TAKE BACK THE VOID

TAKE BACK THE VOID

this publication was conceived and produced on unceded lands belonging to the Gadigal peoples of the Eora nation. this country was violently colonised and stolen with an imperial notion of emptiness: terra nullius. as an immigrant in a settler colonial nation I acknowledge that I benefit from the continued processes of violence and dispossession of australian Indigenous peoples. I pay my respect to elders past and present and acknowledge that this land always was and always will rightfully be aboriginal land.

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void [vɔɪd] 1. useless; ineffectual; vain.

2. devoid; destitute (usually followed by of): a life void of meaning.

4. without contents; empty.

noun 5. an empty space; emptiness: 6. something experienced as a loss or privation: 7. a gap or opening, as in a wall . 8. a vacancy; vacuum.

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this zine is about nothing. this zine is about everything. this zine is about emotional and physical emptiness. this zine is about fulfillment. this zine is about time. this zine is about black holes. this zine is about longing. this this zine is about rage. this zine is about silence. this zine is about queerness. this zine is about rage. this zine is about oblivion. this zine is about despair. this zine is about intimacy. this zine is about deep space. this zine is about personal space. this zine is about trauma. this zine is about diaspora. this zine is about the future. this zine is about loneliness. this zine is about hope. this zine is about trying to be honest and ok.

this is my – incomplete -- attempt to make sense of the infinite. thank you for reading.

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DECOLONISING THE VOID

QUEERING THE VOID

RACIALISING THE VOID

TEXTURING THE VOID

THROWING WORDS INTO EMPTY SPACES. WHY THE FUCK AM I WRITING THIS?

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what a fucking privilege it is to feel nothing. to be unaccountable is a privilege. how entitled it is to not think about how your body interacts with time and space because your body is not codified with markers of difference and deviance. how often feelings are invalidated. how much emotional labour i have given to people that refuse to take responsibility. how marginalised people are given the invisible and uncompensated labour of care. to feel nothing and intellectualise about it takes time, money and resources I will never have. emptiness is a privilege.

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I AM GROWING INCREASINGLY WEARY AND FRUSTRATED WITH THE AMOUNT OF WHITE MEN MAKING ART ABOUT NOTHING, EMPTINESS AND/ OR VOIDS, IN A WORLD WHERE THEY THEORETICALLY AND MATERIALLY HAVE ACCESS TO EVERYTHING. IMAGINE IF YOU ACTUALLY HAD NOTHING. SUFFERING IS ROMANTIC WHEN IT’S NOT YOU. TAKING UP GALLERY SPACE, TIME AND MONEY WITH LARGE SCALE PROJECTS THAT WERE PROBABLY PUT TOGETHER BY UNDERPAID AND MARGINALISED LABOUR. MAKING MEANING FROM EMPTY SPACES, WHILST TAKING UP AS MUCH PHYSICAL SPACE AS POSSIBLE. WHITE MALE ENTITLEMENT IN ART INCLUDES EXPLORING PERSONAL FEELINGS IN YOUR OWN TIME WHILST NOT ACKNOWLEDGING HOW YOU DIMINISH OR ERASE THOSE AROUND YOU IN DOING SO. YOU TALK ABOUT NOTHINGNESS BECAUSE YOU HAVE NO DEPTH. MARGINALISED PEOPLE ARE FORCED TO EXIST AND CREATE IN THE CONFINES OF SOCIETY AND THE CONFINES OF THE INTERNET. WE ARE EXPECTED TO TAKE UP AS LITTLE SPACE AS POSSIBLE. COOPTING AND COLONISING SPIRITUALITIES AND CULTURES TO EXPLORE ‘THE SELF’.

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COMPLICATED AND INTERSECTING IDENTITIES ARE GIVEN FINITE SPACE YET HAVE INFINITE POSSIBILITIES FOR EXPLORATION, CULTIVATION AND CREATION. WE ARE FORCED TO COMPARTMENTALISE OUR IDENTITIES SO WE ARE RENDERED INTELLIGIBLE AND HUMAN TO YOU. YOU GET TO SENTIMENTALISE YOUR EXISTANCE WITHOUT NEEDING TO ACKNOWLEDGE PRIVILEGE, POWER AND ACCOUNTABILITY OF YOUR WORK AND ACTIONS. YOU CAN TALK ABOUT YOURSELF BECAUSE YOU DO NOT BELONG TO OR ARE CONTROLLED BY ANYONE ELSE. THERE IS A SYSTEMATIC VIOLENCE THAT COMES WITH MAKING YOUR ART SO INACCESSIBLE AND ESOTERIC. WHAT IS THIS COGNITIVE DISCONNECT WITH THE THINGS AND PEOPLE THAT SURROUND YOU? THERE IS NO EMPATHY IN YOUR WORK IT IS SELF INDULGENT AND INTELLECTUAL. I AM NOT HERE TO VALIDATE OPPRESSIVE STRUCTURES AND AN EXISTANCE THAT ERASES MY OWN. THE SEEMINGLY INFINITE NATURE OF VOIDS IS TAKEN UP ONLY BY YOU, HOW CAN WE DISRUPT AND REDISTRIBUTE TIME AND SPACE? HOW DO WE CARVE OUT INFINITE, GENEROUS AND CARING SPACE? HOW DO WE KEEP THESE SPACES OPEN AND ACCOUNTABLE? HOW CAN WE TAKE BACK THE VOID?

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recent studies of black holes indicate that there are ‘hairs’ that retain some sort of information, and can disperse this information albeit chopped up and unintelligibly.

“the absence of event horizons means that there are no black holes — in the sense of regimes from which light can't escape to infinity,” hawking wrote in the paper. there are, however, apparent horizons which persist for a period of time." rather than being fixed, these apparent horizons shift wildly with the behavior of quantum particles inside the black hole. energy and matter trying to space the hole’s death grip would be stuck for a time, before eventually being released.

black holes are like the black boxes of the universe. what kind of secrets would they hold? how can we think about black holes as voids, with the potential of them having some sort of tangible, material aspect?

black holes could be potentially penetrable. potentially shattered. potentially disrupted but ultimately consuming us and spitting us out as everything and nothing.

at the centre of a black hole is what physicists call the ‘singularity,’ or a point where extremely large amounts of matter are crushed into an infinitely small amount of space.

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anger is loaded with information and energy ... in this place we speak removed from the more blatant reminders of our embattlement as women. this need not blind us to the size and complexities of the forces mounting against us and all that is most human within our environment.

we are not here as women examining racism in a political and social vacuum.

we operate in the teeth of a system for which racism and sexism are primary, established, and necessary props of profit.

-- audre lorde, the uses of anger: women responding to racism, 1981

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more than once, a white woman has taken my tongue, taken my words, taken my labour

white guilt is self serving , voyeuristic

white femininity uses softness to manipulate. weaponise empathy. excuse complicity.

whiteness claims ally ship. arms stretched out to help you but ready to let go if you get too tall. you fall harder and faster

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appropriating, exploiting, dependant on marginalised labour. taking up space with emotions that demand you be intelligible, cohesive, compartmentalised, unaffected

white guilt knows of the atrocities and violence of the world but must only bare witness to it all

what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck have we been yelling in to the fucking void?

this page has been intentionally left void

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the singularity: a point where our understanding of the universe stops. an incomprehensibility that brings us together.

close your eyes.

can you imagine nothing?

can you imagine infinity?

can you describe it?

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black holes can be a provocation to think about paradoxes: infinity, possibility, death, finitude, endless depth, abrupt endings, absence, everything, stillness and profound energy.

in colonial scripts of science fiction, black holes function as a lens to confront between a world at home and a world away. we can view, consume, confront and reprimand otherness – things, people, cultures that are incomprehensible and untranslatable. like the history and processes of colonialism, black holes can also be incomprehensibly violent and obliterating.

understanding black holes as portals of silence and transit. black holes and wormholes are instances of silences— gaps that articulate what science fiction refuses to imagine, to translate visions of the future. people who are marginalised know what it is like to be silenced. the forces that ensure that you do not speak, move. speaking from the margins is a site of creativity and power. speaking from the margins as a site of resistance. when not imposed by domination, silence is also a choice, like being silent about racism, police violence, suffering, and human rights. silence can be a privilege, silence can be apathetic. silencing also occurs when, sympathetic activists tend to privilege the voices of those who are educated and politically astute, rather than listening to those who know viscerally that they are fucked and act without first seeking moral approval or using academic jargon. silence, here, can be the active dissemination of oppressive structures. black holes can be real and imagined. spaces can tell stories and unfold histories. spaces can be interrupted, appropriated, and transformed. how do we find connection, resonance and harmony whilst holding the different senses of who we are? black holes can be an optic through which we engage with technology and renderings of the future. can we use imagination as a tool of survival and translate more inclusive and just visions of the future, or do we utilise technology to reproduce perpetual violence and inequality? what if we took black holes seriously as a political choice?

just as black holes can be confrontations with infinity, death, and narrative -- black holes can be confrontations with our conditions of possibility for transcending collective and individual limitations, questions we will face on the way to the stars. black holes ensure that we know both the bounds and possibility of the universe, and that these challenges are socially ingrained and institutionalised. sometimes imagination is so powerful because it is all we have.

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hope as a form of renewable energy

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I sometimes space and of

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stare into think only you.

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it is impossible to comprehend the infinite and complex infrastructure of deep space. why?

empathy is a choice, not always learnt. people do not take the time to consider outside of themselves. why?

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transcript from a documentary about a dying star

or

a script for resisting burn out

or

a reminder to be kind to yourself

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deep in its core, the star is fighting a futile battle against its own gravity. as it desperately tries to stop itself collapsing under its own weight, new elements are made in a sequence is separate stages

‌ energy escapes producing and outward pressure which balances the force of gravity and holds the star up and keeps it stable

eventually, the hydrogen in the core will run out and at that point the fusion reactions will stop. no more energy will be released and that outward pressure will disappear.

at that point, the core will start to collapse very rapidly

‌ every atom of carbon of every living thing on the planet was produced in the heart of a dying star

when a star runs out of fuel it can no longer release energy. the entire star falls in on itself

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becoming conscious of being breakable. things break, we break down, we have breakdowns. for a woman of colour to show fragility and explore vulnerability is not weak, it is a radical act of resistance in a world that expects us to be silent, marginal, submissive, weak. we are not given the means to be ‘soft’ on our own terms; rather it is demanded as a form of emotional labour that often goes unseen.

i want to soften myself, and soften expectations of myself and others.

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WHY IS SEX IS THE MAIN DIFFERENCE BETWEEN FRIENDSHIP AND WHATEVER IS CONSIDERED TO BE “MORE” THAN THAT?

WHAT ARE THE SPACES AND INTIMACIES BETWEEN?

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we are made of dead stars and broken universe

forged from distant debris

inscribed on your body is a history of the universe

understanding stars to understand yourself, others

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how to explain that a dying interstellar dust is a form of connection when your body is also inscribed with

history and pain and difference and deviance and marginalisation and distance and subordination and consumption and erasure and

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if you could tell the universe one thing, what would it be?

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waves merge curve around uncertainty coalesce with sweat and desperation become liquid homelands

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sometimes a bomb blast echoes across a whole generation

sometimes the shrapnel pierces through time and space

sometimes the wound doesn’t heal but is inherited

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a huddle of seven worlds, all close in size to earth, and perhaps warm enough for water and the life it can sustain, has been spotted around a small, faint star in the constellation of aquarius

if you are able to look far enough in to space you are looking at a difference point in time. what we see how may be a ghost of a star already gone.

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‘queerness is an aspiration toward the future. to be queer is to imagine better possible futures.’

vague thoughts and questions about queer futurity. full of hope, full of criticism.

josé esteban muñoz begins his book, cruising utopia: the then and there of queer futurity (2009), with these words, which provide a unique framework in which to think about queerness and community. to imagine and work towards better ways of being, whilst acknowledging current -- and the need to dismantle -- systematic injustices that pathologise individual problems, rather than addressing the structures that ensure that people are marginalised and immobilised.

can queer futurity function as a way in which we can envision meaningful and alternative visions of community-making and belonging? can it also consider ways of bringing to force, the ostracised and violently effaced non-normative practices, desires, identity expression and subjectivities?

what does a queer future look like? who is removed? who gets to be a part of this vision? perhaps more importantly, who is continually erased from past and present narratives of queer life? is this something I want to be a part of?

queer futurity is a means in which to coalesce the complex intersections of mixed identities, aesthetics, practices, trauma, oppression, survival, diaspora, ‘safe’ spaces and social justice. importantly it also alludes to precarious nature of queerness – as an identity and as a something that is done – as a ‘performative’ can be malleable and subservient to surrounding power structures. queerness is not inherently more ‘radical,’ but can also damagingly collude with (for example) whiteness, capitalism, and colonialism.

important to avoid homogenising, utopic renderings of a future and risk reifying existing structures of dominances and thought processes. the point here is to consciously and continually better ways of being, and seeks multiple ways of resisting.

transformative, critical and creative politics can provide insight into our own movements and communities, especially if we realise that multiple dominant systems are complex and interrelated. it is one thing to theorise about ‘dismantling the system’, but there is less emphasis on the importance of actually building alternative institutions. how do we rethink, reimagine and reorient work and how we identify with each other. how do we form meaningful connection also as a means to resist commodification? how do we foster social relations across generations and communities based on interdependency, resilience, vulnerability, and solidarity? any envisioning of community, queerness or inclusivity is not sustainable or desirable if it fails to address and liberate the most vulnerable members of present communities. queer futurity and its varied manifestations are not just about ephemeral projections of fluid and multiple identities, but importantly also

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about dismantling of power structures and redistribution of infrastructure and resources. Working towards a queer urban future is not just a means of defiance and expression, nor an escape, but deeply in embedded in the everyday negotiations of many lives of queer, trans, non-conforming communities.

working towards a queer future takes real, emotional, taxing labour – not abstract theorising and empty rhetoric. there is a lot to reconsider in activism, ethics, community and the political and work towards and the importance of finding meaningful, alternative communities. I wonder if queer futurity is daring to imagine other modes of belonging and affiliation outside of those based on the dominance of heteronormative and colonial logic. I want to believe that a supple, radical, compassionate, inclusive understanding of queerness wields the potential to shatter dominant understandings and dynamics of community.

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for queers to make things work can be pressure as well as a project. you know that if there is a break up it can fulfil an expectation that such relationships are less lasting, less secure; fragile. there is a kind of queer fatalism at stake here: that to be on a queer path is to hurtle toward a miserable fate; queer as self-shattering. and then if things do shatter (as they do tend to do) you have fulfilled an expectation that “this� is where being queer led you to.

-- sara ahmed, fragility, june 14 2014

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holding space to engage the world without attempting to know it fully, creates possibility

vulnerability is a key dimension of the ethics of writing and being

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notes on radical acceptance

transience can be deeply meaningful

the universe cannot break its own rules

black holes contain secrets we will never know

we are nothing and that is beautiful

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I wish representations of the future weren’t just metallic and virtual but more caring, hopeful, thoughtful and freeing

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Images

Front Cover – Page 43 The British Library recently put one million images into the public domain, available for free on Flickr. Sampled images from the “Space and Science Fiction” album

Pages 23 and 48 Self made collages using screenshots and photo booth on a MacBook

Page 52 iMessage from Nina , taken somewhere between Sydney and Adelaide

Other Works Referenced

Bolton, Doug. “’Hairs’ on black holes could contain information about the unvierse’s history, new Stephen Hawking study claims.” The Independent. 18 January 2016.

Cox, Brian. “Star Death and the Creation of the Elements” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEw6X2BhIy8&t=195s

hooks, bell. “Choosing the Margin as A Space of Radical Openness.”

Framework: Journal of Cinema and Media 36 (1989): 15-23).

Muñoz, José Esteban. Cruising Utopia : The Then And There Of Queer Futurity. NYU Press, 2009.

Nelson, Maggie. Bluets. Wave Books, 2009.

Sample, Ian. "Atmosphere Discovery Makes Trappist-1 Exoplanet Priority In Hunt For Alien Life." the Guardian. May 18 2017.

Wang, Jackie. "Against Innocence Race, Gender, And The Politics Of Safety." LIES Journal of Material Feminism 1 (2012): 145-171.

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shareeka helaluddin’s work primarily explores queerness, diaspora, futures, and questions of how to resist -- and heal from -- structures of oppression. her work is a process of navigating what it is to be and feel liminality, in between cultures. through experimentation of forms of writing and soundscapes, she hopes to approach these ideas with generosity, thoughtfulness and openness. she is an aquarius with a pisces moon.

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