Anti-Green-Sheen Zine II by Hecha NYC

MANIFESTO.TXT DEFINE ‘GREEN SHEEN’ AKA ‘GREENWASHING’? The act of adding a ‘green-sheen’ or ‘greenwashing’ is the use of ‘eco’-friendly language by companies/organizations to conceal destructive policies for the sake of marketing. WHAT IS THE ANTI-GREEN-SHINE ZINE? The Anti-Green-Sheen Zine names and combats the rising trend of ‘greenwashing’ in various industries by modeling sustainability as an actionable daily practice. We cannot blindly accept claims of sustainability from corporations looking to capitalize on the appearance of being ‘eco-friendly’. We, as individuals, need to make informed choice to avoid contributing to the production and consumption of items that harm the environment and/or are created through the exploitation of marginalized people. By applying a bottoms-up approach we intend to make conscious decisions to challenge and reprioritize our lifestyles to ensure the health of the natural world for present and future generations. WHO.TXT

& FRIENDS PLAY+READ: ECOPHONIC_SOUL_MIX_BY_SPEAKER_MUSIC

00:01

1. CAUGHT UP IN THE RAPTURE <ANITA BAKER>

TABLE_OF_CONTENT.TXT 1. ABBY_CASTILLO................................................................04 2. AGF_poemproducer.........................................................10 3. CATALINA_CAVELIGHT.......................................................16 4. COMMUNITY_BREAD.....................................................22 5. FRISSON / VICTORIA_GIANG.............................................24 6. FUTURE_ETHICS...............................................................32 7. GREEN_ARCHIVES / OCEAN...................................................38 8. HECHA / 做 - LUZ_ANGELICA_FERNANDEZ.........................42 9. HECHA / 做 - TING_DING_ 丁汀...........................................48 10. HECHA/做/MTBA-SPEAKER_MUSIC/DEFORREST_BROWN_JR..56 11. HOUSE_OF_COSE.........................................................60 12. LILY_BO_寶_SHAPIRO........................................................66 13. LUCY_BELL.....................................................................72 14. MI_LEGGETT / OFFICIAL_REBRAND...................................78 15. OTHERWILD..............................................................85 16. PICK_UP_THE_FLOW......................................................86 17. ROSINA~MAE.........................................................88 18. SAMHITA_KAMISETTY..............................................92

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BIO.TXT W H O : Antye Greie @poemproducer an audio sculptress, performing and producing and releasing audio as AGF. raised in East Germany, long term Berliner, now living near arctic circle in North Finland and half time in the internet. W H A T : Digital audio, she/her weaves deconstructed language, field recordings, low frequencies, disembodied voices, post-club aesthetics, interwoven a-rhythmical patterns into dense sonic feminist sonic technologies. Gathering thoughts from every corner, of this electronic planet. Building a new collective digital space called rec-on.org featuring audio collectifness #soundasgrowing W H Y : The work is my contribution to evolution. H O W : from a marxist/Luxemburgist position, concerned with life, ballance and deeply effected by hierarchies. striving to contribute and claim the narratives and language, connections, building networks of support, learning and exchanging … via transnational understanding of feminist methodologies and solidarity, considering the internet as land and territory. SITE

BANDCAMP

REC-ON.ORG

NUNASONIC

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references: references: 1. The The Battery Battery is is the the Message: Message: 1. Media Archaeology Archaeology as as an an Energy Energy Media Art Practice Practice Art https://scholarworks.umass.edu/ https://scholarworks.umass.edu/ cpo/vol7/iss2/2/ cpo/vol7/iss2/2/ 2. Apocalyptic Apocalyptic Infrastructures Infrastructures -2. BY LALEH LALEH KHALILI KHALILI BY https://www.noemamag.com/ https://www.noemamag.com/ apocalyptic-infrastructures/ apocalyptic-infrastructures/ 3. Luxemburg Luxemburg -- The The Accumulation Accumulation 3. of Capital Capital (1913) (1913) of https://www.marxists.org/arhttps://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1913/accumulachive/luxemburg/1913/accumulation-capital/ tion-capital/

4. Podcast: Podcast: 4. https://forthewild.world/ https://forthewild.world/ 5. Resonatecoop Resonatecoop -5. creator owned owned streaming streaming service service creator https://beta.resonate.is/arthttps://beta.resonate.is/artists/1056 ists/1056 6. LISTS: LISTS: ethical ethical tech tech 6. https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/ https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/ online-tools-for-the-pandemic online-tools-for-the-pandemic https://ethical.net/resources/?rehttps://ethical.net/resources/?resource-category=streaming-sersource-category=streaming-services vices 7. ethicalconsumer.org ethicalconsumer.org [products] [products] 7. https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/ https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/ 15

Illustration by Catalina, 2020

dita ti ng

Trees ith

*This practice requires you put all electronic devices on silence and away!*

You find yourself walking through a park. Amongst the path you begin to notice a variety of trees. But you also start to realize how still they are. You’ve forgotten how to become still in a hyper capitalist “world”. If it’s anyone you should look up to, it’s trees. They are our greatest teachers when it comes to being still, patient, and compassionate. They help guide one to engage with everything within and everything without. A porous relationship of the known and unknown.

ROOTS You close your eyes and allow your focus to go to

your feet. Trust the ground as your foundation. For three cycles of breath, begin to notice how you feel. More cycles of breath are welcomed based on your comfort. Start to imagine that your feet are becoming roots. They start extending into the rich, moist soil. We find a network of our friends such as fungi, insects, and rocks through our roots.

TRUNK From your

roots, you start to grow upward. Visualize this growth as a river flowing. What

kind of texture am I? What are the different textures available to me? Bumpy, smooth, in between or something else? Your shins, knees and thighs are the lower part of your trunk. Creating homes for a variety of smaller beings like insects, arachnids and amphibians. This flow moves to your torso, the center of your trunk and heart. Providing warmth and hospitality to reptiles, birds, and mammals.

BRANCHES Extend your arms and reach towards the sky.

Feel the wind wrap around your branches. In prayer with the Sun, giving thanks for the nutrients provided to sustain a community. Leaves, flowers, and fruits for all to eat and enjoy. Our arboreal and volant friends teaching us the ways of navigating, playing, eating and resting.

CROWN Bring your attention to your head. Slowly moving

through your eyes, nose, lips, and ears. Letting the Sun fill our crown with energy. When you breathe in, think of this as the Sun providing you with the energy needed to grow. Upon exhaling, this is your way of pushing that energy out to create. Like those beautiful green leaves that sprout from within you.

How To Read T re

eR gs in

In order to better understand trees, we have to learn how to read them.

RINGS If we dive to the center of a tree, we find

rings. Each ring communicates the relationship between growth and environment. Starting from the center, we can locate a tree’s first year growth. As you move outward, each ring, representing one year, is followed by two layers.

LAYERS & SEASONS In Spring and ear-

ly Summer, a thicker layer is present. This shows the growth and rainy season that took place. In late Summer and Fall, trees grow slower due to drier season. This can be seen by the thinner dark layer. When a tree has suffered from a natural disaster, for example, forest fire, a scar appears as a dark lining.

“Nosotros, los seres humanos, somos arboles de sabiduria plantados en esta tierra. “We human beings are trees of knowledge planted on this Earth.”

Environmental Statistics Global Organic Textile Standard Tree Encyclopedia

TuneOut

Community Bread is a queer-owned livestream & resource platform connecting audiences around the world with marginalized artists so they can easily receive donations to offset economic hardship during this global pandemic. Curating immersive audio / visual streams with DJ sets, performances & conversations centered around otherness and collaboration, we’ve raised over $20,000 in support of international artists such as DJ Minx, Jasmine Infiniti, Josey Rebelle, & CEM, and charity organizations like Trans Women of Color Collective, The Ali Forney Center, ORAM, The Trevor Project, & G.L.I.T.S.. Community Bread features over 25 LGBTQ+ & POC nightlife collectives that have been integral in building their local music and arts scene from Singapore’s Eternal Dragonz to Bulto in Columbia. We provide a directory of resources and financial opportunities for artists, venues, and businesses, as well as actionable means to fight against social and economic injustices. Our mission is to provide economic support while connecting our vibrant communities and carve out more space for marginalized voices as we rebuild our future around queer and POC centred nightlife around the world. CommunityBread.co 1 queer-owned platform supporting marginalized artists 6 livestream fundraisers 25 international collectives onboard 38 incredible artists have played 50 hrs of mind-melting footage $20,000 raised for artists and 5 charity orgs

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Now introducing our weekly show...

Community Breadcast airing on Twitch on 4/20/21 as part of the launch of new channel Dream Access TV

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Who: Victoria Giang, a working student who lives in Taipei, Taiwan, is the editor and Mandarin-to-English translator for Frisson

What: Frisson is a bilingual (Mandarin Chinese and En-

glish) arts, culture, and literary zine based in Taiwan and the US

Why: To spread the DIY spirit,

to uplift the voices of amateurs who are usually marginalized in the increasingly professionalized industries of art, publishing, fashion, and literature, and to increase understanding at the local level between East and Southeast Asia and the West

How: Frisson is made with cut-and-paste layout, printed at

local copy shops, distributed by the editor at small markets, independent shops, through the mail, and directly handed out to friends 25

Gu errila Ga

Whenever something gets branded, it

ning, rde

iw anese Sty

starts to seem inaccessible. That’s what happened for me with guerrilla gardening. It started to become some kind of -ism, and the emphasis was on the fact that it was “illegal.” Trespassing and digging holes at night is a position I just didn’t want to put myself in, but did that mean what I did wasn’t enough? The way that most media outlets and popular Instagram accounts deploy this term, it risks merely becoming gentrification by another name. I wanted to show that “guerrilla gardening,” the act of gardening on property that you yourself do not own, can take multiple forms, and it does not have to involve any personal risk. For example, the garden pictured left is one I made on the rooftop of my apartment building. What was once an area full of broken glass is now full of life. Through this activity, I was able to make friends with my neighbor who has a rooftop garden of her own. My neighbors who visit the rooftop to smoke or chew betel began to chat with me. Guerrilla gardening is not an identity or an ideology, it’s simply an activity which has the potential to build relationships with the plants, animals, and people around you, relationships that transcend

“

Guerrilla gardening is not an identity or an ideology, it’s simply an activity which has the potential to build relationships with the plants, animals, and people around you, relationships that transcend the transactional. 26

How to Get Started: Seed Saving & Seed Banking

You can save seeds from some of the

the transactional. I want to highlight the achievements of the mainly elderly “guerrilla gardeners,” people who would never consider themselves as such, that I noticed in my neighborhood on the outskirts of Taipei, Taiwan.

Bringing Back the Commons

The commons was traditionally an area

in a village where villagers could all graze animals and grow subsistence crops. Industrialization and commercialization was the tragedy of the commons, not the fact of multiple users. Most democratic societies mainly protect the rights of property owners, disenfranchising a growing proportion of citizens as property ownership is increasingly concentrated. Gardening in the grey area is an act that turns privately or publicly owned land into a commons. The act of “commoning” re-prioritizes the subsistence ethic over the profit motive.

fruits you eat or from the seeding trees around your neighborhood, plant them in pots, cast them outside, or use them to make seed bombs. I save them in individual envelopes, write the species name (if I know it), grow them myself, or give them to friends. Beautiful seeds can be shined and used to make jewelry by attaching hooks.

Little Farm on the On-Ramp

On my commute home by bicycle, I of-

ten ride up this on-ramp onto the riverside path, passing a big, nearly empty circle of concrete. An elderly woman has claimed some of this area (this might have formerly been her land, now it is government property), and she grows vegetables in the

corner and has even built two structures from metal shutters, wooden pallets, and tarps.

There’s an especially resourceful way

that older gardeners manage their gardens. They fill up styrofoam boxes with a bunch of dirt that they dig out from the mountain, and then they grow lettuce and cabbage in these containers. Or they use plastic water jugs or buckets, with holes cut for drainage. To make trellises for trailing vines, they use anything they can find. For this purpose, people have used pvc pipes, metal wires, zip ties, rebar, bamboo, and more. Clever re-use of items cuts costs and can be beautiful, too. One person repurposed the wire frames from a box spring mattress for use as a fence. Not only did the design look beautiful, but it’s a three-dimensional structure, so vines were able to crawl all over it, creating a thick hedge. Although these gardeners tend to use a lot of plastic, they also tend to save and reuse disposable materials. When you see these gardens, they don’t fit the image of “green” or “sustainable” which is usually an image of something that follows an architectural plan that was executed step by step. Guerrilla gardens evolve as they grow and are added onto over a lifetime.

“

When you see these gardens, they don’t fit the image of “green” or “sustainable” which is usually an image of something that follows an architectural plan that was executed step by step. 28

“Land is Property of Taipower Company. Do Not Enter.”

This is the sign outside of the “Little

Farm.” Directly next to this sign, the gardener is growing green leaf vegetables and letting tomatoes climb up this private fence. Her garden extends along the edge of the on-ramp and even underneath the bridge. Everywhere she has touched, there is something growing. Where once there was nothing but bare concrete, there is now abundant life. Not too far from her garden, a newly constructed apartment building has installed a “green wall.” I have already seen the plants on this wall die and get replaced by new plants twice. Although “sustainable architecture” looks neat, it often creates trash elsewhere. This woman’s garden is honest; she doesn’t hide the mess.

“Please do not place your private property on public land. If you do not comply within seven days, we will remove your property for you.”

A terraced vegetable garden in a

well-tended public park near several luxurious, newly built apartment buildings. In this increasingly wealthy neighborhood, this kind of renegade gardening is under suspicion and is dealt with swiftly, with full support of the local government, who does the dirty work for developers.

“Please stop adding fertilizer!”

A handwritten sign is placed on a patch

of dirt in the riverside park. Although this is public land, it is well tended by many people, maybe too well… A few months after this photo was taken, there was an incident. City employees used a weed-whacker to mow down all the flowers in this plot. Another sign was posted, expressing anguish. More flowers were planted, and this incident hasn’t been repeated. This small piece of land in the public park has been peacefully taken over by local gardeners. Persistence is key.

Convenient street-side gardening

An apartment-dweller with a green

thumb has started her vegetable patch just in time for spring. Her garden is growing on what is very obviously public property (note the postal box). In the suburban outskirts of Taipei, city workers and neighbors do not view gardens as a nuisance. They allow the process to unfold even though it may not be beautiful all the time.

Guerrilla Gardens are everywhere...

A street-parking area beside a bridge

provided one middle-aged man with ample space for his small and productive orchard – besides the banana trees (image below) and mulberry tree (image on top), I counted at least nine additional species being cultivated, including mangoes.

“

In the suburban outskirts of Taipei, city workers and neighbors do not view gardens as a nuisance. They allow the process to unfold even though it may not be beautiful all the time. 30

A pipa (a.k.a. 枇杷, loquat) fruit tree. Note

the waxed paper bags. This is not litter. They protect the growing fruit from pests. I’ve seen this tree being pruned before, by an old man who casually removed some branches before finishing his walk.

A n egg-yolk fruit (a.k.a. 蛋黃果, canistel,

yellow sapote) tree grows up beside the pedestrian walkway to the bridge. Passerby can reach out and pluck the fruit. Many of them could be seen crushed on the street below, run over by cars. It’s better to just grab some rather than let them go to waste.

Private orchids on a public tree

Orchids will bloom more frequently,

and the blooms will last longer if they are grown on living trees rather than in pots. Local elderly women know this well. Their simple action of beautifying this very small park has blurred the division between public and private. There is no need to own something in order to use it and gain its benefits, and the idea that common property will always be neglected is just foolish. They sweep the park and pick up trash themselves.

WHO: Future Ethics is a music label and zine founded in 2017 by Clara, Bee, and Catherine, and is continued today by Catherine and Bee.

WHAT: We release music and zines, physically and digitally, available on our website or in print on Bandcamp.

WHY: Through Future Ethics we manifest a more ethical future of community and beauty in dance music.

HOW: Future Ethics is rooted in friendship and love for each other and the scene that brought us together. The project unfolds slowly and intentionally with zines, music releases, workshops, and collaborative efforts. Future ethics are embodied in the experimental, the cerebral, the intentional, the radical: sounds and words that break with convention and at times simply break.

Physical M usi cF ormats

CD Listens

Endless as long as the CD is not scratched or damaged by UV light

Recyclability

Yes - limited to designated CD recycling centers Find one at earth911.com

Made from Recycled Materials?

Production Impact

To manufacture a pound of plastic (30 CDs per pound), it requires 300 cubic feet of natural gas, 2 cups of crude oil and 24 gallons of water. Even worse than the CDs themselves are the plastic jewel cases that hold them. Made of polyvinyl chloride, a substance classified by the EPA as a human carcinogen

Impact of Use

Low impact

USB

Vinyl

Casette Tape

10,000 file reads

Around 1200X without scratching

Around 100 plays

Plastic casing can be recycled, but not the magnetic tape used inside

Yes - return to manufacturer or bring to electronic waste recycling site

High amount of electricity used in production. Manufacturing emissions of carcinogenic formaldehyde. Perfluorinated compounds emitted in manufacturing remain in atmosphere for a long time and contribute to climate change

Low electricity impact for solid-state flash drives. Much more electricity involved in production than in use

On smaller scales yes. Companies like Re-Vinyl shred unsold/unused vinyl records to make new ones

Generally no, but the tape can be reused

0.5 kg CO2 per record, plus transport. Usually energy-intesive steam is used to apply enough pressure to press records, but moulding is an alternative. Small-batch lathe cutting is also possible

Magnetic tape manufacturing has been known to cause hazardous air pollutant

Low impact

• Buy used records or other physical formats

hY ou

t Wi

• Share music in physical or digital ways

o n w K e l e k dg Ta

• Borrow music from the public library • Listening together

• Streaming over mobile network is twice as energy intesive as using wifi • If you only listen to a piece of music less than 27 times over your lifetime then streaming can be better 4

u t e b i r Co T

Tribute to Lou Ottens, inventor of cassette tapes and co-creator of the CD “Everything disappears in the world when it has done its time,” he said. “So will I.” Died age 94 on March 6, 2021 5

WHO WE ARE

We are an empathy-driven collaborative founded by Luz Angélica Fernández & Ting Ding in 2016 Our intent is to blur categorical boundaries by experimenting across mediums and working transparently to create conversational platforms for human connection, collaboration & communal support SHOP

PROJECTS

ABOUT

BIO.TXT W H O : Luz Angélica Fernández is a multidisciplinary artist and native New Yorker whose work bridges the intersections between art, design, and technology. As a co-founder of the brand HECHA / 做, Fernández focuses in design and production management, as well as paints the fabric used for the garments. In her personal body of work, Fernández’s paintings and sculptural light pieces draw on the origins of abstract expressionism and the semiotics of the internet age W H A T : A look into how Luz’s mother, Lucy Cruz, possesses the DIY energy and commitment to anti-waste practices that we should all work towards adopting W H Y : Because America is dangerously wasteful, as we’ve been hypnotized to operate in a detached mode of individualistic consumption; encouraged to feed our constant hunger for instant gratification with the convenience and affordability of disposable products. The goal is to become aware of everything we take for granted each day, analyze our behaviors, and make an effort to gradually change our mentalities and lifestyles SITE

LUZ_FERNANDEZ.PNG

COLLECTION+LUZ_PAINTING.MP4

The Most Sustainable Person I Know is My Mother

it has been a long and difficult journey to become conscious that veganism is the best choice to live a life in harmony with nature. In my ESL studies I started to learn more about themes concerning health such as vegetarianism and veganism, which I considered to be a sustainable choice because of all the environmental implications of the meat industry.” She has a deep affinity towards plants and is always growing all sorts of things all over her apartment. She’s demonstrated how easy it is to regrow garlic or scallions at home using the scrap pieces that you would usually throw away and how to germinate seeds that sprout into beautiful and nutritious little salad additions:

Written by Luz Fernandez in conversations with Lucy Cruz

While exploring what sustainability actual-

ly means to me over the past few years, I’ve come to realize that my mother, Lucy Cruz, is without a doubt the most sustainable person I know. This makes me want to award her with some sort of “prize” but the truth is that she obviously doesn’t do the things she does for any sort of recognition or praise. Her “sustainable” actions and habits come as second nature to her and I want to acknowledge and celebrate her efforts as examples to learn from.

DIY Energy

There are so many seemingly small things

that she does in all areas of her life that when you add them all up, really present a full picture of what achievable sustainable living can look like. There are too many to list here but one example is her commitment to conscious eating, “In my teens I discovered the existence of vegan restaurants and I was very happy to enjoy a different type of food than what I was used to having. It opened up a new perspective towards nutritional choices. Today I am mostly vegan but

Mustard and sunflower seeds germinating on food container lids with wet paper towels, showing one week’s growth

Not having a yard has not stopped her from cultivating and being self sufficient in any way she can. There are many easy to follow videos online on how to grow fruits and vegetables indoors, all it takes is a willingness to try these things out. Because Lucy is an artist, she is also naturally a collector: a self proclaimed “maximalista” who rarely throws anything away because she knows everything she saves has the potential to be used for future creations. Even though she has the means to, I’ve always known her to be resistant to buying anything “new,” and especially refuses to use anything disposable unless it’s absolutely necessary. She’s been shopping at thrift stores for decades, long before vintage/second-hand clothing became trendy and has always modified clothing to fit her needs. She is more interested in challenging herself to be creative and make use of, alter, or repair what she already has available. This

“

My habits that are considered to be sustainable come from my childhood experiences and from my personal desires of developing consciousness toward behaviors that impact others and in this case Mother Earth as indigenous people would say.

Lucy wearing HECHA / 做 in Central Park, 2019

type of resourceful DIY energy is a special sort of ingenuity that I hope to adopt more of.

Slippers/socks made from an old towel and an old t-shirt

Anti-Waste

Before throwing something away, Lucy re-

ally considers whether it’s truly useless or if it can be repurposed. She has always been very involved and thoughtful about what she purchases/consumes, where it comes from, and what will happen to it once it’s been disposed of. She never casually disposes of clothing that’s no longer in wearable condition, but instead cuts the fabric into ‘trapos’ (rags) for cleaning instead of using paper towels. She’s adamant about extending an item’s life cycle and giving everything one last use. She can find a purpose for anything that the average person wouldn’t think twice about before throwing away:

Homemade hand cream (shea butter mixed with essential oils) stored in empty tea light candle tins

The overarching theme of her lifestyle is a fiercely anti-waste mentality. All of her actions are informed by this ideology- it’s inherently instinctual and has led me to want to understand where this mentality traces back to. I suspect that the fact that she isn’t American has a lot to do with it. Lucy is Colombian, born in Bogota, but spent a significant part of her childhood living with her grandmother in the rural area of Olaya Herrera in Tolima.

were always used for composting if there wasn’t a pig or a horse around to eat them. Sometimes leftovers and food scraps were saved for neighbors who had animals to feed.” In those days 60 years ago, plastic was very rare there. Living here in NYC I was doing things like everybody else, throwing mixed garbage in plastic bags until I discovered a farmer’s market at Union Square where they picked up organic waste for composting. Every week I traveled on the subway with Luz in her stroller and a bag of organic leftovers to drop off in those big containers. Then I started going to 116th and Lexington, the farmer’s market at Columbia University, and now I go to 106th and Columbus (I was always looking for the closest place to drop off compost).”

Mamita’s (her grandmother’s) house in Olaya

Me and my great aunt Nativa, 1994

Mamita

Our family in that region are campesinos of indigenous descent and she explains that: “My habits that are considered to be sustainable come from my childhood experiences and from my personal desires of developing consciousness toward behaviors that impact others and in this case Mother Earth as indigenous people would say. In my grandmother’s home food was never wasted, there were always chickens or a dog who ate the leftovers and the food scraps like peels

Food scraps make up more than 30% of our trash in NYC: composting is one of the easiest things anyone can do to reduce the amount of waste that ends up in landfills. Lucy recommends collecting your compost in any spare bag (compostable bags are great in theory but why purchase an additional product when you can make use of one of the many plastic bags you probably have in the house?) and keeping it in your freezer until it fills up. Check here for an NYC drop off site near you. If you don’t live in NYC you can try doing a quick google search like “where to compost in ____” to

find out if there are any composting initiatives in your community - you may be surprised to learn about a community garden or a pickup service you hadn’t noticed before.

Deprogramming

It’s very American to consume and waste

food, clothing, energy, water, etc. without a second thought or concern because we are encouraged to do so, and because that consumption and the aggressive capitalist tactics of disposability and planned obsolescence are what drive our economy. “I have observed how on streets there is so much garbage but also many sorts of items that sometimes are in good condition that could easily be fixed or taken to the thrift stores instead of throwing them out on the street. Things like wasted furniture make me sad to think of the deforestation of the Amazon.” She tells me about a time that she “...felt very uncomfortable when observing a friend leaving the faucet open and running water while she was doing something else. I ran to close it and it was clear that she did not care about it but when she moved to New Jersey and I visited her she was very concerned about not wasting water because she actually had to pay for it there. As some writer said [Derek Sivers], ‘the fish doesn’t know that it’s in the water until it is out of it.’ ” Unfortunately, we don’t seem to understand the negative impacts of our behavior unless we’re directly confronted with some form of consequence. She emphasizes the importance of acknowledging the ways in which we take so much for granted. The simple fact that I was born and raised here in the U.S. has made all the difference as it is so much easier for me to be aloof about my behavior and not make all the efforts that she does. My intention now is to work on reframing my relationship to my resources and to become more aware of the things that I take for granted every day. To understand that we actually don’t need new stuff all the time and that our cultural obsession with newness is just a desire that’s been fabricated and manipulated by advertising/mar-

Lucy wearing HECHA / 做 in Central Park, 2019

keting agendas that define value and success as measured by what new thing you’re able to purchase or experience. My mom has always been a critical, analytical consumer, questioning and challenging this type of conventionality. She denounces blindly participating in this “unsustainable neoliberal capitalistic system” that ignores the way our personal choices affect each other and the natural world. She recommends prioritizing the expansion of our consciousness, and making more of an effort to take care of ourselves and each other especially right now, “Now in these pandemic times I am focusing on creating more awareness with my friends and family to take care of our immune systems by researching and adopting new choices to improve its function and operate at its full potential.” She is someone who genuinely does “care” and places care into everything she does. Ultimately, Lucy is my sustainability role model who continues to push me to be more thoughtful about my own consumption and lifestyle choices and I hope that her examples can encourage you to do the same.

DEFINITION.TXT HECHA: (Spanish) fem. adj.

做 : (Mandarin Chinese): zuò

1. 2. 3. 4.

made created turned into ready

to do to make: to produce to become (euphemistic) to make love

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ABOUT_HECHA/做.MP4

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BIO.TXT W H O : Ting Ding 丁汀 is a Chinese-Canadian statistical analyst, photographer, and visual designer. As a co-founder of HECHA / 做, Ding’s work considers the material composition of fashion production as well as the marketing and commercialization of the brand. Her near decade long experience at her hyper-capitalist day job at the language learning app, Babbel, has influenced her artistic endeavours in the form of a self-designed “empathy-driven” business model, focused on sustainability and the restandardization of industry standards W H A T : an [optimized] critique of everyday life and the precariousness of modernity; living within a simulated “society” built by technocrats W H Y : to send a distress signal and a reminder to slow down / to hydrate / to make space / to feel / to share / to care / to de-colonize / to de-optimize / to re-imagine / to transform / to re-enchant the world IG

Words by TING_DING_丁汀 / Illustrations by MI Leggett

overoverover optimization WARNING

“The Earth is undergoing a period of intense techno-scientific transformations. If no remedy is found, the ecological disequilibrium this has generated will ultimately threaten the continuation of life on the planet’s surface. “ Felix Guattari, The Three Ecologies

Growing up as a “good” (read: obedient) Asian daughter, exploring the arts was never an option, so I allowed myself to be nudged into business school instead. I chose marketing as my specialization, naively assuming the field would be more ~creative~ than finance or accounting. I didn’t know it at the time but the intersection of having studied old-school marketing (think 20 page case study on toothpaste) plus my tech fluency (thanks to my engineer dad who built my first desktop tower at 10!) made me the *perfect* online marketing machine. As a result, I have spent the last decade working as an online marketer - spending millions in advertising budgets, gathering “data” (watching you on the internet), analyzing “trends” (hypothesizing about your internet usage), “creating” demographic groups to target (categorizing & following you around the internet), ↓costs, ↑profit / ↑revenue / ↑sales /↑cus50

tomer lifetime value, and S C A L I N G ∞. With each passing year, I’ve watched as Big-Tech syphoned more and more user data only to sell to the highest bidder (me) at a premium with the promise of more “accurate targeting”. It took a few years and many books later for me to figure out where I stood in the ever shape-shifting “spirit of capitalism” and most importantly - how to get out. The expression “the disenchantment of the world” was originally borrowed from Friedrich Schiller by Marx to signify the victory of science, technology, and capitalism over the cosmos and the enchanted (unverifiable) world. As we continue down the path of modern secularity; mesmerized by tech innovations that optimize our daily interactions, we fail to acknowledge the loss of knowledge and ability to imagine a life beyond capital. CLIMATE CLOCK.DMG % of world’s energy from renewables... Estimated time left (to achieve 0-emissions): 6 yrs 253 days... MEH

Last year, COVID-19 washed a kaijū beast of epic proportions to Western shores; a direct symptom of capitalism, only to be exacerbated by gross collective individualism. The virus’ mimetic nature and rapid spread requires global consciousness and collective effort for stabilization and control - one year later - and the West is still struggling to contain new waves of [now double] mutant strains while daddy science dangles vaccine solutions to meet an ever moving goal post. Despite the ability to rapidly disseminate information, both of true and false nature, the internet cannot dictate how we come together and commune - especially amid a slow, then suddenly accelerated deterioration of individual and collective modes of human life. We are at odds with nature and our en51

vironments, our kinship networks are eroding through constant digital [inter/trans]actions, as human subjectivity is standardized en mass towards a smooth, singulariOUROBOROS.PNG ty. Perhaps our overoptimized, sleek way of life has only steered us down tunnel-vision pathways leading to lonely echo-chambers at both ends of the spectrum. Western society (*cough*America*cough*) through the use of it’s communication technologies (ie. radio/TV/internet) has effectively shrunk the world creating a “global marketplace” to invoke constant demand from. Globalization, with the emphasis on a ~free market economy~, has led to exploitative practices where “poorer”/”third world” countries abundant with human/ social capital and/or natural resources are forced to sell their labour/ stock for cheap in order to enter this “global marketplace” dominated by self-appointed “innovative technocrats”. Rather than using scientific and technological advancements towards human liberation and environmental conservation, these elites choose to serve their individualistic drive towards profitability. Today, approximately 80% of garment workers around the world are women who are often underpaid and taken advantage of as gender-based violence/abuse runs rampant across various industries. Consumers are also complicit as they become psychologically detached from the relationship between design/designer to production/product; why pay $50 for an ethically produced t-shirt when the “global marketplace” can offer a similar version for $5?

GOOGLE_NGRAM_VIEWER.DMG

The use of “optimize” over time via Google’s Ngram Viewer which lets you find and visualize how words and phrases have developed and been used over time using the 30 million print books Google has scanned from libraries around the world

To “optimize” is defined by Merriam-Webster as “to make as perfect, effective, or functional as possible” and has it’s etymology stemming from “optimist” meaning “to make the most of”. Mapping the overall usage of optimize over time, we can correlate it to the beginning of the third industrial revolution (aka the birth of 1950s tech-utopias); a shift from mechanical/analog technology to digital electronics/computers. Not only do computers require a substantial amount of raw resources to produce (most likely sourced from “common-wealth” communities like Africa), this invasive military technology also increases the surveillance aspect of our work and lives. Behind the illusion of interconnectivity lies deep alienation and anxiety as our real-life interactions, physical touch, and face2face conversations are replaced by instantaneous, flat, superficial exchanges lacking in nuance and context. The desocialization of the West has been further accelerated by the “information revolution” (industry V4.0) as the ruling elites continue to paradigm shift every time capitalism hits a new level of crisis. Along with the 2008 financial crash, came a focus on automation and cloud technology favouring ownership of data/knowledge/information over more material means of production. McKenzie Wark’s “A Hacker Manifesto” names this new ruling “vectoralist” class after their control over vec53

tors (i.e. various pathways and networks over which information flows) which subordinates the dominant capitalist class (who subordinates the previously ruling landlord class etc as the chain of abuse lengthens). A new business model emerged out of this ruling class; the platform became an effective/efficient (read: optimized) intermediary bringing together two or more groups of users to extract, analyze, and monopolize large amounts of data. Some of our fav tech-giants such as Google, Facebook (IG/WhatsApp), and Amazon all operate under this premise. Platforms require users to produce “network effects” as more users result in more value from a product/service as other users join the same network. Given this propensity towards user growth, platforms will always compete for monopolization - often luring users in with incentives such as free email service (o hi Gmail) or 1-day shipping (sup Amazon Prime ~convenience~). These traps have long been set and we feasted over the crumbs, diving headfirst into 18+ years (if we start with Myspace) of unfettered social media usage. By not combing through the fine print surrounding data privacy, we’ve allowed machines and algorithms to route our daily lives into predictable, standardized patterns - only to be ping-ponged around by a bunch of marketers who think they can fulfill our deepest desires. Humans are imperfect beings; we make mistakes, we learn from mistakes, we take *a lot* of time just like A.I. (bullshit in = bullshit out). I propose we start by slowing down, reclaiming the time normally spent chasing artificial scarcity to not only be conscious of Gaia but all beings. We must constantly take pause, make space and toggle between a micro and mac54

ro POV; this constant shift in perception and subjectivity sustains neuroplasticity by which to embrace otherness and difference. Start imagining and ~re-enchanting the world~ with a sense of awe and magic. In Federico Campagna’s “Technic and Magic”, he personifies our current reality-system as “Technic” and proposes “Magic” as an opposing alternative cosmology. By adopting “Magic” as an alternative reality-system, we start to chip away at the fabric of the very rigid, mapped out time/space dimension all economic and political systems nestle in. To initiate oneself into a “Magical” reality-system means to let go of linguistic identities and socially defined linguistic structures (ie. human, female, citizen) as to open up and become a vessel for the ineffable to shine. “Technic’s” education does not produce radical transformations, only incremental transformations are possible as one learns to be a better “processor” of information through linguistic training. With “Magic” radical transformation is possible as a person ceases to simply exist as a sum of their linguistic and productive dimensions, while becoming a manifestation of the ineffable cosmological hypostasis.

WHO_WE_ARE.TXT

MTBA is a campaign that celebrates the origins of techno and its roots in cities like Detroit and the African-American working class experience We hope that MTBA can be a historical project that can gather Black people under a phrase that implies that techno is a cultural expression and movement that deserves to be reclaimed into our collective memories MTBA is a project of re-instatement and donates 50% of revenues to support Teen HYPE (Helping Youth by Providing Education). a Detroit-based youth arts nonprofit SHOP

RESOURCE

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BIO.TXT W H O : DeForrest Brown, Jr. is an Ex-American theorist, journalist and curator. He produces digital audio and extended media as Speaker Music, and is a representative of the Make Techno Black Again campaign. His work explores the links between the Black experience in industrialised labour systems and Black innovation in electronic music. On Juneteenth of 2020, he released the album Black Nationalist Sonic Weaponry on Planet Mu; Primary Information will publish his first book, Assembling a Black Counter Culture, in 2021 W H A T : A stereophonic mix of electronic rhythm & soul intended to reprogram minds and emotions within our present unsustainable technology-driven settler colonial reality W H Y : To express solidarity in support of the Amazon workers in my hometown of Bessemer, AL in their fight to unionize against Amazon and its founder, Jeff Bezos, the richest white man in the world as the state of Alabama as well as large swaths of the Deep South experience drastic increases in severe weather with reports of 184 deadly tornadoes in the month of March alone BANDCAMP

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1. CAUGHT UP IN THE RAPTURE <ANITA BAKER>

TRACKLIST 1. Caught Up in the Rapture - Anita Baker 2. Sourced Audio #1: Tornado touch down in Tuscaloosa, AL 04-27-2011 3. Dead Civilization - NRSB-11 4. Ain’t No Sunshine (The Sign) - Underground Resistance 5. Sourced Audio #2: CNN Tornado witness Linda Jackson “We just lost our home” 04-28-2011 6. Lost Transmission from Earth (words by Eldridge Cleaver)The Martian 7. Sourced Audio #3: Tuscaloosa Tornado - 04-27-2011 8. Something in the Water (Does Not Compute) - Prince 9. The Place Called Nowhere (Yvonne Turner Bass Mix)-The It 10. Sourced Audio #4: Man Records Tornado That Destroys His Home/Kills Wife 04-9-2015 11. Consumer Programming - NRSB-11 12. Sourced Audio #5: CRAZY VIDEO! Tornado in Alabama, USA 05-27-2021 13. Are You Free? - Nkisi 14. Sourced Audio #6: Special Coverage after destructive tornado rips through Newnan, Georgia 05-26-2021 15. Alright - Kendrick Lamar Live at BET Awards 2015 16. Angel of Air-Angel of Water - Alice Coltrane & Carlos Santana 17. Save the Children - God is Love - Mercy Mercy Me (the Ecology) - Marvin Gaye 18. Colors - Pharaoh Sanders 19. Sourced Audio #7: “This is our economic Selma.” - More Perfect Union reports on Black-led group of Amazon workers in Bessemer, Alabama 56 years ago this week after Martin Luther King Jr. led thousands of protestors through the streets of Alabama to demand racial and economic justice 20. The Vanishing Race - The Martian 21. Electronic Warfare (Oz Speaks) - Underground Resistance

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TY_FOR_READING_<3 Cover painting by Luz Angelica Fernandez Cover lettering by MI Leggett Zine layout/design by Ting Ding 丁汀