LCMS 11 | The Political Issue

The Students’ Union Magazine University of the Arts London *THE POLITICAL ISSUE

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Political Blemish 14 Interview with Damilola Odusote 15» 18 Ian Giles 19» 20 Alexa Hall - Noki Interview 21» 24 Katie Bishop 25» 26 Trapped in a Grown-up World 27» 28 Lion Club 29» 30 Political Art or Liberal Propaganda? 31» 32 American Postcards 33» 36

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n ughto an Ha n n o R row rley hief Acke chel B r-in-C Edito Editor Ra ditor Chris ayun per d pa m E ty cycle Depu lism Sub- r Huma Hu o n re d te a an to prin Journ n Sub-Edi Shing Ch i o e i H h h s r c Fa ne ry ho Wool Desig amac Lead er Tatiana Daniel C ola n n IDamil Desig ogo Desig ah Devoy ari 667 SIGN , COMMUN E 0 D 0 L t n r 3 D n S e 1 N a M s C E A S H 5 s I N M I T 4 r u C L e AR 08 ITI AF isa Ko Read iles B all CR com IES IN Proof eader Lou Linsdell STUD T Alexa H ART Ian G A PHOTOG i muk. a N b O I R @ R T E x B A ar A d f N t e t I l a D E o a n F N N A a o u I A U Pr ader elia Davis Villiers di FO icole MA F Briggs B istopher H Souhail Alz HY e a R h e f r Sh Nicky N nny Chr ON RAP Proo ising Am r Guy De a Nou GN Jo RNALISM PRODUCTI L PHOTOG sdell o rt emm D DESIGN AND DESI U in L A A O L I N S Adve tion Advis J x D O T I A E LM K AR N Ale ART c DIES itt M FESS RT AN A BOO EGE OF A LLEGE OF ny McDev DA DIGITA ilcox PRO HIC DESIG HION STU Produ M n a S F O P n W LL

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Farewell you streets of sorrow 09» 13

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Cover Artwork by Will Kay

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SEA C ALISM Jo ilip Yalley Norman ho BA GRA yun BA FA h a N N R ie M E T e Y O d G R L k N M H R u L O c T E t CONBERWELL COSTRATION C Devoy BA PTION Chris A GRAPHIC COoolrych TYP PHOTOGRAPA Fashion S CAM e BA ILLU N Hannah MUNICA l Kay FDA Tatiana W nsson BA Bishop B E E il n a Y IO ot OM Odus & CURAT EGE OF C GRAPHY W TOGRAPH anda Joh Katie Hele TION DEGR L N m O A O L N O A H D T I O O P I Y N T O C H A U H H A S N C P P B FO OF FA ONDO OGRA e MA rown LINE ART L James Ty Rachel B BA PHOT COLLEGE OTION ON e Y N Y n M H O H a RAP ictoria K ES LOND AND PRO RAP I OTOG V G BA PH ICE Sarah RAL STUD ARKETIN U M T T C L N U A O I H PR &C ri FAS EDIA BA M Kousserta a Louis ing C

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io e My B ush w as s a b t ab n wh g a zin ant n sc sid ‘ t a a is le o l o n I n w m p a c e e e e u t r at al at w h r e s i d i c a . I s u r r d ay He nt t h glob g P f P y r d o n n e e g n i w n e f A m e a l m e su n d s a m o m ow i n ck r o fu gr t h Fr ie n h at t t he gre t h a the , t t s i o a i n t t h re p so n w a s n w re i so ou’ i m ’. I t wi n S u y e T h oks t (i n ld, h u o g b t hou ho s d an ou

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We tak e the s tars fro countr m Hea y, sepa ven, th rating have s e red f it by w eparat rom ou h i t e e d stripes r moth from h to pos , thus s er terity r er, and h eprese t o h w e i n w g hite st nting L that w ripes s e iberty. hall go down

The contemporary reading – that the red stripes stand for the blood of those who give their lives for freedom – is no less ironic. And in front of this great symbol of America is the obvious pose of the comic book president, living out his fantasy of being a Texan cowboy and challenging us to remember all his great lines of wit. Could he have been more prophetic, in the millennium year, when he said, ‘Ameri-

ca better beware of a candidate who is willing to stretch reality in order to win points’?

To this piece we add another, a supporting ‘Vision Test’. In life it is the exact size of the Snellen eye test and as such sets itself up as a ‘Vision Test’. The ‘Vision Test’ makes fun of Bush’s idea of ‘A War on Terror’. Where does the terror start? The nightmares of a child, a fear of the dark, of spiders, of dentists or maybe the most terrifying thing of all: war itself.

To take this theme of war and terrorism further I shall tell you a story about a little girl. She heard a loud boom and felt the ground move; the explosion was at her father’s church. At that moment the little girl’s friend was dying, because of the blast that the little girl felt and heard but did not see. It was a racially motivated terrorist attack. It was September the 15th 1963, and the terrorists were not Muslim extremists, but American white supremacists. The little girl was Condoleezza Rice and her friend who died was Denis McNair. The question that the chalk and oil painting ‘Condoleezza Does Detention’ asks is:

‘Did she learn grace and understanding from the experience, or has the bullied become the global bully?’

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The piece, entitled ‘Welcome to the Wild Wild West’, stands 1.2 metres tall and mirrors the proportions of the Stars And Stripes. It reflects upon the irony of the sentiments of George Washington, when he said:

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From here we add another piece to the puzzle, ‘Beware Weapons of Mass Distraction’. The subtle change in the word from ‘destruction’ to ‘distraction’ is spelled out in Morse code, so that when you move closer to the piece you can hear the military intelligence clicking away. To which it is apt, once again, to quote Bush: ‘Free

nations don’t attack each other. Free nations don’t develop weapons of mass destruction.’ At least Bush has

clarified that England and America can no longer call themselves free nations.

This brings us, conveniently, to England. How did we get caught up in all of this? What was Blair thinking? ‘Forgive me Father for I have sinned’ is the last political character piece, and takes Blair to the end of his reign. His last official overseas engagement, as the Prime Minister who took England to war on the grounds of ‘weapons of mass destruction’, was to meet the Pope at the Vatican. Cherie, his long-suffering wife, whom Blair always seems publicly embarrassed by, came into her own; her Catholicism shone as brightly as a pot of gold.

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Is it religion that causes war, or the tangling of the strings by the puppeteers?

About Nicky Nicky Nicole studied communication theory as part of a BA in Australia, which included illustration, life drawing, and mass media, as well as painting, at the Canberra School of Art. She is currently studying fine art at Central Saint Martins.

Her interest in the relationship between communication and art is a constant theme in her studies and work (in advertising, design and communication). Nicky practices concept-led art from the fine art perspective, where the choice of medium is inextricably linked to the concept and realisation. The aim of her work is to make the audience question its accepted reality.

The overriding theme of her work is the exploration of the relationship between ‘perception and reality’.

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Political or otherwise, we cannot know if the visit was tinged with some level of regret or remorse, and so the piece stands as a confessional box with a little black sliding door. On one side, ‘Forgive me Father for I have sinned’.

On the other, the smile; famously labelled as ‘evil’ by the Conservatives, it beams back at us from behind the wire mesh, protecting the identity of the person making the confession from the eyes of the forgiving Priest (or Pope, for those in high places).

Pearls of Wisdom

Our conclusion takes us to the heart of politics, addressing the politicians’ tendency to cast blame and manipulate others in order to further their own aims. This final piece, ‘The Puppeteer is not God’, draws a line under these pieces of politicallyinspired art. So, moving from the comic, to the bully, and to the Christian cross at the end of Blair’s rosary beads, the puppeteer dangles the symbols of the three Abrahamic monotheistic faiths in front of us. As a case study of blame and manipulation, it poses the question: is it religion (or some other symbol of blame) that causes war, or the tangling of the strings by the puppeteers?

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A gracious response at this stage is to offer Blair luck with his newfound spirituality. So, as a gesture of goodwill – or as a retirement gift – the next piece is a set of black and white rosary beads. These offer the pearl of wisdom that nothing is simply black or white, and are finished with a Christian cross made of two silver rifles.

‘My work is developed around themes and by adopting socially unfamiliar perspectives I seek to reveal an alternative perception and to question the premises of socially accepted truths. To do this I use the discipline of fine art and take advantage of the inherent semiotic codes within a medium, thereby communicating the desired message with the medium supporting the communication rather than it being predetermined.’

Recent work from Nicky has been based on the three Abrahamic monotheistic faiths and politics. Her work is clearly influenced by McLuhan’s argument that ‘the medium is hot’, with the medium and message creating total communication. In conjunction, she has drawn intellectual and material inspiration from the ready mades of Duchamp. As such she sees herself as one in a growing list of recalcitrant artists.

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Last year, Ron Kavana released a retrospective anthology of Irish music, which was saluted for comprising an exciting new form of academic report. The four CD collection reorders songs chronologically, from the Norman invasion to modern day Ireland, interspersing them with spoken word tracks about the historical development of the Irish nation.

However, as the man who once lent his vocals to the uncompromisingly hard-hitting Pogues track ‘Young Ned of the Hill’ - in which he sang:

Jonny McDevitt

A retrospective look at Ireland’s music and its place in the narrative of the country’s troubled past.

FAREWELL you streets of sorrow

May the whores of the empire lie awake in their beds And sweat as they count out the sins on their heads

A curse upon you Oliver Cromwell

While over in Ireland eight more men lie dead

You who raped our Motherland

Kicked down and shot in the back of the head

I hope you’re rotting down in hell

Just as Bob Dylan’s song ‘Hurricane’ points a confrontational finger toward the wrongful imprisonment of, and alleged institutionalized racism suffered by, the boxer ‘Hurricane’ Rubin Carter, ‘Birmingham Six’, highlighted the fault lines that existed between Ireland and Britain in the late 20th Century. Indeed, the parallels between the civil rights struggle of black people in America and that of the Irish across the Atlantic have in some ways been coextensive. The great musicologists John and Alan Lomax chronicled the suffering expressed through the music of black people during slavery, and that of Irish-Americans during civil discrimination. The Irish diaspora in America – often on the receiving end of a hostile reception - found an abundance of issues to be articulated through music, with songs like Pete Seeger’s ‘No Irish Need Apply’ emphasising the lack of opportunity afforded

For the horrors that you sent

In Martin Scorsese’s film ‘The Departed’, Matt Damon’s character considers one of Freud’s lesser known frustrations: that the Irish are the only people impervious to psychoanalysis. While there may be truth in the idea that Ireland’s uneasy history has etched an impregnable idea of ‘us’ and ‘them’ onto the subconscious, Irish people have never been shy of impassioned self-reflexivity. A preoccupation with oppression has fashioned within that identity an underdog status, a dissident mentality, which finds itself manifest in music. When an Irishman succeeds, he has beaten the odds; even given Ireland’s current culture of affluence. Indeed, Ireland has reaped more from her membership to the European Union than any other constituent nation, and the larger problems in the North have subsided. Surely, then, historical precedent would lead us to expect that, with the advent of a new sociopolitical and economic prosperity, the blights of famine, of subjugation to foreign rule, and of the IRA, would quickly fade from the minds of songwriters.

of the events that forged such enmity with their neighbours across the sea. ‘Streets of Sorrow/Birmingham Six’ condemned the imprisonment of ten Irishmen who were convicted of the murder of twenty one people in 1974. The track was banned for its incendiary lyrics, which include the lines:

To our misfortunate forefathers Whom you robbed of their birthright “To hell or Connaught” may you burn in hell tonight - his powers of historical objectivity were at once treated with suspicion. The trend of scholarly revisionism in Irish history, which has attempted to trace the influence of the Celts through to the present day, has always been imbued with nationalistic undercurrents that surface through Irish music. The Pogues, who did much to perpetuate the notion of the Irish as drinkers, thinkers and tinkers, addressed many

Photography: Sarah Kane, BA Photography, London College of Communication

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to the Pats and Dans of the world. The unqualified success of Bruce Springsteen’s ‘We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions’ demonstrated that a widespread interest in expressions of Irish history and identity through music remains. Linking black emancipation songs like ‘O Mary Don’t You Weep’ with the traditional Irish song ‘Mrs McGrath’ (which refers to Irish soldiers in the American civil war) highlights the connection between the struggles of these two peoples in the great melting pot, and suggests that for people shackled by social inequity, music has become inextricably bound to those hardships. Yet such expressions of Irish identity rely heavily on the belief that a fixed identity even exists. Interestingly, a recent trial revealed that most Irish men do not carry the DNA of the Celts; the findings show that their genes far predate the arrival of the Celts in Ireland. The common symbols and clichés of Ireland have been rehashed and exhausted musically. House of Pain enjoyed a profitable, albeit ludicrous, career based on a scarily tenuous affiliation with Ireland; they did little to dispel the stereotypes of the Irish as nomads, chancers and vagabonds. Among the Boston based hip hop group’s repertoire was the identity-desperate ‘Top O’ the Morning to Ya’, with lyrics including:

Ya see, I’m Irish, but I’m not a leprechaun…

A descendant of Dublin with titanic skill…

These Irish eyes are smilin’, I’m buckwildin’…

Similarly, the 1990s saw Boston’s Dropkick Murphys and Los Angeles’ Flogging Molly synthesise the fiddle, kettledrum and banjo with punk styling and references to the ‘home country’. Yet the same decade saw a generation of Irish bands ignore their country’s historical plight, a notable exception being the Cranberries’ ‘Zombie’, which refers to the 1916 Dublin uprising. Sinéad O’Connor and U2 have rarely approached such subjects, and perhaps this is a reflection of a willingness to move on from the sorrows of years gone by.

With the advent of the ‘Celtic Tiger’, and the cosmopolitanism that it brought to Dublin and Belfast, maybe the time has come to embrace a future that previously looked so uncertain. Americans who hanker after a greater and more ancient sense of cultural lineage have adopted the revolutionary tales of the Fenians, the great boat exodus to New York in the late 1800s, and a hazy dream of a distant home in the Emerald Isle as their own. But rather than shamrocks, limericks and pints of Guinness, it is the homegrown songs of Ireland, composed and performed during the country’s numerous episodes of turmoil, that will remain as central reference points in the mythologisation of Ireland’s turbulent history.

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B A i n ng a k o ri der t o t it led ‘ I B n u e o, . eh wher e Osinow ilable now e g e a nk oll ell C poet Ro and is av w r e b se it h t C a m r at i o n s w t h o r H o u a d e di st Au te stu ok of illu lished by o s u bo ub Od i l o l a . H i s n ew s b e e n p m a D n n’, ha r at i o illust ilbur y Tow You T

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Throughout my day there are many issues that I come across. Living in a society that is YOU T A H T so rich and diverse provokes me to think about many SAY ORK IS E H W T political subjects. These feelings and ideas flow onto R O T YOU OW IN CIOUS’.

D S my page; it’s almost as if I have set a subject on the N N I TO A ‘W ’S SUBCO S AIM M canvas for debate, or there is a huge question mark AY ER FRO K, VIEW U ALW CTION R which invites the viewer to engage with it.

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DO KE A RE G YOUR X TENT IN HAT E VO R PRO E VIEW My upbringing was strange, having been fostered by YOU S TO W THO IF SO, EL THAT S A white working-class parents in an essentially white , E N AND O YOU F ONTAI CAL I town. I had to face many race issues growing up, simiD RK C OLI T WO AL OR P ? lar issues which are still very important and significant S OC I E A N I N G

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to me today.

Living in London has been like travelling the world. I have become a much more open minded and educated person by living in a place where so many different cultures and peoples live side by side.

I call on my viewers to recall their past experiences and to comment on the subjects of my work, hopefully showing that we all share a common experience in life; that of being a human being.

I like to believe that we all have similar human qualities.

We are not all that dissimilar. It is hard not to involve some kind of political or social meaning in your work when you experience living in London. I express my views on current issues through colour, in an abstract, epic way.

The chaotic nature of my work does indeed reflect London life, the buzz and energy of London is all around us. The things I feel and see throughout my day end up on the canvas sooner or later: my mind is endlessly absorbing images.

I grew up outside of London, in Essex. There the landscape had its imperfections; the town I grew up in was essentially marshland and so the greyness of the huge buildings in London, and all of the city’s imperfections, became very appealing to me.

H OUG TIONS H T L A TR A LLUS TICALLY A I R YOU ESTHE HAVE A R Y ARE UL, THE . IF YOU A TI F RE AS BEAU TIC NATU E SEEN LIFE, F B O CHA IS TO TION O CT LE RK TA WO RESEN AOS REF E TH EP CH 2D R ES THIS IEW OF N/ DO RV T IO YOU RLD/NA WO ONDON? L

London itself has been thrown together; if you look at it from a bird’s-eye view it’s a mess, compared to the formal grids of the US at least.

However, it is this chaos that makes London so appealing; it works.

The way I approach design comes down to two options – parallel and unparallel, equal and unequal. I always ask: how would something look if it were equal or parallel in some way? London provokes me to lean more towards the unparallel and different.

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K BOO TRATED E T H I L LU S KE VE ON NTO A R H T YOU H POE LVES I RLD’ WIT WO DE ER-WO ING NO ‘NEV ORK OSI RREAL ND W T WAS A A U A S VERT Y G. WH ROUND G O N K I P D OF SS LIV AL BAC K, AN N A O TS L O I S C PER THE BO D DO R E H N T IND X TE YOU BEH HAT E FLECT S E W CE TO MES R PERIEN ?

E UP TH W N E X ING O W GRO

This surreal ‘never-world’ is indeed my hometown; it is essentially how I remember it. Having made a forever-standing impact on my character, the poems and illustrations are all products of growing up in that environment. I wished to express these memories, feelings and experiences through my illustrations; my sister, Ronke, wished to do the same through her poetry.

Although we are from different generations, it was easy for Ronke and I to collaborate on this book. We had the common experience of growing up in the small house with our foster parents, in the small town that is Tilbury, so immediately we were on the same page.

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The book touches on many different social and political aspects of life in Tilbury Town, such as alcoholism, poverty, violence, race, powerlessness, unemployment and social dislocation. It’s a part of British life that exists but is rarely spoken about.

As with all the work I produce, I wanted this book to make people stop: to see, question, think and debate the issues and experiences mentioned. The themes and stories in this book give you a snapshot of life growing up in this town. The aim is to convey my strong feelings and emotions through the illustrations. If I provoke feelings and emotions in just one viewer, then I have done my job.

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IANGILES

“YOU HAVE GOT TO STAND FOR SOMETHING”

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If sig Ch is na an th Ca the tu el’ hi a t r s Ea s o No shir lvin ski e p rt ie th st wn ki t, K t m e m co . A ha he lei suit ce to arl od llec t h s m n i n’s an ou or el tio is ad t’s is d tfi si s w n sho e fai the t t. lk t r sc ore his w-s he to tar t h S e t e f a s a f p e pt al i c e y rin m, em ng ma t a in be Fa sk cc sw r, sh or ea all io di t s o n n g hi r f t

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This is not some callow fashion school graduate using shock tactics to garner a job at a major fashion house. A product of 90s Hoxton, he’s been operating for long enough to establish his style

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A few memorable snapshots of that show: mass-produced t-shirts (eighties metal bands and Disney cartoons being particular favourites) are slashed to ribbons, plaited and knotted; a neon cocktail dress is hoiked down to become a skirt, a puffed sleeve accentuating each hip; Mickey Mouse with his eyes cut out; rainbow-coloured wigs that any drag act would be proud At to own. All held together with coils of industrial strength the fluorescent rope. These models didn’t look like models centre of (and some of them weren’t; a large Boombox continit all is a masked gent made an appearance on the catwalk). They figure in customised looked like the mutant survivors of some sportswear with a strong Glasnuclear disaster visited on East London. wegian accent. At a time when the likes Had apocalypse come to the rave? of Gareth Pugh and Christopher Kane are almost as recognisable as the clothes they produce, This is customisation, but not JJ Hudson has cultivated an enigmatic persona equal to any as we know it. The idea underground political leader. With a fondness for impenetrable has lost its edge of late, acronyms (his show was titled ‘NOKI-NHS-CUSTOMISATION AND but Noki and his AFTERCARE SERVICE’ ), quoting political texts (Kalle Lasn’s ‘Culture Jam’ is a comrades are set favourite), and those masks, which, wouldn’t you know, are SOBs (Suffocation Of to change all Branding masks), he’s very much a radical. that.

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Some fashion bloggers have suggested that, far from being anti-establishment, Hudson is too well in with some major fashion players to be able to provide any relevant critique. After all, Fashion East is run by his friend and supporter Lulu Kennedy, so one can only assume that he didn’t have to apply in the usual way.

Another old friend, Nicola Formichetti, superstylist of ‘Dazed And Confused’, styled the Fashion East extravaganza. When I snarkily ask him by email whether his collaboration to produce footwear for Luella’s A/W 08 shows signifies a move to the mainstream, his response is emphatic. ‘Very much so. It’s a wonderful nod to the Noki style being accepted credentials. As a music stylist and artist, he’s exhibited in the by the ‘said’ mainstream.’ And it’s great that he’s V&A and has his work photographed by Nick Knight. But Hudson unapologetic about this. What’s the point of beis scathing about designers who play lip-service to the values of ing a revolutionary without an audience? Surely, customisation with clever-clever parodies of the big corporates, getting major magazine coverage with designs before being absorbed by them. ‘I find this uninspiring, as they that subvert the insignia of some of their top have reduced this special moment to just a trend. They followed advertisers, could be considered a triumph. through by being what they fought against.’

But isn’t there a danger that, in encouraging the kids to do their own thing, he’ll render his own job obsolete?

‘True fashion is always playing with this concept of revolution. It’s a passive-aggressive outlook to the fact that we do not go naked and will always want to look different’, he says.

If Hudson is going mainstream, he’s doing it on his own terms. With a range for Kickers due for release in the spring, a Brick Lane shop is now in the pipeline, showcasing not only the NHS range but also Hudson’s young protégés, Good One and Dig for Victory, whom, with likeable humility, he names as ‘inspirations‘.

And he’s optimistic for the future of fashion.

‘Sustainable thought processes have come out of the customisation trend, and this is your revolution within the fashion industry.’

Noki wants to challenge his customers. ‘Fashion is very much a visual revolution that will forever inspire its wearer into a beautiful war of change.’ And as the soldiers in the war on homogenised fashion take up arms, I think that what Noki makes is riot gear.

BRIGGS

JONNY

The only alternative to the rather arch approach to branding - espoused by designers such as Jeremy Scott and Russell Sage - is the type of eco-clothing which seems a bit worthy; all hemp, sludge colours and dubious ethnic touches. But Noki shows that there is another way. His creations both critique the commercial powerhouse branding that he subverts, and provide a genuinely beautiful afterlife for their discarded products. They transform recycling from a safe middle-class activity into something altogether more rebellious. When other designers endlessly rehash ideas from the past using wasteful new materials, surely the only reaction is to create something thrillingly new from something already existing.

‘With a little thought, future design can be achieved by customising what has already been produced.’ And, let’s face it, some ’future design’ is what fashion needs right now.

CHELSEA COLLEGE OF ART AND DESIGN | BA FINE ART | www.jonnybriggs.com

This particular piece has been created in response to family politics and sibling rivalry. My mother, who forged the identities of my sisters, sits within the picture, representing two of them following an argument. The paradox of their conflict occurs through its origination from their similarity, shaping the mirrored composition. This symmetrical set up was intended to emphasize their distance and similarity simultaneously. On closer inspection however, it is evident that the sisters are not as similar as first thought.

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The abundance of space within the image was intended to dwarf the figures, emphasizing their psychological divide while also drawing attention to the confining repetition of cage-like wallpaper. This background was drawn in Vectorworks, including hidden images within the replicated design, forging a parallel between the repeated sisters and their repetitious environment. Their beige clothing also merges with their background, linking to the standardization of the piece, while also producing a warm, inviting glow. Forging to form a Viking boat, their shadows are produced through a spotlight suggestive of sudden discovery of misbehaviour and blame.

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A I D I Independenz Project — Katie Bishop, BAFS Year 2

TRAPPED IN A GROWN-UP WORLD CHRISTOPHER HUNT

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LION CLUB JAMES TYE

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The piece is so anti-Bush that it becomes pro-Osama. For a performance that tried to expose secrets of the Bush Administration, it did very well in concealing details of Hicks’ conviction; these can be found on Wikipedia, listed in bullet points. But this is an increasingly widespread malady, as the polarisation between Bush haters and supporters increases.

Many support the American War on Terror, whilst disagreeing with their tactics. They point to the incompetence and disaster of American foreign policy in Iraq. They criticise the

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security measures taken within our cities that have stubbed out our civil liberties. Others who are more extreme begin to deliberately support targets of the Bush administration, such as the Ba’ath regime in Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Palestine or detainees in Guantanamo.

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Half of the piece was dedicated to the video documentary. The ingredients for liberal propaganda were all included in a glorious parade of journalistic clichés. Passages from the Declaration of Human Rights were both written and recited, presumably working on the assumption that the audience had either reading or hearing difficulties. Later, a juxtaposition of the interrogation techniques and Hick’s personal account of the tortures he experienced appeared also in both visual and audio formats. The funny quote by George Bush was not funny. Interviews with Hicks’ parents, Terry and Bev, presented them as the typical tabloid heroes: white, middle-class, victimised citizens. The scandalous newspaper pictures, supposedly depicting the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo, mostly turned out to be photos of the atrocities committed in the Abu Ghraeb prison in Iraq.

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ance: that this is a production by Australian artists, about an Australian citizen, for an Australian audience.

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The performance itself has two layers: a collage of TV journalism, and dance. Projections are shown of video interviews with Hicks’ parents, images of Guantanamo Bay (and Abu Ghraeb), and relevant news clippings, while the dancers perform choreographed contortions of human suffering. Initially the choreography was intriguing in its live depiction of physical and mental torture. Choreographer Garry Stewart believes that through this the ‘struggle becomes real and not illustrated’. However, the routines became repetitive and the dancers were so swift and graceful that they struggled to convey the idea of human suffering. Much of the dramatic impact was clearly intended to come from the music; however, for 70 whole minutes a drearily symphonic sci-fi/suspense movie-style soundtrack droned on and on. The opening and closing scenes feature Arabic chants, incorporating a recording of the Muslim call to God, but when used within this context such recordings come across as crude, hackneyed politicising. In this way the director seemingly contradicts the message of his work from the outset of the perform-

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The idea of combining journalism and performance had potential, but it didn’t work in ‘Honour Bound’. The beautifully sculpted dancers kept the show going despite their incompatibility with the harrowing setting of an interrogation prison. The politics behind it were weak, but it was mainly the use of clichés and misleading information that rendered the journalistic component of the performance a failure.

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‘Honour Bound’ is an account of David Hicks’ experience as a Guantanamo detainee. The controversy around David Hicks lies in a disagreement between the Australian public and the American Government over Hicks’ conviction. Hicks is accused of having visited Taliban camps in Afghanistan, and participating in operations with Al Qaeda, that did not involve killing, but transmitting information. The Australian public disputes this vehemently; however, I will not speculate about the political motives behind Hicks’ imprisonment.

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A performance produced by the Sydney Opera House and Malthouse theatre, featured at the Barbican from 14th-17th November as part of the Ozmosis 2007 performing arts festival.

Conception, direction and co-design by Nigel Jamieson, Choreography by Gary Stuart and music by Paul Charlier.

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OTHERS

SOUHAL AL ZAATARI