EDITORS IN CHIEF
Andrea Huang Kristen Troy
EDITORS
Larissa Bricis Rachel Eddie Tom Lodewyke Lachlan Mackenzie Lily Mei Nathalie Meier Hattie O’Donnell Nicola Parise
SUBEDITORS
Jade Ellen June Murtagh
News
CREATIVE DIRECTOR
Emma Sprouster
CREATIVE TEAM
Stephanie King
Emma Sprouster Bella Ali-Khan Avi Bamra Samantha Haviland Peita Keilar Astrid Milne Kate Tram Nguyen Carla Zimbler
COVER PHOTOGRAPHY
Bryce Thomas
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CONTRIBUTORS
Eunice Andrada Madeleine Er Mina Kitsos Nicole Lam Sam Langshaw Joe McKenzie Emily Meller Freya Newman Adele Palfreeman
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UTS Students’ Association Spotpress Pty Ltd, Marrickville
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The Collectors
Showcase: Stephanie Balchin, Joel Perlgut, Madeleine Er
Mapping Frictions: Re-telling Bankstown’s Stories
An Eclectic Mix(tape)
The Defamer
Puzzles (yay!)
Joel Perlgut Harry Power Aden Rolfe Hannah Story Hemant Vijaykumar Laura Wood Sam Wallman Rachel Worsley
WITH SUPPORT FROM
Don’t be a Stranger
Trending: Pugs and Drugs
Fringe
ADVERTISING
Letters to the Editors
Refuge Closures Leave Women Out in the Cold
Culture
COVER DESIGN
Last Week’s News Today: A Dilly of a (Budget) Pickle
Checking Off, Checking Out
Podcasts in Our Own Backyard
The Life Aquatic
Sam Wallman: Words With Pictures
Zinegeist: World’s Only
A Brief History of: Erotic Fan Fiction
Rookie’s Guide: Interning
Justice League: Social Entrepreneurship
Science, Tech & Gaming
The Trouble with Jonah
Palms: Lo-fi and Flying High
Reviews
Grad’s Guide
SA Reports
Vertigo is published by the UTS STUDENTS’ ASSOCIATION Proudly printed by SPOTPRESS PTY LTD, MARRICKVILLE Email us at advertising@utsvertigo.com for advertising enquiries. Vertigo and its entire contents are protected by copyright. Vertigo will retain reprint rights; contributors retain all other rights for resale and republication. No material may be reproduced without the prior written consent of the copyright holders. Vertigo would like to show its respect and acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the Land, the Gadigal and Guring-gai people of the Eora Nation, upon whose ancestral lands the university now stands. More than 500 Indigenous Nations shared this land for over 40,000 years before invasion. We express our solidarity and continued commitment to working with Indigenous peoples, in Australia and around the world, in their ongoing struggle for land rights, self-determination, sovereignty, and the recognition and compensation for past injuries.
VERTIGO
ISSUE FIVE: ANOMALY
EDITORIAL A friendly note from Andy & Kristen:
As of last week, we’ve added three new things to the Vertigo office: a 6kg bag of potting mix that’s in a plastic bag that’s in a cardboard box that’s under our kitchen sink (a surprise for next year’s editorial team! HELLO FUTURE, FROM THE PAST), plastic spoons (not used in the way that spoons were intended to be used), plus cacti and succulents. Why? Well, we’re not exactly sure. We just thought it’d be important for you to know. But seriously, our office is a really strange place. When we first got here, there was a paddle. Noone knew why. Much like life, the universe, everything, we still don’t understand it all. We may never understand. But maybe that’s the pleasure – which is why we wanted to fill this issue with all the strange, dark, offbeat, wonderful and generally excellent things we love. We’ve themed this issue ‘Anomaly’ because it’s the only issue with two editors (two times the fun!), and it’s a cool word. Real reason? Andy’s original idea to have Issue 5 forever be known as “the cool issue – because it’d be cool, you guys!” was a bit shit. By “a bit”, we meant: “no, Andy. That’s a terrible idea.” Yet with ‘Anomaly’, everything came together in a weirdly perfect and beautiful way, and it all seemed to make sense:
We asked mega-babes Megan Clune (Zinegeist, p. 40) and Rainbow Chan (Mixtape, p. 44) some questions, totally not expecting them to mention each other in their answers. Showcase artist Steph Balchin (p. 28) has brilliantly illustrated Kristen’s deep dark fear without knowing (oooOOOooooo). Joel Perlgut has submitted not one, not two… oh wait, it’s just two. But we’ve never had two short fiction pieces before – and they’re both really delightful, so be sure to have a read on pp. 30-31. We also asked the incredibly talented Sam Wallman for his words, and instead, he drew some pictures for us (p. 38). This issue really has been a labour of love – we* spilled tea (and potting mix), we got dirt in our eyes, and we may have (accidentally) killed cacti. It’s a little bit odd, prickly and crooked – and we hope you like it. Love and roasted fennel to you all, Andy & Kristen + the Vertigo family
*There is no “we”. It’s actually just Andy.
THANK YOUS: Apples Tea Dream caves Whispers Good Morning Jazz
FUCK YOUS: Birds Potting mix Sharp things Internet trauma No hammers
4 / EDITORIAL
CALENDAR AUGUST MON
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MUSIC: Broods @ Oxford Art Factory, 8pm – $20.50 ART: Sol LeWitt: Your Mind is Exactly at that Line @ Art Gallery of NSW, until 3/8 – FREE ART: Reformation @ White Rabbit Gallery, until 3/8 – FREE ART: Archibald, Wynne and Sulman Prizes 2014 @ AGNSW, until 28/9 – from $10
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MUSIC: Clare Bowditch & Adalita @ The Factory Theatre, 8pm – $40
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FASHION: Student Fashion @ Powerhouse Museum, until 31/8 – $6-12
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ART: Max Dupain: The Paris ‘Private’ Series @ AGNSW, until 10/8 – FREE FILM: Winter Wonderland film series @ Dendy Opera Quays, until 25/8 – $10
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SPORT: UTS Sport Championships @ UTS Multi-Purpose Sports Hall, 12pm – FREE
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MUSIC: Hanson @ Enmore Theatre, 8pm – $65 ART: Pia Van Gelder @ Carriageworks, until 6/6 – FREE
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THEATRE: Celebrity Theatesports @ Enmore Theatre, 8pm – $28
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SUN HERALD CITY2SURF
FILM: The Warriors @ Alaska Projects, 5pm – FREE
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MUSIC: The Aston Shuffle @ Oxford Art Factory, 8pm – $23.60
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MUSIC: Winterbourne @ Metro Theatre, 4:45pm – $15
MUSIC: Inner Fest! @ Factory Theare, 4:30pm – $20
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ART: Tabaimo: Mekurumeku @ MCA, until 7/9 – FREE
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MUSIC: Little Dragon @ Oxford Art Factory, 8pm – $54.30
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COMEDY: The Biggest Comedy Show on Earth @ The Comedy Store, 8:30pm – $10-30
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MUSIC: Seekae & Jonti @ Metro Theare, 7pm – $28.70
MUSIC: La Coka Nostra @ Factory Theare, 8pm – $60
THEATRE: Six tickets for $60 @ Giant Dwarf, 7pm – $60
ART: Annette Messager: Motion / Emotion @ MCA, until 26/10 – FREE
MUSIC: Kasabian @ Hordern Pavilion, 7:30pm – $79.50
CALENDAR / 5
VERTIGO
ISSUE FIVE: ANOMALY
LETTERS TO THE EDITORS Vertigo accepts all kinds of mail: electronic, voice, carrier pigeon, snail and owl post. Send your postcards, love letters and hate mail to: Letters Vertigo Magazine University of Technology, Sydney PO Box 123 Broadway NSW 2007 We has the internets too! Drop us a line at: editorial@utsvertigo.com.au
Dear Vertigo, I am writing to firstly apologise on behalf of the people who attacked your publication. And secondly, to stand by my article, ‘Fancy or Offensive Dress’ – an investigation into cultural appropriation in the form of distasteful costumes at university parties, published in Vertigo (Issue 3, Nerdsex). I would like to reiterate that my intention was never to offend but to provoke thought – to encourage the consideration of other perspectives than our own and to acknowledge that sometimes our choices, like what we wear, can hurt people. Certain party themes such as ‘Mexican Fiestas’ and ‘Jungle’ have the propensity to encourage racial stereotyping, and the focus of my article was to criticise costumes which group a diverse range of people as one homogenous identity, not to criticise people and name and shame them as racists. I am not demanding a total prohibition of the sombrero. I am simply saying that we should think about how our dress can be perceived e.g. please think about how dressing up as a stereotypical Mexican mechanic named Javier might make others feel. Last week, I encountered my first bout of cyber hate and to be honest it did not feel very nice. I was sickened by the appalling manner in which these students approached their issues with my article. I was in disbelief before that quickly turned into anger. Now I am just apathetic. It was their choice to be malicious, it was their choice to bully people behind the safety of a computer screen and it was their choice to twist my words into something they were not. To finish, I would like to state that I accept total responsibility for the article and its content. However, whilst I apologise that the article offended some people, I will not apologise for writing it. Li-Mei Russell
6 / LETTERS
VERTIGO
ISSUE FIVE: ANOMALY
DON’T BE A STRANGER
AN INTERVIEW WITH OUTGOING VC ROSS MILBOURNE FOR THE LAST 12 YEARS ROSS MILBOURNE HAS WATCHED OVER UTS AS VICE-CHANCELLOR, BUT NOW IT’S TIME TO SAY GOODBYE. LARISSA BRICIS SPOKE TO ROSS FOR SOME PARTING ADVICE AND REFLECTION ON HIS TIME AT UTS.
Slightly less politically minded, what has been your fondest memory of the university in your 12-year tenure? I think all of my best memories have been student related. I am continually inspired by the achievements of our students, and their commitment to making a difference in the world. What will you miss about UTS?
You rebutted Christopher Pyne’s suggestion that students should
The people. The first day I arrived at UTS I felt welcomed. I have a great
thank taxpayers for paying for their education. What responses have
team around me. I will particularly miss them.
you received from students, and the wider community, after the publication of these comments?
There are no Australian universities ranked in the top 10 – or top
I have been heartened by the support I have received from students,
20 – globally. Do you think that UTS, or any Australian university, will
including a Facebook page, and also from the wider community
make its way into the top 10?
including staff at universities who have advocated fee deregulation!
Rankings are primarily based on research, and they are overwhelmingly influenced by resources. For example, thanks to its
You made your opinions very clear in responding to Mr. Pyne. What
large endowment, Harvard has six times the income per student
would you like to say, directly to students, on this matter?
of any Australian university; Stanford has four times; even public
I think it is hypocritical that a generation of people who got free
universities such as University of California Berkley gets funded at
university education are now saying to the current generation that you
three times the rate of our universities. That’s the funding you need to
have to pay heavily to climb into the lifeboat with us. I hope that the
get into that league. Because of that, Australia will not have a world
younger generation don’t take it out on us when they wield political
top 20 university in our lifetime. It is ridiculous to think otherwise.
power (or at least not all of us!). Any parting wisdom for incoming VC, Attila Brungs? Senator Carr has described the Budget’s changes to university fees as “radical and retrograde.” In your mind, how extremely will this Budget affect students seeking tertiary education? We are working through the details but if the current legislation passes the Senate, fees will have to rise by a minimum of 30% at every university. UTS got particularly badly affected because of the very large cuts to science and engineering funding.
8 / NEWS
Always back your judgement.
LAST WEEK’S NEWS TODAY: A DILLY OF A (BUDGET) PICKLE WE LIVE IN A WORLD WHERE POLITICAL WILD CARD CLIVE PALMER DECIDES OUR FUTURES. BUT COULD HE BE THE SKYWALKER TO OUR EMPIRE? JOE MCKENZIE SPECULATES. Australia, I love you. I love your overpriced cities and the preposterous amount of land between them. I love your weird obsession with coffee. I love the way your insecurities play out as a need to be the best at all of the sports. I love the way that you celebrate the rest of the world’s B-grade celebrities and adopt them as your own. I love Masterchef. I love how objectively terrible the ARIAs are, and I love that you realise that but still put them on anyway. I love that Canberra is a thing. What other country could produce something as weird as Canberra? Nowadays I need to be reminded of the things I like about Australia because, holy moly, we are in a pickle. It’s very rare that a country gets to consciously decide what it wants to be like and apparently our elected leaders have decided for scifi dystopia. As someone who doesn’t want to see his country turned into a glorified quarry with a touch of Dickensian social policy, it’s a tough time to be following Federal politics. The measures in this year’s Federal Budget represent an important and powerful choice about the kind of country we want to become. This is, of course, made vastly more difficult by a political system that gives an enormous amount of political power to the statistically improbable outcasts who have been given the balance of power in the Senate. The most important political decisions in a generation will be made by a group of people who might as well have won it in a raffle.
What will this Senate pass? More importantly, what deals will the Coalition make to pass these measures? These decisions will be made by three senators who are arguably more conservative than the Coalition, one South Australian independent who seems to be the only person who knows what he’s doing, Ricky Muir and three people who ran for parliament literally because Clive Palmer asked them to. Clive is, of course, the shadow that looms over all of this. Australian politics is weird, it has been for a very long time, and it’s attracted weird people who now have a huge amount of power over the decisions we make as a country. And yet, here we are, at the mercy of the whims of an eccentric mining billionaire who seems to have entered politics with no discernable ideology and no discernable purpose other than causing as much mayhem as he and his considerable wallet can create. However, the thing about Clive, and the thing that makes me weirdly hopeful in all of this, is that Clive is a populist. And as long as the opposition to these measures is loud and mobilised around a vision of Australian society that isn’t Gina Rinehart’s fan fiction, we will at least be able to say that the Australia that I love, a society that takes care of its weakest members, still exists.
NEWS / 9
VERTIGO
ISSUE FIVE: ANOMALY
REFUGE CLOSURES LEAVE WOMEN OUT IN THE COLD NSW STATE GOVERNMENT HOMELESSNESS REFORMS HAVE EXCLUDED FORTY WOMEN’S REFUGES FROM FUNDING, ALREADY FORCING CLOSURES IN SYDNEY’S INNER CITY. ADELE PALFREEMAN EXAMINES THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE DECLINING NUMBER OF SAFE SPACES FOR WOMEN. One Australian woman is killed every week as a result of domestic violence. In NSW, more than 27 000 domestic assaults were reported in 2013. Despite this, at least eight inner city women’s refuges will close down because of the NSW Government’s Going Home and Staying Home reform. These services have assisted over 40 000 women and children in the past two decades. The Minister for Family and Community Services, Gabrielle Upton, said the reform would provide $70 million to improve homelessness facilities across the state. However, 40 women’s refuges were excluded from the package. One women’s-only shelter was offered for the inner city.
know how logically they think this is the best way to sort out homelessness,” she said. Unlike mainstream refuges, Ms. Robinson said Jean’s Place was flexible with taking in older children. “In the past, a lot of women have had to stay home because they could not get their boy in a crisis service [due to] their age, or they would leave the older boy at home. We took [boys] up to the age of 17 years … a lot of these big services do not do that, the cut off age is 12 or 14,” said Ms Robinson.
Jean’s Place in Sydney’s inner west has assisted thousands of women and children since 1975, but was forced to close last week under the reform.
Under the Going Home and Staying Home reform, mainstream providers such as St. Vincent De Paul and Mission Australia will take over specialist women’s services. Ms Robinson said women would fall through the cracks in a system that is already “overloaded”.
Tracey Robinson, the manager of Jean’s Place, said the changes are foreshadowing a “complete disaster”.
“A lot of the women are really shocked that this is happening … I think it’s a very sad time for all women and children.”
“I feel that there will be more women and children murdered. I don’t see how it is going to work. I mean, how many women and children have been murdered in the past 12 months? I don’t
In the Eastern suburbs, the only women’s-only refuge was also forced to close down last week. Since 1989, the Killara Women’s and Children’s Refuge has assisted over 500 women
10 / NEWS
and children every year. Manager Phyllis Mason said there was no longer a crisis service available in the Eastern suburbs for women escaping domestic violence. She said that the government has “put a knife through the whole sector”, as it will force women to stay in abusive relationships.
meet the needs of vulnerable women and children.
“Taking away the accommodation services where a woman can feel safe is just lessening their chance of getting out of the cycle of violence,” said Ms. Mason.
“The women and girls who use these services are often badly represented. I think that as a student body we can work on behalf of them to hinder the continual disregard they are subjected to, and work to support the services which for 40 years have done all they can to help those in need,” she said.
She said it was concerning that big charities will overtake specialist services, because women will get lost in the system. “If that’s all that’s offered then I don’t believe women will access those mainstream services. I think we will find more and more women staying home … They are minimising the amount of safe places these women are going to have,” Ms. Mason added.
“This issue is particularly of importance as youth homelessness rates are rising, women’s incarceration rates are rising [and] mental health issues are rising,” Henderson said.
Amy Knox, the NSW Women’s Officer for the National Union of Students, agrees that it is important for students to take action. “All students should be aware of the safety nets around them if they do get caught in a situation where they are unable to return home or to return to a partner, and they should be aware when these safety nets are under threat,” said Ms. Knox.
“People in the community are up in arms, but we can’t do anything about it. I’m just hoping that St Vincent de Paul, which has got a history of providing accommodation services for women escaping domestic violence, will maintain the specialty of this place … a lot of the women are really shocked that this is happening.”
Students can get involved by emailing Jillian Skinner (the Minister for Health), Gabrielle Upton (the Minister for Family and Community Services), Jai Rowell (the Minster for Mental Health and the assistant Minister of Health), and the NSW Premier, Mike Baird.
Students at UTS have called for others to take action against the Going Home and Staying Home reform. Drew Henderson from RU4MyChoice said the NSW government was failing to
For more information visit: soswomensservices.com or email amyknox94@live.com to find out about cross-campus meetings that are taking action against the reforms.
NEWS / 11
ISSUE FIVE: ANOMALY
CHECKING OFF, CHECKING OUT
THE ADMISSIBILITY OF PSYCHIATRIC EVIDENCE PSYCHIATRIC EVIDENCE IS CRUCIAL TO MANY ASPECTS OF CIVIL AND CRIMINAL LAW, BUT HARRY POWER EXPLAINS THE INHERENT DANGERS OF THE LEGAL SYSTEM’S RELIANCE ON IT. Mental health is a concept that has troubled the courts for many years. How to deal with those who are mentally ill – or mentally disordered – raises important and complex questions: whether they are fit to stand trial, whether their illness should be a factor considered in their sentencing or, perhaps even more profoundly, whether the mentally ill can be considered morally capable of even committing the crimes that they are accused of. On the other end of the spectrum, understanding mental illness is necessary in order to recompense those who are psychologically harmed by their experiences. As such, for all of these areas, forensic psychiatrists must present evidence to assist the courts in understanding a mentally ill individual’s unique experience of reality. In criminal law, the role of a forensic psychiatrist is to empower the courts with important insight into a patient’s mental state by communicating their perspective in ways that are vivid, empathic and accurate. In this way, courts develop an understanding of any potential connection linking a person’s mental illness to the crime they have committed, or the impact that their health has had on their behaviour and actions. This link must be proven at all times in court if the judiciary is to take into account the effects of a person’s mental illnessthe link can never be assumed. Simply suffering from a mental illness does not mean that the Court automatically concludes that it played an active role in the crime’s commission. Establishing this link can be very difficult,
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particularly in situations involving PTSD, schizophrenia and manic depression.
Unsettled science Psychiatry is by no means a settled science. It is the subject of continual revision and development, and requires careful scrutiny both in practice and in the courts of law. This is for good reason, because psychiatric conditions (and therefore diagnoses) are as complex and varied as the human mind itself. While ongoing investigations for definitive biological markers of psychiatric conditions have so far proven fruitless, there has been major progress in developing mainstream psychiatric classification systems. The ICD 10 and DSM 5 play important roles in streamlining the way that information is conveyed about patients. This has helped to successfully overcome individual clinician idiosyncrasies of language, leading to greater reliability in diagnoses. However, there are concerns that this uniformity has come at the cost of diagnostic validity. Critics of the DSM 5 argue that its symptom-focused approach has created a “menu-like” style of diagnosis. As they explain, “… person A receives label Z because they have criteria (a) and (b) and person B receives the same label because they meet criteria (c), (d) and (e).”
ILLUSTRATIONS BY PEITA KEILAR
VERTIGO
This means that though two patients may present with vastly different symptoms, their diagnosis remains the same. As such, an individual’s diagnostic label sheds little light on their actual symptoms or their severity, or indeed how they are continuing to impact upon a patient’s cognitive function. The reductive approach of DSM-based diagnosis also fails to account for how a patient’s symptoms may vary and change over time. In a study published in the British Journal of Psychiatry in 2007, Spanish research scientists found that there was only a 25% chance of patients receiving the same diagnosis on their first and fourth presentations to a psychiatrist. These factors must be taken into account when considering how a person’s mental illness is continuing to affect them.
Limitations of psychiatric evidence The limitations of psychiatric evidence are compounded when you consider the process through which they are developed. Psychiatric reports are only ever made post hoc – after the crime or event has taken place. Thus, expert witnesses are only ever able to retrospectively reconstruct a patient’s mental health, and how this may have affected their cognitive function at the time. This gives rise to obvious difficulties in evaluating the symptoms and how they may have influenced the individual’s actions.
that do not favour or support their client’s case may simply refuse to tender them. Furthermore, there are concerns that professional forensic psychiatrists act as ‘hired guns’ for the side that contracts them. In other words, they simply present the court with evidence which preferences the side that pays them. In order to allay these concerns, the courts will not allow expert evidence unless the facts and assumptions upon which the expert has based their opinion are disclosed. Additionally, courts now require expert witnesses to abide by a code of conduct that ensures that their evidence is both independent and impartial.
The different approaches Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, the difficulties that arise from receiving psychiatric evidence stem from the different purposes that the courts and psychiatrists adopt when approaching mental health. Where psychiatry is concerned with understanding a patient’s condition and making a diagnosis for the purposes of treatment and rehabilitation, courts of law are concerned with determining threshold questions such as whether or not a condition has affected a party to such an extent that it should be taken into account during judicial reasoning and decision-making. Reconciling these different approaches can be incredibly problematic, and it is a task made only more difficult by the challenges that beset the presentation of expert testimony.
Finally, there are well-known biases of which court must be aware of when receiving psychiatric evidence. It is well understood that lawyers who receive psychiatric reports
NEWS / 13
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VERTIGO
ISSUE FIVE: ANOMALY
PUGS AND DRUGS Winter is here and we’re all diseased as fuck. If you’re feeling as sick as a dog, we at Vertigo prescribe two important remedies* to help you combat your seasonal blues: pugs and drugs.
*Veritgo recommends that you also seek a second (professional) opinion.
16 / CULTURE
PODCASTS
IN OUR OWN BACKYARD WHILE ALL THE MAJOR FESTIVALS – AND INDEED, AUDIO DREAMS – ARE MOSTLY HAPPENING OVERSEAS, SOME SERIOUSLY INNOVATIVE AND CREATIVE RADIO STORIES COME FROM AUSTRALIA. YEP, RIGHT HERE. JOEL PERLGUT RECOMMENDS THREE LOCALLY PRODUCED PODCASTS YOU SHOULD PLUG IN TO RIGHT NOW. All the Best: #1345 ‘…Vs The Establishment’ Broadcast: 7 December 2013 All the Best is a weekly half hour broadcast of engaging, politically aware audio bliss from the team at FBi radio. Fans of This American Life will recognise the format: a host introduces a theme, we hear docos, interviews and fiction relating to that theme. While All the Best doesn’t have Ira Glass’ rockstar appeal, there’s a rawness and a willingness to take risks that makes All the Best all the better for it. This episode’s title implies we might hear self-congratulatory stories about the “triumph of nonconformity”. But to the credit of the show’s producers, there’s no easy gratification. As well as a detailed investigation into the Millers Point public housing eviction, we hear from Sydney lawyer Robin Margo about meeting Steve Biko during his time as an anti-apartheid activist. Steve Biko confronts Margo and the white student protesters and abandons the talks. Biko – founder of the Black Consciousness Movement – would later be tortured and murdered by police, a martyr for the future of South Africa. As a white man Margo recognises that he was part of the problem of institutionalised racism. “A warm man cannot understand a cold man,” he says, it’s a bitter truth but damn it makes for some good audio. A Rational Fear: #17 ‘Live at Giant Dwarf’ Broadcast: 29 April 2014 A Rational Fear is a group of Aussie satirists who took up where the Chaser left off. Hosted by Dan Ilic (Hungry Beast, Can of Worms) the podcast is a semi-regular, live variety show.
Comedians riff on the news and each other, occasionally interrupted by a sketch or an interview. It’s fast paced, it’s brutal. It feels nothing like talk radio and is everything good comedy should be. This episode takes aim at the almost untouchable ANZAC Day, by reimagining VB’s military inspired ads, with slogans like: “alcoholism, the most common mental health problem for Vietnam vets.” James Colley does an amazing bit on ABC-hater Chris Kenny, the man who definitely doesn’t have sex with dogs. Weirdly, for such a funny show, it’s the interview with former Foreign Minister Bob Carr that stands out. Carr’s got a great deadpan and he really gets into the vibe; you can’t even hate him when he dodges questions about offshore processing. Green Light Boys: #47 ‘Dad Camp – “This Summer, Camp’s Getting Dadified”’ Broadcast: 4 June 2014 The Green Light Boys are Scott “Dools” Dooley (of Triple J/Nova fame) and Angus Truskett. Every week they spend an hour pitching and casting a terrible direct-to-DVD movie. Apart form the inspired casting choices (Danny Glover plays Donald Glover’s dad) the real attraction is the banter. These guys shoot the shit like no-one else. This episode rolls with the boy’s obsession with dads. Following on from ‘DAD2K – the only cure for this virus is family!’ and ‘Bachelor Dad – Three single dads. An orphaned girl. One hell of a reality show!’, ‘Dad Camp’ does not disappoint. Angus calls out pop culture neanderthals, because, “If you haven’t seen Star Wars you’re the kind of person who orders a cheese pizza.” A spade is a spade.
CULTURE / 17
VERTIGO
ISSUE FIVE: ANOMALY
SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP WHILE THE IDEA OF MAKING A DIFFERENCE AND MAKING PROFIT MIGHT SEEM AT ODDS WITH EACH OTHER, SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP IS NOT EXACTLY A NEW MODEL AND IT’S ACTUALLY A VIABLE WAY OF DOING BUSINESS. RACHEL WORSLEY EXPLAINS. In an era of big profit margins and consumerism at all costs, it’s hard to believe that there are some businesses out there which make money for the greater good. That’s where social entrepreneurship comes in. The concept has been around for more than 30 years now. However, in the age of convenience, the internet, and a greater awareness of social problems that confront society, many people are turning towards organisations who want to make an ethical difference to their bottom line. So what is social entrepreneurship? Simply put, it’s the model of doing business to make a difference rather than doing business for profit. The business still sustains its founders and workers, but much of the profit goes into helping the cause and the community they ultimately serve. Social enterprises are all about applying practical, innovative and sustainable approaches to benefit society in general, such as the marginalised and poor. For the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, the social entrepreneur has to possess the following traits: an unwavering belief in the power of people to contribute meaningfully to economic and social development, a passion to change things, a practical but innovative stance to a social problem and a zeal to measure and monitor their impact. So is it for everyone? According to Social Enterprise Finder, a website that attempts to list all active social enterprises, there are at least 5483 social enterprises currently
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operating in Australia. They serve a wide variety of areas, like agriculture, employment, childcare, music, cooking, clothing and microfinance. People under the age of 30 make up the bulk of this demographic of social entrepreneurs. One of the most successful social enterprises in Australia is ThankYou. In 2008, a group of university students discovered that over 900 million people in the world didn’t have access to safe drinking water. They also discovered that Australians spent $600 million on bottled water every year, an astonishing figure given that tap water is free, and usually safe. These extreme figures made them realise that something wasn’t quite right. Before they knew it, ThankYou Water was born – a bottled water company existing for the sole purpose of funding safe water projects in developing nations. Today, ThankYou has expanded into a movement encompassing food and hygiene: a sign of the adaptability of the social enterprise model to the same mission of providing everyday Australians the chance to buy high quality products to make a difference to the developing world. But not all social enterprises have an view to solving the world’s problems and sometimes the problems they are addressing are right here, at home. One Night Stand is one of these social enterprises. The sleepwear company reinvests the profits made from their products into tackling homelessness in Australia. Their founder, Jamie Green, was
just another person who thought he could make a difference. And he did. Social enterprises aim to eliminate the divide between making a difference and making a profit. They are mutually convenient goals that serve a common purpose. Once, people thought the only way to make a difference was to donate time and effort to a cause. Now, it’s apparent that capitalism can be reengineered for the social good. And the rise of technology has a lot to do with this growth in social conscience. However, not every project has easy access to capital funds to jumpstart their service. Many rely on crowd funding services. The Fabric Social is a person-to-person app and online store that is encouraging conflict affected women to sell their apparel directly to the international market. So far they have gathered a few thousand dollars towards their goal. They are optimistic that this will take us one step closer to more ethically responsible fashion. In fact, the Fabric Social is part of a greater conversation about the ethical manufacture and purchase of clothing; an issue that came to prominence with the tragic collapse of the Bangladeshi factory in Rana Plaza last year.
Even universities are getting onto the act. Macquarie University and the Macquarie Graduate School of Management have recently launched their first Master in Social Entrepreneurship in the belief that yes, social entrepreneurship can be taught and people can be accredited in the process. And there’s no shortage of support from for-profit companies. Insurance company ING DIRECT launched the Dreamstarter initiative to provide funding support to selected StartSomeGood (a social entrepreneur specific crowd funding platform) campaigns. For companies that have a great idea, but lack the funds to get started, it’s a great alternative to breaking the bank or begging for venture capital from a very charitable businessperson. Ultimately, it seems that social enterprise begins with the individual and the idea. While it’s easier than ever for people to start up a social enterprise, the real skill lies with how commercially successful that enterprise can be, and how it reinvests its profits for the greater good.
So can social entrepreneurship be taught? Or is it all about support? The School for Social Entrepreneurs (SSE) Australia runs learning programs for people of all backgrounds that have an idea or business with a community background. It’s an offshoot from the highly successful model established in the UK. One Night Stand is one of their most notable alumni, but there are many success stories lurking behind those doors.
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ISSUE FIVE: ANOMALY
THE COLLECTORS THE HAWKESBURY IS A QUAINT, SEMI-RURAL DISTRICT THAT IS FULL OF CHARMING THINGS AND THE CHARMING PEOPLE WHO COLLECT THEM. KRISTEN TROY SHARES THEIR STORIES. The amateur palaeontologist Mr (Gary) Holloway is a citizen scientist, amateur palaeontologist, retired primary school teacher and a lifelong Hawkesbury resident. He is also a fossil and taxidermy enthusiast and collector.
Once the insects had entirely eaten away the possum’s flesh, Mr Holloway repaired and arranged the skeleton, and propped it up proudly at the forefront of his collection in our classroom. He told us to bring any animal carcases we happened upon into school for his next project.
He taught my Grade 5 science class in a poorly lit underground cellar that was affectionately dubbed by staff (and terrifyingly acknowledged by students) as “The Dungeon.” The Dungeon’s wall-to-wall, ceiling high shelves were lined with cluttered collections of precious fossils, volcanic stones, scuffed skeletons, glowing crystals, and ghostly creatures trapped in jars, suspended in green-tinged formaldehyde.
The Hobbyists The Hawkesbury Hobby show is a small-scale annual event where seasoned collectors and hobbyists unite to exhibit a miscellaneous array of personal treasures and projects.
One morning, much to our curiosity, he brought a large empty fish tank into our classroom. One boy raised his hand to ask if we were getting a class pet, like 5B next door. “That’s right,” he guffawed, “just a very low maintenance one.” Then he unceremoniously dumped a dead possum into the fish tank. The possum decomposed in our classroom fish tank over the subsequent two months with the help of hundreds of Mr Holloway’s Dermestid beetles – flesh-eating insects used specifically by taxidermists to clean specimen skeletons. While we chipped away at our Maths Mentals workbooks, the image of the insects swarming over the possum’s body would lurk at the edge of our peripheral vision.
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At this year’s show, I befriended Helen and Ann, a mother and daughter from the Richmond Stamp and Coin Collecting Society. A former stamp collector myself, I described my mediocre collection to them while they listened patiently. Helen kindly explained that most Australian stamps are worthless, but that they make up for their financial insignificance with their beauty. “The Australian flora are my favourites,” she said. “There is nothing else like them in the world.” “Stamps are like a visual timeline of history,” added Ann, “and they connect people from all over the place. Have you ever heard that joke? What travels around the world and stays in a corner?” Another man, Bill, stood happily next to an enormous matchstick sculpture of a medieval castle. He beamed when I asked him about his exhibit. He told me that 23 000 matchsticks were encased in the structure, and explained how he got involved in model making.
“I broke both my legs and fractured my back, and everyone said I was becoming a grump to be with in hospital. So one day my son brought in boxes of used matchsticks. I just started to build things. Sculpting was therapeutic, and it took my mind off all the time that was passing.” Hawkesbury One Collective Art collecting is an expensive hobby, but local community collective Hawkesbury One know how to marry thriftiness with cultured taste. The club effectively functions like a much swankier version of The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants, in that the group pools money together to purchase democratically selected artworks. The artwork is then shared between the group members on the basis of rotating shifts. “We’ve purchased some exquisite works worth up to $20 000,” said Catherine Croll, leader of the group of ten. “We each put $2000 into the kitty, and together we are able to afford significant works of art. Then we just take turns keeping each piece – we enjoy sharing the art and appreciating it as a group.” Hawkesbury One most often invests in Australian art from the first decade of this century. The group has collected works by various artists, including Adam Cullen, Patricia Piccinini, Dorothy Napangardi and David Rosetzky, amongst dozens of others. Their collection contains paintings, drawings, sculpture, photography, as well as installation and video pieces. The group regularly hosts public exhibitions so that the community can enjoy their collection too.
of his beloved vintage car. When I asked to see the society’s clubhouse, he led me to a small shack on the edge of the Hawkesbury showground. Outwardly, it is a neat, modern and neutral building, but the inside looked and smelled like a Hard Rock Café: they had rusted number plates, tyres, photographs and novelty memorabilia adorning the walls, and a large barbeque smoking in a corner. I was lucky enough to visit the society on Hawkesbury Show day, and the club had ostensibly parked its most prized hotrods outside the clubhouse. Meanwhile, the members were cooking a charity sausage sizzle – beers in hand – and telling stories about their cars. They told me that they love driving kids to their formals, and hiring their cars out for weddings. “You get to be part of something really special,” Garry explains. “There’s no point having an amazing car and never using or enjoying it.” I asked Garry how he felt about his upcoming gig – the Hot Rod Club was due to participate in the official opening of the show in the forthcoming hours, where they would drive their cars around the perimeter of the main arena before thousands of show-goers. “It’s our favourite time of year,” he said.
Macquarie Towns Hot Rod Club By day, Garry Hudson paints signs professionally. But by night, the Hot Rod Society President is preening away at the paint job
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ISSUE FIVE: ANOMALY ANOMALY
SCIENCE FEATURE:
THE LIFE AQUATIC EVER WONDERED WHAT LURKS BENEATH THE BRINY WAVES? HATTIE O’DONNELL WILL HAVE YOU SERIOUSLY RETHINKING YOUR NEXT BEACH HOLIDAY. You’ve probably heard of the deadly rainbow mantis shrimp (of Oatmeal fame), but there are thousands of other bizarre and terrifying creatures out there that you should consider adding to your stash of useless trivia knowledge. Surfing the same wave as Steve Zissou and Jaques Cousteau, here are some beautifully weird sea creatures that you might like to avoid next time you put your swimmers on. Let’s start with the downright terrifying. Sarcastic fringehead Boasting what is possibly the weirdest name for an animal ever, the sarcastic fringehead has a number of creepy traits that set it a cut above the rest. With characteristics more like a zombie mutant from Resident Evil, this small but ferocious fish has a jaw that is about one-third the size of its body, which is rainbow-coloured and filled with tiny razor sharp teeth. It fights for its territory by ‘kissing’ its enemy (whoever has a bigger head wins for obvious reasons). You do not want to cross this bad boy.
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Goblin shark Move aside sharkzilla, there’s a more terrifying hybrid species in town. This creepy as hell shark has an elongated snout, a mouth full of jagged teeth, and a very mean look on its face. The goblin shark is the only descendant left of a family of sharks over 125 million years old, and is sometimes referred to as a “living fossil”. They’re incredibly rare, but when they do turn up they usually scare the bejeezus out of everyone. This is why we can’t have nice things. Stargazer fish More like a monstrous creation of Tim Burton than a fish, the stargazer’s mouth and eyes sit on top of its head. To catch their prey, they bury themselves in the sand, and leap upwards to devour whatever happens to be swimming above. Another fun fact: some of these fish are capable of delivering lethal electric shocks. Unluckily for us humans, they live in shallow waters and up to a depth of 60 metres, so the chances of stepping on/getting your foot mangled by one of these bizarro creatures is more likely than you’d prefer.
Blobfish This sad-looking gelatinous mess is one of the ocean’s less exciting offerings. The blobfish pretty much just floats around the sea floor, eating whatever happens to drift in front of it. Exciting life. Its only real claim to fame was in 2013, when it was voted the World’s Ugliest Animal. This wondrous slimy mess can be found off the coast of Tasmania. Giant spider crab I am not kidding – that is actually its name. If you want to get scientific you could call it macrocheira kaempferi (but that’s a bit of a mouthful). It has a claw span of around 5 metres, which is about as long as a car and also, you know, terrifying. Thankfully, they’re mostly found in Japan so it’s unlikely you’ll encounter one unless you specifically go looking for it.
Barreleye fish The ultimate superfreak, the barreleye (also known as a “spook fish”) has a transparent head. You can see its brain. And eyes. And head contents. It can see in multiple directions at once, and uses this creepy skill to scope out potential meals that swim above it. More in the league of the blobfish, this cross between a jellyfish and well, a normal fish, doesn’t have many more exciting traits other than its TRANSPARENT HEAD so let’s just move on shall we? A whole load of crap Recently, deep sea scientists journeyed to depths that had never been reached before, and they found something quite unexpected: our trash. Plastic containers, bottles and cans had made it to the ocean floor before any other piece of human technology, which is a pretty depressing fact. It’s probably time to get our act together, humans.
If you want to see one of the most disgusting things in the world, then watch a time-lapse video of a giant spider crab molting. It’s less like shedding, and more like watching a raw meat patty slowly being squeezed backwards out of a crusty barnacled face-shell of horror. If you can stomach more than the first 45 seconds, be sure to watch the part at the end where it proceeds to eat leftover mucousy bits of its former self!
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ISSUE FIVE: ANOMALY
SCIENCE, TECH AND GAMING
A NEW ERA OF PRINTING 3D PRINTING IS WIDELY ACKNOWLEDGED AS THE COOLEST THING EVER. BUT DID YOU KNOW IT MIGHT BE SAVING LIVES SOON? HEMANT VIJAYKUMAR EXPLORES THE POTENTIAL OF THIS GROUNDBREAKING TECHNOLOGY FOR THE MEDICAL INDUSTRY. Printing has revolutionised the way people and organisations operate, and now it’s no longer limited to boring black and white pages. In fact, scientists recently discovered techniques that allow them to three-dimensionally print organs and tissues. You don’t have to be a medical scientist to realise the significant implications of this advancement: approximately 123 000 names fill waiting lists for organ transplants in the US alone. Among other possible medical benefits, 3D printing could result in substantial improvements to our healthcare system and standard of living. The two organisations leading this research are the Organovo Biotechnology Company and Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine. As the research stands, tissue printing – technically termed ‘bioprinting’ – remains far from its ultimate objective of producing functional human organs. Currently Organovo’s research involves cultivating tiny tissue samples using human cells. Those cells are then printed into a structure “enabling them to interact, form and evolve,” according to an article in Forbes magazine. This represents an important stepping-stone for Organovo towards developing operative and transplantable organs. During January 2014, an artificial liver was produced by the company and used to examine different drug toxicities. Implementing this as a standard laboratory testing method in the future would save enormous amounts for pharmaceutical companies, but more importantly, could help to readily identify latent product risks before using humans to test new medicines. Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine is investing research in engineering tissues, organs, and organelles in
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30 areas of the body, using the same printing technique as Organovo. A heavily funded part of the project is focused on printing skin grafts for burn victims. One hurdle for researchers is the need to configure a system that can not only nurture organs, but also eventually enable them to prosper as self-sufficient biological entities. This requires a complex vascularisation and a capillary system: basically, scientists need to grow new blood vessels for the organs too. Blood vessels are essential for transporting vital nutrients and oxygen, as well as for eliminating toxic bodily waste. The ability to manufacture channels throughout the body is a key development area for scientists, but a team of researchers at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital may have already identified one possible mechanism to do this. Using an agarose based hydrogel precursor (a naturally derived sugar-based molecule), combined with the biomaterials in bioprinting, scientists observed that monolayers of endothelial cells successfully formed within organ microchannels. That said, further developments and testing of bioprinting are in order. The transplantation of bioengineered tissue remains a primary obstacle and scientists will need to overcome the potential difficulties of tissue rejection by customising organs to the needs of individual patients. However, the imminent possibility of bioprinting facilitates hope for a cascade of landmark medical advancements, and a chance to abolish the lingering list for organ transplants.
SCIENCE, TECH AND GAMING
PIRATES BEWARE WHY ARRRR AUSTRALIANS SUCH PROLIFIC WEB PIRATES? EMILY MELLER EXPLORES THE IMPLICATIONS OF COPYRIGHT LAW ON PIRACY. Australians wear the title of World’s Worst Pirates as something of a badge of honour. While our Attorney General wags his finger and warns that this time the government is really cracking down on piracy, we continue to run around torrenting movies like children in the lolly aisle of Coles. But to be fair, it is hard being Australian when you are interested in good television. Between waiting up to a month for our favourite shows to make it Down Under, the cruel teasing of Netflix considering to expand, and the painful reality of online spoilers, it is no wonder we are driven to a life of crime. As comedian Louis C.K. has accurately observed, “[In the US] weirdos pirate… but in Australia, moms and dads pirate video.” The proposed ‘finger-wag’ crack down on piracy is expected to be announced as part of a wider reform of Australian copyright law. The reforms currently being considered by Brandis and Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull are a two part response. The first part is a “graduated response” scheme, similar to that enacted in the UK, which would require ISPs to issue letters of warning to copyright infringers. The second part would force ISPs to block websites like The Pirate Bay if they are found to repeatedly and systematically authorise copyright infringement. What does that mean for pirates? If the UK model is anything to go by, we can expect some very stern letters in the mail. Under the Digital Economy Act 2010 (UK), users who illegally download content are sent warning letters by ISPs which use terms like “cease”, “desist” and “breach” to nail the seriousness of streaming that latest Game of Thrones episode. After three of these, you are put on Santa’s naughty list a Copyright Infringement list and can eventually have your internet service blocked or slowed back down to the inhumane speed known as dial-up.
This is despite a recommendation from the Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) in their comprehensive review of Australian copyright law that a “fair use” exception be introduced as a flexible solution to infringement. Brandis remained “unconvinced” by the recommendations, and continued to investigate options for reform. Graduated response schemes are currently in place in the UK, New Zealand and France, generating considerable controversy. This is mainly because of the high operational costs incurred by ISPs in sending multiple infringement notices to users. In the UK, Ofcom revealed that between 2012/13 it spent £1.8 million implementing the DEA provisions for blocking websites and sending infringement notices. New Zealand ISP Telecom estimated that it cost them $438 to send each of the 1,238 infringement letters sent in 2012. Following the iiNet decision, the current law in Australia insulates ISPs against this kind of responsibility, which was widely viewed as a huge victory. In response, AFACT and other copyright owners have increased pressure on the government to address our piracy “problem.” Economically, it makes sense to let Australians pay for their TV, rather than outsource the costs to ISPs. It might require some business restructuring, but ultimately it will help ensure copyright owners can make a profit long after their tersely worded letters are left in the recycling bin.
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ISSUE FIVE: ANOMALY
SCIENCE, TECH AND GAMING
THE SECOND LIFE WHETHER OR NOT YOU ENJOY BLOWING UP VIRTUAL ZOMBIES, OR LIVING OUT YOUR ROGUE ASSASSIN FANTASIES, GAMES ARE A FAST-GROWING PART OF OUR CULTURE. LACHLAN MACKENZIE TAKES A BRIEF LOOK AT THE CHANGING LANDSCAPE. We’re at a point where games are no longer just for kids and people who hate leaving the house. Slowly but surely, people are dropping the cringe-worthy ‘gamer’ definition and accepting games as a standard part of our culture1. The transition to ‘normality’ has been accompanied by the idea of games as art, but this simple definition has strong implications for how games are received, analysed and marketed. Now, game criticism and marketing is in a kind of limbo – analysing games on a feature basis and an artistic analysis that focuses more on politics, cultural implications and the experience as a whole. Why do people buy games? Simple answer: why do developers make games? Undoubtedly some are made to show off a bunch of features in a hyper real playground. Call of Duty is the punching bag of the feature games: it’s simple, fast fun with a generally arbitrary storyline that developers only half expect you to play. On the other end of the spectrum you have the story driven Heavy Rain, and a middle ground comprised of the Bioshock Infinite’s out there. Some games exist to tell a story, others to kill time, and others to create an engaging experience that does a bit of both. Think about how games used to be sold and reviewed. It was all about features. It was what you could do and see, and you’d buy a game for that. Features haven’t become any less important, it’s just that now they’ve opened up story telling possibilities that can immerse the player in a world that has true meaning and gives reactive context to their actions. The controversy around the Far Cry series encapsulates the problems that have arisen from the changing nature
1. Just saying, you don’t call people who watch films ‘filmers’.
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of games. The games stick to the formula of ‘white dude in exotic lands, killing bad dudes (which often includes the locals)’ and – in Far Cry 3 – levelling up through a vague incorporation of the culture that quickly results in you being revered. 3 in particular was a bit of a slap in the face when the brilliant villain Vaas was shown to be in the employ of a rich white dude. Though they do try to add depth, it ends up being white dudes doing white dude things among the natives, which sucks. On the other hand, on a technical level it’s an awesome game and I really love playing it. And it’s the technological advancements in games like Far Cry 3 that have opened up new ways to tell stories. The more ways our virtual selves are allowed to act in their universes, the more avenues for creativity are opened and the more our actions matter, just like in non-digital life (aka life) we create meaning when we act. Sometimes we dull ourselves to it and sometimes we engage and reflect, and sometimes, in games like Far Cry, we have to think about what it means when the majority of players won’t have a second thought about killing their way through the local culture. Despite a struggling development industry, games are the most interesting cultural texts out there because of their potential. They allow you to reflect on yourself and the world through experience, whether that’s banding together to survive in Day Z or fencing in a Sim and fast-forwarding to their pants-wetting demise. Far Cry 4 seems to be taking the opposite approach to 3, with a protagonist reclaiming his home from a foreign invader. I’m a little wary of whether this will show a new sensitivity from the developers or redeem them from the criticism of 3, but it does feel like a self-aware step in the
right direction. The developers have stated their intent to avoid being didactic with their games, which means they either want an excuse to be amoral, or want to present the player with a world full of as many grey areas as there are in real life. Either way, we won’t be able to make a judgement call until the release, but we can be sure there will be a whole lot of cultural commentators ready to let us know what they think.
Some hate that people are taking a cultural eye to games, and there are of course those who read too much into it. To me though, it’s a sign of cultural acceptance that will result in a more diverse industry that produces a wider range of games. And hopefully it will mean a more stable development industry that produces technically brilliant and creative games that further the form.
image via mattbrett.com
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ISSUE FIVE: ANOMALY
SHOWCASE: ART
STEPHANIE BALCHIN THE HAIRCUT There is always that dreaded moment, when it becomes time to go for a haircut.
Where everyday tasks become difficult.
And drying it becomes a marathon.
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You close your eyes,
You close your eyes,
The hair on the back of your neck raises with each snip.
The hair on the back of your neck raises with each snip.
Cringing as each snip comes closer to your ear.
Cringing as each snip comes closer to your ear.
SNIP. Stephanie Balchin is a Second Year Visual Communication Design student who is known for her general quirkiness. She loves spending her time drawing and doodling fun little characters. Check out her blog darwinsfaeries.com SNIP.
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ISSUE FIVE: ANOMALY
SHOWCASE: WRITING
KAFKA WORDS BY JOEL PERLGUT One morning, upon awaking from troubled dreams, I find myself transformed into Franz Kafka. My hair is darker, my skin pale and taut, my nose hooked. I look even more Jewish, if such a thing is possible. My girlfriend, whose honours thesis is called Existence Proceeds Essen: The Absurdity of Food Photography, Sartre and Instagram, is enamoured by the whole thing. Her fingers map my concave cheeks, she runs a tender hand through my brittle hair. That night the Kierkegaard tattoo on her inner thigh seems to wink at me mid-coitus. I tell my mother what’s happened. I ask her to keep it a secret. “My boy, the long dead existentialist author,” she says. That afternoon she brags about my new identity to her optometrist, an old flame from Hebrew school with whom she still flirts from time to time. The next day his son, an HSC student studying English Extension knocks on my door. He films me on an iPhone while I sign his copy of The Metamorphosis and Other Stories. Franz Kafka signs book, ALIVE AND WELL, NOT FAKE, 100% LEGIT!!1: overnight the video goes viral. I become an international news sensation. The European tabloids fly journalists to Sydney and they camp outside my apartment, their telephoto lenses holding out for a shot of my bony, naked ribcage. On BBC World Service they get my mother for comment. “He was always a good boy, I knew something would come of it, I just knew.” Slowly, things do come of it. There are rumors that the government of the Czech Republic will grant me citizenship
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in an official ceremony. Though I have never written fiction in my life, Random House gives me a small advance on a book of short stories. At the height of my fame I am a guest panelist on ABC’s Q&A. A live TV audience hangs on my every word. What does a 20th century depressive think about same sex marriage? But being Franz Kafka turns out to have its dark moments. I am fired from my job as an administrative assistant at a conveyancing firm for “excessive rumination and misanthropy.” Random House rejects my manuscript. An intern calls me and explains that in the current publishing environment, “no one really wants to read about the crushing violence of bureaucracy on the human spirit.” I look into self-publishing but am contacted by the executor of Kafka’s estate who warns me that any attempt at using his (my) name will result in legal action. My health begins to deteriorate. What starts as a sore throat develops into a hacking cough, which turns into general, debilitating pain. I only leave the bed to puke blood into the toilet. I spend the last of my advance to employ doctors, nurses and scientists to prod, poke and dissect my body to discover the source of the illness. At the Centre for Infectious Disease at the University of Auckland, a team of researchers tell me I have a strain of tuberculosis eradicated 80 years ago. There’s not much they can do for me; it’s a particularly virulent disease and it’s very advanced. I’ve got about 18 months left. “That’s impossible,” I tell the doctor. “I’m 24 years old, Franz Kafka lived until he was forty.” “I’m sorry,” he says, “but who’s Franz Kafka?”
WANTED: HOUSEMATE/ DEMON HUNTER, 190 P/WK WORDS BY JOEL PERLGUT THE HOUSE is a beautiful 5 bedroom terrace in Glebe. 15 minute walk to the University of Sydney/UTS. 5 minute walk to shops, pubs and restaurants. Looks out onto a leafy backyard complete with veggie patch, bike shed and, under the gnarled root of an oak tree, a portal to hell that regularly spawns bloodthirsty demons. THE ROOM, which is spacious and filled with light, adjoins the upstairs balcony. The balcony makes for a great place to read, have a quiet beer or, on the regular and random occasion that screaming hellspawn attack our house, man the crossbow and pray for victory. WE are a group of creative, open-minded and easygoing boys and girls looking for someone to join our home. We are all young professionals/students but afterhours we like to relax with a couple drinks, cook vegetarian/vegan meals and at all costs, hold off the hordes of demons and sprites that we simply must not allow past the line of chalk in the kitchen. Not huge party animals during the week, but we get a little messy come the weekend.
The problem we’ve had with a lot of former housemates is that they just didn’t get the vibe of the house. A lot of well intentioned, nice people who make really detailed macramé bracelets that honestly, should have sold better at Balmain Markets, just don’t ‘get it.’ Yes, we’re all about alternative lifestyles but if you won’t take a bladed weapon and defend yourself then you will be torn apart limb from limb by creatures of darkness (RIP Sandy). Of course, there are always other problems; it’s like, we know your boyfriend is from Brazil and plays synthpop, you don’t need to leave fliers to his gigs on the kitchen table. The flip side of this is guys who just don’t understand where we’re at as a house. They’ll come in, armed with silver bullets, shurikens and tear gas and will slay the minions of the dark lord with an admirable efficiency. Then they’ll get all weird and insist that if they’re going to eat spinach frittatas, Craig has to wear clothes whilst cooking so they don’t end up with a mouthful of pubes like last time. They’ll inevitably end up letting slip that they voted Liberal in 2007. No Liberal voters. Should we even have to say that?
YOU are a chilled out, respectful guy/girl, who is looking to become part of a welcoming, inclusive household. We’re a pretty social lot but happy if you keep to yourself. More important is that you are able and willing to go to war with armed, occasionally fire-breathing, beasts of Hades at least once or twice a week. I cannot stress enough how important that last requirement is. If we allow the demon army to capture the living room the human race as we know it may become extinct. Also, we don’t watch TV in the communal space. Must be 420 and queer friendly. No couples, please.
No pets. Not taking any chances after a former housemate’s Labrador mated with a three-headed hellhound, and had to be put down.
Joel Perlgut has been published in the 2014 UTS Writer’s Anthology Sight Lines, The Voices Project and Time Out Sydney. He’s also a producer/presenter at 2SER Radio.
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ISSUE FIVE: ANOMALY
SHOWCASE: POETRY
UNTITLED 4 WORDS BY MADELEINE ER One year ago a July morning full of foggy windows and songs of tomorrow You, on one side of the room, a warm candle glowing Me, on the other side, as hopeless as an ocean that wants to drown
Madeleine Er is a freelance writer who is perpetually stuck on public transport and never has an umbrella when she needs it. Her ultimate goal is to co-host a cooking program alongside former Prime Minister Julia Gillard. Follow her on twitter for ABC News 24 retweets @madeleine_er
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SAM WALLMAN:
WORDS WITH PICTURES Sam Wallman is a queer comic artist based in Melbourne. He has self published some comic books, including Being Born Is Goin Blind, Brain Furniture and Pen Erases Paper. Working in collaboration with a team at The Global Mail, he illustrated a story about life inside an Australian immigration detention centre, as told by a former SERCO guard (serco-story.theglobalmail.org). He recently edited and published an anthology of cartoons and comics about alternative and marginalised visions of Australian history, entitled Fluid Prejudice. You can see more of Wallman’s work at penerasespaper.com We asked Sam for an interview and got a comic instead. Turn over for awesomeness.
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ISSUE FIVE: ANOMALY
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ISSUE FIVE: ANOMALY
THE TROUBLE WITH JONAH CHRIS LILLEY’S LATEST SHOW JONAH FROM TONGA HAS BEEN CRITICISED FOR ITS RACISM, FROM BOTH WITHIN AND OUTSIDE THE POLYNESIAN COMMUNITY. FREYA NEWMAN QUESTIONS WHY SUCH A SHOW IS ALLOWED TO AIR. The first sentence of the Jonah From Tonga Wikipedia page is matter-of-fact:
hater camp – those who will “never see past” the show’s oppressive themes – are plagued by “old world sensibilities” and “finer feelings”.
“Jonah From Tonga is a new Australian brownface television comedy series written by and starring comedian Chris Lilley.”
Polynesian journalist Morgan Godfery begs to differ:
It is a confronting summary. Equally confronting is the giant billboard advertising the show behind the ABC building, featuring a picture of Lilley in brown makeup, a curly black wig and a fake tatatau (a traditional Tongan tattoo).
“I, for one, am sick of [being] told it’s ‘just a joke’, ‘you’re too sensitive’ and ‘get off your PC high horse’. The implication is that being offended is something disadvantaged people do while joking around is something that people with privilege do.”
Jonah From Tonga is not Lilley’s first project in racial offensiveness. Apart from the character Jonah Takalua, who also appeared in the 2007 series Summer Heights High, Lilley has donned blackface to play S.mouse in the Angry Boys series, as well as yellowface to play both Jen Okazaki in Angry Boys, and Ricky Wong for We Can Be Heroes in 2005.
When probed about the racial offensiveness of the show, ABC TV’s head of comedy Rick Kalowski insisted that it “does not encourage or condone prejudice.” The ABC’s editorial policy states that content must “avoid the unjustified use of stereotypes or discriminatory content that could reasonably be interpreted as condoning or encouraging prejudice.” However “content presented in the legitimate context of a humorous, satirical or dramatic work” is permissible.
What surprises me is the lack of criticism directed at Lilley over his blatantly racist performances. Only in Australia, I would venture, could a “new … brownface television comedy series” be aired – on the national public broadcasting channel no less – with such casualness. According to much of the mainstream media, Lilley is not a racist but a boundary pusher: some sort of ‘anti-PC’ hero embodying that distinctly Aussie larrikin sense of humour, where nothing is off limits so long as it gets a laugh.
In the case of Jonah, ‘satire’ reveals itself as a vehicle of legitimation for negative stereotyping racial drag. The fact is, Jonah performs a specific comedic function as ‘the buffoonish Polynesian kid’: he is sexist, attention seeking and dumb as a doormat, but ultimately loveable. Lilley could have easily written a series about a foul-mouthed white kid with these same traits, but clearly he believes that a Tongan kid makes for much better laughs.
Sydney Morning Herald writer John Birmingham predicted early on in the series that Jonah’s racism, obscenity, homophobia, cruelty and stupidity, would certainly divide viewers. However according to Birmingham, those in the
Even if we give Lilley the benefit of the doubt, and assume he is deliberately using satire to make a constructive point about race relations in Australia, he is going about it entirely the wrong way. Regardless of his intention, given the oppressive
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history of blackface and other forms of racial drag, the racial image he portrays by dressing up as a young Tongan man is far too loaded. The history of blackface is a long and protracted one. It is most often associated with American minstrel theatre of the nineteenth century, although in reality it began long before this. Often performed under the auspices of social commentary, blackface was used as a form of entertainment for the edification of white audiences. Across cultures, countries and time periods, other forms of racial drag – Jewface, yellowface and brownface – have also been practiced. The commonality was that people from dominant cultures dressed up and ‘performed’ characters belonging to subordinate cultures by essentialising them. White Australia his historically embraced racial drag. The stage production of the Henry Melville play Bushrangers (1834) was the first play to have been written and performed in an Australian colony, and included a performance by a white actor in blackface (playing the ‘Native’). The 1955 film Jedda featured a character named ‘Half Caste Joe’, played by a white man in blackface. In 1999, Channel Nine’s The Footy Show commentator Sam Newman dressed in blackface to impersonate Aboriginal AFL player Nicky Winmar, who at the time was the subject of severe racial vilification by other players and staff. In 2009, six white men wearing blackface mimed the song ‘Can you Feel It’ in imitation of the Jackson Five during a reunion Hey Hey It’s Saturday special. That same year, documentary maker John Safran travelled to America and dressed up in blackface for his series Safran’s Race Relations. In defending the show, an ABC representative argued it was a “genuine attempt” by Safran to find out “what it is like” to be black.
Meliame Fifita, who presents SBS’s Tongan program, says that producers of Jonah visited her twice before filming, to research Tongan culture. She explained to them that swearing in Tonga is unacceptable, as is “disrespect for brothers and sisters and fathers”. The administrators of the ‘My Name Is NOT Jonah’ campaign, which aims to subvert some of the negative racial stereotypes in Jonah, confirm this. They explained to me that “one of the most important parts of Tongan culture is respect for elders and female sisters [and] cousins.” How then did one administrator of the campaign react to the character Jonah, whose main trademarks are his foul mouth and contempt for authority? “I sat there with my mouth wide open, just amazed at how someone could think that it was acceptable to put this on television. It made me very upset to think that someone can take our sacred culture, something we work so hard to keep pure, and disrespect it with such disregard.” Professor Helen Lee, head of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at La Trobe University, notes that “Lilley seems to be deliberately trying to be offensive to Tongans.” “The violent father character is really played up, reinforcing … violent Tongan male stereotype[s].” Has Lilley thought about the potential impact of his characters? Apparently not. He explains, “I think (my shows) would get ruined if I thought in terms of cultural impact. I do what I think is funny.” It would seem that Jonah From Tonga reveals very little about Tongan culture, and a lot about white Australian culture.
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MAPPING FRICTIONS:
RE-TELLING BANKSTOWN’S STORIES THE MANY FACES OF WESTERN SYDNEY ARE OFTEN FORGOTTEN BY THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA, LABELLING SUBURBS LIKE BANKSTOWN AS VIOLENT AND NOTHING MORE. EUNICE ANDRADA SPOKE TO KAVITA BEDFORD – BANKSTOWN YOUTH DEVELOPMENT SERVICE CREATIVE PRODUCER – ABOUT THE MAPPING FRICTIONS PROJECT, AND BREAKING DOWN THOSE STEREOTYPES. Bankstown is one of the most culturally diverse suburbs in Australia, and is reclaiming its identity through digital storytelling. Mapping Frictions, a project by the Bankstown Youth Development Service (BYDS), is a multimedia approach to storytelling in the digital age. Launched in September last year, the initiative aims to break down the social barriers of prejudice and politics in Bankstown. Challenging stereotypes of violence, racism, and religious extremism, Mapping Frictions is all about promoting a more complex understanding of life in Western Sydney. With one-third of those living in the area coming from a nonEnglish speaking country, Bankstown is often described as a “clash of civilisations”. But its residents, according to BYDS Creative Producer, Kavita Bedford, have diverse stories worth celebrating. Through her work, Bedford noticed a growing demand for “slowed down, local storytelling in a digital format.” “There needs to be a space for people to reclaim the stories told about them and reinvent the process of storytelling,” Bedford said. Nearly a year after its creation, Mapping Frictions recently featured at the Sydney Writers’ Festival in May and managed to bring an array of local perspectives to the forefront — from those of refugee-turned-entrepreneurs to local spoken word poets. The emergence of more versatile platforms presents a multitude of possibilities for sharing stories online, with its
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digital platform including short stories and video interviews. These are spread over an interactive map of Bankstown, highlighting each place and its significance to both the storyteller and the audience. “The way stories and news are conveyed are changing and the access that digital formats can provide is incredible,” Bedford said. “These are stories that belong to Bankstown, but they are about more global issues — migration, displacement, dealing with tensions. To be able to open up local stories from Sydney’s western suburbs in an online format, we hope to make connections across cultural and geographical borders.” This friction, created from the interaction of multiple local perspectives jostling for space within a community, produces energy — which can lead to new possibilities. One of the stories that helped create this friction is the community work of Murray Kamara.
Kamara was born Sierra Leone in 1990, but was forced to flee during the Civil War. He chose to settle in Bankstown due to its large Sierra Leonean community. Now a student at the University of Sydney, Kamara is completing a Bachelor of Arts and a Social Work degree. Kamara runs the Sierra Leone Youth Group, which holds intercultural events and awards nights for the African diasporas in Sydney’s south west. To date, his role as a Youth Ambassador has spurred numerous positive changes in community building.
One of the project’s main objectives is for the public to look at Bankstown from a new perspective. “We would like people to stop and reconsider the image of a place and make these regions feel more accessible. But we would also like the stories to stand on their own, and be part of strong storytelling and oral history tradition,” said Bedford.
“I suppose this is what is called a ‘success story’ — and we need them,” Bedford said. “It’s also so poignant during this current climate which vilifies refugees, to see people doing such great work and realise what we may be missing out on with … strict [border protection] policies.”
“The passion and support everyone involved in the project had for getting the stories out there and believing in the underlying cause for this project has been inspiring,” said Bedford.
It’s these local perspectives that forge connections across linguistic, cultural and geographic borders — exactly what Mapping Frictions aims to map. But to combat the mainstream media’s narrow stereotypes of Bankstown is no easy feat – a seemingly impossible task for a single project to achieve. “We are not laying claim to being able to represent an entire community [because] no source can really do that. Rather, we have identified where the gaps are and what sorts of stories are not being told and trying to slowly rectify this, whilst also using it as a space to showcase artists.”
After presenting the project in numerous events across the state, BYDS plans to uphold the momentum by extending Mapping Frictions to other areas. Their vision is to map stories from other suburbs as part of a collective conversation on place. Several photography and digital storytelling workshops are in development to widen the scope of collaboration and promote more active community participation.
The pilot of Mapping Frictions was supported by Australia Council for the Arts, and created in partnership with the University of Western Sydney. If you would like to contribute articles, animations, short documentaries, photo essays or audio pieces to Mapping Frictions, email Kavita Bedford: kavitabyds@gmail.com Keep up to date with the project on facebook.com/ MappingFrictions, or to read Murray Kamara’s story – and more – check out mappingfrictions.com image credit: George Voulgaropoulos c/o Mapping Frictions
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ANDY HUANG SPOKE TO SYDNEY HYPHENATE MEGAN CLUNE – WRITER, CLARINETTIST, AND CURATOR OF MUSICAL ALASKA. AND IT DOESN’T STOP THERE – AMONG ALL HER OTHER CREATIVE PROJECTS, MEGAN ALSO EDITS AND PUBLISHES WORLD’S ONLY, AN INNOVATIVE PUBLICATION ABOUT CONTEMPORARY ART AND MUSIC. What’s your first memory of zines? How’d you get into (making) them? I only found my way into the zine world in 2011 when I stumbled into the MoMA PS1 Art Book Fair by accident when I was on holiday in New York. I’ve been obsessed with collecting them since then. I just wanted an excuse to talk to people about their work – to meet my heroes really.
PHOTO CREDIT: ANASTASIA NIELSON
How did World’s Only start, where did you get the idea for it? After visiting New York and discovering what so many amazing people were making over there, I just wanted to give it a go myself. It was pretty simple really. I like the directness of a Q&A style interview, it was easy and straightforward, and there was no room for bullshit like you get on so many music blogs and magazines. When it started, it was just based on stuff I like, or think is cool or interesting. Now, it’s bigger but that is still at the core of World’s Only. You also curate a monthly music night at Alaska Projects [an arts space in Kings Cross Car Park], it’s free and it’s pretty awesome. Can you tell us a bit about that? Thanks, I’m glad you like it! Again, it was just me wanting to programme a bunch of stuff I really liked and wanted other people to hear. Much to my surprise, people came! I want to be able to give musicians a chance to experiment and try new things, and likewise give people a chance to hear something they’ve maybe never heard before. I hope it wakes people up a bit. We have a lot of cool things coming up, Rainbow Chan will be curating our August show and the Alaska Orchestra are recording an album soon too. Over the years, what have been some of your favourite contributions/art/interviews? Oh wow, so many! I think some of my favourites were
in the very first issue. Glenn Branca is a total hero of mine, he is a really pioneering musician and composer. Plus he’s met (and worked with) David Bowie and Sonic Youth. Enough said. I also interviewed Christine Sun Kim who is a hearing impaired artist from New York making incredible sound installations. I think those early ones feel particularly special as it was a real turning point in my life. I kind of hate myself for how cheesy that sounds, but it’s a little bit true. In your latest issue, there’s an interview with Brian Reitzell [music supervisor to Sofia Coppola], which is really cool… What else can we find in Issue Four? In Issue Four, I think we finally found our feet as a publication, especially in regards to the format. I knew nothing about publishing when I started Issue One so it’s been a learning curve to say the least. Here we have interviews with Ivan Vizintin, Aisha Orazbayeva, Tyondai Braxton, Noveller and Lina Lapelyte, a playlist from Circular Keys and a photo shoot with the talented Moon Holiday. It was loads of fun to make and I hope that comes through the pages. Which zines are you into at the moment? I am a huge fan of Filmme Fatales. Brodie is the coolest girl out! My buddies Beef Knuckles are a talented bunch too. International publications like Travel Almanac and Mono.Kultur are great, but my number one fave will always be Bad Day. Look it up! We’re mega-fans of Filmme Fatales and Beef Knuckles too! Actually, they were featured in past Zinegeists… Anyway, what are you working on now? I’m currently putting together Issue Five, which is due out in October. I’ve got an amazing team of contributors now who are all incredibly talented artists and musicians themselves. It’s really inspiring to read them talking to their heroes and I’m so excited to share it with everyone.
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ISSUE FIVE: ANOMALY
PALMS: LO-FI AND FLYING HIGH MINA KITSOS CHINWAGS WITH PALMS’ AL GRIGG ABOUT SWITCHING BANDS, SWAPPING GUITARS FOR USBS AND TRADING A KEBAB FOR AN ALBUM. I know what you’re thinking — wow, these guys look a hell of a lot like noughties chart-crushers Red Riders. Well, you’re half right. After hammering the last few nails into their alternative-rock-band-gone-sour coffin, lead man Al Grigg and drummer/“girlish backing vocals” provider Tom Wallace decided to embark on a new sonic expedition. With the addition of bassist Brendan Walsh and riff-master Dion “Danger” Ford, Palms was born – pushing that lo-fi brand that is best served on maximum volume. Although audiences have had to warm to a whole new sound, Grigg says the Red Riders residue has been a positive force for Palms. “You’ve already got people following you [who] are interested to hear your music because you have this history. But it’s kind of funny – it’s a whole new generation of kids now.” Grigg, however, isn’t bothered by the occasional mix-up or request for the odd RR tune. “Occasionally, people will shout out for a Red Riders song … But I guess that’s the thing – if you make any music or art you want it to have continued life. It’s cool that music you’ve made is still kicking around, people are still enjoying it.”
Of course, with a new band you need new material – and Grigg and Wallace had that covered. “When we started doing Palms stuff, it was just me and Tom. We had generated pretty much an entire set of songs that we thought would be our first album,” chuffs Grigg. That idea, however, soon went down the drain. “I met someone, got really caught up on them, and then I wrote all these songs for them and about them,” Grigg admits. And with track titles ranging from ‘You Were Mine’ to ‘Yours Mine’ and ‘End of Forever’, Drake is being given a run for his money. “There are only three songs on that record that predate that person. The rest is all about them.” It’s this same raw sentiment that runs through the Sydney outfit’s debut LP Step Brothers, a record that strikes a balance between soft melodies and gritty beats. With the ear of a local bigwig producer – Straight Arrows’ Owen Penglis – the cuts see Palms channelling a pared back aesthetic that would not be out of place on an 80s vinyl. Grigg says recruiting Penglis’ help on the album was a no-brainer. “We like lo-fi music, and it seems to really suit the songs, in a way. They’re such personal, small songs. It made more sense.” Paying (according to Palms) the price of a kebab to record the album wasn’t the only advantage. Step Brothers was recorded in Penglis’ pad, a huge difference from what Grigg was used to. “You’re writing songs about your everyday life and you record them in someone’s house. There’s a good kind of continuity. Sometimes you go into a studio and it’s such a foreign world,
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in a way. I always feel a bit weird – it’s something on the clock and a different scenario.” Moonlighting as a band member of Straight Arrows, Grigg says Penglis’ sonic fingerprints were there from the start. “He has been a big influence on my songwriting and my attitude towards music as well, so it felt like a pretty natural progression.”
As for the change of pace, Grigg is somewhat relieved. “Me and Tom, with our last band, it wasn’t very enjoyable. We had a lot of concerns, we worried about things a lot and put a lot of pressure on ourselves and on the album. With Palms, we just wanted it to be fun, and with no pressure or expectations from a record label, it was just easy. So when we put it out, I wasn’t really that concerned,” he admits. “Without sounding like it’s a totally selfish pursuit, for Palms, it’s about us and our enjoyment and if other people get into it and like it as well, that’s awesome.” Fresh off the back of DZ Deathrays’ Black Rat Tour – a fitting follow-up to a support slot on Cloud Control’s Dream Cave Tour late last year – Palms have been keeping sweaty, even trying their hand at DJing. Most recently, the boys manned the decks at Breakdance Spectacular, a day festival run by Bluejuice’s Jake Stone. It’s okay if you missed it though — Grigg is keen to spin cuts more frequently. “It’s the easiest way to make money. By the end, we were just standing there looking at each
other, laughing, because we just got paid in cash, Jake gave us drinks, and we were playing music we like. And all we had to bring was a USB — it was so much better than being in a band,” he laughs. It wasn’t all breezy, though, with a Red Riders hit still seeping through the mix and that inevitable sense of AWKWARD. “The guy before us was playing ‘Ordinary’ and after we got off stage the next guy, to embarrass me, played ‘Ordinary’ as well.” Fear not, though. Grigg insists there are more live shows on the way. “Playing live is my favourite part of being in a band. It’s pretty full on when you go away for the weekends, and then you’ve gotta come back and work for a few days and then go away. By the end of it you’re ready to break down. [But on stage] you look around and you’re playing with your friends. I’ve never understood people that are in bands with people they don’t like. It’s pretty hard to not have a good time.” Already halfway through recording their sophomore album, which Grigg thinks could be ready for next summer (YAY!!!!), Palms have been in talks with independent record label I OH YOU about another little venture that’s up their sleeve. “It’s in such an embryonic stage, but me and Dion wanna get a few of our friends’ bands and play in a warehouse and call it Mates — do a Palms invitational thing, where our friends’ bands play and we all get to hang out.” Count us in. Great news! You can catch Palms rocking out at Newtown Social Club on Thursday, August 14. Get yer tix at palmsmusic.net
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ISSUE FIVE: ANOMALY
AN ECLECTIC MIX(TAPE) CLASSICALLY TRAINED SYDNEY ELECTRO-POP ARTIST RAINBOW CHAN CHATS TO HATTIE O’DONNELL ABOUT YOUTUBE BENDERS, NOSTALGIA, AND WHY SHE NAMED HER FIRST ACOUSTIC GUITAR “SEXY ALEXI.” First off, why are you called Rainbow Chan? My parents gave me that name at birth. No, they are not hippies. I’ve met other Rainbows in my life, actually. And to put it into perspective, Hong Kongers often have very adventurous names. I have a cousin called Fish who changed her name from Example. I’m not kidding. What prompted you to start making music? My grandma in Hong Kong would send us mixtapes for family car rides. Dad, Mum, my three sisters and I would squish into a five-seater (yes, illegally fitting two children into the middle seat) and sing along to these cassettes. My sisters and I would battle each other by identifying or making up the vocal harmonies on the tracks. But I’ve always had a love for music and dancing around. My first crush was Canto-pop star Aaron Kwok and his lyrics were (apparently) my first words. What inspires you to continue to make music? Megan Clune (Musical Alaska, World’s Only Zine) recently introduced me to UbuWeb, an enormous database of avant-garde artists and works. There are streams of rare albums, lectures, radio shows, and poetry recitations on there. Knowing how much amazing material exists and slowly exploring our rich musical history is enough to keep me driven. Besides the experimental stuff, I’m a sucker for heaps of incredible pop tunes too. Just last night, I went on a YouTube bender with my friend and revisited some Kylie, All Saints, Spice Girls, Kandi, etc. I think it’s the mixture of embracing nostalgia and creating something new through music that motivates me.
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Where do you get your hair cut? (Seriously, it’s so majestic, please tell us.) A place in Chinatown. The hairdresser always asks me if I have a boyfriend. I think he wants to set me up with his son. What’s the weirdest album you ever bought? I bought a record in an Adelaide Vinnies called The World Vision Korean Orphan Choir Sings Christmas Music. The cover is super unnerving and there are many children staring wistfully into the distance. They are wearing traditional robes and standing in front of a temple. It had a strange Orientalist and paternalistic vibe that I wasn’t so comfortable with so I had to check it out. Do you ever give musical instruments/other inanimate objects personalities or names? I don’t anymore, but I will admit that I named my first acoustic guitar ‘Sexy Alexi.’ The motivation behind the name is vague now but I think it might have been because I liked Danny Raco’s character Alexi Poulos on Home and Away at the time. You know what’s weird though? I’m pretty sure he dated Ada Nicodemou in real life, who played his sister Leah. There must have been some mildly arousing Freudian roleplay thing going there. I hope so anyway. What plans do you have for world musical domination? Everything I’ve been working hard on is a just lead up to the day when I can rock a headset wireless mic and be accompanied by a smoke machine at all times. Besides that, I plan to keep learning from and making music that moves
me. If I’m lucky, others will want to listen to it. I’d love to collaborate with visual artists and dancers in the future, and be involved in film compositions too. I don’t ever want to be complacent. What’s your favourite song in the whole wide world? It would have to be ‘La la la Love Song’ by Toshi Kubota. It was the theme song to a Japanese television show called Long Vacation about the relationship between a struggling pianist and an older ex-model. The song is saccharine, funky and has the sweetest theremin synth melody ever. It also features Naomi Campbell (yes, that’s right) whispering the lyrics “Wanna make love, wanna make love. Hey baby. Wanna make love, wanna make love song [sic].” What’s the strangest video clip you’ve ever seen, and why did it stick in your mind? Tony Tonetta’s ‘Pressure Zone’. YouTube it and see for yourself. It’s NSFW but there is something really intriguing and catchy about this old guy’s crass and creepy song. I don’t think he’s being ironic either. He sings about sexual fetishes and his tracks pertain to an abrasively lo-fi, almost Country and Western sound. It’s subversive, stupid and fascinating. Where do you like to make music most? I’ve taken a liking to making music in airports and hotels. These non-places have a sense of clinical emptiness to them that I find quite poetic. We only pass through them so they are places of transience and flux, containing little history or memory. As I’m usually limited by midi and source materials that are already on my laptop, I like the challenge of making something from found things and finishing the work within a time limit. I’ve written really quickly and usually with a strong focus in these places.
What’s the weirdest musical instrument you’ve ever played? I played ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’ on the carillon at Sydney University once. It’s such a majestic instrument but I find the way you have to hammer it with your fists makes it slightly comical. I think I’d prefer to hear my Arvo Pärt from the outside rather than hearing and seeing it being played behind the scenes. I also learnt that the bells have a strong overtone of a minor third and that’s what gives the carillon its poignant and melancholic sound. What is one of the most anomalous events from your past? There are simply too many. However, one that stands out is how much I was in love with my fireman/soccer player uncle as a five-year-old kid. I would say to his girlfriend, now my aunt, “He’s mine,” and glare at her. There is a picture of me as an extremely grumpy six-year-old in my family home, taken on the day of their wedding a year later. That’s pretty weird, right? Maybe I picked a safe story. Finally, five tracks that you’re into at the moment? 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
Cassius Select – ‘Rete Avec Ou’ Miharu Koshi– ‘Parallelisme’ DJ Rashad – ‘Show U How (feat. Spinn)’ Sui Zhen – ‘Pipe Dreams’ Death Grips – ‘Big Dipper’
More at rainbowchan.com.au and soundcloud.com/ rainbowchanmusic
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ISSUE FIVE: ANOMALY
A BRIEF HISTORY OF:
EROTIC FAN FICTION EMILY MELLER CHARTS THE TITILLATING RISE OF EROTIC FAN FICTION, A NICHE GENRE THAT’S NOT ONLY SPICING THINGS UP IN THE LIT-WORLD, BUT ALSO IN POP CULTURE, AND EVEN CONTEMPORARY AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. “He was being peeled, slowly, like a delicate fruit, in time to some far off pagan rhythm.” – A Fragment Out of Time by Diane Marchant “The glass steamed up with sex and ego and money and a bit of diarrhoea, together Gina and Tony exploded in one huge wealthy burst of orgasm.” – Princess of the Pilbarra by Jessica Bellamy It will surprise no-one that erotic fan fiction as we know it today began with Star Trek. The seminal text, a Kirk/Spock piece titled A Fragment Out Of Time, was written by Diane Marchant on a typewriter and distributed in a zine by the post in 1974. While most of us were unaware of the erotic fan fiction genre until The Book Which Shall Not Be Named (That Is Definitely Not Twilight) inexplicably appeared on our mother’s iPads, it has a far richer history than sadomasochists with a tenuous grasp of grammar. Following the first Kirk/Spock “slash” fan fiction, a wave of zines dedicated to the topic sprung up all over the place. With titles like Final Frontier and Naked Times, an entirely alternate history was created for the Captain and his side-kick. “Slash fiction” refers to the use of “/” to separate the names of characters in titles, and technically related to stories about same-sex pairings. A sub-genre of “femslash” refers to samesex female pairings, such as Elizabeth Bennett/Charlotte Lucas (yes, really). The internet has added a level of virility to the genre that parallels the porn industry. The online mecca, fanfiction.net, brought sexually explicit fantasies into vogue. Other sites now include adultfanfiction.net, literotica.com and WEbook. The
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ability to remain anonymous as both writer and reader no doubt adds to the incentive both to create and consume. It seems no character is safe, either. Harry/Draco fan fiction graces many Tumblrs with more “wand” double entendres than you can poke a stick at. In the world of erotic fan fiction, you can find everything from The Strokes to Torchwood to Winnie The Pooh transfigured into explicit tales of sexual deviance. One of the more interesting parts of slash fiction is the predominance of straight female authors, whether the subject matter is hetero- or homosexual. Does this reveal something about the shortcomings of the conventional ‘romance’ genre of paperbacks plastered with men in billowing white shirts? Volumes have been written on the need to transfigure familiar characters – especially those from childhoods – into sexual objects, and the reasons range from a Freudian analysis (that is, ladybits being inadequate substitutes for a real wand) to “having a bit of fun.” Erotic fan fiction is now so widespread (thanks largely to The Book That Shall Not Be Named) that it is no longer just a secret indulgence. Apart from arousal, it is also often a source of humour and political commentary. Here in Sydney, you can attend an Erotic Fan Fiction night hosted by Eddie Sharp at Giant Dwarf in Redfern. Stories have featured Miranda Devine, Gina Rineheart and Tony Abbott, including direct quotes from the PM to add a really disturbing touch of authenticity. It seems that whatever interests you – from sci-fi to Australian politics – you can rest easy knowing someone has probably eroticised it. Happy reading.
REVIEWS: MUSIC & FILMS
TYPICAL SYSTEM
BOYHOOD
SOUNDS LIKE: A HINT OF LACE CURTAIN, THE OOGA BOOGAS AND RAT COLUMNS – THE BAND MEMBERS’ SIDE PROJECTS. CHECK THEM OUT – YOU WON’T BE DISAPPOINTED.
In 2002, Richard Linklater cast unknown child actor Ellar Coltrane in a then unnamed production and proceeded to film him for a few days each year over a period of 12 years, following his transition from childhood into adulthood. The result? Boyhood, a 164-minute film that is unbelievably seamless in its long-term storytelling – making it the most ambitious and authentic coming-of-age story in film history.
Working amidst a myriad of side projects, Melbourne-based post-punk band Total Control have been laying low for a few years in the lead up to their latest release – sophomore album Typical System. Occasionally labelled as a supergroup – featuring members of Straightjacket Nation and The UV Race as well as Eddy Current Suppression Ring’s Mikey Young – you can bet that this new release is pretty damn special. Album opener ‘Glass’ piles layer upon layer of sound, beginning with 8-bit tones that hark back to the band’s debut album Henge Beat, before building to include Daniel Stewart’s detached but evocative vocals. The song is flanked by drum machine-esque beats and shining synths reminiscent of Gary Numan. But don’t let this fool you, the album still contains the trademark contained chaos of their earlier work such as the shouted vocals, snarling guitar licks and outright aggression of ‘Expensive Dog’. Before the album opts back in for the urgency found in the hard and fast tracks ‘Systematic Fuck’ and ‘Two Less Jacks’, there is a slight turn as lead single ‘Flesh War’ shows off Total Control’s softer side. The warm synths and rumbling bass line together with Stewart’s surprisingly tender vocals make for a completely knock out track. The feedback drenched guitars and crashing drums of ‘Black Spring’ as well as the uplifting, dreamy synths and tickling percussion of ‘Safety Net’ further demonstrate Total Control’s sheer versatility which, while varied, is entirely indicative of the band’s brand of electronica within their punk rock aesthetic. With Typical System, Total Control continues to prove that they are one of the best bands in the country.
While the film is punctuated by heavy moments, the beauty of Boyhood comes from its lack of a strong narrative. It is first and foremost an observational study of what it means to grow up – physically and emotionally. Audiences won’t find it hard to relate to the film: Boyhood is an accumulation of the seemingly ‘ordinary’ and dull, but nonetheless significant and real, aspects of childhood. No artificial drama, just life. And much like life itself, the film advances onwards without any warning, with only the characters’ physical ageing (growth spurt, wrinkles) and changes in cultural artefacts (flip phones into smart phones) standing as markers of time passed. The professional actors (Patricia Arquette and Ethan Hawke) carry themselves brilliantly in the film, but it is Coltrane who stands out. As an audience, we are given the rare opportunity to watch his acting mature, from his stiffness with the camera as a young boy, to a more comfortable relationship as he hones his skills on screen. His mannerisms fit the naturalistic tone of the film perfectly – but it should come as no surprise given that he is literally living the film’s coming-of-age story. Richard Linklater is no stranger to long-term storytelling. You only have to look at his 18-year relationship study of the Before Trilogy to know that Linklater is a master of crafting long timelines on a small scale. Boyhood is no exception. Words by Nicole Lam
Words by Jade Ellen
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VERTIGO
ISSUE FIVE: ANOMALY
REVIEWS: BAR
LO-FI AND THE STANDARD BOWL What do wontons, cocktails and bowling have in common? “Absolutely nothing,” I hear you say. Well I used to agree with you, until I visited a unique three-level complex in Darlinghurst. Perched above Kinselas and just off Oxford Street, this place is home to three distinct personalities: Johnny Wong’s Dumpling Bar on the first level, Lo-Fi on two, and The Standard Bowl on three. Historically one of Sydney’s main clubbing locations, Lo-Fi and The Standard have been revamped in recent months. Lo-Fi has been transformed into an artsy bar, while The Standard is now a live music club that brings back old school America. Lo-Fi only opened its doors in mid-June, and is still finding its feet. In collaboration with designers Romance Was Born, the interior has been completely renovated, with the walls covered entirely in colourful, patterned wallpaper, and everything from the upholstery to the staff’s aprons is set to match. Multicoloured light boxes make the room shine a dull pink. Lo-Fi’s colourful décor could be seen as either over the top or artsy, depending on your taste. The seating inside is stiff and out of the action, so you’d be better off pulling up a stool out on the balcony overlooking busy Taylor Square and watching the shenanigans unfold. This has a much more relaxed feel. With no set drinks menu created yet, be prepared for a “What do you feel like?” approach from the friendly bar staff, who will happily chat to you while whipping up something tasty. Lo-Fi is open Wednesday – Sunday from 6pm.
Booze, bowls and bands: the unbeatable combination behind the renovation of The Standard earlier this year. Be ready to trade your Lo-Fi cocktail in for a beer, as The Standard is a down-to-earth, original take on an old school American bar. The layout is open plan with a warehouse feel. The exposed brick walls are covered in old school light boxes, painted murals and wire fencing, giving it a dark and grungy look. Functioning pinball machines and pool tables complete the theme. But let’s not beat around the bush here: bowling in a bar? Yep. There are three bowling lanes to choose from just off the dance floor, so when you’re done having a boogie, grab some friends and have a go. This is all against the backdrop of live music, with up to three bands a night playing at The Standard on Thursday – Saturday. The performances are from a diverse range of up-and-coming bands, and you never quite know what you’re going to get. I’m told they’ve seen everything from grungy heavy metal to acoustic opera. At The Standard, it seems anything goes. It has a fun, relaxed vibe, but make sure you go on a Saturday night to ensure a packed dance floor. The Standard is open Thursday – Sunday from 6pm. Located just off Oxford Street, it’s an easy destination to get to. There are a number of other bars and restaurants within walking distance and transport is easily accessible. Words by Laura Wood
But this is just the beginning. Be sure to continue on upstairs, as you will be transported to a completely different venue. Lo-Fi is The Standard’s more conservative older cousin – while it’s perfect for a drink, you won’t truly let your hair down until you’ve ventured upstairs.
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WORDS BY JUNE ALIST Tony Abbott – affectionately termed the “People’s PM” by nobody – has announced that Australians “will never be able to retire, ever.” The recent Federal budget includes cuts to the pension scheme, meaning that the only people who will be able to afford
WORDS BY SAM LANGSHAW Federal Liberal MPs have expressed concern over the release of the first trailer for Warner Brothers’ upcoming children’s film, The Troll Who Ruined Everything. Though the film is an American production, commentators have noted some similarities to Australian politics and Prime
JULY 2014
to retire are the ones who never do any work anyway. Mr. Abbott called retirees “freeloaders” who are “riding the mobility scooter of taxpayer dollars.” In response to the potential drastic cuts to the pension, Oxfam has unveiled its ‘Sponsor a Septuagenarian’ program,
which enables sponsors to support an elderly person and give them the opportunity for a retirement. “We were afraid this time would come,” said Oxfam Chairman Mr. Albert Oxfam. “We just didn’t expect it to happen so soon. These people are your parents and your grandparents. They worked hard to raise you. Let’s give every old person the opportunity for the retirement that they deserve.” Mr. Abbott labelled the program “ludicrous”, “dangerously socialist” and “stoopid” in a press conference last week. “What I don’t understand,1 is why they
Ever the opportunist, Abbott justified the pension cuts using Australia’s ageing population: “The OPC (Old People per Capita) Index indicates that by 2020, Australia will have more old people than any other country in the world. Some see this as an obstacle, but I see it as a chance to double our workforce while simultaneously reducing the strain on our care facilities.” When asked whether the cuts will affect the parliamentary pension, Mr. Abbott declined to comment.
don’t just get one of the plenty of cushy jobs that are going around?” he said. “Surely there must be a sex chatline somewhere that will take them?”
1. The CSIRO has confirmed that if you wrote out all the things Mr. Abbott doesn’t understand on Paddlepop sticks and stuck them end-to-end, you could reach Uranus.
Minister Tony Abbott specifically. As per Warner Brothers’ official plot summary, “The Troll Who Ruined Everything takes place on the mystical island paradise of Orstrahlia. When an eight-foot troll named Tiny Abote invades and conquers everyone and everything, the inhabitants are forced into austerity and despair. How will they band together and save their home?” A spokeswoman from Warner Brothers said that the characters and plot are entirely works of fiction. “This is a children’s film and so there are tropes, such as the typecast evil villain. No-one
in real life could be this evil,” she said, yet refused to clarify whether her last sentence was a statement or question. Joe Hockey furrowed his brow and delighted crowds with his trademark sweat when told in a press conference of Tiny’s sidekick, Jo Hocka, “A greedy and delusional gigantic hamster who tricks the people into giving him their money and uses it to contaminate the ocean to stop people from leaving and entering.” No official comment has yet been made by the Prime Minister’s office, though Mr Abbott said it sounded like “A classic family film
with a lot of good lessons for the kids of Australia” – when asked for his opinion of the film on Twitter. The Troll Who Ruined Everything will open nationally on Boxing Day.
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ISSUE FIVE: ANOMALY
ROOKIE’S GUIDE: SERIAL INTERNING
THE WORLD OF INTERNING CAN SEEM TO BE BIG, BAD, AND FULL OF (MONETARY) BOOBY TRAPS. IT CAN ALSO BE A MAGICAL TICKET TO PAID PROFESSIONAL GIGS. LARISSA BRICIS QUIZZED THREE INTERN BABES IN SEARCH OF INTERN-ENLIGHTENMENT. Where did you intern and how long were you there for? Hannah Story: Communications (Writing and Cultural Studies) Holler Sydney, a digital advertising agency (four weeks, fulltime); Purple Sneakers, blog (six months); Momentum, digital publisher (six months); The Naher Agency, literary agent, (six months); Foke, small press (four months). Emily Meller: Bachelor of Law / Communications (Writing and Cultural Studies). BRAG magazine, still there.
How did you make the most of working for free? E: I definitely took advantage of going to gigs as a reviewer. I probably saved a salary’s worth on concert tickets alone, which worked out really well for someone like me who almost constantly blows their budget on live music. I also asked for feedback on what I was writing, which was incredibly helpful. M: Taking up every opportunity that was available. Conducting the shitty interview that no one else wanted to do, replaying the crappy CD no-one wanted to listen to, and spending hours tediously copy editing without going mad – and loving it. I learnt so much from immersing myself in every aspect of the workplace, from digital work to just mundane conversation.
Mina Kitsos: Bachelor of Communications (Journalism) / International Studies. Inertia, an independent record label; ABC’s Limelight, a classical music magazine; BRAG Magazine, local street press (spending around a year at each).
What was the most resourceful meal you learned to create while living on the cheap? M: Vodka soda water.
Why did you choose to undertake an internship? Was it worth it? H: I [wanted] to apply my skills to a real world context and decided to try out what interested me – advertising, music journalism, and different aspects of the publishing industry, including books and magazines… eventually music journalism became my full-time job and freelancing is just an extra thing; you learn what you love and you build up skills that make you employable. E: I wanted to get some concrete skills in editing and journalism. Even if you think you already know how to write, edit and put a magazine together in theory, there is no substitute for seeing it in action. There are simply so many aspects you have to consider, even just learning how to use a particular content management system is a significant skill you won’t get at uni.
Any wisdom to impart to current (and future) interns? H: See everyone as a potential contact and friend; be sociable and competent. Ask questions, learn how to write sleek copy, and above all, listen. You never know what you might learn. E: It’s also a good way to see if you actually want to get into a particular industry at all – better to find out while studying than five months into a highly competitive grad job. Talk to friends and past interns to get the scoop, and keep your eye on The Loop and Pedestrian.tv. Get involved in Vertigo – it’s the kind of experience that will set you apart if the internship is highly sought after (shameless plug, but it’s true!). Also, always take the tickets. M: You’re going to have to do better than night-before-it’s-due level of work (I know. Ugh). For writers especially, your name is on your work. The internet immortalises everything you publish and your portfolio puts itself together for you. Nothing is lost in cyberspace. And remember, you need the people you intern for more than they need you.
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GRAD’S GUIDE: MEDIA & PUBLISHING
ADEN’S GUIDE TO #GRADLYF ADEN ROLFE IS A WRITER, EDITOR, POET, PLAYWRIGHT – BASICALLY, AN ALL-ROUND EXCELLENT PERSON – WHO DOES PLENTY OF OTHER EXCELLENT THINGS TOO, LIKE SHARING SOME EXCELLENT ADVICE WITH US ON HOW TO EARN A CRUST IN THE CRUEL WORLD CREATIVE INDUSTRIES. Describe a typical day for you… I work as a freelance copywriter for arts organisations and civil engineering companies, and as a poet and radio playwright. What it means for a typical day, is that I could just as easily be suiting up to go on site for a client as I could be muddling through emails at my studio, or sleeping in under the rubric of, “Having a late start today, honey.” The trick, I’ve found, is to get your priorities sorted and focus on one thing at a time. I’ve just come off a technical writing contract to develop a new work for the ABC’s Creative Audio Unit. It’s a mystery series set aboard a boat, which is incredibly fun, but it takes everything I have to be able to keep track of each episode. My last radio play – Like a Writing Desk – went to air at the beginning of June, and I’m trying to finish a poetry manuscript about memory, narrative and identity.
ILLUSTRATIONS BY PEITA KEILAR
What were some resources or skills that you’ve found useful in your career? When I left UTS, the job market was fairly tepid, particularly in the media and publishing industries. I was arrogant and precocious, but once upon a time that was enough. So I struck out as a freelancer and enrolled in the New Enterprise Incentive Scheme (NEIS) program – aka ‘start a small business for the dole’ – which is the best thing I ever did. I learnt a lot of practical things you don’t pick up at uni: how to invoice, how to track your accounts, how to market yourself as a business. After that I slogged my guts out to build my portfolio. I worked for cheap and forgot how to spell ‘weekend.’ Eventually
the worm turned and I was able to start making strategic decisions about my projects and strike a balance between creative and professional work. What do you wish you would’ve known in your first year/time at uni? We had a great cohort at UTS – we were involved in each other’s projects, Vertigo, things like that. But I wish I’d been more proactive outside that circle. I never really got involved with organisations like Express Media, or submitted my work to journals until after I graduated. So get involved. Or, you know, don’t. There are too many people doing things poorly because they’ve got too much on. Identify what you want to commit to and do it well. Also, know what you want to get out of your degree and manage your expectations accordingly. I know a lot of people who resent having an ongoing debt for a somewhat amorphous course with intangible outcomes, and I don’t begrudge them for it. But in the ongoing discussion over the value of creative writing degrees – whether you can teach such a thing, whether students would be better off dropping out and just writing, whether they create unreasonable expectations – I think a couple of key things have been ignored. Namely, that no-one really thought they were going to be a success, but more importantly that that wasn’t the point. For me, uni was about having a forum to try out ideas, to form connections with people who shared the same interests and aspirations, to become more broadly literate. Maybe that’s less important now, because of the internet, but for me it was critical.
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VERTIGO
ISSUE FIVE: ANOMALY
IT’S AMAZE! BY ANDREW BERNHARDT
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ISSUE FIVE: ANOMALY
STUDENTS’ ASSOCIATION
COLLECTIVES REPORT Welfare Report JESS XU
Finally the July break is here! As the semester winds down, we’re getting busier with new projects… Support directory http://bit.ly/welfaredirectory A handy collection of services and info that could help with the many stresses of student life, whether it be study woes, health related, about rent, managing money, or your rights at work. Keep your eyes peeled for a cute pocket sized edition in Semester 2! We also have heaps of flyers with handy info at the Students’ Association - drop by any time! UTS Scavenger Hunt – Thu 31 July, Clubs Day http://tinyurl.com/utscavhunt Think you know UTS well? We’re challenging you to scour the campuses, explore new buildings with fellow UTSers & discover helpful tips about uni! Then join us for some fun times over nibbles and drinks at after party in the Loft. More info and sign up form on Facebook! Food initiatives Eating well can be expensive. We’re working on making more free and cheap options available next semester. We’ll need your help in making a list of cheap eats – meals under $5 – in collaboration with PovoChef.com.au. During semester, check the Broadway Food Co-op & consider volunteering for affordable fruit, veggies, and range of dry goods like rice, nuts, soup mix. They will be busy with activities this break, so it’s a great time to get involved: http:// broadwayfoodcoop.wordpress.com/
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Mobile Survival Centre Soon to come outside the fishtank (aka Students’ Association office) and spots on campus near you…a survival centre packed with: • canned soup, vermicelli, tuna, beans and more filling foods! • stationery packs! • condoms, dental dams, sexual health info! • sanitary items! Anything you need? Want to know more? Have a rad idea, burning question or concern? Let us know! Facebook: search ‘UTSSA Welfare Department’ Email: welfare@utsstudentsassociation.org
STUDENTS’ ASSOCIATION
STUDENTS’ ASSOCIATION
EDUCATION VICE PRESIDENT REPORT
SECRETARY REPORT
What an unbelievably busy semester we’ve just had for education issues. First there was the free barbeque and rally where a couple hundred people expressed their discontent at the proposed changes to higher ed. Then we had a student forum where we found out that UTS is pushing for a trimesterbased model which could lead to significant cuts to course content. Then we helped the Education Action Network crash ABC’s Q&A program with a pretty unexpected positive response.
May was an interesting month at the UTSSA. We had lots of work to do to prepare for the staff strike and student rally on May 21st, but thankfully things were a bit slower at the end of the month (we have assessments to do too!). Agenda topics covered in our meetings since last issue of Vertigo were:
Then the federal government delivered a budget that threatens to increase student fees to over $100,000 for some degrees, slammed us with HECS interest and cut the dole for under30s in a period of high unemployment. Then Julie Bishop was heckled at UTS then chased off USyd campus, while Chris Pyne faced a serious of disruptive actions and Tony Abbott was too scared to even set foot on a campus. Then we had the first staff strike at UTS for over a decade and over a thousand UTS students joined the state-wide rally (4000 students) against the fee increases and other budget savagery, the largest such action in at least 8 years. There’s been a lot on, and thanks to UTS’s revitalised Education Action Group, you can join in the fight to stop the Abbott government’s plans to let fees increase by up to 300% for some degrees. Send an email to education@utsstudentsassociation. org to get involved.
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• You may also be wondering how these changes impact you – a quick an easy way to get an estimate is to check out http:// www.whatwillmydegreecost.com.au/ and if you are planning to stop studying soon, maybe check out the changes to Newstart allowance too – they are quite scary.
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Employing two students for an afternoon to assemble furniture and re-organise the office. Poster printing and paying email account fees. Providing financial assistance for students attending conferences. Education Action Group spending on T-shirts, banner making supplies, and an iPad to use for administering questionnaires to students around campus. Organising for the strike and rally: this included requesting that students not be penalised for missing class, formally supporting the Students’ Association staff in striking, holding a post-strike event for students and staff, and paying for sound equipment hire for the rally. Purchasing a refrigerator, plates, cups, cutlery and tea to restock the supplies in the office (which any student can use for free). Approving collective spending. Condemning the Federal Government Budget which disadvantages students through extensive cuts to education funding and welfare. Passing funding for the Kuring-Gai Snack Bar, which provides students with free fruit and yogurt on Tuesdays 2.30-4.30pm outside the Students’ Association Office at Kuring-Gai. Allocating advertising revenue to Vertigo’s budget. Reimbursing travel expenses to the President, who travelled to Melbourne to assist with a NUS campaign.
Look forward to seeing you at the next EAG! Chris Gall Education Vice-President UTS Students’ Association education@utsstudentsassociation.org
I hope you all have a great break to recharge for next semester. Feel free to drop into the Students’ Association if you’re looking for things to do, we’ll be doing plenty of preparation for exciting stuff happening next semester! Andie Yates Secretary UTS Students Association secretary@utsstudentsassociation.org
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UTS STUDENTS’ ASSOCIATION’S
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