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MagaZine Issue 1
CONTENTS Beyond Eastern European Faces There is no “I” in “Self ” Immigrants and Integration? Contrasts of a Baltic City Keep Working The Futility of Internet Politics in 2015 The Art of War A Bit Too Sober Bowie: The Man from Outer Space
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The bookseller in Sofia In a book market in Sofia a man hardly acknowledges his potential customers. His only interest at the moment lies in the book he is holding in his hands. Who, after all, wouldn’t like to spend his working hours just reading?
Beyond Eastern and European Faces Maria Rosario Esposito
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Coffee-break in Budapest
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A friend and I, having consumed all of our mental energy in a photography exhibition, are in much need of a coffee. By walking into this tiny coffee place we meet a lively barista, quite a funny character, who soon recognises that we are foreigners, and is very keen on making fun of us. He shares some of his travelling stories with us, and soon becomes the protagonist of our photo-shoot.
On a train to Burgas
On a train from Sofia to Burgas, the passengers can be absolutely charmed by the beauty of Bulgarian nature. While spending almost the entire journey standing and looking outside, admiring such views, I turn and see that I am not the only one who is being transported into a different dimension.
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There is no “I” in “Self”
Considering how common it is for one to ask, “who am I?” it can be surprisingly hard to find a satisfactory answer. This existential predicament, in the view of Ken Wilber, is a key cause of pathology. He argues that wherever we draw the boundary between inside and outside, self and other, conflict can occur. I am these thoughts, I identify with them but I am not those thoughts, they come from somewhere else. I am my mind and not my body.
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I am this body but not that one. People identify as part of an ingroup, and make everyone else the out-group. Studies have shown that one is more likely to ascribe positive attributes to their in-group and negative attributes to out-groups. Over the course of history this has lead to the subjugation and oppression of certain groups by others.
These socially constructed divisions lead to inequality and war. Wilber models the spectrum of consciousness past the transpersonal bands, in which boundaries begin to blur, to non-duality, a state of consciousness transcendent of all boundaries, ineffable and all encompassing union in which there is no inside and no outside. It is most easily experienced through the use of psychedelic drugs, but also through meditation, as documented and mapped by mystics for millennia but it can also occur spontaneously.
In the Watcher on the hills, R C Johnson compiles experiences of this state reported by ordinary people. James Bucke calls this state cosmic consciousness and gives many examples of individuals who have achieved it, if only for a short period, Jesus Christ, the prophet Mohammed, William Blake, Walt Whitman and Gautama the Buddha among them.
To some extent this has been corroborated by modern neuroscience. The human brain does not create an ongoing, continuous self-image but rather undergoes disjointed, sporadic moments of referential ‘selfing’ in different areas of the brain. Showing that the notion of an individual identity is just a useful and persistent illusion. In Advaita Vedanta, the most famous philosophy of India, there is the idea ‘tat tvam asi’, that ‘thou art that’.
Their concept of the individual soul, Atman, is considered identical to the transcendent, immortal unity of reality, Brahman. Atman is Brahman, rather than being nothing, you are everything. Experiential knowledge of your true identity as immortal Brahman, leads to liberation from suffering, Moksha.
Interestingly, instances of mystical Buddha, after his achievement of cosmic unitary experience in terminal cancer consciousness under the Bodhi tree, patients undergoing psychedelic drug claimed that there is no self. therapy have resulted in a reduction of end of life anxiety, perhaps due to Timmy Davis insight into their true identity. Photographed by Maria Velasquez
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CATCHING LIVES BOOKSHOP 28 Palace Street, Canterbury, CT1 2D2 Tel: 07899 458 961
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The immigrant is a combined identity of all those who permanently reside within a nation's borders of which they were not born. No matter where you go, no matter the identity of the “natives”, or “immigrants”, the immigrants are often not welcome and often greeted with hostility. One reason given for this hostility is integration. So why don’t all these immigrants integrate? One reason I shall pose is the hostile UK citizens and press. These individuals will shape their main impression of life in Britain from the media as, apart from work, it will be the only form of English speaking and listening they will engage with at first. Much of the press directly blames immigrants for many of our problems in society with one-sided accounts or from polls with loaded questions not taking into account other factors involved in creating our problems. One prime example is the Sun and its constant frontpage headlines with skewered figures and polls purposefully trying to persuade their readership that immigrants are the cause of our society's problems. Many of these headlines, facts, figures and polls have been rejected by academics and polling companies, and the Sun has even had to make a few retractions. This proves their agenda to make society anti-immigrant, not antiimmigration, at any cost. This over focus on immigration, even on impartial media such as the BBC, is viewed by everybody. The media is so saturated with this that it would be impossible for an immigrant not to encounter it. Instantly, before they have settled, they feel that this overcoverage reflects the views of the population that they are not welcome here. This could create a wariness of those who have grown up and lived in the United Kingdom their enitre lives. They might not integrate due to being perceived as hostile. The argument about immigration should be discussed in politics, but not in the unfair and hate-filled way it is being presented now, as it has a negative effect on our society. I believe that it is one factor of many, but which undoubtedly has an impact.
IMMIGRANTS and
INTEGRATION? LUKE OSBORNE
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Contrasts of a Baltic City
Gabrielė Žukauskaitė
Basketball Up and down, up and down. In every backyard, just up and down. Sweaty kids, boys, men, old stiffs. Outdoors in the summer, gym halls in the winter. It seems that everyone loves basketball here. (Some though are brave enough to confess they prefer football, but that seldom happens.) When the championships take place, all the cars in the city have small national flags hanging by the mirror outside the window. The cities of Vilnius and Kaunas have the strongest basketball teams, so there is an old, but ever on-going love-hate relationship happening between the two. A constant mode of “clarifying relationships” – another saying which entails some fighting upon particular matters. This time – which one is better than another. Oh well…
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Woman with Pigeons Every morning, each day, for more than 30 years, Rozyte goes out and accessorizes the streets of Vilnius simply with her blossoming presence. She walks with huge bags full of second-hand clothes, stops to chat with people who usually buy her a cup of coffee, feeds the birds, and sings and sways around in her colourful layers. My grandma is her age, my mother would talk to her at the corner of a local shop when as a student, while I would always ask my parents ‘why does she always look like that?’ when I was as a child. Today I am glad that she embodies one of the symbols of my city for me —she remains no less important than any monument of the one and only king the country has ever had. If we won’t be seeing her anymore when my kids grow up, then they will definitely hear stories about how even the gloomiest day Vilnius had this never fading, bright swaying Rozyte (transl. rose).
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Buildings Autumn. If I was to ask when Vilnius is the most beautiful, I would say in the autumn. Those mid-September days, when the sky hangs lower, and the atmosphere casts some saturated air on it. That air that makes all the colours look brighter, all the shapes — more defined. All the raw greyness becomes like a background that acts as a palette for all the times and ages that layered their own tones - highlights and shadows - upon each other. Until they´ve worn out, until new regime comes and casts its own style on the city. Reshaping and modifying the picture once again. This photo shows how the centre looks today at 26 years old (since Lithuania regained independence from Soviet Union in 1990), gaining new shapes made by new generations with their own influences from different resources. The older ones will always lie beneath these, breathing into the back of every future there might be.
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Bus and Dog A trolleybus. Some friends of mine from abroad have noticed that these are ‘the most ecological public transport vehicles.’ True, a trolleybus is driven by electricity: the wires hang upon the streets, the beige or red trolleybus reaching out with its two antennas that are attached to it. Sometimes though, the antennas drop down. Then the trolleybus stops, a grumpy driver has to leave his warm seat, put on rubber gloves and go attach it again. I always found those moments funny. All the people inside get grumpy too, some start mumbling, muttering, complaining, whining, some say that “if they were to drive the thing this wouldn’t have happened.” What is funny is that while one trolleybus is being reconnected, others can’t go too, as they all share same wires. Then traffic jams happen, more people bubble and mutter. A massive dissatisfaction and grumpiness spreads all over the place. But it’s lovely, as long as you are not in a rush yourself. One of the favourite sayings here also has this transport in it – if you don’t close the door behind yourself, people say that “you are born in a trolleybus” (apparently – where the doors close automatically).
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KEEP WORKING Ben Chan is the creator of an interactive music video engaging with advertising, the consumer self and the ideological aspects of capitalism; that vague idea of success which we pursue so tirelessly and the price of the American Dream...
Hello, Ben. Tell me a little about how you ended up working in the interactive medium. I think what attracted me to the interactive medium was thae amount of possibilities it presents. There aren’t enough people taking it where it should be going. Take video games, for example - shooting people for no reason… They’re at a very primitive stage, where they’re also not really respected – I hope in my lifetime we will see that changing.
How did you come up with the concept of Keep Working? Whilst I was making Keep Working, I was working a 9 to 5 job, commuting 2 hours one way every day. It was really, really bleak – it was a call centre. While I was working there, I got a lot of inspiration for the game. I just imagined those people working at this job for their entire lives, just working and working and working and then continuing to work, thinking that they’re going to get succesas from it when they aren’t even able
to afford the things they wanted. What all of the advertising that we soak up does is to allow us a glimpse of a better life, of what you’re ‘missing out’. It promises you that if you work hard you will be successful and then you will have access to all of these nice things. But in reality, it´s only the glimpse of these things you can get. What we’re shown will never be reality for a lot of people. Often if you don’t have the connections, it’s just difficult and some are kept in the bottom in that way, into this hamster wheel of working. This is what I really want to critique – the idea that if you work hard, you’ll be successful. All people have different starting points, which creates inequality.
In your opinion, what is it that people really want to buy? I think people are searching for happiness and advertising preys on that. It takes people’s insecurities and then it comes in like this ‘friend of yours’, saying ‘We’re down to earth, we’re relatable, so why don’t you buy this, friend? Then you’ll find
“At the end of the game, you see you’re actually a part of this catalogue that just says ‘Buy’ on it.” happiness!’ Coca Cola’s slogan is literally ‘Give a Little Happiness’ – this could not sum it up any more. That’s one of the big things about advertising and consumerism as a whole that really gets me.
The ending of the game is really open to interpretations, but it’s definitely dismal. Are you saying there’s no exit? Act I is about being a victim of the system, Act II is about breaking part of it, about working together with people who are not really engaged with the American Dream anymore. It does get a little dark. But it’s in Act III where you really see the really depressing side to it. You get to the point where you see a sign which says
Success, you tell yourself ‘This is the thing I’ve been working so hard for, the thing which I deserve as such’. It’s this really abstract idea of success which you think you’re going to get if you work hard, but you realise at the end that you are just taking part in this… game to consume? The ending presents this descending motion in a downward spiral, showing there actually isn’t anything at the end. It’s this empty idea of putting money and success before the human side of things. You get at the top, you’re rich, but I think it must be quite empty and alone up there; kind of surfacebased. Success is… what is success? You’ve been searching for this thing, you finally get it; but at what cost? At the end of the game, you see you’re actually a part of this catalogue that just says ´Buy´ on it.
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Do you think it’s likely that in the future we will be genuinely content with a life of routine and repetitiveness or will we fight for something else? I’ve been reading a lot about the idea of post-capitalism, which is saying that now, because we live in such an interconnected era allowing for the access of communities to speak out against certain things… There’s
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many, many ways we could go. I personally would love to see a world in which we’ve become more aware and there is already definitely a lot of challenge against advertising – it’s brilliant when people actively oppose it. I think the Golden Age of capitalism has already happened. I’d like to be hopeful, but we’ve got a lot more to deal with before things get better.
The Futility of Internet Politics in 2015 It’s almost twenty-five years since the world wide web became available for public use. The overwhelming presence of media could be a platform for social awareness and democratic change, a place where voices across the globe unite. It could have immense ramifications for politics, society and culture. Yet the internet has expanded u n p r e c e d e n t e d l y, presenting us with an infinite realm of information and opinions overshadowed by viral videos and memes. We are left with a mission creep problem on our hands. The incorporation of internet and social media into our lives makes forming political opinions increasingly challenging; at every click you see contradictory articles, websites and blogs. When every voice
is given a platform, how do you decide who is speaking the truth? Online identity lives in the photos you share, the websites you browse and the blogs that you write, and as the twenty-first century progresses, this sharing of information has taken up residence in our back pockets, our bras and even our beds. It is a virtual personality that starts to take over the self that comes with faceto-face discussion and interaction with reality. So how do you choose
yours? And how did I choose mine? When I offer you my version of the ‘truth’, is there any reason you should listen to it? There are ulterior motives behind the media we consume, and as political activism migrates into cyberspace, it’s not just newspapers and presenters glaring down as you eat your cereal in the morning. It´s anonymous GIFs, memes and soundbites reducing our attention spans and mercilessly
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undermining every political perspective you can think of. Your chosen article looks serious. But so does the article beneath it, shared by another friend, which dictates an opposing view in a similarly aggressive style. The struggle of forming your own political opinion is
despite the wealth of information available at its fingertips; like shopping in Primark, the consumer is spoiled for choice, but rarely stops to question the source. The internet is fascinating and largely unregulated; it is an opportunity we are missing. Confusion breeds indifference, and the people are divided
understandable in the age of mass media. Information is made legitimate simply by its presence on your screen. We are presented with a world of conflicting opinions that often preach to the converted, and perhaps this accounts for a generation rife with political apathy,
by the sheer number of available opinions: the information is there, yet it is clouded by voices shouting incessantly at the same volume. We don’t make the time to filter through the nonsense, and many of us feel overwhelmed by the constant appeals for donations, signatures,
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likes and shares coming from all sides. Digitized society concedes to scroll absent-mindedly through news feeds, skimming the headlines but feeling intimidated by the requirements of words behind them that dare us to publically cement our opinions and by the sheer volume of posts. We are enticed by accessible sensationalist journalism; join this protest, join that counter-protest - or you can read about the latest Kardashian scandal instead! Access to genuine party policies is often convoluted or biased, even within manifestoes: once these are located and read, governments break the promises written inside. Political articles manipulate hard facts whilst presenting them as objective, and so do official documents and top politicians.
Personal principles blur and fade, and it is easier to base your cyber self on cute videos of cats on rollerskates than on inspirational quotes elaborately photoshopped next to Corbyn’s face, when you could be attacked for your lack of research. Yet how do you research when hard evidence is inconclusive? The natural reaction is to doubt it all. Politics becomes meandering and nonsensical, and there is enough on the internet to keep society distracted for... well ...forever.
Connie Judkins-Law sIllustrated by Axelle Van Wynsberghe
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During the Second World War, two German officers entered the studio of Pablo Picasso. They overturned his studio making sure the artist was within line. It was then that one of the officers spied a postcard of one of Picasso’s artworks. Addressing the artist, he showed him the postcard asking if he did this. The artist responded to the German officer “no sir, you did.”1 The postcard depicted Picasso’s Guernica, his response to the German bombings of the small town of Guernica, that did little to hide his disgust for war. Standing in front of the painting one can see Picasso’s “expressionistic message, written in the language of cubism.”2 One can argue that it is the cubist form, bordering on surrealism, which makes Guernica stand out against other depictions of war. However, some would argue that it is the absence of colour, choosing instead to display the chaos in monochrome. One can interpret the absence of colour as an indication of the stark, absolute nature of war. Figures appear against the harsh lines; regardless of gender and form they
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all retain a haunted look through distorted faces and mouths stretched out in agony. It was criticised as being “meretricious3.” However, critics who scorned its aesthetics missed the meaning. As John Berger argues Picasso creates with Guernica a direct “accusation against all such murders.” Guernica represents the victims of war, giving the casualties and victims more of an identity, rather than being defined as collateral damage. Picasso was not the first artist to show the true face of war. Artists such as Goya and Kathe Kollowitz, have also conveyed the stark horror of war. However, it was Picasso’s rendition of war which has maintained its resonance into the twenty-first century. It is clear that what has made it so potent is its ability to show the true face of war which for so long was hidden by a miasma of patriotism, propaganda and heroism. As Sandberg rightly states “by painting Guernica he transforms a stark act of war into an eloquent warning to humanity.”4
Philippa Leigh
Illustrated by Philippa Leigh
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A Bit Too Sober
I have so much more time now, well... the same amount of time I had when I didn’t have time, I use my time more now? Did I not use time before? Surrounded by temporal water and refusing to swim in lackadaisy haze in a pool of pizza crust. The same time passes, the same seconds saunter by but now they stop and give me a jab on their way to remind me they are on their way out. Another day trickles by. Fuck I am too sober for this. And now in unrest at the foot of this bed with a wreath of bells at my lips to alarm me should I whisper. I bellow inside. Oh sweet friend who so dulled my pain, was it all but a lie you told me, and that I told to you, in a dance of wind that burns your darling buds. Now this cathartic clarity of being, all the better to taste the contradiction my dear. All the better to face myself. Whom I have for so long fled. For I still want you so, and have so much more time, trickling honey irony down my gaping throat. I have time I must use lest I be wasted, wasted. Busy, busy. Must keep active, attractive. Is reality a wound that needs to be numbered or dies it only sting in contrast to my wilful vegetation? Cough out an indolent sigh. Filling the void is easy, bricking shut that wailing cavern in my chest, to choke the jabbering daemons with a wall of sweet smoke. This is me, this is me, this is my reality. Stop, scratch, why must I wrestle in that spacious aperture and all its self loathing denizens of my own creation. Stone them, stone the beasts. I am the hunter that stalks myself, with a band of grinning rejects fidgeting in a circle. Passing our weapon down left hand side...
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DAN GIBBS
Bowie: the man from OUTER SPACE Where do I start with a man who had more faces than Doctor Who and James Bond put together? An issue on identity would not feel right without mentioning David Bowie. We, as people, are constantly creating ourselves, and our identity. And we are often caught somewhere between our thoughts and our actions. Then there was Bowie – a man that could recreate himself as regularly as the seasons change. Bowie challenged gender norms, issues on race and sexuality before it was popular to do so. In an interview with Bowie’s music has MTV in 1983, Bowie legacy of its own. criticised the network Ziggy Stardust, perhaps for the lack of black Bowie’s most popular artists being played persona was an extraon their station. terrestrial, bisexual alien He also married black from outer-space. supermodel Iman Songs like ‘Moonage in 1992. His ability Daydream’ and to stay true to his ‘Starman’ from the authentic self, helped 1972 released album, him gain adoration ‘The Rise and Fall of from children as well Ziggy Stardust and the as adults that felt like Spiders from Mars’ they did not fit in. cement one of the most For those who iconic images in rock didn’t know, music. It is this typical larger than life image linked to Bowie which made people forget he was mortal. Hence the shock when, like many others, I was first informed of Bowie’s death on the tenth of January, 2016 via Twitter. Then came an outpour of messages from heartbroken fans for whom he has done so much for.
Who would have thought that the Starman was human? Sam Ogunnowo Illustrated by Beh Yon Chau
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Z M ST
UARY F E BR
2016
editor-in-chief Axelle Van Wynsberghe
design director Maria Velasquez
art director Phillipa Leigh
political editor Luke Osborne
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contributors
Maria Rosaria Esposito Timmy Davis Dan Gibbs Gabriele Žukauskaitė Sam Ogunnowo Yon Chau Connie Judins-Law
REFERENCES A MEDITATION ON IDENTITY 1. Ken Wilber – no boundary – 2001 – Shambala Publications. 2. David Myers, Jackie Abell, Arnuff Kolstad, Fabio Sani – Social psychology – 2010 – Mcgraw hill higher education. 3. R.C.Johnson – Watcher on the hills – 1959 – Harper. 4. R.M.Bucke – cosmic consciousness – 2007 – Book Jungle. 5. Rick Hanson Phd – Buddha’s Brain – 2009 – New barbinger. 6. Ben Sessa MD – The psychedelic renaissance- 2012 – Muswell hill press. THE ART OF WAR 1. In Praise of Guernica, (London: Guardian, 2009) >http://www. theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/mar/26/pablo-picasso-guernica-spain-war< [accessed 17/12/15] 2. W, Sandberg, ‘Picasso’s “Guernica”’, Daedalus, 89.1 (1960): 245–252 (p.249.) 3. W.D, Bannard, ‘Touch and Scale: Cubism, Pollock, Newman and still’, Artforum, 10, (1971) 55-68. (p.60.) 4. G, Peress, and John Berger, ‘How silent images can break the silence’, Aperture, 191 (2008): 44–49. (p.46.
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“Bye, bye” A Photograp Maria Rosaria Esposito “ByebyBye” While wandering around a park in Sofia, my friend and I noticed a group of Bulgarian children playing in quite interesting costumes. They waved at us, and seemed eager to be photographed. We then tried to ask the reason behind their magnificent dresses, but ‘bye, bye’ is the only answer we managed to get.
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