discovery that might even see a visual artist winning the Nobel Prize for Literature. Robert Montgomery embodies this through the creation of ‘Textart Banksy’. Montgomery deals exclusively with words and his work invades the pub-

lic space in innovative and dazzling ways: he occupies large billboards, erects wooden frames containing the poem and sets them alight, and he uses solar energy to illuminate his poems in public spaces. Montgomery, like Dylan, is concerned with the evocative power of words. His work tends to be lyrical, solemn, yet intrinsically hopeful. His billboard work is inherently critical – the appropriation of a space intended for an advertisement with emotionally charged poetry subverts the established system of capitalism – and has once gotten him arrested. Perhaps his most famous works are billboards he either occupied or put up during the Iraq war protests in London. In Dylan’s song ‘Hurricane’ (1976), he questioned and opposed the imprisonment of middleweight boxer Rubin “Hurricane” Carter; Montgomery did the same with the Iraq war in 2003. Recently he has begun to produce work that draws attention to climate change and the threat it poses to our future. With the boundaries between the arts melting, the role of the modern artist is changing. The artist of the future is not only a singer, dancer or writer, but a combination of all. Dylan opened the doors towards a wider scope of artistic interpretation and perhaps, one day, we might see an artist such as Robert Montgomery being awarded a prize like the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Figure 1: "The People You Love", Robert Montgomery, De La Warr Pavilion, Sussex, England, 2010

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Exetera Magazine

D A W N

words by Oliver Seaton

s the dark evenings creep in earlier and earlier on these wintery days, spare the time in the evening twilight to take a look up at the southern sky; and on an evening without heavy cloud cover, without the sweeping mist that moves in from the Exe estuary, you might just spot Mars. It will be visible throughout most of winter in the early evening sky before it dips over the horizon. Earth and Mars come into close proximity with one another every two years. In May last year, Mars made its closest approach at 47 million miles. So as you look up at the evening sky, Mars, the fourth planet in our solar system will gradually grow fainter throughout these winter evenings. But, Mars will be back for another close approach in July ‘18 which will again result in space agencies biennial attempt to place satellites within its orbit and to land rovers on the surface, in what is not only a search for life, but also a continuous attempt to analyse and prepare for the eventual and sustained arrival of mankind. The colonization of Mars has been a target of human space exploration for over seventy years, even before the Apollo missions of the 1960’s. Part of President Bush’s space policy announced in 2001 stated that he expected NASA to have sent humans to Mars by the mid 2010’s. Here we are, 2017, and our expected arrival on Mars way in the future.

Which gives us the question, how long will it be before humans reach Mars, if ever at all? And with the emergence of private space programmes such as Elon Musk’s Space X, and Baz Lansdorp’s Mars One - whose sole purpose is to establish a settlement on Mars - who will be the first? NASA, the giant of the space game has already made a series of preparations towards their planned Mars missions during the 2020’s and 2030’s. The rocket they intend to use, the Orion spacecraft designed to propel astronauts beyond lower earth orbit into deep space has been built, and was successfully launched in 2014. Furthermore, in early 2016 several astronauts emerged from a yearlong isolated simulation of life on Mars, albeit on the slopes of a Hawaiian volcano. Back in 2010 President Obama challenged NASA to send humans to Mars by the mid 2030’s. With clear mission objectives over the next few years it seems that the start of the 2020’s will be a crucial few years in assessing whether NASA has the ability to make it to Mars. As the years go by, criticism grows and there are quite a few critics who liken NASA to a withered dinosaur, an old beast hampered and fatigued

by years of hard fought battling for government funding. Indeed, NASA’s, an organisation at the mercy of the US Congress, it has already lost a significant share of the federal budget since the 1990’s. Indeed, the ultimate problem with space exploration is the cost. The budget for the Apollo missions back in the mid to late 1960’s was estimated at $22bn, or $143bn if adjusted to the rate of inflation. By comparison NASA’s annual budget for 2016 was nearer $17bn. Then there is Elon Musk, a man who says he could launch a spacecraft to Mars at a third of the cost and his organisation Space X intends to do it during the 2020’s. They are actually teaming up with NASA for an unmanned mission to Mars in 2018 called ‘Red Dragon’. Space X, is the most successful example of a corner known as ‘private space’, a collection of billionaires, engineers and businessmen who want to do it themselves. For want of a Star Wars analogy, they are a group of young rebels who are challenging the aged empire. But if you are sitting there, thinking the whole idea of sending humans on a 120m miles, nine-month journey, to a seemingly inhabitable planet is just ludicrous - well you are not wrong - it is. But take a look back to the European explorers expedition to the New World and Australasia. Those pioneers embarked on a seemingly endless journey with no clue about what they might encounter. It did not stop us before.

The Future Edition

You Say You Want a Revolution?

The Victoria and Albert Museum revives a time of Stonewall riots, civil rights and second-wave feminist movements. The records of revolution keep on spinning and Emily Garbutt argues we need them more than ever.

ecords and Rebels 1966-1970 is the Victoria and Albert Museum’s latest exhibition that explores the ups and downs of late 1960s music, fashion, politics, and everything in between. Five years of rich and vibrant history are crammed into half a dozen rooms that transport you from Carnaby Street to San Francisco to Paris to Woodstock. The sensory experience includes music to listen to, clothes, photography, films and artefacts to look at, and fake grass to feel under your feet in the exhibit’s Woodstock section. This immersive experience really helps you to get the visitor into the mind-set of the Western world during this epoch. This cross-temporal link is particularly valid for the 60s, an era that continuously looked forward to the future. It was a time of great social change and revolution, both in the UK and across the Atlantic: a time of the civil rights movement, second wave feminism and the Stonewall riots. Women wore miniskirts and David Bowie wore a dress on the cover of The Man Who Sold The World. People were flying all over the world and a man walked on the moon for the first time. On visiting the exhibition, I realised what an important role the 60s played in shaping our present. So many of the ways in which our current society functions were shaped by the five years of history covered by the exhibition. For instance, the novelist Alexander Trocchi’s 1964 Sigma Project anticipates today’s closely networked society by envisioning millions of people linking together to create a universal university of knowledge.

However, there are also fundamental differences between the two eras, evident both from the content of the exhibition and the way a lot of people think in 2016: one important discrepancy is our attitude towards the future. I have the impression that when we think of the future now, our thoughts are less hopeful. The first room in the exhibition featured a copy of Thomas More’s Utopia (a book written 500 years ago), but current depictions of the future are overwhelmingly dystopian. The dystopian genre dominates current popular culture: on television and film we are bombarded with visual images of bleak, post-apocalyptic landscapes. Whether it’s zombies or out-of-control artificial intelligence, it’s appears that positive visions of the future are a thing of the past. The 60s was a time of protests, riots, unrest, political assassinations and the Vietnam War, which created an overwhelming anti-war sentiment amongst the general public – very real visions of dystopia were abundant. And despite the struggles of the 60s, the exhibition suggests that optimistic visions of the future prevailed. Rather than pessimistically looking to dystopian visions for our future, perhaps we first need to look back for a bit of guidance.

You Say You Want a Revolution? Records and Rebels 19661970 is on at the Victoria & Albert Museum until Sunday, 26th February 2017.

Exetera Magazine

The Future Edition

Exetera Magazine

The Future Edition

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The Future Edition

Exetera Magazine

The Future Edition

Exetera Magazine

Le Livre des Légendes words and pictures by Alyette Tritsch

Always have a journal with you: this is a lesson I have learned from my travels and from Jordan in particular. To draw female figures or the fruits I was picking, to record a conversation or describe a new place; my journal became my best companion for the two months I was exploring Jordan. My second companion was my Mum’s film camera. Three months after my return, I developed the pictures I had imagined on the film, all drawn, described or captioned in my journal. Between my memories, the pictures and their records, I had built stories, legends, that sometimes overlaped but often conflicted with the captions.

*Légende in French means both legend and caption.

The Future Edition

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The Future Edition

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Ned Botwood

The Future Edition

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The Future Edition

This Too Shall Pass Ana Hampu

Personal Glassworks Emma Anderson

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The Future Edition

These images are caught between two times; between the birth of the new and the death of the old. They represent a transition which is ageless and on-going. In this respect the works act as a sort of â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;momento moriâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, a reminder that there is nothing more precious than the present and the short future we have ahead of us.

Exetera Magazine

ENTERJAPAN:GIRLPLAY

nter Japan, the mecca for gamers. Tokyo and Osaka, two of its major cities, are home to the Akihabara and Nihonbashi Districts – drenched in neon lights, crammed with gadgets and games at cut-rate prices. If a heaven for gamers could be designed on Unity, it would probably look something like this. The dazzling lights hide a murkier truth – console gaming in Japan has been in steady decline since 2007. Trends show an insular consumer base and social norms, advocating secure career paths, discourage would-be developers from striking out to create ‘indies’. As a troubled gaming hardware market spells near doomsday, American developers make greater leaps ahead. But from out the stagnant waters came Nintendo 3DS' Animal Crossing: New Leaf. The game outsold smash hit The Last of Us, created by US developer Naughty Dog, by a staggering 1.4 million units. Here, a beacon flashes. A new future of console games is illuminated. Japan raises its gaming level with women on board.

words by Hannah Weiss

The gaming industry is notorious for its boys’ club culture. Guys play games and go on to make new ones that will appeal to them. But this stereotype misses out an important market, gamer girls. Into the far-flung worlds of Final Fantasy, girls are kicking ass on Call of Duty, too. Gaming as a genre of vibrant and varied creativity is only as diverse as the people who make it. Japanese developer, Aya Kyogoku, breaks the ceiling with Animal Crossing: New Leaf. As one of the first and few games helmed by a female director, Kyogoku leads an unusual team, an equal mix of male and female developers. Enter the girl gamers, with their hands in the modelling of characters, planning the story arcs and coding the AIsAnimal Crossing is not your typical RPG or first person shooter. It’s a game built around creativity and social connections. More than that, it defies conventions, as a game that feels like it should be played on a mobile, yet is built for a specific platform. The Entertainment Software Association has released statistics confirming that 45% – almost half – of gamers are female, yet they mainly play using smartphones. And on the release of Animal Crossing, when the ma-

jority of Nintendo DS units were being sold to men, 56% of its buyers were women, who bought the hardware with the game. Satoru Iwata, CEO of Nintendo, commented that “it’s often said that female casual gamers don’t need dedicated hardware, and yet here they are reaffirming the value of these machines.” Animal Crossing was created by a team of men and women, for an audience of men and women. This vehicle of equality in turn, equalled remarkable commercial success. Exceptions prove the rule – and validate a frequently ignored truth in the big studios’ quest to appeal to conventional tastes and bring home the bacon: untold stories by definition bring the most potential. An unconventional, quirky game directed by a woman proves to be insanely addictive and unlocks the spending power of half the world’s population. Japan’s console gaming industry needed this spark of something novel to recharge itself. Now imagine if instead of stamping out the flames in favour of the old order, the latent creative promise of girl gamers across the globe were truly allowed to flourish. As Shakespeare said, the world’s a stage. So enter the female players.

The Future Edition

1. “These people are sick” (Trump on NY Times, 07/02/2016) 2. “Looks really flimsy like a free handout at a parking lot! The sad end is coming” (Trump on Times Magazine, 05/01/2013) United States President-Elect, Donald Trump, takes his 140-character ‘power’ to the White House. On the 21st January 2017, the US sees in a new head of government with a reliable history of virtually tweet-heckling his opponents. Whether his targets are individuals or organisations, @realDonaldTrump calls to his 20.2M followers at 3 a.m. to keyboard-congregate, marching to the drum of his tirades. The selected tweets were all directed at media channels and news figures, all of whom Trump disagreed with. (Date and Recipients sourced in Twitter via @realDonaldTrump) A week before inauguration, Esquire published an article advising Trump’s media relationship could be more sinister than twitter outrages. As his administration discusses ejecting

words by Emma Croft

3. “No surprise that is in a major scandal for shoddy journalism...zero credibility” (Trump on BBC, 11/12/2012) 4. “Explain how the women on The View...ever got their jobs...total disaster” (Trump on The View, 03/24/2016) 5. “One of the country’s dumbest newspapers...should be put to sleep” (Trump on Palm Beach Post, 01/25/2013) 6. “Circulation in NH has dropped...bad management... begged me for ads” (Trump on New Hampshire Union Leader, 01/05/2016) 7. “Cares far more about Mexico than it does about the U.S… controlled by the Mexican government?” (Trump on Univision, 06/26/2015) 8. “She is so average in every way, who the hell wants to woo her” (Trump at Megyn Kelly from NBC News 01/11/2016) 9. “Worthless...bleeding red ink - a total loser” (Trump on NY Daily News, 02/11/2016) 10. “Is all negative...guests are stacked for Crooked Hillary...I don’t watch” (Trump on CNN, 07/17/2016) 11. “Total losers...bad complexions” (Trump on Deadspin, 01/18/2013)

reporters from their symbolic White House pressroom in the West Wing, the press’ role as representatives of the American people is threatened. A senior official critiqued ‘hostile’ coverage of Trump as “the opposition party,” to the transition team. “I want ‘em out of the building’ he told Esquire, “we are taking back the press room”. Although the Constitution protects the freedom of the press, it doesn’t decree how the president must respect it. We are all accountable for ensuring a free press. That responsibility includes exposing this kind of fear mongering and vindictiveness, in hopes that it is never normalised. As we publish another “bullsh*t liberal” edition, Exetera assures its readership we will write, create and photograph our free opinions louder, much louder, than the fear of being media #TrumpShamed.

illustration by Thomas Conant

11 Trump tweets @ExeteraMagazine is prepared to receive from this liberal35 bUllsh*t Future Edition

Exetera Magazine

we met online Technological love is more than a swipe, it's bringing us closer. Alex Stenhouse paints the internet as a great place to find love.

iving in a digital age, where so much of our social interaction is through technology and media, it is easy to assume, that romance is dead. We hear this message time and time again in think pieces, provocative satirical art, and YouTube spoken word poetry. However, as an active YouTuber myself I want to challenge this perception. Romance is not dead, but rather evolving to fit the times and in many respects it is getting better. More than ever before, the story of ‘how did you meet’ is answered with ‘we met online’, as the rise of social media, online dating and dating apps enable more and more likeminded people to be connected. It is via these platforms that relationships and friendships can be built through conversations between people that may not normally cross paths in their day to day lives. I have witnessed the power of the internet being able to connect people romantically first hand, when about 5 years ago two friends met each other online. I personally had got to know them both online via social media and YouTube, on which you can publish videos and vlogs, allowing people to hear your voice and see your face. They began ‘going out’ and were in an official relationship a few months before they met each other for the first time in person at the airport. She is from Portugal but decided to come to the U.K to study at University, coincidently they ended up at the same one and moved into a flat together. This story, among many others, illustrates the way in which modern dating has changed. Today, because of social platforms and phones by our sides we are more connected than ever, allowing us to give advice, ask a question or simply let the other person know you are thinking of them. This ability to stay connected even when you might be in different countries shows how technology is able to create and strengthen the connection between people. However, I hear the critics cry, “we are so engrossed in social media, artifice, pointless texting that we no longer experience a real connection”, and to some extend I agree. Texting is no substitute to face to face conver-

sation. Sexting no substitute for sex. But this is too much of a negative, singular outlook. Technology today means we can Skype, Facetime, Google Hangout and speak faceto-screen-to-face, and react in real time to the nuances of how we speak. Gone are the days when you would have to wait days, even weeks, to hear back from your long distance partner by letter. It has given us greater connection that in the past we would not have had. It has allowed us to stay in touch with old friends that and easier than ever to bump into somebody you don’t really know in real life and ask ‘How was your holiday - the photos came up on my wall”. “Add me on facebook” becomes more than just a point of contact but a door into their own personal world, Instagram shows you what a person truly cares about, while twitter and snapchat exists for updates and silliness. Ultimately, nothing can compare to speaking face-to-face without the devices, as expressing love in 140 characters or fewer is limiting. As society progress though, we are able to find new ways to illustrate our love in brief texts, which only condenses, rather than dilutes, any form of affection. So what about the future of dating? With virtual reality technology improving year on year, soon we will be able to interact with our partners in virtual spaces that both people can inhabit. Facebook unveiled something similar only a couple months ago. Our conversations will transition from verbal, to text, to face to face seamlessly with the evolving technology, enabling relationships to overcome the challenging boundaries that they have faced in the past. Over the past 10 years as these social technologies have been developed, we have become more connected, by meeting new people and staying in touch with old. It used to be far harder to find the right person, as fathers chose husbands for their daughters; racial and social class barriers dictating whom you should or shouldn’t date; non-normative sexualities being condemned. Today, the internet has begun to break down these boundaries that inhibited us, and will continue to do so in the future.

The Future Edition

VOGUE 3017 Exetera meets Vogue Editor & Correspondent, Fashion Extraordinaire, Winner of Best Contribution to Fashion Award, Three-time Winner of Best Dressed at the Met Gala, Cyber Clarice (#RIPAnnaWintour) words by Daisy van der Lande, Friederike Ach & Soey Kim illustration by Harry Bowley Set in 2016, a fictitious interview takes place between Exetera writer Deena and Vogue Editor and Fashion Extraordinaire Cyber Clarice from 3016. Deena asks the questions we’re all keen to know in order to get an inside scoop of the future of fashion. Thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule to talk to us today. In 2016, we have this fantasy conception of the future where everyone will be wearing silver spacesuits and living in hovercrafts. Did this ever happen? It did happen…yes! In 2050, all we saw was black and metallic sequined two pieces on the cat walks, highly influenced by a “bring back Daft Punk” revival. But that was just taken too far when people started wearing space helmets with oxygen providers – what a fashion disaster, and so moronically impractical! Were there any other unsuccessful fashion movements that we should try and avoid? Absolutely, in the 70s people wore clothes that would change colour according to your mood. Cool idea, but it just became way too obvious what people were feeling. You can imagine the drama and hell that broke loose between celebrities… this one time at the MET gala ball when I was just an intern, Blue Ivy actually turned green with envy when she saw Northwest turn up with the same holographic Givenchy gown. Were there any other future trends that involved technology? Technology totally revolutionised fashion. Japanese engineers developed material that changed temperature according to the environment. This radically changed seasonal collections as peo-

ple can now wear tops in winter and faux-furs in summer. But there were so many problems with this technology to begin with. In 2084, an American designer used way too many cold transmitters on his frozen bikini range and ended up with complaints about constantly perky nipples…. And a year later, Madonna literally combusted on the red carpet because the fibre-wire in her fish nets overheated… sad, but she seriously HAD to go at some point. What an icon – pretty spectacular way to go! Did people still use technology in fashion after that? Or did they revert back to materials and looks of the past? Oh, do you mean vintage? Yes – vintage is a big part of today’s fashion. Is what I’m wearing today considered ‘vintage’ in the future? (Deena is wearing a simple black jumpsuit with patent-leather stilettos) Jumpsuits are actually pretty popular in 3016, but they’re office-wear. The practicality, for both men and women, of only having to slip on one piece of clothing in the morning…and off in the evening…was revolutionary! I wonder why no one had thought wearing them on a daily basis before, but I guess you people were too conservative back then. Do you have any last words or advice for us back in the present? 3016 is all about the individual – no one dresses the same! I wish people had learnt to embrace this earlier on! Buy yourself a 3D printer and leave those factory fashion lines at home.

Exetera Magazine

<<//OUTER_LIMITS/>// words by Alfie Davies

illustrations by Omar Abed

//user_identified /passcode_accepted /entering_int.database_portal... /entering... /int.startupmechanism /quantifying_scope_of_request//beginning_search /searching... /int.readerformat//access_permitted /session_time:<∞> /title:2aatp<MOONROCK_PENELOPE”.intdrive/mmr> /proceed ‘System.out.printIn(‘Look at me <Isaac>, look right, deep into my eyes, and tell me -- tell me I’m not like her.’ I used to think it was the big things that made you who you are, like your accomplishments and your dreams. I thought that was what made a person. But after all the time we’ve spent out here, I’ve come realise that it’s not that kind of thing at all. It’s the stuff you barely notice: it’s the awkward edges of a smile and the nervous picking of the skin around the fingers; that’s what sticks in your mind. See, I woke up with her. I went to bed with her. We ate, played chess, crunched numbers, sang songs, and yet... it those little things. The first sign that something wasn’t right with <Marnie>. /‘It was hard for her, <Isaac>. You have to understand that it was the hardest thing she’d ever had to do.’ About a year ago now Marnie and I were sent sailing out here across the stars dig up <Osmium-10> for ship navigational systems. I was happy to go - work was my life and I never saw anyone apart from Marnie anyway, so when the company offered to send us out into the great unknown I had my bags packed and in the hold before she’d even called her mother. /‘She kept saying that she’d tell you tomorrow, or the next day, or -- I -- listen -- I don’t know what to say, okay. Each line of code pushed her further away from the truth. She felt it’d be better if you just... Didn’t know.’ Soon I started to grow suspicious of her. When she got up in the morning, her eyes didn’t have that bleary red tint. For <God’s> sake, she didn’t even yawn. We were alone, perfectly alone, spinning on a pebble a million miles from home, and yet she was the coldest thing in the universe. /‘You know she’d never come out here, <Isaac>. You know she’d never leave her mum. And <Tom> -- they were gonna get married for fuck’s sake. You thought she’d leave all that behind for you?’ So it got worse. I got worse. I listened for the impatient tap of her foot as the lasers heated up. I’d turn off the plasma coils on her console just to see if she’d furrow her brow. <God>, last night I waited till sunrise for those heavy, plodding steps past my door on the way to the observatory. Nothing. It’s like she left herself on <Earth>. Last night I snapped and confronted her about it, and after I’d wrecked her console and barricaded the door... Well, she told me that’s exactly what she’d done. ‘It’s called <Fabrication> -- she wrote the programme herself. The tech’s been around since Rutledge cracked cloning, but no one ever thought to use it like she did - no one thought you could totally recreate yourself.’ ‘But you’re not her. You’re not <Marnie>. How could you be?’ All the lights in my head were falling down to earth. ‘But she and I -- we’re the same, <Isaac>. She knew you’d never come out here alone, so she created me as a companion. I was grown in a vat, and she was grown in a womb. My memories came through a cable, and hers came through her eyes and ears. I remember when you showed her round the lab for the first time. I remember when you flew her up to the <Ithacan Base> on <Ganyemede> to stare into the red storm. And I remember how she felt when she knew she had to trick you. But tell me how it’s trickery when I breathe the same as you? When my heart beats with the same mechanics, and my body aches when I think of home? Look at me <Isaac>, look right, deep into my eyes, and tell me -- tell me I’m not like her.’ I buried her out on the planes near <Dig Site E> with our shared hard drive and this record. That mass of neurones that <Marnie> built is just as real as she is, but humanity’s more than just copied shadows dancing on a membrane. It’s in the sum of everything: the product of the annals of life cascading across millennia to craft us over and over, each impression a little brighter than the last. She thought she could intercept the current and catch it in a petri dish, but no one can play the hand of time. <Marnie> was a snapshot of an ever-evolving history, pausing briefly to know me, and moving on. How could she ever craft that in a lab?.end);’ // /file_saved_to_externaldrive /programme_closed

The Future Edition

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