Glasgow University Magazine
December 2013
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December 2013
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Robo Smokes – E-volution of the Cigarette? Milly Douglas
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Hailey Maxwell
Instafamous Mark Rennie
DEPUTY EDITOR Yasmeen Hussain
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Living off the Grid Eilidh McEwan
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Running out of Ink Francesca Grieve
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Holding a Tune Patrick Owens
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Disco on a Budget Felix Welch & Ian Hall
SCIENCE EDITOR Alexandra Embiricos
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Social Media And The Fight Against Music Industry Sexism Adam Sorice
DESIGN Graham Ferguson
Science
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Green Technology at Glasgow University Laura Allen
COVER ILLUSTRATION www.grampainmountains.net
Fashion
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Technology on the Runway Zsofia Dobak
ARTWORK Amelia Bayler Cheryl Wills Hailey Maxwell
Features
Music
Art
Politics
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How technology affects our style choices in everyday life Anastsia Moneva
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Fashion and Social Media Carolyn Paterson
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I Swear I’m Real IRL Adam Gill
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Art and the Internet Anna Smith
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Machinist Aesthetics Lilly Markari
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30th Century Man Jack Flower
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Freedom of Press in the Era of Technology Connor Belshaw
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Does ‘Technology’ Mean ‘Progress’? Stuart Reid
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‘Facts’ in a Divided Land Kate Regan
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Internet and Politics; A Talk with Joe Rospars Michael Borowiec
Any views or opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of Glasgow University or the SRC.
ART EDITOR Anna Smith FASHION EDITOR Leila Khoshoie POLITICS EDITOR Michael Borowiec MUSIC EDITOR Patrick Owens
PHOTOGRAPHER Harrison Reid WRITERS Milly Douglas Mark Rennie Eilidh McEwan Francesca Grieve Yasmeen Hussian Felix Welch Ian Hall Adam Sorice Laura Allen Zsofia Dobak Anastsia Moneva Carolyn Paterson Adam Gill Anna Smith Lilly Markari Jack Flower Connor Belshaw Stuart Reid Kate Regan Michael Borowiec
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December 2013
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EDITOR’S LETTER SINCE THE DAWN OF MODERNISM, TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCEMENT HAS LED TO THE EVER-LEANING OF THE HUMAN RACE UPON THE MACHINE. Hailey Maxwell Technological evolution has and is developing at fibre optic speed; our generation have inherited revolutionary inventions such as Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone and transformed them into unrecognisable, multi-functional devices bestowed with ar tificial intelligence. Bioscience has made human bodies adaptable and given the physical body new types of resilience, whole systems of communication and representation have been transpor ted into digital realms while the modern pluralistic conception of the self has been decanted into a multitude of social media platforms.
Technology irreversibly shapes the way we interact with each other and our environment; raw information has become a commodity while the boundaries of knowledge are becoming more democratic. This issue will explore the current developments in the intersection of culture and technology, celebrating its triumphs and exploring paradoxes which arise when the post-modern challenge to binary systems of thought are transpor ted into a realm reliant upon binary systems of code.
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ROBO SMOKES – E-VOLUTION OF THE CIGARETTE? CONTROVERSIALLY, THERE HAS BEEN RESEARCH SUGGESTING NICOTINE MIGHT HAVE ITS VIRTUES. BOTH A STIMULANT AND RELAXANT, SOME STUDIES ON THE EFFECTS OF NICOTINE SHOW THAT IT CAN IMPROVE YOUR MEMORY. IN FACT, DISEASES SUCH AS ALZHEIMER’S AND PARKINSON’S MIGHT BE ALLEVIATED BY THE DRUG
Milly Douglas In the 1940s, Humphrey Bogar t and Lauren Bacall looked smouldering, whilst smoking. Before then, it was considered daring for women to smoke, and many feminists at the turn of the 20th century did. Today, do we find smoking sexy? It depends who you talk to, but I’m sure any answer will be biased, depending on the habits of the person in question. Fondly termed by a friend as ‘robo stick’, the E-cig was, surprisingly, invented in the fairly unprejudiced times of the chain-smoker. In 1967, Herber t A. Gilber t’s smokeless cigarettes were scoffed at by manufacturers. It wasn’t until 2003 that the pharmacist Hon Lik reignited the idea. Timing is everything, and our awareness of the harmful effects of smoking means that the E-cigarette has become a serious competitor to the world’s tobacco tyrants. Vaping seems to be very much à la mode. Even the expression is reminiscent of something mischievous. It’s a strange paradox – smoking isn’t chic, or is it? What if you’re not strictly smoking? This has become an internal dispute for many, although most aren’t inane enough to admit it. It’s an odourless habit, and puff for puff, it’s cheaper too. However, you can spend a small for tune on the right design. The plethora of celebrities using the electronic newcomer includes Charlie Sheen, Lindsay Lohan, Katy Perry and Johnny Depp. People who don’t smoke simply don’t realise that smoking a plain old roll up, or pre-rolled, can actually be enjoyable. Many might initially reject the electronic cigarette due to a backlash of Puritanism, denying the rights and freedoms of mature adults. F.O.R.E.S.T cer tainly seem to believe that is their right to smoke tobacco, when and how they want it. The Freedom Organisation for the Right to Enjoy Smoking Tobacco was founded by its current director, Simon Clark, in 1998.
They believe that, as a democracy, we can make the decision to smoke if we so wish. They claim that we all have access to informative materials on what smoking does to our bodies. F.O.R.E.S.T are suppor ters of the E-vapes, although there are die-hard smokers everywhere who see them as a poor, slightly awkward excuse for the pungent and unapologetic original. Porno mags being censored in shops, cigarettes being sold behind depressing metal facings – holier than thou types are creeping out of the rotting woodwork of the coalition government. We live in a time when it’s okay to make the ‘wrong’ choice, as long as you use rolls of red tape to cover it up. Can’t we treat one another like adults, with our own varied and terrible opinions and depravities? Surely electronic cigarettes are small fish in the world of politics today? We live in a time when it’s okay to make the ‘wrong’ choice, as long as you use rolls of red tape to cover it up. Can’t we treat one another like adults, with our own varied and terrible opinions and depravities? In 2016, e-cigs will undergo vetting to determine which products might be classed as ‘medicines’ to wean smokers off tobacco. This means they will be medically approved nicotine alternatives, like patches, as opposed to being adver tised for recreational purposes. In this case, we might see the electronic cigarette on the NHS, though probably not in such flamboyant shapes and colours. Unlike the rather inelegant inhalators, which only omit a standardized dose of nicotine, the electronic cigarette works by giving the puffer a quick hit, much like the real deal. There are fears over the danger of electronic fires from the e-cigarette, whilst the inhalator is safe, as
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it doesn’t use batteries. Inhalators have been a nofrills option for years. It’s needless to say they don’t come in candy flavours.
Michelin starred restaurants and upmarket bars are considering banning the fragrance-free E-cigarette, due to complaints and confusion from non-vapers.
As aforementioned, the main problem that doctors and scientists have with e-cigarettes is the amount of milligrams of nicotine released from them when ‘smoked’. Controversially, there has been research suggesting nicotine might have its vir tues. Both a stimulant and relaxant, some studies on the effects of nicotine show that it can improve your memory. In fact, diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s might be alleviated by the drug - although there is still much more research that needs to be done to suppor t these claims.
Okay, so you don’t have to have the nose of a sommelier to know that second-hand smoke smells, but I can’t see why the odd glowing blue light and puff of water vapour is in any way detrimental to one’s dining experience.
Smokers are not necessarily ‘thugs’, and smoking tobacco doesn’t cause bar brawls or antisocial behaviour. However it is fair to say that they do cost the NHS dearly if their habit catches up with them. Taking the fairly good with the rather bad, nicotine is a poison. A member of the nightshade family, high doses can be fatal. The inhalation of one cigarette can give a child nicotine poisoning. An adult can overdose on nicotine more easily than on any other drugs, mainly if they are trying to cut down with gum or patches, whilst continuing to smoke. Before we can rule out any of the negative aspects of the chemical, it is, at the very least, highly addictive. Tobacco companies, and now probably E-Vaping giants, too, no doubt push a lot of money towards sponsoring seemingly independent research in to the silver lining of chemicals such as nicotine. This means there is uncer tainty around the perceived positive effects repor ted. Much deeper investigations need to be made in to nicotine, and to e-cigarettes themselves. Besides, tests have shown that the electronic cigarettes contain highly carcinogenic (cancer-causing) chemicals, just like normal cigarettes, sometimes at even higher levels.
Much deeper investigations need to be made in to nicotine, and to e-cigarettes themselves. Besides, tests have shown that the electronic cigarettes contain highly carcinogenic (cancer-causing) chemicals, just like normal cigarettes, sometimes at even higher levels As a child I remember thinking how foul the smoking areas inside restaurants were. I wonder if I would have been equally offended if the ‘naughty’ people vaped. As an uncommitted smoker myself now, I remember taking to the streets (to smoke that is, not to protest,) when the ban came in to effect in London, 2007. How things change! Now kids judge us for puffing away. Would you want your children, your nieces, or nephews to smoke? How about vaping? With flavours such as vanilla, bubble-gum, and gummybears, it would be naïve to dismiss the potential appeal to a younger market. I wonder, within the next five years, shall the fields and bike-sheds of schools aplenty conceal masses of teenagers, crowded around one glowing, cherry vape? Remember, these are economically lucrative products, probably not designed with the consumer’s best interests at hear t. At the moment we know very little about them, so it’s wise to be cautious before blindly accepting them first hand. Let’s wait and see what the other catches are. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
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INSTAFAMOUS Mark Rennie
Let me set the scene for you real quick. You are standing at the bar in a dingy club basement. Through the crowd of guys getting an obligatory “Taps Aff ”, you see a young, well presented, blonde girl. She’s looking right at you, smiling, playing with her hair. She star ts walking towards you. You get ready to lavish her with that extra special chat, saved for these type of moments. She says something, but you cant hear her over the music. She leans in brushing your cheek, hand on shoulder and whispers those words that you really want to hear....”You’re that guy off Instagram.” Not even a name, but “that guy”. That guy off that social network. Welcome to the world of a semi-prolific Instagrammer. I often get told that people didn’t believe i was a real person. Just some enigma on the internet. I can confirm that I am a real person. I didn’t set out to become this online persona - it just kind of happened. While other guys were out working on their physique, or enhancing their DJ skills, I was on my couch posting memes on instagram. While your topless picture in the gym toilets was getting 12 likes, I was pushing serious numbers with my Spiderman memes bro. I’ve always been a very sociable person in real life so Instagram was just an extension of my social life. I quickly realised that it was an anti-social life but by that time I was waist-deep in the world of instagram. Things changed though when Instagram deleted my account for the first time. I was raging. I’d spent months curating this piece of ar t only for somebody to come along and shut it down. I was genuinely gutted that i lost all my followers - come on I had Jenna Jameson following me. After I pulled myself together, I created a new profile. I felt like one of these reality show rejects that gets so far then gets voted off. Then the next season they come back to try their luck again. I had become the Alexandra Burke of Instagram - and like Alexandra Burke I was gonna own it second time round. After 24 hours I had gained 1400 followers. Mrennie was back in the game.
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At this point in my life I was a student, and had copious amounts of free time. Uploading 3 or 4 pictures a day was nothing. It got so rough that I even knew what time of day to upload pictures so that my masterpieces weren’t slept on by my international followers. I was a fiend. Things began to slow down when i got my first real job; a suit and tie, 9-5, soup and a sandwich for lunch, type job. The type of job where you can’t refresh your feed every 5 minutes to see if Rihanna has posted another selfie. I also got the feeling that not many people in my office would really understand my love of instagram. It almost became my secret, it felt like Clark Kent when he runs round the corner, rips open his shir t and becomes Superman. It felt like an alter ego. I wasn’t pretending to be somebody else, 1 do indeed like rap music, trainers and beautiful women. It just felt like these weren’t the type of things you could really share with your work colleagues. Instagram was this way to link up with people who also liked these things. I’ve met a lot of interesting people that i would have probably never met in real life. I’ve had free clothes, free tickets to concer ts and lots of free food. I cant complain. Instagram brought me a lot of joy at a time when I was dealing with some things in my personal life. I perhaps used it as a tool to take my mind off everyday mundane life. Looking at pictures on an iPhone app shouldn’t be that soothing but it was. Time has moved on and 1 still use instagram more than the average user, but I use it how it should be used; a social network. Not some parallel universe full of models, where I can just escape to. I am not that guy. I’m a mid-twenty something from Glasgow, who wears Matalan suits to work. Hardly Sean Combs on a yacht instagramming pictures of Cassie in a bathing suit. We all have vices, some more private than others. Its just that my vice was on the most public place of them all, the internet. You can follow the Real Mark Rennie on Instagram: @Mrennie1
Glasgow University Magazine
December 2013
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LIVING OFF THE GRID Eilidh McEwan
Picture sitting on a wooden veranda, clutching a mug of soup and watching gusts of orange and red autumn leaves blustering off the trees in an autumnal evening chill. Hills slope into the distance, and candlelight shines from the windows of other huts clustered around the clearing. You could be anywhere. But as it gets dark, there’s a different texture to air. Here there are no streetlights lining the meandering ear then tracks, and no blue flicker from television screens reflecting out the windows of peoples’ homes. This is Carbeth; one of the few Scottish examples in the central belt of a communitarian land buyo ut. The community doesn’t have a postcode, and can’t be found on Google maps. In a modern environment of fastp aced modern living and ever increasing technological immersion in our daily lives, Carbeth’s slowp aced, communitarian style of living is a welcome rarity. When hiking trails in the Grand Canyon can be tracked on Google maps and Google ear th down to the last minor detail, and images of almost any conceivable street can be found in an instant online, you can see why the chance to retreat to a community at a remove from this can be very appealing. Carbeth is set apar t from this frenetic hub of interconnection, where a consistent stream of media, of news and of electronic messages clatters
across the Internet. By contrast, in the hutting community even getting signal on most mobile phones often requires a walk up the nearest hill. Instead of phonec alls and emails, there’s a stillness and peace here that’s increasingly difficult to find in daily life. In Scotland, alongside other Scandinavian countries such as Norway and Sweden, hutting is a long established tradition. The recent formation of the A Thousand Huts movement, seeking to rebuild and restore hutting communities around Scotland, has been wellc hronicled by journalist Leslie Riddich, and is testament to the success of Carbeth in renewing interest in hutting. As former Green MSP Chris Dallance, who restored a hut at Carbeth, comments, ‘Carbeth inspired the movement, by promoting the ideal of the hut (or dacha or hytte, as they are called elsewhere across Europe.) Carbeth has shown that this sor t of lifestyle is hugely relevant par ticularly for poorer and more disadvantaged people who would never otherwise get the chance to “own” a little patch of ground, and to stay out in a natural environment. In the campaign firstly to resist unfair rent hikes and then latterly to >
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own the land ourselves, we publicised a tradition that was good but dying. The 1000 Huts campaign is now bringing the tradition up to date and re invigorating it.’ Chris Dallance decided to build a hut at Carbeth to get his children away every so often from weekends of watching a television or computer screen. He says that the reason Carbeth appeals to him is primarily because, ‘the simplicity of living without electricity or water ont ap which really appeals. Our everyday living is very cluttered with things we really don’t need for happiness; Carbeth gives the chance to focus on the really impor tant things: family, friends and the enjoyment of nature all around. I find it a very liberating experience to be able to be warm and snug under the trees, knowing that noo ne can phone, text or email; just you and the owls, mice, deer and rabbits around.’ Initially founded as a tented community by soldiers returning after the First World War, the landowner Alan BarnesG raham generously allowed soldiers, hillwalkers and thereafter families and hikers to set up the place as a semip ermanent base. Gradually huts began to spring up and by the mid1930s, local workingc lass families were using the site to escape from industrial pressures of city life working on the Clyde shipyards and in the factories. The hutters
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then formed a coo perative, named the Carbeth Community Company which allows the hutters to own their land and collectively manage it. Divided into different communities such as Nor th and South Hill, the Clachan, Lochside and West Highland Way, there’s a distinct identity to the place and a sense of history that is almost palpable when you walk through its treelined trails. The hutters are comprised of a mixture of families, hikers, painters, actors, and have created a vibrant community here. Many find the relaxed pace of life to their liking. Current hutter Liz, tells me of her father who used to work in Singer’s factory in Clydebank. Her mother would take the whole family there for their six week summer holidays. Liz says, ‘As her dad only had the two weeks holiday and in those days there was very little public transpor t, he’d often have to hike over the Old Kilpatrick hills back to Clydebank or hitch a rare lift with someone heading in the direction of Glasgow to get back for work.’ The summers there were long, gregarious, and provided welcome relief from the grind of daily working life in Glasgow. Hutter Alan Graham, committee member and Treasurer of the Carbeth Community Committee (a different Alan the generations of landowners, yes there are a lot of Alan Grahams at Carbeth) recounts the experiences of his father and uncle
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who first built at hut here out of a changing room for the football at Glasgow Green. They decided to renovate the changing room, dismantling the structure and rebuilding it at Carbeth. Many huts here have been par tially reconstructed from reu sed and rep urposed material, such as a hut which has been rebuilt from a bus shassie. This contributes to the homeg rown and unique character of the place. Alan’s aunt and uncle originally owned a hut here and used it when on breaks from working in the Clyde shipyards. Alan comments that Carbeth was ‘always about allowing working class families somewhere to get out of the city and experience someplace different’ and that today hutting at Carbeth still holds the same values for which it was originally intended, that is ‘shor t holidays, a change of pace and a return to simpler living.’ Today, he claims that the proximity of the community to Glasgow is appealing as when he finishes work at 5, he can be at Carbeth for 5.30. ‘It’s close to home but far enough away that you feel like you are out of the city. When I am there, things that might be seen as a chore, or simply not done at home, like fixing the fence, filling the water tank, chopping wood, repairing the hut roof, are things that are enjoyable.’ Choosing to live without mains electricity or running water might seem complicated today but for previous generations this was a daily fact of life. The choice of many in the community to live in this manner ‘shows how comfor tably you can live without many things that society takes for granted, such as light at the flick of a switch or central heating.’ However a few hutters are currently experimenting with alternative models of generating sustainable energy that is separate from the national grid, such as solar powe. Many are involved in the locallyb ased energy company Carbeth Eco, which welcomes innovative ideasfor sustainable energy generation. As Chris Dallance comments, in some aspects this is a step away from what the hutting tradition is actually about, yet on the other hand, many other elements of sustainability are being used here at Carbeth. He says that, ‘I am disappointed that a few hutters are still wedded to the idea of generator driven electricity. Wooden huts have a very low ecological footprint on their landscape, so there is a real possibility of lowt echnology living. Sustainability is difficult you’re in a wood, so growing food is
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pretty difficult at most hut sites and even with the most insulated huts (and most have very little) you do get through a lot of wood. But the culture of the huts is deeply embedded in reu se reu sing old furniture inside, or reu sing old construction waste to build with etc., and that’s a tradition we must maintain.’ I sit with friends who own a hut here, listening to their chatter, clear in the quiet. Traces of smoke and the scent of burning peat hover through the air. After you spend a few days away from modern technology, you begin to realise how irrelevant it can be. You realise that these technological ‘essentials’ are not absolutely vital, that although these faster methods of communication may have increased soc alled efficiency across all organisations and allowed global interconnectivity, in parallel, more traditional and simpler ways of life are being eroded, or rather, forgotten. For Alan and Liz, the huts at Carbeth have offered a place to bring their children. And they both agree that what is so good about Carbeth is that here they actually get time to spend with them.. In the case of one ten year old boy who Alan and Liz foster, he later described Carbeth to his social worker as a ‘paradise’, emphasising how awes truck many children are by Carbeth. This is especially true of those who have never had the chance to experience real countryside silence and the lack of light pollution away from urban space that offers stunning nightt ime vistas. For some hutters Carbeth has provided them with the ‘discovery of a way of life they have never experience before’ but for Alan and Liz it is also a return to their childhood roots, a revival of a longs tanding tradition and in the case of the Carbeth Community Company, a truly inspiring story about a group of people who have fought to own their land and reb uild a more sustainable, ecological community. The hutters have invested a tremendous amount of time, money and energy into this place. Perhaps it is the simpler way of life separate from life’s technological clutter, or the sense of history and stories around this place, or a community spirit, that steelforged camaraderie among the hutters, that makes Carbeth so evocative. After spending time here, you begin to question why more people aren’t living like this, living in the luxury of solitude and time that being ‘off the grid’ can offer.
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RUNNING OUT OF INK EVEN THE MENIAL THINGS, WRITING CARDS, SHOPPING LISTS, LOVE NOTES THAT WE USED TO CHUCK TO EACH OTHER IN CLASS WERE PART OF OUR EVERYDAY LIFE. THERE HAVE BEEN INSTANCES IN HISTORY WHERE A LETTER HAS SENT SOMEONE TO DEATH
Francesca Grieve If someone told me that I was to be left on a deser t island was only allowed to bring one luxury with me, without hesitation I would say ‘pen and paper’. Not only because I’d imagined myself already to be on Deser t Island Discs but because I couldn’t imagine a life without those two small, unassuming items. In the days spent building shelters, imitating the wildlife, making coconut clothing and singing loudly I would need the means to write down whatever it was that came into my head. A journal, poetry, stories and possibly SOS messages, depending on how comfor table my clothing was, would all be aids to help me get through and on rescue (I would like to hope) they would tell my story. That is essentially what pen and paper are, a means of telling a story as well as telling a story in themselves. They represent the development of mankind in forms of expression, the vessels in which we have tracked out ideas and our imaginations. Since the first caveman (around 40,800 years ago, if the internet serves me right) picked up a piece of rock on the floor of his cave and decided to draw on the wall to the greatest poets, politicians, ar tists of the modern day expressing themselves, their ideas and their goals through the simple action of writing things down. The manuscripts of Da Vinci, the sheet music of Mozar t, the Book of Kells, all through the use of pen (or quill) and paper. What great libraries of history have been filled with the sound of quill scratched upon paper, history in the making? Even the menial things, writing cards, shopping lists, love notes that we used to chuck to each other in class were par t of our everyday life. There have been instances in history where a letter has sent someone to death, Mary Queen of Scots for example. You get the picture. Pen and paper are essential to life, right? To my horror, they are becoming less and less impor tant in our world. In a tutorial, not long ago,
I overheard the a student admitting that she was always on her phone and her tablet as she kept all her notes there. She went on to confess that she NEVER USES PEN AND PAPER. In fact, she didn’t even own them. For a few stunned minutes I sat there debating the effect of loss of these items would have upon me when I realised that I should be listening to the beautiful rendition of Homer the tutor was giving. Later, I dwelt long upon that girl’s words, what did it mean if technology is taking over? Would we forget how to write? Would it become a mere matter of recognising the letter shapes in their Times New Roman formatting to read an email from someone? To get a wider opinion on this instead of only my outrage, I have asked some acquaintances from other subjects to understand what the use of technology versus the pen and paper means to them. They represent the development of mankind in forms of expression, the vessels in which we have tracked our ideas and our imaginations. A Biochemist student, standing for the side of science, views the advance of technology favourably but would still use pen and paper when writing notes as it is more flexible in writing symbols instead of trying to find them on a computer. Pen and paper is the preliminary stage to his work, always referring to the rough notes before turning to the laptop. The lack of these implements would be constricting and though technology advances are useful, it ‘is not a substitute, its an addition’. Another Literature student takes the stance that we, as a generation, are already being left behind by technology, there are kids who can use tablets far better than us. There aren’t that many laptops being used in our lectures but we can’t isolate
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ourselves from this as social media is everywhere. She feels that pen and paper will die out but not with us but the up and coming students of the future, when asked if she would choose to have pen and paper on that deser t island she would be more preoccupied with getting herself away, it seems I didn’t logically think of escape! Another associate who studies Neuroscience finds that, due to her dyslexia, she finds it easier to write with pen and paper as it is better to learn as it is harder to read off a screen. Though with a laptop she types quicker, by writing it down, however slowly she can process the information more thoroughly. When I asked her how the lack of pen and paper would affect her, she said that though she would miss the habit of writing, she knows that she would adapt to using a laptop but her shopping lists would be dramatically affected! Even myself, I am using them not as much as I should. Here I am at my desk typing on my laptop while my quill looks mournfully on from its inkd ried well, the hobby of calligraphy merely reduced to a minimal monument of an old ar t. I personally am one for the days of postit notes everywhere, sheafs of paper bursting the seams of my bags, ink spilling over books and bir thday cards scrawled with doodles and possibly things that shouldn’t be read by parents yet its a sad fact to admit that typing is easier when trying to write a long piece as speed is essential to following ones thoughts. My pen is still very much in use but I wonder If I am one of the few clinging to the last vestiges of tradition, perhaps I should move on and acquire a tablet?
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Now you can get apps on your phone for lists and memos, there are electronic bir thday cards you can send or order and I wouldn’t be surprised if you can send a digital love note to someone. There is no personality behind typefaces. A friend in my tutorial has the most incredible handwriting I have ever seen and another has absolutely appalling scrawls but whether they are appealing to me makes no difference, they are their own. Though with a laptop she types quicker, by writing it down, however slowly she can process the information more thoroughly. When I asked her how the lack of pen and paper would affect her, she said that though she would miss the habit of writing Years of graphology, the study of handwriting, shows you that it is possible to read someones personality through their handwriting, an example would be that if your writing slants to the left you are apparently open to new experiences. Whether this is accurate or not, it is still relevant in the ar t of writing. It is seen as a form of expression, just as the ideas that it expresses. Therefore, would the loss of pen and paper mean that a huge section of our expressive capability would vanish?
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HOLDING A TUNE Patrick Owens
With the continually growing popularity of music downloads it seems that maybe we have become so obsessed with convenience that we’ve lost out on substance. There is an obvious attraction with being able to listen to a song on the radio (or relevant music listening platform) and then instantly own it, but are we losing something impor tant? Physicality is something which many might not associate with our listening to music but it plays a very distinct role or, at least, it used to. The convenience of the internet and other obvious factors have changed the way we approach music. In essence, it has negated our need for any effor t in purchasing music and in turn, I think, we have lost something else. For example, there are several small pleasures I take from buying music: flicking through records; pulling them from their sleeve to check the quality; setting some aside to listen to later; even the dust collecting on my fingers if I’ve been searching for too long. Far from this being a pamphlet on the benefits of buying vinyl, this appreciation for physicality stretches far beyond that. Perhaps, for me, it is as much about owning something that somebody made as it is about merely listening to it - not to say that isn’t impor tant. As Pasty of Handpicked, a Glasgow collective putting out a plethora of very talented local ar tists exclusively on cassette tapes, says, “We decided to use tape as a medium for a few reasons really. We felt it was impor tant for the music to be collectable. Physically owning something, of which there are only a limited number made, gives the consumer a deeper connection to the music. Another reason is over saturation of online music distribution, it’s too easy to put something out digitally, but documenting it onto something real shows that we truly believe in what we’re putting out there. It’s permanent.” Now I’m not saying that listening to music on a computer exclusively is a bad thing. I just want to propose that it’s not the best thing. If we are to keep progressing musically then something physical has to stay. To put it in simple terms, if we keep losing the physical par t of our listening then can we be sure there will be anything left to listen to? This is not to say that we are not going in the right direction.
Record sales are the highest for many years and the good work of labels like Handpicked and Astral Black force us to broaden our horizons in order to own their music. I mean, we probably all remember buying our first CD, record or cassette. Feeling that the piece of music that you had wanted for so long was finally yours. I think we will suffer as a musical community if we lose this feeling. To take this argument to it’s logical conclusion: I don’t think I would have ran home to listen to Don’t Call Me Baby if it was a file on my iTunes and not on my newly purchased Now That’s What I Call Music! 45 cassette.
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DISCO ON A BUDGET ALTHOUGH MUCH OF THE 2000’S HAD SEEN MANY PEOPLE ABANDON HARDWARE LIKE THESE MACHINES ALTOGETHER FOR SOFTWARE EMULATION, THERE HAS BEEN A RESURGENCE OF PROFESSIONALS AND HOBBYISTS ALIKE SEEING THE APPEAL OF THE NEW HARDWARE AVAILABLE.
Felix Welch & Ian Hall It's safe to say that no matter what genre, what style, you will have heard them in their various forms, probably without even realising it. Drum machines have been leaving their indelible mark on the landscape modern music for over 30 years. This year celebrates the 30th anniversary of what are undoubtedly two of the most impor tant milestones in modern electronic music. In 1983, the Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI for shor t) was released as an international standard protocol for all forms of musical instruments to allow them to 'talk' to each other, sync tempos, play notes and control parameters of other midi- enabled devices, like pitch bend etc. In the same year Roland Corporation (A Japanese electronics manufacture) released the Roland TR-909, one of the first drum machine/ sequencers to use this new Interface. This machine helped to shape the house sounds of Chicago and the techno sounds of Detroit and laying the foundation for a huge por tion of the music we are still hearing today from pop and garage to IDM ar tists like Aphex Twin, but the story didn't just star t here... The concept of drum machines are nothing new. One of the first examples was the
Rhythimcon invented in 1931 by Russian inventor LĂŠon Theremin, who also invented one of the first electronic instruments the eponymous Theremin. The device created basic rhythmic pulses that could be crudely arranged that would otherwise be impossible for musicians to play. This concept formed into some of the first commercially available 'rhythm machines' which mainly found use as rudimentary accompaniment tools for church organ musicians in the 1950's and 1960's. It wasn't until the late seventies when models such as Roland's CR-78 found use with groups such as Blondie, Ultravox, Roxy Music and was one of the first widely used machines that allowed users a degree of control through step sequencing but it wasn't until two years later that Roland would release one of the two main machines that would shape the sounds of countless genres for decades to come. The Roland TR-808 used all-analogue circuitry and was released at the same time as the Linn >
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LM-1 invented by Roger Linn, which was one of the first machines available to offer realistic digitally sampled drums and was used in hundreds of pop songs. Prince famously bought one of the first available and used it in most of his work from the 80's (Listen to 1999, you'll get the idea) and it was also used for New Wave acts such a The Human League and Giorgio Moroder's work on the soundtrack for Scarface. But whilst the LM-1 cost what would be and insane £11000 in today's money, the 808 only cost only £2600. With a 16-step sequencer that allowed a user to program in their own beats without needing any musical knowledge, it became a firm favourite within musical communities and producers as a cheap source of drum tracks with an instantly recognisable sound. This made it popular with budding producers. It's release also came in conjunction with the decline of disco which was diversifying away from the traditional elements and ar tists were experimenting with more and more electronic sounds. One of the first commercial examples of it's use was with Tracks such as 'Sexual Healing' by Marvin Gaye and 'Planet Rock' by Afrika Bambaataa in 1981 (the latter being one of the first electro tracks). This went on to inspire early electro groups such as Juan Atkins' group Cybotron and laid the foundation for Detroit techno.
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The 808 also helped to create some of the early house records coming out of Chicago such as 'On And On' by Jesse Saunders which in turn was inspired by the evolution of disco and the italodisco coming from Europe at the same time, using the same DIY mentality. These ar tists using the machine were ar tists trying to make Disco music without the luxury of session musicians or large studios, much in the same vein as producers in the US. One track, Problèmes D'amour by Alexander Robotnik, which came out the same year as Cybotron's influential track and the producer stated in an interview that: "Giampiero, the head of Materiali Sonori (Records), pushed me to make some disco music, because we were both broke. "We can make easy money with disco music," he said to me. "Just put a bass drum in four/four and you sell 10,000 copies!" So I worked on a disco track with my cheap electronic equipment. The track was "Problèmes d'Amour." Anyway, I was disappointed by the results of "Problèmes." We sold just 10,000 copies, so it was the minimum figure, as I said above. And I star ted to be involved in different things. But some years later I understood that the track had an impressive influence on dance music and it was a cult track for some DJs. In the end it's better like this. It's not bad to have a song that is still relevant for the scene."
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Another user of the 808's bass- heavy kick and characteristic percussion were early hip hop groups such as The Beastie Boys, N.W.A. (who first formed as an electro group), other west-coast ar tists like The Egyptian Lover, genres like Miami Bass (which included act like 2 Live Crew) and in turn southern rap (and Trap a modern, more 'dance music' based version of these 808 heavy sounds). One of the idiosyncrasies that helped spread the machines appeal was when it was discontinued to make way for it's successor, the TR-909. The units became even cheaper to purchase second-hand as their sound had fallen out vogue, only to resurge in recent years. The 909’s original form was very similar the 808, being a 16-step sequencer, but with the addition of not only analogue but sample sounds, it became the go to tool that has been the constant staple for the best par t of 30 years. It's ubiquitous sound can be heard everywhere, be it in rise of early techno and house giving rise to names like Jeff Mills and his contemporaries to pop and any number of the sub genres formed around them.
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Especially in recent years, with a renewed interest in garage and deep house, and fur ther crosspollination in pop with acts like Disclosure. It's sound has genuinely made an almost subliminal mark across generation whilst it's original popularity was much for the same reasons as the 808, it's the sounds that keep it relevant, both in a nostalgic sense for the familiar, but also producers working within familiar sounds. Of course most don't use the original machines, opting for softwares or samplers. Although much of the 2000's had seen many people abandon hardware like these machines altogether for software emulation, there has been a resurgence of professionals and hobbyists alike seeing the appeal of the new hardware available. Clones of both machines are available, or new analogue gear from the creators of past equipment (such as Roger Linn's new Tempest, used in Karenn's live show) or smaller affordable clones of past machines (the MFB 503 and 522 by a small german manufacturer MFB being a great example) to newer addition such as Korg's Volca range of beat boxes are allowing new producers to get into the DIY side of music all over again. Illustrations by Ross Dinnett.
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SOCIAL MEDIA AND THE FIGHT AGAINST MUSIC INDUSTRY SEXISM Adam Sorice
While I have little personal experience to back up the theory, I sometimes get the impression that being a woman in the music industry might not be the easiest job in the world. For, despite recent scientific advances in the impor tant areas of space exploration, nuclear power and vegan ‘bacon’, no one seems to have solved the secret to being a rock star and a girl at the same time. From having to deal with inevitably doomed romantic entanglements to being endlessly reminded by the media that you’re morbidly obese because you’re bigger than an XXS, writing a memorable hook for your latest song appears to be the least of most female musician’s problems. On top of all that, women in music also seem to enjoy the convenient double standard of always being the fall guy for shitty situations. (Or fall girl, rather.) From Yoko to Miley, the world of music has taught us that if something’s gone tits up then it’s usually easiest to blame the person with the tits. (And definitely not the middle-aged man dressed like Beetlejuice that she’s grinding into.)
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This seems to extend into the realm of sexual objectification (that’s ‘treating a person as if they were just a jiggly mass of sexy flesh’ for you nonwordy types) and so when women are treated like the frothing-sex-demons that they generally aren’t, they’re expected to just roll with the programme. In the eyes of the media, sexism only becomes sexism when someone’s offended and so women are typically por trayed as the ones who ‘can’t take a joke’ and end up ruining all the fun of the ‘wellmeaning’ misogynistic wankers. Luckily, there are women in the music industry who appear to have reached their bullshit quota with this kind of thing. Enter Lauren Mayberry, lead singer of Glaswegian synthpop trio CHVRCHES, who recently took a stand on social media against an on-going stream of tweets, emails and messages from gentleman callers offering her a night of passionate embrace. Following a decidedly ‘get-tofuck‘ cease and desist Facebook update, currently clocking in at 6,200+ likes, Mayberry then featured on the Guardian’s website, reiterating her refusal to accept online misogyny. Exploring the malicious logic behind the countless messages offering everything from taking ‘the girl singer’ out for dinner to full-on anal rape, Mayberry questioned why women in music feel culturally obliged to blindly ignore the sexist abuse hurled at them simply because social media and the net are so necessary for musical success in today’s multimedia market. (Spoilers: they shouldn’t.) Similarly, former Dresden Doll Amanda Palmer decided to take a rather unique stand against that much-loved British institution, the Daily Mail, earlier this summer when the publication ran a story about a minor wardrobe malfunction during her Glastonbury set. Entitled: ‘Making a boob of herself!’, the piece of Pulitzer-wor thy journalism chronicled the narrative of Palmer’s absconded breast throughout the show, complete with pictures and video. In response, Palmer composed a musical reply called ‘Dear Daily Mail’, performing the song a few weeks later at one of her London tour dates. Encouraging audience members to film the performance, the ar tist sardonically undercut the Mail’s culture of cellulite, sex and celebrity before disrobing mid-song to reveal herself completely exposed before her fans. Attempting to calm the celebratory uproar, Palmer can be heard shouting, ‘Shh, it’s just a naked woman!’ The stunt appears to have fur ther vindicated Palmer’s cultural battle cry (‘They don’t know that we are the media’) as the
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multiple versions of the performance have amassed well over 1.5 million hits on YouTube and even lead to Palmer being interviewed on BBC’s Newsnight to discuss the viral success of her musical ‘fuck you’. The fight against sexism escalated even fur ther with the recent release of Lily Allen’s comeback single ‘Hard Out Here’, the song’s video both resplendent with sideways jabs at the double standards of the music industry and a viral hit. Lines such as ‘Don’t you want to have somebody who objectifies you? Have you thought about your butt, who’s going to tear it in two?’ clearly take aim against the misogynistic culture reflected in songs such as Robin Thicke’s ‘Blurred Lines’, culminating in the chorus’ judgement that ‘it’s hard out here for a bitch’. While ‘Hard Out Here’ is not the entire solution to modern sexism, equally entangled with its own issues of product-placement and gender politics, the fact that the effects of sexism are now fair game for songwriters suggests that the problem is no longer being swept under the cultural carpet. While the solution may sadly not be as quick a fix as ‘let’s all star t treating each other with respect’, musicians such as Mayberry, Palmer and Allen seem to be on the right track. While recent equality campaigns against sexism and misogyny appear to have gravitated towards the format of the Facebook page, anonymously reciting distressing experiences suffered by innocent people to the effect of technological group therapy, direct action may instead provide more meaningful results in the long term. As recent events on campus have shown, allowing sexist behaviour to go unchallenged can create a culture of acceptability that can reach far into even the university’s establishment. By calling out behaviour as sexist a small par t of the power stripped from the victims of sexist bullshit can be regained, reminding them (and us) that sexism is not their fault. And in the world of pop music, women desperately need to regain their fair share of the power. For all the out-and-out awfulness of the Daily Mail and sad, lonely men that have to abuse quasifamous people to get their kicks, an alarming chunk of pop music seems eager to popularise the presumption that women are indeed perma-sexed and desperate. If the por trayal of female sexuality in new media is plagued with ‘blurred lines’, spaces of cultural ambiguity into which sexism feels able to circulate without critique, then perhaps it is up to empowered women within the music industry to put themselves out there and define new boundaries that are more definite.
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GREEN TECHNOLOGY AT GLASGOW UNIVERSITY Laura Allen
The Glasgow University Environmental Sustainability Team (GUEST) is a group of students working with the University to improve its green credentials through a combination of infrastructure and policy changes, as well as focusing on changing attitudes and behaviour. We work closely with the carbon management committee and the Green Champions and aim to provide a fresh approach to communicating environmental issues within the university community. Plans are currently underway for the future development of the Gilmorehill Campus following the purchase of 15 acres of land from the Western Infirmary site. The objectives of this redevelopment include “creating a sustainable estate with demanding carbon reduction targets” which will par tially be achieved through the adoption of green technology. One of the first plans in the redevelopment is to install a Combined Heat and Power (CHP) plant. The Carbon Trust states that the average fossil fuel electrical generator is only around 40% efficient at conver ting fuel to electricity, with the remaining energy lost mostly as heat. By harnessing this heat CHP plants can achieve up to 80% efficiency, saving money and reducing fuel waste. CHPs can be powered by a variety of fuels and are often used in conjunction with other renewable technologies. Still in the design process, the CHP is expected to generate around 1.5-2 Megawatts of electricity, making up around one quar ter of the University’s energy demand and saving about 2000 tons of carbon per year, making it a fantastic development. Research has been carried out into the feasibility of miniature versions of these CHP systems, known as microCHPs, for domestic use. Larger CHP plants have a range of engine types to choose from, often using steam turbines, gas turbines or internal combustion engines. However a more modern engine design, known as the Stirling engine, is usually chosen for the smaller models. The difference with the Stirling engine is that combustion takes place outside the engine and the heat is exchanged through the engine wall. Gaseous air or helium inside the engine expands and contracts in response to the temperature change providing the mechanical thrust for the piston. MicroCHPs have the potential to be controlled
electronically on demand while the by-products of the electricity production - hot water and hot air can be used for heating rooms. As microCHPs are much smaller, they provide a feasible, lower carbon source of domestic power as well as being por table, so could supply power in remote locations. We also hope to see the creation of Green Roofs on several of the flat-topped University buildings. GUEST are currently looking into potential sites and funding for this project. Benefits of Green Roofs include reducing flooding, insulating buildings, and providing habitat for biodiversity. Installing a green roof involves putting a good waterproof, root-repellent membrane in place to protect the building, followed by a drainage layer, filter membrane and finally a light growing medium usually 10-30cm of soil. Green roofs can be planted with seed-rich grasses and bee-friendly wildflowers, with some ambitious designs even opting for trees “MicroCHPs (Combined Heat and Power plants) are much smaller, they provide a feasible source of domestic power and could set a new trend for lower carbon domestic energy supply.” and shrubs, leading to an increase in the habitat available for a wide range of organisms; such as beetles and grasshoppers, worms, spiders and birds. Plants on the roof help capture atmospheric carbon dioxide while also insulating the building.Research in Canada found that heat loss from buildings in winter could be reduced by 10-30% while several other studies concludes that green roofs can provide effective winter insulation. GUEST is a diverse depar tment, current projects include sustainable food, transpor t and recycling projects as well as a community garden at Willowbank and a wildlife garden behind the QMU. We run regular events and workshops as well as offering general advice, so if this interests you, check out our Facebook page or get in touch: glasgowuniversityest@gmail.com.
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TECHNOLOGY ON THE RUNWAY Zsofia Dobak
In 2011 Christopher Bailey, the CEO of Burberry, expressed his views on technology: “We use digital technology as a platform to communicate to the world. We are doing an event here in Beijing, but we are live streaming to the whole world. And that’s what I think digital technology enables you to do, it enables you to connect the world and make it a smaller place”. He made these comments on the breathtakingly modern Beijing fashion show, one of the biggest internationally. A 155-year-old luxury brand, which is famous for keeping traditions and being “very British”, put on a futuristic show on stage at the Beijing Television Centre. Models had a hologram-projected version of themselves interacting and overshadowing them on the runway. There were high-tech visuals from floor to ceiling, showing images that were highly animated and out of this world. It wasn’t just a fashion show; it was a digital drama piece that left viewers in awe. Burberry is not the only label that strives to continually impress their audience; Ralph Lauren celebrated its 10th year of digital innovation in 2010 with an incredible 4D show, projected on the façade of the Ralph Lauren store in Madison Avenue, New York. 3-D giant polo players broke through the wall and appeared as though it was coming towards the audience, and 4-storey tall models glided towards the crowd. Photos and products were displayed in 3-D and at the end Ralph Lauren himself waved out of the projected window. David Lauren, son of the company’s founder, talked about the mind-blowing collision of fashion, ar t and technology: “‘It’s game changing - it blows my mind - it changes the way we look at architecture; it will change retail, movies, adver tising, everything”. Clearly, fashion shows are now an indispensable par t of the fashion industry. Nowadays, big luxury fashion brands compete to deliver the most modern, exciting and unique experience at their shows, meaning they compete to be more revolutionary, using more advanced technology to create an unforgettableshow. But where did this all star t? Where and when were the first fashion shows,and how did they look without technology? Of course it all star ted in the ‘chic’ Paris, around the 1800s, as fashion parades in couture salons.
However, we can thank American retailers who impor ted the concept of fashion shows in the early 1900s. One of first fashion shows potentially showcased outfits by the Ehrlich Brothers in New York in 1903. To give you an impression of the early fashion shows, I picked one of the biggest, most luxurious brands to demonstrate: Chanel. As it is known, Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel held fashion shows in her house at the turn of the 20th century. Imagine that you are an influential person in the fashion industry during this era. You receive a hand-written invitation to a closed fashion show at Coco Chanel’s home. When you arrive, you see well-dressed men and women seated on chairs. You greet the people you know, and take a seat with them. At the end of the show, all models are standing in a row, and Coco herself comes to greet you and ask your personal opinion on the outfits. Can you imagine just how different fashion shows were during that period? Thanks to technological innovation, not just the aesthetics of fashion shows has changed, but its accessibility too. The Burberry show in Beijing made it possible for thousands of people to watch it in person, as well as streaming live all over the world. Now it is not just those in the fashion industry that have direct access to this, 3-D giant polo players broke through the wall and appeared as though it was coming towards the audience, and 4-storey tall models glided towards the crowd. Photos and products were displayed in 3-D and at the end Ralph Lauren himself waved out of the projected window but ordinary people with technological devices and the internet can gain accessibility to fashion shows. It is now not just renowned fashion designers that have the ability to show their talents, but new designers and brands also have the oppor tunity to do so too.
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HOW TECHNOLOGY AFFECTS OUR STYLE CHOICES IN EVERYDAY LIFE Anastasia Moneva
We are defined as the generation of information. Technology is all around us, often building up our bridge to the real world. It defines the way we learn, communicate, think, create and even the way we look. Fashion has been influenced significantly by technology in the past few decades. The runway has transformed into a spectacle of lighting and graphic visualization, inhabited by creatures of technology. We are living in a time when big retro headphones are the perfect accessories, metallic and neon colours are integrated in techno patterns and robots have invaded the fashion world. Nowadays fashion has been conquered by the mobile world. The biggest mobile phone manufacturers such as Apple, Samsung, HTC, Nokia compete to create the most functional and visually appealing smar tphones. Incrusted with diamonds, Swarovski stones; customized with stickers; diverse in colours and shapes, mobile phones became one of the best accessories, accentuating individuality and personal style. They can even change “outfits” according to the owner’s desires- many famous brands such as Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Dolce and Gabbana dress up the apparatus in luxury and elegance. There are more extravagant choicesour phones may become a plastic incarnation of a Disney character. In order to complete the outfit, the smar tphone plays the role of a fashion chameleon, giving us the final touch. I remember how a couple of years ago the collision between the retro tendencies and the impact of technology merged into the creation of the handset for mobile phones, inspired by the 20s desktop rotary. This accessory surely makes a statement and comes in different colours and patterns and moreover, highlights the impor tance of the mobile phone to the overall outfit. This tendency has been forgotten in the past years, but as more traditional yet applicable technological accessories, the headphones are still used to give a more vivid vibe to our spor ty looks. The future of technology is folded in the conception of robotics. Many futuristic movies and novels represent an alternative future world inhabited by robots. Most people have that image of robots
as metallic people-like technologies with ar tificial intelligence, shiny and metallic, mostly silver. Fashion as a progressively influential ar t sphere is also influenced by robotics and this par ticular image of robots. Vivid colour patterns, metals, minimalism, sense of coldness and severity. Slim outfits in metallic colours that favour the body curves have creatively attacked the runway. High fashion brands such as Burberry, Versace and Gucci are touched by the notion of robotics, including long trench coats shining with metallic gleam and see-through bags in They can even change “outfits” according to the owner’s desires- many famous brands such as Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Dolce and Gabbana dress up the apparatus in luxury and elegance. neon colours. A more traditional approach to this is over taken by street fashion brands such as H&M, Zara and ASOS, including pencil silver skir ts, silver sandals, metallic neon colours and technological patterns. The overall robotic look is achieved through highly stylized hair, emphasizing on the face contours and using bright eye shadows. Other accessories such as metallic nail and lip stickers and touch screen watches add yet another robotic-like layer to the outfit. Technology is all around and as its influence in our lives grows with an unbelievable speed. If I try to foretell the future impact it will have on fashion, my opinion would be unintentionally based on perceptions created by cinema. Movie classics such as “Star Wars”, “Star Trek”, “The Matrix” create the notion of fashion in the future world as completely dictated by robotics. Unfolding our imagination even more, we will probably wear digital glasses instead of having phones and computers, and we could even use hologram-based clothes instead of actual ones. But let`s exit this sci-fi reality for now and take a look at our own. The magical wand of technology progressively transforms fashion in its own favour. It has bewitched the way we see the world incorporating itself into every each aspect of our everyday life. We live in a world where the latest iPhone is the most desired fashion accessory and minimalism dictates our fashion choices.
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For this issue, we thought it would be interesting to experiment a little with the fashion editorial. With the theme of technology, we wanted to take things back to basics, keeping it simple by focusing on key elements such as shape, texture and composition.
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Photography: Harrison Reid Art Direction and Styling: Leila Khoshoie Models: Bronwyn Mackay, Claire Bryce and Eilidh McKendrick @ Colours Agency Makeup: Hollie Ella Burgoyne and Rona Skuodas Hair Styling: James Cadle and Jo Gray @ West End Hair Outfits: Rebecca Torres (Prices available on request) Styling Assistant: Kirstin Ross Shot on location @ the Lighthouse, Glasgow. Special thanks to the Lighthouse staff for their generous hospitality and support.
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FASHION AND SOCIAL MEDIA Carolyn Paterson
Fashion is built upon change and innovation. In the 21st century this change is not only present in cutting-edge pieces or forward thinking designers, but also in the way that fashion operates. As the world evolves through the electronic age, the way that fashion is created by and shared with millions throughout the world has undergone a radical transformation. Technology has enabled search engines to become the new scrapbooks for budding fashionistas. Instant access to information has allowed many to broaden their style horizons. Every major fashion movement is available to us at the click of a button, from punk to rockabilly to harajuku. People are no longer restricted to the trends detailed in fashion magazines but are able to have access to unlimited inspiration. One of the ways in which people can get this information is by looking at the style choices of others. There is a plethora of street style blogs which document the individual style choices of people around the world. They present real people pushing the fashion boundaries, providing them with an outlet to express their individual styles that may not have necessarily been initially available. The Street Style phenomenon has democratised fashion by creating a new generation of style icons. The fashion blogger is equally, if not more, influential to current fashion trends than choices made by celebrities. One of the biggest websites of this kind is Lookbook. It describes itself as a ‘collective fashion consciousness’ and ‘the number one source of fashion inspiration from real people throughout the world’. It is a platform for real people to document their daily style choices and is updated daily which hundreds of images. One of the most interesting aspects of sites such as Lookbook is the way that they have changed the way societies think about what constitutes as fashion. Instead of viewing it as a fleeting trend – based concept, based on a key ‘look’ or aesthetic every season, we now view fashion as something beyond trends. Fashion is, in my opinion, a term now synonymous with personal style and self -expression. Fashion is predominantly thought of, more broadly than ever before, as something inherent to our individual identities; a way of expressing ourselves in our own unique way. Technology has also had an impact on the way that
trends are created. Social Media sites like Tumblr allow the individual to be their own designer and to generate trends for the fashion industry to act upon. In the digital age, we are likely to be influenced by images seen online in addition to glossy editorials presented in fashion magazines, and perhaps this form of expression might over take print in its influence. An example of this is the resurgence of vintage and retro clothing. Instead of viewing it as a fleeting trend – based concept, based on a key ‘look’ or aesthetic every season, we now view fashion as something beyond trends. These social media platforms promote a large collection of vintage fashion and are responsible for some of the biggest fashion trends in the last few years. “Must have” items such as high- waisted Levi shor ts and oversized denim jackets were little repor ted in fashion magazines but were incredibly popular on various social media sites, allowing them to become more desirable than the clothing displayed in more conventional publications. Therefore, social media now plays a leading role in discovering and repor ting fashion trends. The impor tance of visual fashion images can be seen in other forms of social media such as Instagram and Pinterest, which allow people to post pictures of clothing pieces they have purchased or would like to purchase. If the same item is posted by many different people, it seems to achieve “cult” like status and becomes incredibly popular. Also, people can post pictures of themselves modelling their latest buys. These images can often become inspiration for others, encouraging them to buy similar items and wear them in a similar way. Instagram and Pinterest transform individuals into online personal stylists, whose posts provide inspiration for both themselves and others, thus leading to the creation of new fashion trends. Technology is one of the most powerful forces behind fashion today. It opens up a previously insular industry and instead creates a collective fashion community, one that is inclusive and accessible. It allows us not only to find out about the latest trends, but also to play an active role in shaping and formulating them.
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I SWEAR I’M REAL IRL Adam Gill
How is the notion of authenticity negotiated within a post-digital age? The question may seem a strange one at this point in time, especially considering how the supposed power of an original source comes under fire when information can be transferred and reproduced with a single click. Not to mention the very visible ways in which identities may be self-consciously constructed through technologies and through social media (giving the general public access to tools of representation akin to the imaging of celebrities). Never theless, where identity is concerned it seems that authenticity stubbornly persists. Despite how we might think of ourselves as self-consciously performing a constructed identity through forms such as the selfie or media like Facebook, there remains a very human inclination to hope for the presence of a real person underneath an onslaught of images. Obsessive fandom aside, why else would millions of followers care about getting a glimpse into Miley Cyrus’ private bir thday celebrations? It is this claim to authenticity that Birmingham based ar tist Mathew Parkin interrogates, par ticularly within digital media and queer culture, in his solo exhibition One Touch at the Telfer Gallery. It is difficult to neatly tie up the ar tist’s project as multiple references are simultaneously at play. However this disordered character compliments the complex and often contradictory contemporary identities Parkin is working through. A leitmotif of One Touch is spor tswear. Trainers are propped up against walls and tracksuits make appearances throughout the environment as well as in some of the shor t videos on loop. For example, a blue cur tain decorated with three white stripes hangs in the center of the gallery, recalling the leg of a pair of Adidas track pants. Parkin isn’t so much interested in perpetuating branding though as he is in questioning the way stable brand identity is taken for granted. The ease, laidback attitude and class associations of the iconic logo are brought into question when superimposed against a wall completely covered in equally iconic Burberry plaid. Both Adidas and Burberry fill a par ticular niche within a broader fashion market and construct specific identities for their consumers. By likening the two labels, Parkin imbues them with a degree of interchangeability and asks just how authentic the identities they uphold and adver tise really are.
Also present in the installation is a large monitor, sitting atop a Reebok shoebox, looping a series of videos. One of these features a young man, speaking directly to the camera, describing his experiences on the gay hookup app Grindr. He recounts the surreal moment of meeting a man in real life after chatting with him online, the difference between encountering him face to face and the public persona constructed encountered via the Internet. However, in telling the viewer his story through and framed by such media himself, the subject of the video ends up implicated in the very process of identity construction through representation that he is recounting. The theme of desire (especially desire between men) in digital media is apparent within the video loop. Another man appears on the screen, as if he is filming himself on webcam. Soon though his face is obscured with a second video, a pink tinted vintage porno featuring a burly, hyper-masculine star. It’s unclear whether the initial man we saw is also watching the sexy video that now blocks him from our view. What is clear is that the realm of desire (the pornographic video) becomes a two Despite how we might think of ourselves as self-consciously performing a constructed identity through forms such as the selfie or media like Facebook, there remains a very human inclination to hope for the presence of a real person underneath an onslaught of images dimensional cock-block in accessing the man behind the screen. If desire has significance in the way identity is performed (as is historically the case for the development of a gay identity), here the image of desire just ends up confusing and hiding any sense of an authentic identity altogether. The presence of the viewer also has significance in the unfolding of the video however and highlights the double role of the computer screen. We can think of the screen as either an impenetrable surface, as a vir tual space of representation, but also as a point of contact between individuals and a space of interaction. Although the screen of pornographic imagery may cover the man behind it in one way, it is also the place where our desire as viewer meets his. Although such a meeting may not be easily categorized as “authentic”, it is definitely a point of real affective and subjective response.
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ART AND THE INTERNET
Anna Smith
When I began to research this ar ticle, the first thing I did was type ‘online galleries’ into Google expecting lists and lists of interesting links to appear, how wrong I was… For a practice that relies almost solely on the Internet for its dispersal I was surprised how long it took me to locate contemporary online galleries. Maybe this is simply a reflection on my terrible search skills, but still, I was surprised by how little appeared in my search results. I proceeded to the then type in ‘ar t + internet’ to no avail. After trolling the Internet, I eventually came across sources, which then enabled me to be diver ted to blogs, forums that eventually led me to the websites I was looking for. As an ar t history student with an interest in avant-garde ar t one would assume that I would have at least a grasp of what 21st century avant-garde ar t practice consisted of ? Personally, I thought I was relatively well versed in what constituted contemporary ar t, until I began to read more about online ar t galleries and the ar t they often promote, net.ar t.
Picture – Rosa Menkman, The Collapse of PAL (2011)
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The BBC ar ts editor, Will Gomper tz published an ar ticle in 2010 stating, “It’s interesting that, as far as I am aware, no contemporary ar tist has yet harnessed this extraordinary technology [the Internet] to make a significant ar twork,” and to be honest, I had never put too much thought into the real possibilities of internet ar t either. For a practice that has been growing for almost two decades, it has only been privy to a fairly limited critical discourse, its marginalization only exacerbated by a lack of public awareness. One organization that has set out to critically engage with the vast possibilities of new technology and ar t is, Fur therfield. Set up in 1997, the organization adheres to a fairly ambitious motto: ‘For ar ts, technology and social change’ – elements that seem to concern many in the Internet ar t movement. Involving both a bricks and mor tar gallery and an engaging website, Fur therfield attempts to unite both the real and the cyber. With numerous interviews, reviews and ar ticles on its website, this project represents one of the few platforms from and with which the growing number of ar tists interacting with new technologies can have their work seen and voices heard Other, Internet galleries include: or-bits.com and bubblbyte.org, who, like Fur therfield use both their Internet gallery as well as traditional spaces to promote the ar tists they represent, allowing the works to be viewed ‘offline’ and available to a potentially wider audience. Ironically, it is the more traditional playground of the ‘real’ ar t gallery that seems to promote wider spectatorship, with big institutions such as the Tate Modern and the Centre Pompidou beginning to give some of these ar tists a platform through talks, events, and online projects. But, what actually is net.ar t? net.ar t, is work that deals primarily with digital ar tworks that engage with or are diffused or accessed via the Internet. The work of ar tist Jee Oh (represented by Or-bits gallery) engages with the role of the Internet through large scale installations. Her work Seed_1216976400 seeks to reflect the role software such as Wikipedia has played in forming our understanding of the world by ‘encrypting’ the processes onto large paper rolls. Other works are programmed or encoded in such a way that if you click on them, a new window pops up or affects the image in one way or another. However, when I attempted to open the ar tist Geoffrey Lillemon’s website, my ageing Mac inevitably crashed as I began to click…
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Other projects include the ongoing Field Broadcast project (organized by ar tists Rebecca Birch and Rob Smith) that began in 2010 in collaboration with the Ar ts Council for England, defining itself as “a live broadcast project connecting ar tists, audiences and obscure locations through the por tal of the computer desktop.” The viewer is encouraged to sign up to the specially designed software that will allow these broadcasts to pop up unannounced on their computer. A device that seems to mirror the incessant pop-ups that appear when attempting to stream an episode online, moving in and invading the viewer’s private space. This movement seems to truly embrace the philosophy of the avant-garde, operating within a marginal sphere of the established ar t world. However, it is precisely this aspect that concerns me. Is this movement, which places itself in an intellectual chronology that begins with Marcel Duchamp actually giving a new intellectual spin on what defines ar t? Or is it truly pushing the boundaries of our definitions of what ar t is even fur ther? Does its highly specialized language, bamboozling even the interested viewer, only press upon its potential inaccessibility? Perhaps the net.ar t movement is waiting for an audience better versed in I.T., a future generations more akin to its tech-language. On a personal level, I have to admit that I was not entirely convinced by everything I saw, the quality varying so drastically from ar tist to ar tist, that it became impossible to define these ar tists within a singular ‘net.ar t’ movement. However the ar t world has begun embrace web-based ar tists in recent years, I mean, it would be foolish not to considering the integral role the Internet plays in our everyday lives. http://www.jeeoh.info http://www.geoffreylillemon.info/ http://or-bits.com http://www.fieldbroadcast.org/ http://www.furtherfield.org/
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MACHINIST AESTHETICS SINCE IT IS CORRECT TO SAY THAT CULTURE IN ITS WIDEST SENSE MEANS INDEPENDENCE OF NATURE, THEN WE MUST NOT WONDER THAT THE MACHINE STANDS IN THE FOREFRONT OF OUR CULTURAL WILL-TO-STYLE … THE NEW POSSIBILITIES OF THE MACHINE HAVE CREATED AN AESTHETIC EXPRESSIVE OF OUR TIME, THAT I ONCE CALLED THE MECHANICAL AESTHETIC. – THEO VAN DOESBURG.
Lilly Markari Machine allusions in ar tistic expression may appear “as old as the wheel,” but it was in the aftermath of the Industrial Revolution that ar t appeared reinventing itself completely to arrive, through the medium of technology, to a new aesthetics. If you were alive during the second half of nineteenthcentury, especially, you would have witnessed a world in locomotion: telegraphy, the telephone, Edison’s lasting light-bulbs and motion picture camera, the first airplane and the automobile were all invented at that time. Absorbing this reality of total change, ar tists would soon engage in a set of powerful metaphors to interpret it. Around the turn of the century and in the First Machine Age, eighteenth-century ideals and glorification of nature had already faded, giving way to a new technological Sublime. In The Futurist Manifesto, splashed across the front page of Le Figaro on the 20th of February 1909, Marinneti would write: “We believe that this wonderful world has been fur ther enriched by a new beauty, the beauty of speed … a roaring motor car, which seems to race on like machine gun-fire, is more beautiful than the Winged Victory of Samothrace.” But the machine fixation was not to be exclusive to Futurism, nor to the visual ar ts for that matter – we encounter it not only in the ar t of figures as diverse as Léger, Duchamp, Picabia and Mondrian; but also in the writings of Joyce and Roussel; and, fur ther, in the architecture of LeCorbusier, Constructivism, and the Bauhaus, among others. One of the most compelling accounts of an ar tist being fascinated by the mechanical is, arguably, that by Léger, where he recalls a joint visit at the Paris Aviation Fair of October 1912: “Before World War I went to an exhibition with Marcel Duchamp and Brancusi. Marcel who was a dry kind of person and who had a sor t of intangible air about him, walked between the engines and propellers without saying
a word. Suddenly he turns to Brancusi: ‘Painting is dead. Who can create something better than these propellers? Can you?” The story gets, perhaps, more ludicrous, knowing that Duchamp did actually abandon painting, to introduce in 1913 his first readymade, namely the Bicycle Wheel. It was only two years later that the ar tist began his Large Glass, a construction which was to advance the machine metaphor even fur ther. Here, the industrial elements of glass, lead, oil and dust are combined together to create a machine which speaks of desire: the top glass panel is the Bride’s domain, where she stands alone and blossomy; while in the lower panel, her bachelors call upon her, somewhat frustrated, as they are unable to truly reach her. Of course, like the erotic act which it allegorizes, the Large Glass was never completed – and yet, unfinished as it is, it does not fail in hinting that, in the age of total mechanization, love, too, repudiates humanity. Indeed, the preoccupation with machinist aesthetics did not always translate into feelings of optimism about the direction the world was taking. This provides with an excuse to move towards relatively more recent affairs, leaving (sadly) ar tists like Cage and Warhol out of this discussion. The year is 1979, and the occasion is Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker: the film takes place at a time when the glory of Industrial Revolution is already past and men exist in a condition of pover ty and hazards; their only hope is the Zone, a place where one’s most iner t desires are said to become realized. Following Stalker’s journey from his hometown and into the Zone we are made observers of a landscape in decay, littered by abandoned industrial materials, and where sounds of machinery still echo. Machinist aesthetics configure, here, a scenery of ruins. Speaking of Stalker, I can’t help but note that, that the Zone is the locus of hope in the film, seems to me somewhat ironic, for “Zone” is also the title of a poem published in 1913, in which Guillaume
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‘Here, This is Steiglitz Here’ by Francis Picabia (1915) Apollinaire, full of hope and excitement for modernity, writes: ‘Twentieth pupil of the centuries he knows what he’s about, And the century, become a bird, climbs skywards like Jesus.’ Whether machinist aesthetics appeal to you or not, is obviously for you to decide. Given, however, that
in the present day the boundaries between technology and nature appear evidently dissolving – our generation being often defined as that of “cyberspace” – it seems fair to say that, we too, must at least consider our relationship to the mechanical. As remarked by McLuchan, “there is absolutely no inevitability as long as there is a willingness to contemplate what is happening!”
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30TH CENTURY MAN Jack Flower
Iain M. Banks, the ‘M’ in the name to differentiate his works of science fiction from his crime writing, passed away on the 9th of June this year. His work was extremely impor tant to the science-fiction field on numerous levels. Fully reviving the sub-genre of space opera with his first piece of SF, ‘Consider Phlebas’, he saved an ar t form which had fallen foul through a process of dumbing down by commercial works like the Star Wars saga. The author showed that you could have operatic writing, huge explosions and strange aliens, without leaving the readers’ intellect feeling cheated. Throughout his various novels, he managed to create a vision which was not only interesting for its far-reaching view on technology, but also for its people and the complicated social interactions that take place when the norms and restrictions of contemporary humanity have been removed. One of the most impressive par ts of Banks’ writing was his creation of a future civilization with no government or a set of laws, which somehow still works. The Culture, a pan-human society formed when seven or eight loosely related humanoid species consciously entered a union, is the place the protagonist of ‘The Player of Games’ calls home. The civilization stretches thinly over a vast area of space with the majority of citizens living on mega-structures called Orbitals, ten million kilometers-long diameter rings floating freely in space, an existence where planet-based life is dismissed as primitive. Humanity’s end state, as envisioned by Banks, is a form of a social anarchy. In Banks’ world, ar tificial intelligence has developed to a point of equal civil rights to biological humans. Your average Culture citizen however, is a far step ahead of us as well; they are so genetically altered that none of the diseases we take for granted affect them at all. While a full body sex change can be instigated at will with full acceptance of the society, highly altered, adrenal drug glands are possessed and freely used by each of its members. This connection between the future of science and extremely liberal views on gender and brain chemistry alteration dawns the reign of rationality, miraculously achieved in a society that exists without laws. Instead of abusing this level of freedom, the freedom itself acts as the regulator. ‘The Player of Games’ is an excellent example of all the above as it deals heavily with the extent of Cultures’ genofixing and, due to its superiority, a
strict policy which ensures that there is no direct interference with less-developed civilizations. One notable case is during a play of Azad, a game so complex that it completely defines the brutal Empire of Azad on every level; your job is awarded depending on how far you get in the yearly tournament and person who wins the ruthless game is proclaimed the Emperor of the intergalactic regime. It is considered so serious that some people offer body mutilation and servitude as wagers, the protagonist is challenged with the forfeit being his castration, in this case however he chooses to lose deliberately as he knows that due to genofixing his genitals will grow back. Banks’ utopian vision is something we all should hope can be realized in some form in humanity’s future. It makes a big change from the dystopian tech-addicted worlds of Gibson, or the completely devolved life of Aldiss’ work. Humanity’s end state, as envisioned by Banks, is a form of a social anarchy. In Banks’ world, artificial intelligence has developed to a point of equal civil rights to biological humans To achieve something similar to the Culture would require a great deal of common sense and rational thinking. As to the field of science-fiction, his work was impor tant for so many reasons, reviving and lending a tone of seriousness to the genre, all with an excitement of things yet to be. As a writer by no means he should be labeled a niche ar tist; he enjoyed commercial success in mainstream fiction novels. Banks’ passion and delight in bringing life to science-fiction, however, lies, in his words as an ‘enormous freedom, you can just go anywhere and do anything’.
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FREEDOM OF PRESS IN THE ERA OF TECHNOLOGY Connor Belshaw
It seems like not a day goes by that I escape the prompt to extol the evils of Ruper t Murdoch and the News Corporation or Lord Viscount’s Daily Mail. Whether it be the phone-hacking scandal, the recent character assassination of Ralph Miliband, or Fox News’ specific brand of lowest common denominator conservatism; it seems that those on the right of the political-media spectrum are inherently lacking the basic level of integrity required to responsibly inform the public on current events. Yet it’s not just conservative publications that are guilty of unfocused, shock-jock journalism either; even more liberal news sources such as The Guardian & Independent are found increasingly guilty of providing narrow, lacklustre accounts of social and political events, from the banking crisis to the situation in the Middle East. There is, however, an alternative; with new technologies providing the scope for independent journalists worldwide to give broader accounts of world events than mainstream news sources. A free press is fundamental to the functionality of any democracy, providing a check against governmental misdoings and abuses of power. Recently it seems, however, that the more I look, the less I find any semblance of freedom in the traditional media. As James Curran argues in his seminal essay on the history of press ownership, the standard liberal narrative of the free press, in which adver tising freed the press from the censorship of the government, is inherently flawed. The development of commercial ownership of the media, around the middle of the 19th century, ‘did not inaugurate a new era of press freedom: rather, it introduced a new system of press censorship more effective than anything that had gone before’. This development was used to effectively stamp out the bourgeoning radical journalism of the early 19th century in a way that previous libel laws and presstaxes never could. Proponents of the repeal of such restrictions at the time, such as The Spectator, argued that it would ‘increase access to ‘sound doctrines’ by reducing newspaper price’ and thus ‘reduce ignorance’. By replacing radical perspectives and serious political criticism with ‘sound perspectives’, they argued, the newly ‘free’ media would become an effective tool of social control. The radical tradition of early Victorian Britain’s journalistic culture, in which periodicals such as The Nor thern Star in Glasgow and The London
Dispatch reflected viewpoints routinely ignored by parliament, was cur tailed by the increased cost of printing and its increasing dependence on adver tising as a key revenue stream. This led to a media landscape in which real criticism of government policy and the uneven structures of capitalism were replaced by sensationalised accounts of crime, celebrity and local affairs. Moreover, all serious political journalism was framed in a way, which promoted the, usually conservative, ideals of the adver tisers. It is in this environment which we currently find ourselves. An environment in which, for example, all mainstream media repor ting of the Israel-Palestine conflict is noticeably framed by Israeli political arguments and in which all discussion of austerity is conditioned by the neoliberal ‘only way’ rhetoric. However, all is not lost as the advent of the internet has given us the tools to read responsibly at our very finger tips. Whilst there is, unequivocally, a lot of nonsense on the internet and it’s difficult not to get lost in the infinite number of cat memes, we can use this glorious invention to act sceptically about things we read in the press and not be forced to take everything at face value. Resources such as openDemocracy, an online publication designed to stimulate global political discourses, or Al Jazeera Online, which provides an alternate perspective on worldwide issues to the standard Western narrative, can be utilised effectively to debunk some of the myths we are expected to accept on a daily basis by mainstream media sources. Of course, these are just limited examples and there are a multitude of sources from a multiplicity of standpoints we can peruse, as long as we remember to always think critically. The use of technology in political uprisings in Egypt and Syria to document government repression, as well as to work around the recent media blackout in Turkey, mark out the current generation of journalists providing an alternative to the sanitised pictures painted by the mainstream media. This is not to forget the likes of Edward Snowden revealing the extent of US government surveillance. Utilising new technology to provide real accounts of world events and bring to light indiscretions of governments worldwide, often at personal risk, can be seen as a return to the tradition of the Victorian journalist and welcomes the rebir th of the radical.
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DOES ‘TECHNOLOGY’ MEAN ‘PROGRESS’? Stuart Reid
Technology will make you feel differently depending on what first springs to mind when you hear the word. Maybe you think of technology as providing a fun way to fill leisure time or maybe of weapons development. Maybe you think of advances in medicine or of the ability of your government to track your online presence. Whatever your first association is, it is undeniable that it is all these things and more. Technology is the catch-all word we apply to such a vast array of computers, weapons, gadgets and gizmos that they can seem entirely disconnected. Our understanding of technological progress however cannot simply be that there are the helpful gadgets that we employ in our day to day life, mark our society as moving forward, when a significant por tion is designed to ever more cleverly cause harm and oppression. As the development of new technologies that can be used as weapons or to control populations continues, what matters is not that technology is good or bad in and of itself but that it is expensive. Because it is expensive it is controlled by those with power and used to seize resources from those with less. This applies from the manual worker whose job is made obsolete by mechanisation of the industry, to the Palestinian ever more effectively contained and controlled by a network of checkpoints, a wall of cameras, or motion sensors. Technology is completely uneven. We cannot have a notion of ‘progress’ as it relates to technology on its own. We definitely think that we have progressed since, say, the 1890s. Ask anyone. But how much of this progress do we relate to social and political developments that have improved social discourses and how much do we think of progress as the invention of shiny new toys. In 2007, the technological depar tment of G4S Israel signed a contract with the Israeli Prison Authority to provide security systems for facilities in the occupied territories. They have installed computerised control and monitoring systems, entrance and visitation control, CCTV and optic fibre communication as well as metal detector gates on prisons. They also supplied luggage and body scanning equipment to many of the various checkpoints that cut up what remains of Palestinian land and separate communities. These monitoring devices, and those like them that make up the
greater par t of the ‘separation wall’, are the tools by which Israel maintains its occupation of Palestine. This is technology as much as an iPad is. This is what needs to be remembered whenever we talk about technology and the word that follows it around: ‘progress’. It is uneven. As Apple invent ever more pleasing and intuitive ways of shooting little birds at little pigs, the Israeli military invents effective means of suppressing a population, quickly tested in the Palestinian territories. In 2012 Israel was the sixth largest expor ter of weapons in the world - it has a population of less than eight million people. So this is what we need to star t thinking of when we think about technology. Technology is not evil but we need to get away from the idea that all of its advances add up to solutions to political problems. Everyone wants progress, everyone wants the world to be a better place. The problem is that we have been sold, incredibly successfully, the idea that that is happening. What G4S do is sell technology to a government that discriminates against its own citizens, murders Palestinians and is in breach of the Geneva convention and countless UN resolutions. The Glasgow University Palestine Society wants to reconnect ‘progress’ with political action. Right now the University hold a contract with G4S for cash-intransit services. As par t of the global campaign for ‘Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions’ from the Israeli Occupation of Palestine, we want to reconnect students with political action. G4S sell their technology to Israel as par t of a political decision to place their profits above those of the lives of Palestinians. We want to show that, like Kings College London and Southampton University, the student body here want no par t in this oppression. When we stand up against oppression we can challenge the lie of progress through ‘technology’. Suppor t the call for BDS and suppor t the campaign to get G4S of campus. More information about GU PalSoc and the global call for BDS can be found here: http://gupalestinesociety.wordpress.com/ http://www.bdsmovement.net/
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‘FACTS’ IN A DIVIDED LAND Kate Regan
It is the night of Mohammad Assaf ’s Arab Idol victory; the air is humming with the steady blare of car horns and cries of celebration erupt from houses all over Palestine. Even if you hadn’t been following the posturing, glittering pan-Arab singing contest, it seems that everyone has tuned in to watch the wedding singer from Gaza become the unlikely winner of this huge competition. The fervour is infectious. Female members run back and for th in our housesehold, a blur of veiled movement conveying a communal feeling of elation: a pride in Palestine projecting a figure of talent and possibility instead of its usual wretched reality. I watch the final with 15-year-old Elat, eating nuts with our feet on stools and playing with the neighbour’s baby. The following day I meet Murad, Elat’s older cousin. He tells me about a summer-camp he is organising in memory of a friend shot dead in a neighbouring camp some months before. The boy had gone with friends to throw rocks at the army and ‘as he bent down to grab the stone, the army shot him in the head: he fell and did not get up again’. Ibrahim, another cousin, told me about the similar fate of a friend. Although close in age, Ibrahim is not political: he heeds his father’s warning and steers clear of confrontation with the army. Murad has thrown stones since he was twelve as his brothers before him: one was imprisoned for stone throwing and assumed radical aspirations. ‘He was imprisoned for a whole year. The army came to our home, tore it all up and did not let my sister see my brother before taking him away. My mother had a nervous breakdown afterwards. My father had to work and there was just myself, my sister, my mum and elder brother.’ According to Unicef, eight thousand Palestinian children have been arrested and detained since 2000, mostly for throwing stones. Stone throwing represents resistance at its most basic and immediate level. But I was intrigued by a wider culture of information disseminated amongst these same young men, and its permeation was unsettling. Both Ibrahim and Murad revealed beliefs in cer tain ‘truths’ spread via the Internet. I was asked on various occasions whether I knew the ‘the truth about Facebook’, an underground Zionist control over social-media being implied. I found this mindset not just in teenagers tending towards conspiracy theories; a respected community figure spouted similar jargon. As our conversation developed,
his utterly justified indignation at life in Palestine turned into an empty diatribe littered with absurd, aggressively anti-Semitic accusations, like that every war in Africa could find its origins in Israel. It was frustrating to hear: the dissemination of such nonsense can only be detrimental. YouTube searches yield a glut of ‘truth-per taining’ videos: ‘The Whole Story Of Zionist Conspiracy’, or ‘Obama and the plan for World War 3’ among others. One can laugh at absurd conspiracy theories, but there is a darker and more hateful perpetration of information which is wide-spread and through the internet becomes ubiquitous. When you live in a tented world where your freedom is impinged, your education lacking and a want of anything to do leads you to the internet cafes frequented by Murad and other young men, a bent global perspective is inevitable. In the hands of the most impressionable, this information is a real danger. Palestine is a climate of solid tension where extremism has been fostered in the past and to devastating ends. When you consider that Ayaat el Akhras, the only female-child suicide bomber in the history of the conflict came from Murad’s camp, this spread of false information becomes a formidable threat. The Arab Idol winner is intelligent and thoughtful. I hope he is one of many more positive representatives who will reveal to the world that Palestine must not be defined as a nation isolated by walls and terrorism. One hopes its rich history and cultural identity can go some way to disintegrate Internet bunkum and unite internal Palestinian intentions. Yet Murad remains resentful. Having celebrated Assaf ’s victory in Bethlehem with friends, I ask him how he felt, expecting an answer reflecting the buoyancy I found in others. ‘When Mohammad Assaf won, we were happy- but something was wrong. We could not celebrate, laugh and dance with other Palestinians. Why?’ I am about to close the interview, but he interjects, speaking in English‘No, I want to say something… money…[is] not everything, some people in Palestine have much money, but they cannot connect with their friends in Jerusalem and outside [the West Bank] because of the soldiers and Israel… [they] make life like this in Palestine. No freedom, no life.’ While one young Palestinian has found freedom through his voice, another generation remains unheard.
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INTERNET AND POLITICS; A TALK WITH JOE ROSPARS A LOT OF POLITICAL ORGANISATIONS STILL THINK OF [DIGITAL STRATEGY] AS A SOCIAL MEDIA OR A TECHNOLOGY CHANNEL. OVER TIME, EXPERIMENTATION WILL LEAD TOWARDS THE REALISATION THAT THERE ARE PEOPLE ON THE OTHER END. WE’RE JUST TRYING TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO BEST RELATE TO THEM.
Michael Borowiec The Internet and social media have changed every aspect of our lives; they have laid most of humanity’s accumulated knowledge at our very finger tips, while at the same time allowing us to escape the awkwardness of day-to-day situations by the soothing scroll of the Facebook app’s news feed. How then, I wonder, have they changed the way the West does politics? To get a definite answer, I chatted to Joe Rospars, founder and CEO at Blue State Digital, the American digital new media strategy firm famed for working with Barack Obama’s 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns. The firm’s por tfolio, however, doesn’t limit itself to American politics. Having contributed to François Hollande’s victory in France, or private sector work with Vogue and Britain’s 38 Degrees, they have led by example in utilising technology to bridge the gap between organisations and the individual, a process Joe believes is inherently beneficial for civil society.
implying greater political par ticipation. By the 2012 elections however, turnout was back in decline. I wonder then, if this data suggested the honeymoon period between technology and politics is over. Joe disagrees, ‘I think that technology, digital and general, tends to amplify a moment and 2008 was a very special moment.’ Here, Joe is referring to the big concerns that plagued the election course; economic collapse, failing war in Iraq, and the general dissatisfaction with the Republican administration. ‘I think what we saw [in 2012] was that African-American turnout, youth turnout was up and those were the places where our organisation focused to try and make a difference, so I think its actually that because 2012 was less of a moment, ends up more a proof point why our organisation matters.’ The primary example suppor ting this is that Mitt ‘Binders-Full-OfWomen’ Romney remains out of office.
‘I think the promise is that a lot of people can get involved’ begins Joe. Although we have just begun, he immediately turns to the possible dangers the wide reach of technology can pose in politics; ‘I think the danger is that the fringe can mobilise a lot of its people, you can see an overrepresentation of [fringe’s] activity because of its intensity.’ This rings true if we consider the recent surge in seats of the Tea Par ty in Congress, or BNP and UKIP in the Parliament. ‘That’s why I think its so impor tant for the par ties and for other advocacy groups who are trying to be responsible, that they take their digital strategy seriously and engage people on the grassroots level.’
‘I think that the age of television really made the conversation more elite than maybe 150 years ago’ the phenomenon of television not only strengthened the top-down approach in agenda-forming, but also provided a multitude of
Blue State Digital elevated itself to the forefront of new political consultancy through the 2008 Obama campaign, where they have utilized citizen outreach and techniques such the far-reaching fundraising campaign, which bested McCain’s Republican par ty resources. During the historical election, voter turnout surged upwards from the usual average,
distractions, a potent strategy in decreasing political deliberation. ‘I think what we’re seeing is of course more voices coming to the forum and being able to par ticipate in real-time. I think that’s necessarily messier, but probably good, because its getting more people involved.’ It seems that the dawn of Internet resulted in a breakdown of polarity
Having contributed to François Hollande’s victory in France, or private sector work with Vogue and Britain’s 38 Degrees, they have led by example in utilising technology to bridge the gap between organisations and the individual, a process Joe believes is inherently beneficial for civil society
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between the ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’ in the decision-making process. ‘People are exposed to the debate and feel like they can have some influence on it’, something that ’raises the civic tide which I think is an impor tant thing in a democracy.’
me, ’but there is no limit to the relationship. We had people who never involved themselves with politics who star ted to become a volunteer, then gave a little money, took a leadership role and now they’re running for office.‘
‘A lot of our work boils down to a comparative, organisational study about how leaders, systems deal with the oppor tunity to build relationships with people on a human level.’ What does the future hold for digital strategy in general, I ask Joe. ‘I hope it becomes more human, I hope it becomes more related to the offline aspects so I think there’s still a lot of work to do. A lot of political organisations still think of [digital strategy] as a social media or a technology channel. Over time, experimentation will lead towards the realisation that there are people on the other end. We’re just trying to figure out how to best relate to them.’
Technology then, seems to increase human par ticipation and that for Joe makes all the difference; ‘I kept getting more and more involved and now it changed. I was a bar tender before all this; bar tender, lifeguard, photo developer at the pharmacy, actually’. If Internet and social media can enhance the pluralist bond Western
I question, however, what are the ethical limits of this relationship and can it always be strictly voluntary on behalf of the individual. Joe seems to believe so; ‘it only works if you opt-in. We have 20 million people signed up for the Obama campaign, but they signed up, every email you get you can unsubscribe and that’s it.‘ Many tech-oriented institutions have not respected this boundary, a subject extremely relevant in 2013 given recent scandals of the far-reaching spying program by America’s National Security Agency and the conscious cooperation on behalf of commercial giants like Google. ‘There have to be limits on the data security side of it’ Joe assures
We had people who never involved themselves with politics who started to become a volunteer, then gave a little money, took a leadership role and now they’re running for office civil society enjoys in theory, it opens up an oppor tunity for the positive impact of the individual, something which maybe hasn’t been as possible even twenty years ago. Internet and social media then, spell out progress for the future of politics. Before we conclude, Joe seems to capture his position on the excitement modern times bring; ‘you know, by following your hear t and oppor tunity, you’ll come along to organisations which are open to doing something a little bit different, a little bit more substantive and in an inclusive way. There’s a lot of potential and only good things come from that.’
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ALSO KNOWN AS A MEMBER OF THE STROKES ALBERT HAMMOND JR RETURNS TO SCOTLAND IN SUPPORT OF HIS LATEST EP ‘AHJ’ WITH A VERY SPECIAL LATE NIGHT LIVE SHOW
DEC 14: BIRDCAGE
MILKY AND HEAVYFLO GUEST AT OUR REGULAR MONTHLY ALTERNATIVE GAY NIGHT PLAYING EVERYTHING FROM HOUSE AND ELECTRO TO R’N’B
DEC 16: GUM MAGAZINE LAUNCH
FOOD SERVED 7 DAYS A WEEK 2-4-1 BURGERS! - DELICIOUS HANDMADE PIZZAS! EVERY FRIDAY 4PM TO 7PM ALL PIZZAS £5 & SELECTED 2-4-1 COCKTAILS
www.broadcastglasgow.com TEL:0141 332 7304 QUIZCAST EVERY WEDNESDAY - WIN GIG TICKETS & PRIZES!
GLASGOW UNIVERSITY MAGAZINE THROW A PARTY TO CELEBRATE THE LAUNCH OF THEIR DECEMBER ISSUE. WITH GUESTS: SEGA BODEGA, SAM VITAMINS & RAKSHA (DEADLY RHYTHM).
DEC 20: I HATE FUN
(I HATE FUN RESIDENTS INKKE, MILKTRAY, SWEENEY & KEOMA BRING THEIR BLEND OF HIP HOP, R N B AND GRIME TO BROADCAST WITH OCCASIONAL SPECIAL GUEST SETS THROWN IN FOR GOOD MEASURE.
DEC 21: DISPLAY COPY
KONX-OM-PAX'S 'DISPLAY COPY' LABEL HOST A PARTY WITH GUESTS ROB DATA (48K), SHAUN VITAMINS & JACKIE YOUR BODY
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