Contents NEWS
Earth 35
NUS Wants 100% SSAF to go to Student Unions 5 How ANU Students Voted in the 2022 Federal Election
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Big Night Out Returns After Two Years 8
EARTH Alterity with my Muttersprache11 Alien Worlds: Golf Courses? 12 The End is Here
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Names are More Than They Seem 17
Mount Kosciuszko 19
The Humble Hubble Telescope: Our Eyes in the Sky
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Lost Words and Forgotten Notes 40 The Alien Effect and the Abject 42
GALAXY edition 4
The Sexual Frontier
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The Speed of Light (Rail)
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Astrology and the Dating World52
There’s No Such Thing as Aliens: An Interstellar Post-Humanism 55
COSMIC CREATIVITY
Drug Reform, Psychedelia and the
The Girl at the Asian Grocer
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Parallel ANU 20
Alien Body 58
A Tale of Two Fictions
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From Me to You
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Alien to Academia
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Beyond the Veil
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Post-election Pessimism 28
Deep Techno and the Vocoder 62
The Limits of Mother Earth
Playlist from Outer Space
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IN ORBIT My Rocketship Has a Nice Personality Though 33 Please Find Attached: Our Planet
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Letter from the Editor Just this month, NASA released the clearest images of our universe yet, captured by the most powerful telescope yet. The deepest depths of our universe are no longer so alien after all. In this edition, we explore the alien within, the alien surrounding us and that which is far, far away. Under the stellar direction of returning Content Editor Karolina Kocimska and new Art Editor Rose DixonCampbell, contributors contemplate the alien on Earth and within the galaxy at large. This edition’s writers probe how literature, psychedelics, and foreign languages bring us to the edges of reality and evaluate their own feelings of alienation in academia, a polarising political climate and in a white settler colonial state. Further, this magazine considers the current state of our planet and our knowledge of the universe. It is so often at university where we can finally appreciate the beauty of our internal alien, no longer motivated to suppress it to fit in with the monotony of high school, and before we enter the uniformity of the corporate or government workplace. Woroni is a place where students can unleash their inner alien in pursuit of creativity, whether that is in recording a radio show, producing television, generating art, writing for the magazine, or even at times, in covering the news. This semester, we are excited to welcome five incredibly talented additions to the Woroni Board of Editors: Matthew Box as Managing Editor, Saad Khalid as Deputy Editor in Chief, Alex Lane as News Editor, Fergus Sherwood as Head of Radio and Rose Dixon-Campbell as Art Editor, whose otherworldly creativity leads the vision of this very magazine. Editor in Chief Juliette Baxter
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ARTWORK: Navita Wijeratne
ARTWORK: Rose Dixon-Campbell
NUS wants 100% SSAF to go to Student Unions Kristine Li Giam The National Union of Students (NUS) Education Department has brought forth a petition to dedicate all Student Services and Amenities Fee (SSAF) Funds to the student unions. The petition claims that “universities have been systematically underfunding student spaces for years.”
it is still entirely inferior to compulsory student unionism (CSU),” which was abolished in 2006. CSU would have student organisations directly charge membership fees to students, rather than have the university charge students the SSAF and subsequently allocate it to various organisations.
Currently, full-time students pay $157.50 in SSAF funds each semester, amounting to an expected total of $5.5 million in 2022 for the ANU. At ANU, SSAF funds are granted towards funding various programs and services for ANU students, including Griffin Hall, salaries for casual ANU staff, ANU+, and ANU Wellbeing Projects etc.
Under the current system, ANUSA identifies as its main problem that they “need to lobby and protest the university until they give us enough to feed students, pay for lawyers to defend students, fight for a safe and just campus, and give emergency grants to students in need.”
Currently, SSAF funds at the ANU are spread across six recipients — the University itself, ANUSA, PARSA, ANU Sport, Woroni, and ANU Observer. Should the demands of the NUS petition come into effect, SSAF will only be allocated to two recipients — ANUSA and PARSA. The petition presents several demands to the Commonwealth Government and university management,
including the ANU. The petition urges the Commonwealth Government to “[r]estore Universal Student Unionism,” legislate that all SSAF funds go directly towards “democratically elected student unions” until Universal Student Unionism is reinstated, and “[r]emove restrictions that dictate what SSAF can be spent on.” Speaking to Woroni, ANUSA Treasurer Jaya Ryan stated that while the NUS proposition “might be an improvement on the current system,
Ryan however finds fault in the NUS’s proposition, insofar that it “does nothing to stop the University picking and choosing which student organisation it sends SSAF to.” The treasurer suggests that the proposal “might even incentivise the hostile takeover of student unions as this will be the only way for universities to choose where SSAF gets allocated under a 100% SSAF system.” Speaking on journalistic integrity, Ryan acknowledges a “huge and unavoidable conflict of interest” under the NUS’s proposition. He asserts that “[s]tudent media needs to be able to freely criticise student activists and student unions without fear of being defunded” and such media organisations “have a right to institutional and financial independence from student unions and from the university.” As such Ryan continued, “ANUSA endorses a return to CSU with the caveat that there is an independent mechanism that diverts some portion of student fees to funding student media.” The NUS Education Officer Luc Velez stated that currently SSAF funds do not “allow for activism” because the “union dues go to the boss.” Instead, they believe that “a really solid halfway point… is legislating minimum amounts of SSAF to go directly to the student union” since they think that full SSAF funds going to student unions is “not going to happen in the short term.”
In the recent Federal Budget in March, the Coalition Government did not make any changes to SSAF legislation. The NUS fight for changes to SSAF allocation, however, continues.
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ARTWORK: Rose Dixon-Campbell
How ANU Students Voted in the 2022 Federal Election Dan Crane
Shortly after the election, Woroni surveyed over 400 ANU students, both on and off-campus to determine a rough picture of how the ANU voted in the 2022 Federal Election. We all have our theories about each of the colleges. Is Burgmann College ruled by a cabal of Liberal Party elites? Is Burton and Garran Hall (B&G) truly a greenie paradise? Does Toad Hall even exist? Thankfully, we finally have the answers to your burning questions. The stereotype of B&G residents as Greens voters is probably true, as it is of all other ANU colleges. Climate change dwarfed all other election issues for ANU students in the election. The median voter at ANU is a Greens voter who regards climate change as the most important issue in every college apart from Burgmann. Burgmann has a much larger proportion of Labor voters than other Colleges. Finally, the ascendency of independents in the ACT such as David Pocock was evident, as those who lived off campus tended to favour minor parties in the Senate.
Climate change was by far the most important issue to ANU students across all colleges. In fact, climate change received almost six times as many responses as the next answer (cost of living). This may somewhat explain why the greens, who made up roughly 12 per cent of the vote nationally and 19 per cent in the ACT, attracted 55 per cent of the votes from our respondents.
ARTWORK: Rose Dixon-Campbell
The election issue with the fewest responses from ANU students was religious discrimination. This is despite the significant election coverage on this topic following the Morrison Government’s decision to not introduce its watered-down Religious Discrimination Bill before the Senate.
Amongst the colleges, Burgmann had the highest proportion of Labor voters and the lowest proportion of Greens voters. Hopefully this means we can finally put that stereotype about the college being run by a bunch of young libs to bed. It is interesting to note that Burgmann did have the highest proportion of students who voted for the United Australia Party, though they only made up 7 per cent. Another rather interesting finding is that apparently Wamburun residents skew towards the Greens and independents, largely ignoring Labor. The same could be said about UniLodge and One Nation - with four 4 per cent of just 24 respondents voting for One Nation. These discrepancies could be partially due to the relatively low sample-size from Wamburun and Unilodge. Finally, though not pictured here, the influence of independent candidates David Pocock and Kim Rubenstein in the ACT’s senate race was evident amongst our off-campus respondents. 36 per cent of off-campus respondents voted for candidates outside of the major parties (excluding One nation and UAP), compared to the ANU-wide average of 21 per cent. Obviously, this poll is bound to be riddled with enormous amounts of bias given how difficult it was logistically to get enough responses from each of the halls. So, take absolutely everything with a grain of salt. If you would like to see our full coverage of this data, you can view it on the Woroni website. Thanks to all our respondents and distributors involved in the creation of this article.
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Big Night Out Returns After Two Years Sharlotte Thou Photography by Eliz So, Himashri Panaganti, and Jocelyn Wong
After a two-year hiatus, the ANU Interhall Arts Committee’s (IAC) long awaited Big Night Out (BNO) is back. Taking place on Thursday the 5th of May at Wamburun Hall, BNO saw Unilodge, Burton & Garran, Bruce, Johns, Wright, Burgmann, Griffin, Ursula, Wamburun and Wright Halls battle it out for the coveted title of BNO champion. IAC told Woroni that there were 1347 tickets scanned. Ranking the halls in order from most tickets to least tickets sold are: Burton and Garran (172), Fenner (165), Bruce (162), Burgmann (156), Ursula (144), Wright (132), Wamburun (106), Unilodge (58), Griffin (40) and Johns (31). The bands each had 20 minutes to impress the judges, and the repertoire featured tracks from artists including Olivia Rodrigo, the Beatles and Taylor Swift. Ultimately, Burgmann College clinched the title of champion, claiming the trophy from 2019 winner Ursula Hall. The final rankings were as follows: Burgmann College, UniLodge, Ursula Hall, John’s XII College, Bruce Hall, Griffin Hall and Fenner Hall (tied), Burton and Garran Hall, Wamburun Hall, and Wright Hall. Bands were scored by three judges, sourced from local Australian bands. Bands were judged on the basis of band dynamic, musical interpretation, technical ability and crowd response. IAC President Lachlan Houen called the event “magical” and said it was “ridiculously
heartwarming to see people from every single college on campus to support not only their own bands, but also the bands of other colleges.” “Returning to BNO after so long was a breath of fresh air, because it showed that IAC and the ANU can run large scale music events on campus, something that we are so incredibly proud of,” he added. BNO Director Jeffery Yang said he was “optimistic” about the event’s future after “two years [of] doom and gloom.” Yang also said the success of this year’s event has put IAC in a “more comfortable financial position to continue the event in perpetuity.” “We would like to extend our thanks to the wider university community who put their trust in us by purchasing tickets and showing up. Without you, BNO is nothing,” the director continued. Fenner vocalist Bianca Tzioumis described the night as “immaculate”, saying she “genuinely had never been to anything like it.” As a first year, she said she was nervous about the night, but “getting to perform in front of so many people, with all of them screaming the words is something I’ll never forget.” Rehearsals were “long and tiring,” with two two-hour long rehearsals a week, and intensive rehearsals in the mid semester break. Despite this, Tzioumis said that seeing the band improve between rehearsals was “so rewarding” and they “felt like a bunch of mates jamming out and having a good time.”
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ARTWORK: Navita Wijeratne
ARTWORK: Jessica McLeod-Yu
Alterity with my Muttersprache Maddy Fletcher
I have always assumed learning a foreign language would only deepen my knowledge and appreciation of my Muttersprache, English. But learning German has made me lose my unwavering affinity for my mother tongue. What was once my unfaltering devotion to the English language has quickly transitioned into a feeling of being more and more alienated from my own native language. I have struggled to communicate and even comprehend my own alterity with the English language. It feels like such a personal relationship—a three-way relationship between what I feel, the English thinking part of my brain, and the part that thinks in German. Expressing my feelings out loud is difficult enough, let alone being restricted on every linguistic level of the language. How could I possibly put into words the feeling of not having words? Or having the words, just not in a language that the listener will understand. I have found a lot of solace since I discovered a multilingual Japanese-German author named Yōko Tawada. Tawada writes frequently about her changing relationships with language and the multifactor of senses that make up words and sounds. Tawada has spoken about being able to physically taste words, even the words that linger in the air remaining unsaid. And only since learning a foreign language have I experienced this. When I speak English, I occasionally feel a German word that balances on the tip of my tongue. It’s not quite a word, but rather a feeling, a sense, an emotion. The feeling weighs down my tongue as if to make its presence known. I can
taste it too—taste the heaviness of the feeling, and just like this English has forced a feeling to stay trapped inside my mouth. I could try futilely grasping at English words, creating strings of disjointed phrases. Yet there is always an element that is completely lost in translation. No matter how many English words I try to use, there is always a part of the feeling that stays trapped in my mouth. (Let alone the pain of having to use clunky phrases in comparison to the succinctness of a single German word!). So instead of doing the feeling injustice, I leave it unspoken. But I can still feel the weight and the taste of this unspoken emotion filling up space within me. The irony of this is not lost on me. English is my own mother tongue, yet on that same tongue sits unspoken feelings I cannot express in English. In her writing, Tawada uses a madeup word: Sprachmutter. And the beauty of the concept of Sprachmutter is that it embodies everything it encompasses. It would be a disservice to the feeling of Sprachmutter to attempt to translate it, but my interpretation of it is as the opposite of the word mother tongue. Sprachmutter is like a quasi-linguistic mother—a medium by which one learns not just language, but perspective and thought. For me, my Sprachmutter is the German language. Armed with an alphabet of 26 letters, 3 umlauts and 1 eszett, German has enabled me to think differently to the way I do in English. My Sprachmutter has gifted me new perceptions of the world around me, and not just perceptions driven by language.
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ARTWORK: Jasmin Small It’s like a lie: Why lie to me
So, a brink is a lie?
Alien Worlds: Golf Courses?
To them? They say it always empty words on progress
Well, no. It can be truth. Its truth being that awful and giddy feeling. One names it the call of some void, another labels it the moment of epiphany.
Adeer Siddiqi
How they are shocked appalled I was invited to play golf with friends
a couple of weeks ago. When I got to the golf those will a brilliant, beautifully courseresponsible I was met with be held accountable green course, with large open swathes of grass, Long ago,and tidy-looking trees. I started to and neat realise why people liked playing so much: birds they shackled the breeze chirping all around, a big blue sky, and more and like our other-halfs importantly, no sounds of traffic. Golf didn’t really seem like it was just about hitting a ball entrapped in cloth with a club.it After watching an old man miss his bent beneath glass (very bad), albeit with a big 10th chip-in attempt smile on his face, you start to realise why the in a world I cannot know world’s largest fully synthetic golf course, Zilzie When those hollow bodies is now abandoned. Bay Resort in Queensland, masquerading The feel and smell of the grass, the spray of dirt from a well-played shot; hitting the ball was As lead light or sunshine only secondary. A synthetic course with plastic speak grass couldn’t really capture that. Golf courses seemed an excuse to walk about in nature, with The breeze wispsof free the side activity hitting a ball every now and for a moment then. They ensured the continued existence of The lie spaces, is alwaysan the same green ever so scarce commodity in that we move an increasingly urbanising world. Golf could be the sport of choice for ecologists, with Greta that the breeze comes and goes Thunberg’s stamp of approval. as it pleases But it isn’t. Why not? lie. As I played on, I walked up a hill for hole We care safety seven offor 18,their to be greeted with a spectacular view of the Canberra countryside, and all its lie. familiar shades of brown that we all know. I couldn’t help but notice some differences: The A moment forgolf all to celebrate trees on the course and the trees outside were completely different. They were straight lie. and conical on the course, but the ones outside were the familiar wavy, droopy eucalypts that A beacon of progress you find anywhere in Australia. And it wasn’t just the trees: the bright green grass of the golf lie. course abruptly ended at the edges, where the familiar dull brown Canberra grass began. It was with very wind easy as to words compare from on top of the hill: the neatly trimmed golf course landscape seemed blowing dimpled skin almost…across artificial placed next to the surrounding bushland. it feels like steps and steps There came a similar moment as I played. but the is always same hill, requiring I had todistance hit the ball abovethe a small me to use a nine-iron, a club that adds more the blowing so elegantly loft wind (vertical height). Without trying to think of from Kingly Hills Donald Trump’s 28th March statement, I swung the club, but it was a bit too low as it sliced through the ground, cutting out a piece of dirt
It’s a kind of love: Sitting here with myself we play a game
(called a divot), which flew through the air. of drowning portents Fun as that was to see, looking down at the which one of hole where it us once was, the soil had changed completely. The top layer of the golf course grass Will on hisdirt-coloured sea-green love? was choke the familiar brown, but the now revealed dirt below was a brilliant, bright red. The red dirt seemed almost... foreign, in a course He begins toby drown. surrounded what I realised was European I see his eyes nature. Pines,pass bright green grass, brown dirt. But red dirt? Even though it was on all edges from their wood brown outside the course, and even though it is almost symbolic of Australian life, the outback, and to the tinted murk offrom sea-foam maybe everything RM Williams to beetroot He laughs, in your burger, the red dirt just didn’t seem like it “I walk closer to the sea-bed, belonged there. The illusion had unravelled, and the sand-brink I felt I was on an artificial island. to Her.” So why did the trees and grass not match Now I am in the water the surrounding land, leading to this sense of feet sinking and rising artificiality? They were from another region of the
world and foisted upon the landscape to make it in ocean look like breaths that other region. Elms, maples, pines Seeking to drown these trees aren’t too native to the Canberra region He laughs again but are imported and planted, evenly spaced, cookie-cutter, with great care by horticulturalists saltwater his teeth to survivechuckling in a new at environment. Neither are the most used Couch and Kikuyu varieties of grass to pour throat that adddown that his manufactured bright lush green colour. words only a fish could understand You might think I am using the word leaking out manufactured hyperbolically to add effect. But the trees and grass are literally manufactured. to fight the tide’s search tune for golf course trees A quick Google “Afraid, yes? reveals a page recommending ideal trees for golf to sink, to swim such as Accolade™️ Elms, Capital courses - trees to lose balance Pears, or Armstrong Gold® Maples. These are all brand names for trees created by commercial again.” plant breeders - who crossbreed and copyright Now am drowning their Icreations - products, to make a profit. A similar Google search for grass reveals the water tainting my throat website for Lawn Solutions Australia - ‘Australia’s largest network of turf specialists and turf the sea salt- licks strokes scientists’ withand all their products being backed by a ‘10-year warranty.’ On their page you can the lips to lungs findflesh one from of the most popular grasses used on golf courses - the Sir Grange Turf - the ‘#1 selling until grasswe in the USA’ with a small ‘DNA certified’ myself and badge nextI to the logo. In short, the trees and grasses on golf courses are all substitute commercial products, the Kraft Singles or I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter! of nature.
ARTWORK: Jasmin Small walk on floors of sand and shit hair a-wave oil slick seaweed sewn to our heads Ahead a black depth
Golf also has a myriad of other problems –
nightmares and children’s fears and exclusivity. besides the infamous elitism writhing in its edge Golf courses take massive amounts of water to He turns to–me maintain courses are on average 150 acres, so proud and at the average frequency of being watered a
Ba-bum. Ba-bum.” When the shower runs dry and I unfold a skinny skeleton of pale paper stretching over paddle-pop bones
Georgian architecture being heavily reflected in
He circles away downbuildings the draintoday, and of course most government ever laughing rabbits that later decimated the local ecosystems.
Golf courses could be the same – a small little
percent of all the water used in the US each year.
his smile stitched a fish’s head artificial island oftoEuropean scenery that reminds I people drownedof a home that once was. he didn’t.Who can understand the irony of a sport He couldn’t that creates large green spaces with a negative Ienvironmental chose to. footprint? How can we improve My heart now lies golf?
that much isn’t even necessary to have a playable
in the embrace of some The good news is that golf is in fact
few times a week, even more so in arid climates
so cocky in Australia, where water consumption common
could be up to six times more. A US geological
his skin isestimated scale survey that golf courses use 0.5
his fish Asfingers Moeller wrote in 2013, watering a gold course his eyes are wrapped in seaweed course, it’s pearls only done to maintain the lush green
colour which people think makes the course more drifting forth from lidless lips aesthetically appealing, not affecting the game and hisway. teethPesticides are also used which seep in any into the local water table harming local wildlife are charms of bone finding their way into your (and also eventually with Her name on each household taps). Compounded with the amount “How fare your breath? of land courses use – water use becomes an even so far below? bigger problem. It is estimated that there are around 32,000 golf courses around the world – isestimated this any place to be covering a land area the size of Belgium. for a man such as you?” He standsWhy there do golf courses in Australia neglect grotesque to plant native trees? The answer to this could lie in Australia’s colonial past. European attitudes to inAustralia’s his naturenatural environment have always been less than positive. As Robert Hughes wrote in The For it’s Shore, all he’llabe Fatal famous book about the history of the first years of colonial settlement, when the can firstbe convicts looked upon the land they described He stagnates as stands a “thinand scraggly landscape,” “monotonousskin peeling looking at first sight,” with Eucalyptus trees as “very strange, with smooth wrinkling joints like flesh floating armpits, elbows, or crotches.” They didn’t have leaving nothingthings to say. Hughes further wrote many positive that comparing the landscape with an English just the seaborne scarecrow of Fleet a mandiarists. “Partly, park was common with First aitperson came from their habit of resorting to familiar European stereotypes to deal with the unfamiliar behind appearance of things Australian; thus it took at I least fall, unbidden, into for thatcolonial black depth. two decades watercolourists to Iget cannot breathe. the gum trees right, so they did not look like English oaks or elms.” Cannot see. Cannot hear. When confronted with strange new places it is normal to cling to what is familiar as Nothing butyou the of pounding of a boat to above it reminds home. Migrants new lands its engine thrumming to thatand familiar tune and bring along food, culture, customs, “Ba-bum. the first European colonisers were no different, Ba-bum. bringing their architecture, food, animals, trees, and way of life. These features were reflected in the early colonies – lots and lots of sheep,
very easy to make sustainable, but you have
sea-borne abyss to convince the consumer to change their My head now follows perspective. And that, is no easy task. As long
as people want their artificial “nature-themed
gingerly stepping intoascold ocean tides puts it, we amusement parks” Abbie Richards
will never have change.
to walk those drowning steps
We need to start living with the land,
and before the courses scarecrow indecision notstand against it. Golf areofvery expensive
to maintain – costing more than a million a year
the of choice on brink average. Planting flora native to the local For environment will save costs, as less water and
maintenance will be required, and especially
when heart beats pesticides. Instead of imposing European nature
on bushland, we could also consult the people
itwho is true have been living in harmony with the land
for thousands of years: the diverse range of First
like fish swimming you farming has already Nations peoples.across Fire-stick And proven to be an effective way to control the land,
and their expertise could not only help create
when thinks courses but also more jobs morehead harmonious
and employment. Cheaper maintenance costs
itcan is true also be passed down to the consumer in
membership fees. This could potentially help
like stepping from a shower alleviate golf’s current image as an unaffordable,
elitist sport.
all wrapped in conviction But If you are looking to play golf more
sustainably, perhaps play at a course that is
when both part of theagree Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary
Program. Membership is based on factors such as
itenvironmental is Real initiatives, recycled water use, and
wildlife preservation among others. Alternatively,
no edge brink look fornor local courses that aren’t a long drive
away and have an environmental plan. There are
just an endless many courses sea around Australia that are doing
their part to become sustainable. Golf is currently
green and deep and beautifulhave to be. As CSIRO problematic, but it doesn’t
has stated, Australia’s native wildlife is in the
a“grip love of and water ofsalt an unprecedented alien attack,” and without cackle. much ofHis thebubbling country’s unique flora and fauna is
in danger of disappearing by 2050 unless urgent action is taken.
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ARTWORK: Rose Dixon-Campbell
ARTWORK: Rose Dixon-Campbell
The End is Here Aspen Bloomfield
It’s been two years since current indie It Girl, Phoebe Bridgers released her second studio album Punisher. It’s also been two years since I had a breakdown in the parking lot of a Service NSW building (think Access Canberra) after failing my drivers’ test for the second time. No, these two occasions weren’t related. But a large concrete parking lot would be the perfect space to sit and listen to the harrowing screeches of I Know The End. Punisher is about finding solace during the apocalyptic and the mundane. During a natural disaster or moving into college. During an alien invasion or attending Sunday mass. During the end of the world or being overstimulated by clearance sale signs in a shopping centre. According to Bridgers, these phenomena are one and the same. On Punisher’s second birthday, I think it’s important to revisit several tracks from the album. i. In Garden Song, Bridgers affirms universal truths of millennial culture. She sings of moving away from a hostile hometown; “I grew up here, till it all went up in flames / Except the notches in the door frame” and attempting to navigate a complicated college experience; “Then it’s a dorm room, like a hedge maze.” These chapters are difficult. High school cliques, academic pressures, and friends and family passing away leave you bruised. Flashbacks of embarrassing O-Week activities keep you humbled. But Bridgers sings “Everything’s growing in our garden / You don’t have to know that it’s haunted” stressing that reason, and beauty, and peace, can be cultivated from all the violence. We have the ability to transform our trauma into something or someone better.
ii. In Chinese Satellite, Bridgers attempts to find meaning in the world. She sings “I want to believe / Instead, I look at the sky and I feel nothing.” We hear the yearning, longing and desperation in her voice. She wants to buy into aliens or religion. She wants to have these beliefs handed to her on fringe corners of the internet or by a local pastor. It would be comforting to know that there’s a constant, stronger presence. In a 2020 interview, Bridgers reveals “If I’m being honest, this song is about turning 11 and not getting a letter from Hogwarts, just realising that nobody’s going to save me from my life.” I too want to believe. I want to believe that the cost of living will go down, that governments will commit to greater climate action, and that everything will be okay in the end. That a grey alien or a God has everything planned out. Bridgers concludes Chinese Satellite singing “I want to believe / That if I go outside I’ll see a tractor beam / Coming to take me to where I’m from / I want to go home” and I just know that by home she is referring to the innocence and naivety of early childhood. Before we understood all the pressures of contemporary society. iii. In Kyoto, Bridgers learns to live with those pressures of contemporary society. She sings “I’ve been driving out to the suburbs / To park at the Goodwill / And stare at the chemtrails / With my little brother.” She sits in a large concrete parking lot (me and her are so similar!) and considers her existence. She acknowledges that she can’t change some social and political circumstances. If our tiny little voices can’t completely overhaul the system, should we simply attempt to thrift at second-hand stores, slowly pressure
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ARTWORK: Rose Dixon-Campbell
governments, and enjoy time with friends and family instead? Later on the title-track Punisher, Bridgers laments “The drugstores are open all night”. In a 2018 diary entry, Bridgers writes “Before shows, I often go for a walk. Nine times out of ten, if I see a CVS, I will go in, and nine times out of ten I will buy nothing.” Bridgers may as well find some comfort in the neon storefront lights of all night pharmacies or the colourful, laden shelves inside. iv. In I Know The End, Bridgers describes the end of the world. She sings of the skaters, and surfers, and other fringe groups who have all but disappeared; “Not even the burnouts are out here anymore” and little moments spent with friends and family as time all but runs out; “Out in the park, we watch the sunset / Talking on a rusty swing set.” This line evokes images of people huddled together as an asteroid or planet collides
with Earth. Bridgers doesn’t care that, “Over the coast, everyone’s convinced / It’s a government drone or an alien spaceship.” No, she is “Driving out into the sun / [Letting] the ultraviolet cover [her] up”. She completely embraces the intense, raging fire. “The end is near.” “The end is here”. It is both. Approaching and surrounding. On the horizon and at the shores. We hear people screaming. We hear cymbals and horns and electric guitars. And then we hear Bridgers join in, violently screaming over the top of everyone else, fully surrendering herself, and allowing herself to feel some sort of catharsis in all the chaos. The cover art of Punisher shows Bridgers dressed in her iconic skeleton suit staring up at a mysterious red glow in the night sky. We are left guessing the source of the light. Is it the lights of a nearby shopping centre? Is it a government drone? Is it an alien spaceship? According to Bridgers, there’s not much of a difference anyway.
ARTWORK: Karolina Kocimska
Names Are More Than They Seem
The recent election has presented a vastly more ethnically diverse Parliament, mostly from the Labor side of politics. The ALP, faithful to tradition, made all new members sign the caucus book. New MPs Zeneta Mascherenas and Cassandra Fernando shook hands with the new Prime Minister but interestingly, while signing, both apologised. Zeneta, for having a long name, and Cassandra, for having a long signature. Once again, because of her name. For a moment, I was furious. Because at that moment I saw myself. I saw myself, being sorry for having a long name, letting people put whatever spin they like on it, conceding, “it’s okay, I answer to most things.” For people of colour, before someone even reaches an attempt of pronouncing their name correctly, it feels as though a judgement has been made: of inherent impossibility. The proper articulation of a name is not an entitlement that should be selectively awarded. It is an assurance of dignity. Names are an entwining of histories and aspirations, representations of journeys across borders and echoes of forgotten pasts. Not pronouncing them properly is not just lazy, it’s a denial of respect. The impact has the power to nullify a person’s existence. Therefore apologies are no longer enough. I am a Sri Lankan, of Sinhalese descent, and naming practices tend to be an elaborate decadence between higher beings and
Thisuri Ranasinghe
mere mortals. A birth chart is drawn up by an astrologer, based on ancient knowledge of the movement of stars. The chart represents planet placement in relation to the star signs at the time of a child’s birth. In accordance with this, the astrologer bestows the parents a letter from the Sinhalese alphabet, and then a list of names starting with that letter. This practice has continued for generations. Reading the stars and being at the mercy of them to bring goodwill to the child every time their name is spoken. A name is a portrait. For the eyes to see, for the ears to hear. It is a record of our outer selves that connects integrally with our inner selves. For most colonised people, names are a praxis of a history deprived and a hope that a future may be their own. Sinhalese sought to name their children British names during the colonial era and in the British Dominion as a guarantor of upward social mobility. It was a trick that never failed to deliver. In the modern-day, the fact that names like mine are spoken at all, despite every attempt to make them devoid of any significance, is a testament to the survival of an entire people. But more importantly, their liberation. Colonialism “thingifies”, meaning it dehumanises. It turns the colonised into commodities, for exploitation on every single level, violating every aspect of their humanity. That is why it was so important to silence their names. To destroy the one thing that each and every one of us call our own, and ultimately the only thing we may take to our grave.
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ARTWORK: Karolina Kocimska
Renaming children with their own dialectics, using our practices, was a process of re-humanisation that built back the cultural infrastructures lost to colonial violence. Culture alone was not the only revolutionary force. In the face of colonisation, the existence of these nations was not just proved by culture, but by people’s resistance against occupation. So naming their children, speaking the names of their fathers, put colonialism to shame by exhibiting cultural treasures right under the nose of the empire.
becomes Evans, Goldsmith becomes Smith or Gold, and Avakian becomes King.” This is an intrinsic part of the immigrant experience. Changing our names, and shortening them, is a part of survival. Changing the very thing that uniquely defines you, to live a life that is convenient for the white man. For me, it feels like a tax that we cannot escape. Thank you for letting us be here, we will keep our heads down. I will smile every time you call me a name that is not mine, as you diminish the forces of history that secured my very being today.
Ratnayake Mudiyanselage Ranasinghe was my grandfather’s name. He chose to give his given name as a surname to his children. Ranasinghe, meaning an unfaced warrior in the face of battle. I don’t know much about the man he was, but I know he lived up to the name he gave me. A staunch anti-colonialist and active member of resistance politics, he devoted his life to unionism and public healthcare. 518 years of colonisation in Sri Lanka, and his name survived his ancestors and it survived him.
It is a tax for existence in a country that was never intended to be yours. A way to show that you know how to keep your distance and stay in your place. The price paid is not just that of the plane ticket, our very being here is at the expense of our eternal ties to our cultures. So, it is no surprise when Baldwin says “at the midnight hour, the lost identity aches.”
But it won’t survive his descendants. Because in a new country, we were made to feel that his name was a burden. Blank stares during roll call. Long glares, and the pre-emptive “Oh I’m going to get this wrong,” made us feel like an inconvenience. So, on a Wednesday evening in a Perth government bureau, it cost us $50 to change our name. Only now do I realise it cost me much more. Because of course the way to love anything is to realise that it might be lost forever. James Baldwin explained this phenomenon best: “They come through Ellis Island, where Giorgio becomes Joe, Pappavasiliu becomes Palmer, Evangelos
As a child of diaspora and an immigrant, it is easy to let the domineering culture convince you the most important contract is between yourself and your loyalty to this country. That you must renew this allegiance every day. I no longer believe this. The most important bond is between yourself and your community. But I don’t know how any relationship with that community can be formed if it refuses to speak your name as you, your parents and your language intend it. Immigrants and people of colour in this country, live lives that are “up-rooted, re-rooted and rootless.” Our names remain portals to motherlands that some of us never got to know. So, the onus is on all of us, because each time we speak a name correctly, we make more of an effort, we deal a blow to the imperial flags that still fly in the collective unconscious.
ARTWORK: Rose Dixon-Campbell
Mt Kosciuszko Collage by Liah Naidoo I like walking. Repetition soothes the mind. And being in nature resets my head. An all-consuming landscape allows me to untangle my thoughts. Rip them up and glue them back together. Medium: Collage (Gloss printed Kodak 400 Ultramax film photos)
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ARTWORK: Rose Dixon-Campbell
Drug Reform, Psychedelia and the Parallel ANU Anonymous
Content Warning: Mentions of drug use Compared to the rest of Australia, the ACT is an anomaly. Due in part to having one of the most progressive legislatures in the nation, our territory leads the way for informed healthbased approaches to drug policy. The recently introduced decriminalisation of most illicit drugs such as heroin, speed and cocaine works to protect people with substance abuse issues. Decriminalisation will shield this vulnerable population who currently make up the majority of drug possession charges, whilst retaining a level of pressure on drug traffickers and dealers. This legislation is also a step in the right direction to allow more people to try potentially positive and non-chemically addictive substances – such as Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) and Psilocybin, more commonly known as acid and magic mushrooms. Although the reputation of these drugs is mixed, many artists and scientific visionaries profess their psychedelic properties as being hugely useful to their lives and work. Francis Crick famously credited an LSD trip experience as the point he “perceived the double-helix shape” of DNA and interestingly described the drug as a “thinking tool”. Perhaps it was the words of these creatives, or perhaps I was driven by my own persistent curiosity about the potential of human experiences. But somewhere in the middle of the two, I joined a ragtag group of my good friends in taking 200μg of acid. We had waited for Bicycle Day, the annual
celebration of Albert Hofmann’s discovery of LSD, and the anniversary of his first encounter with the substance. In his autobiography, he illustrates the now iconic bicycle ride home that day. Writing that as the high set in, it caused his vision to fill with “kaleidoscopic, fantastic images . . . exploding into coloured fountains, rearranging and hybridising themselves.” Together we spent the surreal and euphoric peak of our experience in a hidden garden on Black Mountain. The substance pushed us to dance together to songs we’d heard a thousand times before but that’d never sounded so beautiful. We laughed at the twisting and animated bark of a tree that seemed to have fallen in a long passed bushfire. Then drifted often into a quiet appreciation of the feeling that the earth was breathing beneath us. This early period of the high, which lasted around four hours but felt like only minutes, left us disoriented as we passed into a state of ego death. Our memories, instinctive reactions and core personality seemed lost, leaving us to experience each moment divorced from our subjective self-identity. It was only once the strange and beautiful sensation of our high diminished that we could begin to comprehend the choice to leave our psychedelic paradise. Finally coming back to ourselves, we ventured onto the next great unknown: the ANU campus. The Activist, Botanist, Actor and I took shaky steps through CSIRO rehearsing farcical conversations about watermelon and daily mart to pacify our paranoia. Passing through the now
ARTWORK: Rose Dixon-Campbell
towering giants of Wright and Bruce, balconies waved and folded into patterns of sacred geometry. The technicolour strees that we walked every other day became another world to explore. The campus seemed like another planet, distinctly separate from the familiar buildings and lawns we had passed just hours before. The quickly flowing stream of Sully’s Creek seemed to have been rendered in cheaply animated polygons. The bright purple trees hanging above did little to alleviate my confusion. But the most shocking effect was a dramatic impact on my own introspection. I can still recall how it felt to have my regular patterns of thought disrupted, opening new ways to consider the things that persistently run through my mind. It was personally empowering, exhilarating and freeing. As we approached the stretch of University Avenue, the paintings were like mischievous sirens, drawing us to pause and take in every detail. Enjoying the day, our minds still significantly impacted by the LSD molecules clinging to serotonin receptors, we talked extensively about our passions. The works of great poets and playwrights, the secrets and questions of mycology and our own dreams and deepest anxieties. I credit how positive I found the experience to the people I spent it with. Mutual trust gave us freedom to share the art we loved, and have tough conversations while maintaining a spirit of excitement about the trip we were sharing. Psychedelic drugs are not for everyone and should be treated with a great deal of
respect and caution. However, their recreational use can provide unique and perspective-shifting experiences. Experiences that can powerfully impact a person’s life. The ACT Legislative Assembly’s decriminalisation of these substances is not an open invitation for people to seek out and try them without consequence. But it could be the first step towards developing a legal relationship with psychedelics like that of Canada and the Netherlands. Nations in which government measures have effectively allowed for the sale and recreational use of specific hallucinogenic substances, such as psilocybin. Through my personal experiences dipping my toes into mind-altering substances, I have gained a greater understanding of who I am and want to be as a person. I was allowed visual effects more interesting and believable than anything offered through kaleidoscopes or CGI. I was bestowed a new lens through which to appreciate art. In these days of euphoric joy, LSD has fundamentally pushed me to approach life in a new and exciting way. In this way, I affirmed my belief that psychedelic drugs can have a highly positive impact on the lives of those who chose to use them. Especially when their use is freed from negative stigma and government policy directions aiming to demonise their impact. Hopefully, the rest of Australia can follow the ACT’s strong example on drug reform and turn our territory’s exciting anomaly into an international standard. And for the intrigued reader at home, I hope that I’ve drawn you a little closer to seeing the eye-opening magic that a mind-bending trip can offer.iv.
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ARTWORK: Jasmin Small
ARTWORK: Xuming Du
A Tale of Two Fictions Sam Belmore
Fiction is the cornerstone of reality. It’s trite and somewhat obvious to point out that the world is the way we think it is. But if you spend enough time with this truth, it will become too comfortable, too familiar. I had become quite comfortable within it myself. If you were to tell me five days and 12 hours ago that two of the most influential men in my life were in fact stories I invented, I probably would have said “Sorry, I’m running late to a Roald Dahl movie I’m watching with my Mum called To Olivia.” But, if you had told me this fact just two hours later, I probably would have stopped and listened. The little role my Godfather played in my life counted for a lot. It was a birthday present. A book wrapped in puzzle-piece paper. George’s Marvellous Medicine by Roald Dahl. On my seventh birthday, I was able to read independently, and I decided that I liked it. Compared to corporate author H. I. Larry’s Zac Power, Dahl’s voice felt like it was respectful of its audience. It was tender and understanding, as though the nonsensical story was really the sort of thing grown-ups couldn’t understand. I proceeded to read everything he had ever written. And then I read it all again. My ninth birthday party was Roald Dahl-themed. I know. Still the coolest party I’ve ever been to. My parents spent money they didn’t have to bring Dahl’s fiction into reality. My Dad has a degree in fine arts, which he used to recreate Blake’s illustrations. Somehow, he found time to do that in-between looking after four kids, studying for his third tertiary qualification, working two jobs, and being married to his one wife. My Mum invented and ran the games, she always brings an indefatigable spark of wonder into everything and everyone she touches. It was her idea to replace party bags with copies of Dahl’s books wrapped in brown paper with string. Dahl’s melody was the song my childhood sang. My favourite book was Danny the Champion of the World. Danny lives alone with his father; they fix cars together and live an altogether simple and fulfilling life. Danny believes his life can be improved only with his mother, who died during childbirth. Danny discovers a dark side to his father, an addiction to hunting. He uses his intelligence to invent a pheasant hunting strategy so endlessly humane and ruthlessly efficient as to end the moral dilemmas forever associated with the likes of Robin Hood. I was desperately envious of Danny. I idolised my dad. If only I could spend time with him as Danny got with his dad. I borrowed an engineering book from the library when I was 10 so that I could talk to my dad about cars. I just assumed that he liked cars, because that’s the sort of thing manly men like him liked. I studied that book and bided my time to flex my newfound automobile-relevant knowledge. I remember sucking up the courage to tap him on the shoulder and pose: “So…what do you think of split differential systems? Pretty cool right?” He responded: “…yep.”
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ARTWORK: Xuming Du
Dad wasn’t really a car guy. He does like Troop Carriers though. Dahl’s voice guided me along a path to the classics. A path which led me to Sherlock Holmes, to my first celebrity crush Jane Eyre (Yes. My first celebrity crush was the fictional character, Jane Eyre. The very same Jane Eyre referred to as ‘plain’ ‘unattractive’ and ‘ill-humoured.’ I don’t know what I saw in her), to Samuel Beckett, Pink Floyd and the Beatles, Thomas Hobbes, Baudrillard, and to the ANU. The parts of me that love reading and writing, the parts of me which led me to write these words sometimes feel like they aren’t mine. I feel like I inherited these from him. I brought all my Roald Dahl books to Canberra. When I see the spines of his work looking down on me from my bookshelf, I feel like my essays aren’t really mine either. A part of me is indisputably Roald Dahl. But…for all my discipleship I didn’t really know him. I didn’t know that his daughter died of measles before he published Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I didn’t know that his wife was an actor. I didn’t know that he was an alcoholic. I didn’t know that he was exceptionally good at making breakfast. In fact, these details of his life rudely found themselves in my head only recently. To Olivia is a film about Roald and his wife coming to terms with the untimely demise of their eldest daughter. Well, that’s the plot. The film is really about looking at our storytellers as well as listening to them. That’s the part that I didn’t like. It felt offensive to see Dahl drunkenly yell at his wife and daughter. It was hurtful to see him sprawled on his bed. And disappointing to see him fail to love and care for the people he was supposed to provide for. His voice, the one I saw berate his wife and child, was the voice I had allowed so innocently into my life. The man I saw on screen seemed to be entirely distinct from the man who authored my childhood. I was the sort of person who read books - you know the type. I was excluded, by my own apprehensions, from every team sport I ever tried. But my dad also read many books, he recommended many of the influential works in my life that I listed above. In all honesty, I don’t really know why a split differential system is cool…and if someone were to ask me if it was cool, I would probably just say ‘...yep’ as well. Falsely, I assumed that my dad was someone alien to me. But when Dahl was exposed as alien, I was better able to appreciate the similarities I had failed to see growing up.
ARTWORK: Xuming Du
I have always struggled with sleep. I like thinking and action too much to find rest fulfilling. I started sleeping easier during the heights of puberty, but as I mature, I feel the dregs of familiar nocturnalism returning. We were living in Wagga Wagga at the time. The summer nights were sticky and hot. You would sleep without a shirt to stay cool, and the sheets would cling to your skin. It was probably around one or two in the morning. Insects hummed outside in the way that sounds like rain. I crept out of my room into the hallway. The L.E.D. kitchen light was on. Usually, that meant Mum and Dad were still awake, a signal to go back to bed. I didn’t go back to bed. Maybe it was to avoid the boredom of my bedroom ceiling, maybe it was because I found the silence disquieting; I don’t know what led me to the edge of that room. When I peaked in, I saw my dad hunched over the kitchen table. He was wearing a white singlet and shorts. His face was buried in his arms. I noticed the way the muscles in his shoulders flexed as they gently shook. I think he was crying. I am now the same age my dad was when he met my mum. The pressures he bore on those shoulders are becoming more intelligible to me. I am becoming a man who, like his father at this age, may one day play the role of fatherhood. Fathers are born, dads are made. Any man can be a father. But dads are made by men possessing dignity, responsibility, and tender love. Dads can also be made by little boys who feel unalterably alone amongst a sea of people noticeably different from them. One day I may need to make a dad out of myself too. A lot of stories go into making a person. I used to have this idea that fiction lived on the peripheral vision of reality. Now I think that reality is made of fiction. My dad was a story I told myself. Roald Dahl was a story I told myself. Deep down I know that I was the author of their story. When I felt alone, I invented a dad out of a disembodied name on the front of my favourite book. If only I knew I didn’t need another one. This pretty average film forced me to see as fiction that which I had written to be reality. Maybe that takes it from 5/10 to 6.5/10.
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ARTWORK: Xuming Du
Alien to Academia Amy Briggs The subject of aliens and the paranormal have been a relatively taboo subject for governments and academics. In astronomy and cosmology, it has generally been accepted that if you want to be taken “seriously”, you shouldn’t touch the subject of aliens. Of course, when most people see the word alien, images of horror movies, E.T. and more come to mind. The image of scientific research and papers almost never comes to mind first.
(unidentified aerial phenomena) encounters that have been recorded. The last time a hearing took place was more than 50 years ago, when UAPs were referred to as UFOs. The reason for this hearing was not to verify UAP footage, but to try and look for human activity.
New Faces and Old Spaces: Know My Name Exhibition Review
The first academic paper to investigate the subject of aliens was Encounters by Edith Fiore, published in 1997. The paper is a collection of psychological case studies of abduction victims. There have been criticisms of Encounters, as Fiore used hypnotic therapeutic techniques in the trial and possible unintended priming of Nearly thirty years ago, The Guerrilla Girls the subjects by admitting that she believed in quipped that the advantages of being a woman encounters and was “abducted” herself. These artist included “working without the pressure of sort of statements may have influenced the case success”.This criticism struck at the hypocrisy of studies and thus, are not in-line with generally museums and galleries who were willing to display accepted science practices. These practices females as subjects whilst simultaneously refusing being that researchers should not allow their bias to recognise them as artists in their own right. to influence the participants. Significant advances in gender equality have been made since then, but this has barely translated to By being the first paper on a subject, the art world. Curators at the National Gallery of Encounters set the standard. If scientists are Australia discovered this themselves upon observing interested in studying UFOs (unidentified flying that the number of pieces by living women in their objects) and related alien content, it is hard to collection had shrunk over the past four decades, remove stigma, especially if agencies and grant despite the increasing prominence of female artists bodies believe that the subject has no scientific worldwide.
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Acting as a mea culpa is the newly opened Recently, the U.S. Know My Name: Australian Women Artists 1900 Congress held a hearing to Now. The exhibition features over 400 works by to discuss UAP 170 female-identifying individuals, with household names like Grace Cossington-Smith, Fiona Hall, and Tracey Moffatt displayed alongside lesser-known but equally skilled female artists. By showing new faces in old spaces, the exhibition presents an assault on the canon that artistic establishments operate under. Ultimately, it is a triumphant and thoughtful representation of women, their work, and their experiences, through the prism of art.
Even if the U.S. Congress was not looking to verify otherworldly life, the media and public attention brought by the hearing may change Isabella Vacaflores sentiment towards research into aliens. It may be more acceptable to include the phrase alien and UAP in future research. The Australian Space Agency is our own organization that deals in this area, and they are yet to make a public stance on the validity of previousAalien encounters. In their 2019 – 2028 hanging of nearly 50 portraits at the Civil Space strategy, there are no projects listed entrance of Know My Name causes a double looking into aliens or UAPs. This makes sense as take. From Brenda Croft’s stunning monochrome the agency was only established in 2018, but then photos of a First Nations elder in Matilda (Ngambri/ again, aliens and UAP content have a reputation. Ngunnawal) (2019) to Joy Hester’s amorphous acrylic Woman With Rose (1956) and Kate Beynon’s acutely If researchers are not directly referencing millennial self-portrait (2012), women dominate a or researching aliens, would they be indirectly historically patriarchal space. The sheer number of looking for them? females on show implicitly sets the exhibition up to offer a pluralised understanding of the artists Currently, there is a growing body of displayed, recognising that no two individuals are research into exoplanets. Exoplanets are planets the same.
in other solar systems. The first exoplanets were discovered in 1992, orbiting around a pulsar The curatorial choice of thematically (meaning that there would be no water on the grouping artworks instead of organising them in planets). As of 2022, there have been 5005 conventionally teleological displays supports this. exoplanets discovered. Some of these planets In Remembering the soft textures of Kathy Temin’s look to be habitable (meaning at a safe distance Pavilion Garden (2012) offers a different perspective from their star and possibly containing water). to the drama of Rosemary Laing’s photographs They may hold alien life. More research and time of falling brides in Flight Research (1999) and the is needed to confirm which planets, if any, have grungy desolation of eX de Medici’s watercolour life. tableau The Wreckers (2018-19). By setting aside
traditional cultural and chronological boundaries, So, we may never get to meet Paul, and the exhibition rejects potentially exclusionary researchers may continue to avoid UAPs and alien essentialist narratives of women’s experiences and abductions. What we will definitely see is more highlights the intangible relationships between research into exoplanets and hopefully life on artists and their works.
discovered ones.
ARTWORK: Rose Dixon-Campbell
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ARTWORK: Rose Dixon-Campbell
Post-election Pessimism Kaeden Kabo
Amidst the monumental downfall of the Liberal Party this election and the seeming sudden push towards more progressive governance, it has been easy to lose sight of many concerning trends sighted during this election. Having finally broken from the drunken euphoria of a Labor Government, I’ve realised that the future looks a bit grim. The cynical part of me is increasingly concerned with an increasingly sensationalised election with inadequate media coverage, as well as a scarily discrete shift of the Overton window—the sector of the political spectrum that is considered acceptable or regular—to the right. It seems ubiquitous these days that politicians are never to be trusted. Your mileage may vary but as was well-outlined in the past election, an increasing number of Australians are dissatisfied with the major parties (see: a lot of independents/Greens). But it is not until now that attacks on the characters of our political figureheads have become predominant in Australia. Labor didn’t just run this election on lowering the cost of living and establishing a federal anti-corruption commission, they also ran it on the premise that Scott Morrison could not be trusted. Liberals similarly campaigned on the notion that Albanese was inexperienced and an unstable element that Australians should not trust. Indeed, those personal attacks were, at least in my experience, the large majority of the advertising aired by the parties. The problem with this is that policy had been thrown out the window. Australians are not being asked to
engage in what is the party that will best serve their interests and the interests of the country, but which bobblehead has a nicer look to it. Party heads are ultimately nothing more than that— Bobbleheads—and if we focus only on them, we lose sight of the bigger picture: the future of Australia. To never be exposed to what party policies are is a serious issue for a functioning democracy. A lack of civility is something that dominated our leadership debates. Individuals from both sides of the political spectrum noted and complained about the juvenile yelling and shouting between the leaders of our nation. However, it was a lack of coverage that dominated our ministerial debates. The only news piece reported from the defence debate between Peter Dutton, our beloved potato slash dark overlord, and Brendan O’Connor was a catchy soundbite of Dutton calling the Guardian a “trashy publication.” If it wasn’t bad enough that parties have moved away from running on policy, our journalists aren’t even reporting half of it, let alone how to analyse that policy and decide if it’s decent or abjectly terrible. As noted by Denis Muller, a journalist and senior researcher at the University of Melbourne, our election coverage has been “unimaginative, slavish PR-stunt footage of the leaders, combined with young go-getters in the travelling media packs trying to make a name for themselves with gotcha questions.” None of this truly tells us how good our leaders are at
ARTWORK: Rose Dixon-Campbell
leading. The Australian oublic gets all the hot breakfast tea without a solid meal as a basis. Another tasty titbit of this election has been a bad faith following of election civilities. On the day of the election, Scott Morrison urged the Australian Border Force to reveal that they had intercepted a boat from Sri Lanka and release a statement that has been viewed as against set protocols and proper process, presumably for an election day advantage. In a normal election, rank and file members (members but not politicians) of the Labor party elect their respective candidates. The Liberals have a similar system in place too. In this election, however, both parties suspended normal candidate selection processes, with party leaders making captains’ calls. This was done by the Liberal Party in many NSW seats, and – notoriously – in Kristina Keneally. Scott Morrison suspended the pre-selections of the New South Wales Liberal party to blatantly select members he deemed more favourable for him. If our major parties cannot be trusted, the parties who realistically must form government, this is a critical challenge to our democracy and its function. We need to be able to believe that our parties can accept the outcomes of democratic processes graciously. Otherwise, threats such as the politicisation of High Court nominees and ministry experts, which is prevented largely by convention, are at risk. This could quickly lead to United States-esque toxic polarisation. In the background of this election, a lot
of people have missed just how much policy has shifted to the right over the past 30 years. Labor has adopted traditionally right-wing policies such as boat turnbacks and greater national defence spending. This is scary not just because boat turnbacks and detention centres are patently horrific institutions but also because it indicates that Labor believes it cannot win an election without leaning to the right, without adopting policies it used to condemn. And while we have greater support for Greens and Teal Independents, let us not forget that they especially the Teals - were elected largely based on climate policy. We have not gotten over the hill of other social issues. Jokes about ‘fiscally conservative, socially liberal’ people aside, it really does seem like we have just elected a whole lot of them. Labor may have won the election, but the substantial aftertaste of rightwing ideology in their victory is disheartening and terrifying. It is truly scary that we can sing a song of progress to the beat of conservatism without even noticing. I fear that Australian politics is slowly moving towards a position of democratic endangerment. If people are increasingly being directed to care about personalities rather than policies, and the fundamental civilities of our democracy are under threat, it cannot function. On top of that, we have a great illusion of progress which conceals a gradual shift to the right in our major parties. It is too early to celebrate progress.
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ARTWORK: Navita Wijeratne
The Limits of Mother Earth Hannah Vardy According to UN predictions, humanity is set to surpass the limits of what Earth can provide within the next decade, if we haven’t already done so. Global temperatures are rising, heatwaves and droughts are becoming more severe, and the global food supply is becoming increasingly unequal. We must combine our human ingenuity, creativity and scientific expertise to find innovative solutions to this crisis, and genetically modified organisms (GMOs) should play a major part in this. GMOs are plants or animals whose genome has been modified to express desirable traits, through the insertion of genes that can’t evolve through natural selection. Potential benefits include the production of natural herbicides, increased crop yields, and improved nutrition. Increased yield also means food production requires less land and resources, resulting in less greenhouse gas emissions. According to the World Food Program, more people die annually from chronic hunger than from HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis combined. However, the UN estimates that we waste around a third of the food produced globally, while also predicting that 70 percent more food will be required by 2050. To solve this, more just and sustainable practices must be incorporated into our current food system, and we must change our attitudes to imperfect food. However, these strategies alone won’t be enough, especially as climate change increases the severity and frequency of extreme weather events that wipe out harvests and wreak havoc on food production. In Australia, agriculture is the most vulnerable industry to the expected increase in heatwaves, droughts, and the spread of tropical pests and diseases southward. However, genetically modifying crops to increase climate resilience could ensure farmers can continue to grow food in a changing climate. Increasing the yield of land already used for pastures and fields could also reduce up to a third of global agricultural emissions by reducing deforestation and subsequent plant and soil decomposition. A report by the UK’s PG Economics indicated that GM crops could also reduce agriculture’s carbon footprint. In 2018, the turning over of soil to remove weeds was drastically reduced because farmers were using more herbicides that no longer harmed herbicide-resistant GM plants. This allowed the soil to retain the CO2 equivalent to removing 13.6 million cars from the road for a year. Furthermore, when GM pest-resistant eggplants were introduced to Bangladesh in 2016, farmers’ reliance on pesticides decreased, improving their health and the yield and profits of their produce. While resistance to herbicides is valuable, more research and funding should be directed toward improving the nutrition of staple crops. The health benefits of GMOs were exemplified by the introduction of ‘golden rice’ to nations across Africa in 1999. The rice was genetically modified to contain higher levels of beta-carotene (a precursor to vitamin A), helping reduce up to 500,000 cases of childhood blindness and 2–3 million deaths caused annually by vitamin A deficiency. Another modification to rice that transfers growth from the roots to edible parts of the plant reduced its methane emissions by 97 percent. Instead of being
ARTWORK: Navita Wijeratne
converted into methane by bacteria in the water-logged roots, carbon dioxide is stored in the starch, also increasing its nutrients. There are other applications for GMOs aside from climate resilience, nutrition and herbicide tolerance. Firstly, modifying plants to mature faster could provide farming opportunities in areas previously deemed unviable for growing food. Secondly, modifying mosquitoes to be resistant to malaria could help prevent up to 3,000 childhood deaths per day. The media can often spread overhyped information about GMOs, leading to unwarranted public concern. In 1999, a small study published by Cornell entomologist John Losey in Nature about the negative impact of pest-resistant GMO corn on monarch butterflies sparked widespread criticism of the industry. The study was later debunked due to improper methods, as the concentration of the corn pollen used far exceeded natural levels, and the migratory patterns of butterflies didn’t align with pollen shedding patterns. But the damage was done. Opponents of GMOs used the study to cast doubt on the opportunities that GMOs could offer, stalling innovation in the field for several years. Another major concern of anti-GMO proponents is that GMOs will pollinate wild, non-GMO forms of the crop, creating unwanted and potentially harmful characteristics. However, farmers have been successful in creating ‘buffer zones’ around GMO crops to avoid crossbreeding, and scientists have created GMO crops that are so genetically different from their wild-type counterparts that they can’t produce viable offspring. There are also concerns about access to costly GM seeds in developing countries, and about private corporations patenting and monopolising GMO technology. To remedy this, the advent of genetic engineering must be accompanied by a systemic change in economic, legal and social structures to ensure that the technology can be equitably accessed worldwide whilst preserving intellectual property. There are often concerns raised that GMOs are too ’artificial’ for human consumption. However, humans have been genetically modifying food for centuries, millennia even, just not with the technology and scientific jargon associated with GMOs today. Take bananas for example this is what they used to look like, over 6,500 years ago. Through the process of artificial selection, we created the sweeter, more nutritious bananas we enjoy today. Although GMOs aren’t perfectly comparable, as genes are often combined from different species, we cannot continue to view GMOs as a foreign, mysterious, artificial food source. Instead, they are a tool to ensure that we can equitably feed every person, on a warming and deteriorating Earth, without clearing more land or deforesting natural habitats. GMOs represent not just a pinnacle of modern biotechnology, but an opportunity to ensure each person is nourished, slow down climate change, and reduce the impact of fatal diseases on people across the world. So, the next time you’re considering leaving GMO products on the shelf, think twice – the planet may depend on it.
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ARTWORK: Navita Wijeratne
ARTWORK: Jasmin Small ARTWORK: Jasmin Small WandaVision introduces the two main protagonists, Wanda and Vision, as they lead an American suburban life. Moving chronologically, the first four episodes are set against a different decade backdrop from the 20th Century. Cleverly,
WandaVision plays on the nostalgia pendulum, giving us a modern spin on old-time classics. The show’s ability to mix together moments of dramatic irony, suspense and horror is a testament to their mastery of tonal shift as achieved by the show’s
My Rocketship Has a Nice Personality Though Alexander Lane
Penises, I feel, are inherently funny. It’s not a maturity thing. It’s the incongruity of something that sticks out of the human body when so much goes in (food, water etc.). However, men with penises: less funny. As you’ve probably realised, I’m conflicted about phallic spaceships. On one hand, they look funny. On the other hand, they’re owned and run by men projecting a masculine ego onto space and its colonisation. There are a number of reasons why we should go to space. Humans are explorers, and it is the next frontier. What we find will broaden our conceptual horizons, challenging how we see ourselves in the wider cosmos. The problems we face will likely require new solutions that can be translated back to solving some of Earth’s problems. But this doesn’t seem to be our focus anymore. It appears we only have two motivations: money and masculinity. The former is well-documented, the latter less so. Western environmental philosophy rests on two tenets: the idea of Mother Nature, and the idea of humans’ (read: mans’) physical domination of Mother Nature. The former is used in mainstream conservationist arguments. The latter is how we actually engage with the natural world: a territory to be beaten back and then harvested. The feminisation of nature is not necessarily a good thing. Just look at the way so much anti-abortion rhetoric frames a woman’s purpose as birthing men and raising them.
Likewise calling nature a “mother” assumes that it exists to care for humanity. Nature does not exist for us. It simply is, just as women simply are. Neither should be tied to anyone else by obligations of care or servitude. But, by destroying nature, we have incurred a debt. Think of it like randomly attacking a stranger, you then owe them some form of atonement. Unfortunately, nature cannot tell us what could make up for centuries of exploitation and pollution. But it is not unreasonable to think we could start by stopping, and then by repairing and restoring it. The space race rejects this. It thinks the solution to our biophysical limitations is not to live within them, but to try and supersede them. It thinks we can solve the scarcity problem by doing exactly what we’ve done to Earth, only on other planets. However, the scarcity problem is an inherent facet of capitalism. Take just one instance: food. A decade ago, it was clear starvation was a distribution issue. In 2009, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation found that we produced enough food to feed ten billion people. But we won’t sell it cheap enough for those earning less than two USD a day, and instead we use it to feed livestock and create biofuel. Every year, one third of the food made for human consumption is wasted. We do not have a scarcity of food; we have a cruel and inhumane distribution of food.
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ARTWORK: Jasmin ARTWORK: Jasmin Small Small
Can we honestly say that letting corporations mine metals out of meteors will make us all richer? What, in the history of industrial capitalism, points to this? Sure, consumer markets may benefit, Western countries may benefit, big corporations may benefit, but the vast majority of people will be excluded from these markets. Or, even better, they’ll have foreign companies dump under-priced products on them, preventing any long-term economic development. When men like Musk, Bezos or Biden insist that we must go to space, they discard the teat of ‘Mother Earth’ for that of Mars. In doing so, they write large how patriarchal societies see women. This pervades even the representation of space. Space, in popular culture, is both empty and a frontier. Comparisons with the Wild West are abundant. This narrative prioritises a masculine ideal of ‘conquering’ and ‘overcoming’ nature. When so much of space is incredibly dangerous, aspects of this narrative are valid: challenges will have to be overcome. But what will solving these problems prove? The danger is that people will take them as evidence of individualism; they will be absorbed into the wider neoliberal idea of the individual beating back the natural world and asserting their authority. And, underneath, the idea of a man subduing a female nature to his will. This dismisses the inconvenient truth that the space race has always been an intensely collective endeavour. As Marianna Mazzucato documents in Mission Economy, the space race of the 1960s was a marvel of coordinated, cooperative effort. The narrative was not about worshiping Kennedy as it is today with Musk or Bezos. The other side of this frontier myth is the idea that humanity solves its problems through individuals, and in particular men. The idea of Musk’s colony on Mars is built on the idea
that sickeningly wealthy businessmen should hold society’s future in their hands. The dichotomy is clear. A bunch of white, rich men go off to Mars to fight against its inhospitable climate, while the rest of us, and in particular those from developing nations, must work together, selflessly, to survive. We will have to fight the inhospitable climate that they created. And this idea won’t solve our problems. Just as pushing frontiers on Earth has spurred temporary economic growth, expanding into the Solar System will bring a period of renewed growth. But the issues that go hand in hand, like wealth inequality, plutocracy, police repression etc. will continue because fundamentally, nothing has changed. In many ways, allowing corporate colonialism will make things worse. In the last few years, it’s become apparent that the largest companies in the world: Apple, Meta, Alphabet, Amazon etc. are autocracies. Their CEOs run their own fiefdom, not only within the organisation, but across countries where they now expect to shape policy and public debate – because they’re rich enough. If white, wealthy men dictate the future of the space race, why would we assume life in the future will be different from life now? My immediate solution is government involvement and regulation. If men want to go to space in the name of humanity, then let humanity decide how they do so: let space be the jurisdiction of the United Nations. It will be far from perfect, but it will be a great deal better than our current trajectory. My long-term solution is, of course, less-phallic spaceships. Or one with a navigational system that can actually find the clitoris.
ARTWORK: Rose Dixon-Campbell
Please Find Attached: Our Planet Earth Arabella Ritchie “I send greetings on behalf of the people of our planet. We step out of our solar system into the universe seeking only peace and friendship.” Launched in 1977, two space probes were sent into deep space to explore the cosmos and collect data for transmission back to Earth. Voyager 1 and Voyager 2. Each of the Voyager probes carried a copy of what is known as the Golden Record – a 12-inch gold-plated copper phonograph record. The disk’s contents include sounds and images carefully curated to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth. They were conceived as a cosmic greeting card, intended to introduce and educate alien life about the ways of our planet. The record bears a carefully curated collection of music including, among others, work by Bach, Mozart, Louis Armstrong and Chuck Berry. A selection of ‘the sounds of Earth’ were also represented through whale songs as well as the sound of laughter, train whistles and Morse code. Along with these were greetings recorded in fifty-five languages - messages of peace and friendship from across the world. “This is a present from a small distant world, a token of our sounds, our science, our images, our music, our thoughts and our feelings. We are attempting to survive our time so we may live into yours. We hope someday, having solved the problems we face, to join a community of galactic civilizations. This record represents our hope and our determination, and our goodwill in a vast and awesome universe.” – Carl Sagan As well as sound recordings, the Golden Record was encoded with 115 images in analog form. They included mathematical definitions, a map of the solar system, and anatomical diagrams. Other photos were chosen to represent the richness and diversity of life on Earth. These included images of people talking, eating, and dancing. It also included a series of images of landmark buildings and structures, including the Great Wall of China, the Golden Gate Bridge, and the Sydney Opera House.
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The disk was encased in a protective aluminium jacket, packed with a cartridge and needle. The record’s exterior is marked with symbols explaining the spacecraft’s origin and indicating how the record is to be played. The contents of the record were curated for NASA by a committee chaired by here quoted astronomer Carl Sagan. He noted that “launching this bottle into the cosmic ocean says something very hopeful about life on this planet.” Given it will be around forty thousand years before Voyager makes any close approach to a planetary system, there was no way anyone involved in this project would witness the potential outcomes of alien interception. In general, the disks were not developed with the idea that anyone would find them and contact Earth, but instead as something of a time capsule or message-in-a-bottle. A testimony that might one day wash up on the shores of an extraterrestrial colony and show evidence that we, at least at one time, existed as a civilisation. “Billions of years from now our sun, then a distended red giant star, will have reduced Earth to a charred cinder. But the Voyager record will still be largely intact, in some other remote region of the Milky Way galaxy, preserving a murmur of an ancient civilization that once flourished” – Carl Sagan
You too can listen to the Golden Records as Sagan intended, at:
Statement from the White House
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ARTWORK: Xuming Du
ARTWORK: Rose Dixon-Campbell Statement from the White House
Map of the Voyagers’ projected flight path
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ARTWORK: Jasmin Small
The Humble Hubble Telescope: Our Eyes in the Sky Lily Alexander Images courtesy of NASA’s Webb Space Telescope
Have you ever wondered how humanity came to be? After all, it’s in our nature to be curious and the universe is another mystery we long to uncover. Our interest in space can be dated back thousands of years before the Common Era, where eastern cultures observed and recorded the movements of the sun, the moon and the stars. Through these observations, sundials, star charts and calendars were created to track hours, days, months and years. In particular, it was useful for agricultural purposes in identifying harvest seasons and for sailors to navigate across the seas. As technology advanced, humanity explored the moon, launched satellites and sent rovers off to other planets in our galaxy. Humanity has speculated on the origins of the universe since the beginning and has found comfort in religion and supernatural beliefs. Our curiosity has caused us to ask the big questions - Where did we come from? Are there other intelligent lifeforms in the universe? Is there really a God? Through the Hubble Telescope, we are starting to formulate answers to some of these questions. The Hubble Telescope, named after astronomer Edwin Hubble, is the size of a
large school bus and orbits at an altitude of 569km above Earth’s atmosphere, completing a full circuit every 97 minutes. The Hubble Space Telescope provides information on the electromagnetic spectrum of space and captures high-resolution images, allowing us to observe distant stars, galaxies and planets. It was built by the United States of America, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) with the purpose of extending our knowledge of the universe. The benefit of having a telescope in space is that it avoids all the interference from our environment, light pollution, rain clouds and turbulence. The Hubble’s position high above the atmosphere means it can capture unobstructed images that are clearer and help us see deeper into our universe than our ground-based telescopes have previously been able to achieve. The Hubble is a Cassegrain reflector telescope. Light enters the device through the opening at one end of the telescope’s tube shape. The light hits the primary mirror before reflecting to a secondary mirror, which then reflects the light to a focal point at the centre of the primary mirror. The mirrors used are similar to the ones you would find at home, although
ARTWORK: Jasmin Small
they contain a different composition to be able to reflect ultraviolet, infrared and visible light. If the alignment of either mirror is slightly off, it would cause the focal point to be away from the sensor, making images appear out of focus. The light detected at the focal point is distributed through to record data for scientists to analyse. There is no actual camera aboard the Hubble. The telescope produces an image by recording the type of light and the location it was received, to then build a virtual image of what the subject appears to look like. Through the images from the Hubble, we have seen stars forming, planets colliding, solar eclipses on other planets, galaxies far, far away, super massive black holes, auroras on Jupiter, craters on Mars, stars dying and so much more. There isn’t much knowledge of our universe that hasn’t been confirmed or determined by the Hubble telescope. It is the first major optical telescope to be placed in space and has continually re-shaped our view and knowledge of life beyond Earth. Every single time we receive data, we are bound to discover something new. NASA infamously focused on a space of ‘nothingness’ for a whole month, which was very controversial knowing how valuable and important Hubble’s time was. The information slowly came through and it was discovered that this ‘nothingness’ was actually not nothing but rather the presence of over one and a half thousand galaxies, captured in a stunning image. Just when you think there
is nothing more to see and learn, space is constantly surprising us. The Hubble has enabled scientists to estimate that our universe is 13.8 billion years old and provides evidence to support the Big Bang Theory. This theory is founded on the idea that before the explosive expansion of the universe, nothing existed, not even time itself. Using this concept, Stephen Hawking, an English theoretical physicist, provided reasoning to argue that God didn’t exist as a creator of the universe, if there wasn’t a time for them to exist in to create this universe. Rather, if a supernatural being was to exist, it would simply be as an observer of our world that abided by the natural laws. Dr John Grunsfeld said, “the Hubble is not just a satellite. It’s a symbol of humanity’s quest for knowledge.” The Hubble’s launch in 1990, marked the start of a new scientific era that continues to feed our curiosity for space. Our view of the universe is about to be advanced even further with the development of a new space telescope, the James Webb Space Telescope. This telescope is promised to go even deeper into our universe than before, examining everything from solar systems to very old and distant galaxies from the time of the Big Bang. The telescope was launched into space in December 2021 and is currently undergoing checks with the first images set to be released in July 2022. For now, the Hubble continues aiding us in our exploration of infinity and beyond.
Images courtesy of NASA’s Hubble Telescope
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ARTWORK: Navita Wijeratne & Rose Dixon-Campbell
ARTWORK: Navita Wijeratne & Rose Dixon-Campbell
Lost Words and Forgotten Notes
Collated by Indy Shead
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ARTWORK: Ben Coultas-Roberts
The Alien Effect and the Abject Anonymous
Content Warning: Discussions of horror that may be confronting Here I go trying to write the most undergrad student zine piece I can. There is a plethora of literature regarding how essential art is to understanding and connecting with the human experience. Buuttt, here we go again! One concept that consistently baffles me is people who are selective about human rights. The 2014 film Pride explores this phenomenon in England during the 80s, through the lens of people supporting miner’s rights but not supporting gay rights: emblematic of the political climate during Thatcher’s conservative government. It is a political position manifested from feelings of discomfort and lack of relatability, a confrontation against one’s cultural values and norms. But still, this phenomenon of selective human rights persists and is inherently contradictory. The old-as-time conservative moniker “LGBTQI+ groups are ruining the moral fabric of society” is still used, despite showing its age. The moral fabric of society has always been changing. The ‘moral fabric’ in question is an ideological imaginary that has been culturally cultivated, often through rigid boundaries. Thus, it is critical to be reflective in the process of attempting to understand human identity, especially in a world where the rift between the political left and right is widening. My brother in Christ, how does this relate to aliens? Alien forms often make people uncomfortable and despite the shockingness, have always had a cultural impact. In 1979, Ridley Scott’s Alien was released, followed by John Carpenter’s 1982 The Thing. These two groundbreaking works blur the line between traditional horror, sci-fi horror and body horror. Practical effects at their most confronting display gory amalgamations of limbs and body parts, both human and non-human. These liquidations of forms, bodies and boundaries are the locus of ‘the abject’. Abjection refers to something becoming cast off or separated from norms and rules, a dismantling of a symbolic order. The term was developed by Julia Kristeva in her 1980 book, Powers of Horror. To quote Kristeva, the abject is “what disturbs identity, system, order. What does not respect borders, positions, rules. The inbetween, the ambiguous, the composite”. Through this inherently ambivalent and ambiguous nature, the abject is a threat to one’s understanding of reality and morality. These are, by definition, ‘alien’ things, teetering on the line between ‘natural’ and ‘unnatural’.
ARTWORK: Ben Coultas-Roberts
What culturally dictates the distinctions of natural and unnatural however, can be seen through the lens of left and right-leaning political ideologies. A 2012 paper titled Disgust Sensitivity, Political Conservatism, and Voting, by Inbar et. al, found that within two large samples there was a positive correlation between disgust sensitivity and political conservatism. Perceptions of morality are influenced by political beliefs and come to form a part of one’s identity. Fundamentally, we create our identities by expelling the ‘other’, excluding that which does not conform to our own sense of identity. The importance, then, is not what is considered ‘abject’ on a personal level but the reflexivity surrounding its confrontation. Does it turn to hate? Does it intrigue you? Are you indifferent? Many artists use this to their advantage. Museums such as MONA in Hobart are centred around realitybending experiences. Most notable is the artwork Cloaca Professional by Belgian artist Wim Delvoye, colloquially known as the Poo Machine. The piece mimics a human digestive system, being fed multiple times a day, processing the food across seven glass containers and then defecating at the other end. These are not “threats to cultural norms” for the sake of provocation but, rather, they can push the boundaries of our conceptions of reality. It is a postmodern climatisation through art highlighting that human experience has, is and always will be evolving. Contemporary ideas of what is ‘natural’ and ‘unnatural’ are often based on ideas of purity and harmony. The intensity of confrontation caused by abjection can be measured by the abject’s threat to preconceived notions of identity, whether human or non-human. For John Carpenter, The Thing embodies the abject, not just by taking identical forms of other organisms but by abusing the bodily identity of the creatures through grotesque morphing (just watch the dog scene). Similarly, in Alien, the scene where the xenomorph emerges from a person’s belly (much like pregnancy) is perhaps one of the more harrowing scenes in cinema history. The idea of the ‘natural body’ is toyed with. The body, something that is intrinsic to identity, has been compromised. This is why these scenes are so incredibly jarring.
Image courtesy of Arca’s Mequetrefe music video
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ARTWORK: Ben Coultas-Roberts
Returning to my point however, it is the response to this attack-on-identity that is what I want to be looking at. Ideas surrounding abjection have been used to analyse cultural behaviours such as homophobia, misogyny and even genocide. Propaganda and extremism are laced with detestable hate for the ‘other’ which I argue is because of a lack of relationality and relatability. Abject experiences through art can help climatise individuals to better understand the effect of the abject in dictating cultural values and morals. With our current political climate, I want to look at trans-expression and experiences. Arca is a Venezuelan artist identifying as she/her and it/its. Arca’s music has always pushed the cultural envelope, catching the attention of cultural kingpins such as Kanye West, FKA Twigs, Björk and Frank Ocean to name a few. Arca’s recent pentalogy of albums, from KiCk i to kiCK iiiii explore both the mutability of body and music. Sounds ranging from reggaeton, techno, hyperpop to melodic synths are arranged across 59 songs. Looking at any of her album covers or music videos you can see abjection. Limbs are added and taken away at will, all for this ‘mutant’ aesthetic. Rigid binaries of gender and genre are challenged, in a provocative inquiry into posthuman and abject possibilities. I am not trans, my sister however, did transition around three years ago now. We are unbelievably close and she often opens up and talks of deep and disturbing body-dysmorphia, something which I now understand as a deeply personal body-abject experience. As looked at before, the abject fundamentally threatens the identity of those who perceive it, just as the body often does not ‘belong’ or ‘conform’ to a trans-identity through body dysmorphia. Artists like Arca revel in this space however, and have built culturally significant areas where they are able to freely express themselves. This kind of exposure is imperative to understanding the fluidity of human identity. Identity’s means of expression are an ever-morphing, often ‘alien’ experience. Artists like Arca and co attempt to convey personal body-abject experiences through alien and other mutant expressions: a confronting attempt at relatability that many may recoil at, but others find understanding in. Self-expression, identity, and well-being are inextricably linked. A safe space for expression means a world where more artists like Arca can exist, a world of human rights prevailing above all. I love what Arca stands for and the connotations of her body-transforming art. Whether confronting experiences with the abject occur through cinema, music, personal expression, or art institutions like MONA is irrelevant. These experiences are essential in the human experience of relationality. How we understand our relationality is a significant aspect of what is deemed acceptable or not in our constantly evolving world. Acceptance or lack thereof is often created clear through differences in political ideologies. It is essential to experience the abject, a sort of considered desensitisation to your own reality for the sake of understanding. Just as trans people and many other people undergo traumatising abject-identity experiences through their own bodies. To even attempt to understand others on a humanistic level, whether trans or not, often requires a confronting shaking of reality. This shaking however, is no threat to your identity or sense of self. What was considered ‘alien’ 40 years ago would be drastically different to now. At any two points in the timeline of human history, cultural values and norms would be different. Definitions are constantly shifting. This is why rigid ideological boundaries are damaging, they deny the very fact that the human experience is and always will be evolving. If we are ever going to live in a world with equal human rights, we must absorb and allow other people’s experiences and perspectives. Artists like Arca, Ridley Scott, and even John Carpenter consistently drive home how the abject can challenge ‘normal’ human identity.
ARTWORK: Navita Wijeratne
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ARTWORK: Rose Dixon-Campbell
ARTWORK: Jasmin Small
The Sexual Frontier Rufus R. Ryans
Imagine for a moment you are on a Starfleet vessel in space. Imagine the scientists, the ambassadors, and of course, the soldiers. Starfleet were foremost explorers, however. Tasked to simply observe and provide the first glimpse of the Federation, for the civilisations yet to join. And Star Trek did provide a glimpse into such virgin territory… a new world of sexual experiences. Alien races that are 100 percent queer and polyamorous who have sex all the time. Spock over-coming his Vulcan sex urges by “fighting” Kirk. Star Trek was surprisingly, very horny. But that couldn’t be! Of course not! Star Trek is a fun family sci-fi show! This isn’t the Gene Roddenberry Vision™! Star Trek was cool. It was new, homoerotic, ground-breaking. But was it sexy? People loved Star Trek and were falling in love with aliens. Star Trek challenged people, myself included, and intellectually, it is where my love for science began. And it did much the same for many people. It wasn’t about the sex; it was about the science. However, the men of Star Trek really gave something to be, well, intellectually challenged by. There was Tom Paris, the charismatic Starfleet officer. William Ryker, the sexy bear with a sexy
beard. And Spock, the man who was often read as a sex-neutral asexual, was also undeniably endearing. Everyone was swooning over them. In fact, it was Spock and Kirk’s relationship that sparked the beginnings of slash fanfiction, smut. I am not leaving out the women. Captain Kathryn Janeway – now she really was the first girlboss. Facing new villains and meeting new heroes. Seven of Nine. No one else could have slayed those high heel boots across the USS Voyager. These women were strong. Not femme fatales or side-pieces. They were capable, independent – they had real agency. Deanna Troi; the Empath, Dr. Beverly Crusher; the Dancing Doctor; B’Elanna Torres; half-human half-Klingon. Sexiness was deeply woven into visual character design. The uniforms of Star Trek can be considered quite revealing. An entire theory of costuming came from it. The more a garment suggests that it could simply slip off, revealing what is underneath, is sexier than nudity itself. And the gay costume designer, William Ware Theiss, was happy to apply this to both women and men alike. Nichelle, who played Lieutenant Uhura in the Original Series, stated “You might deduce that Bill Theiss enjoyed working with the female form. Hardly. In fact, Bill Theiss preferred girls who looked like boys.”
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ARTWORK: Jasmin Small
But what about the Gene Roddenberry Vision™? – one might ask. To which I would point out that Roddenberry wanted to have a pleasure planet, for our lovely Picard to go when he was pent up. Where we could see women kissing women, men kissing men, and even orgies taking place. Then there’s the fact that Betazoid weddings traditionally have all guests disrobe themselves. Or his narrative of an alien virus that makes you want to have sex with everyone. Okay – then who the hell exactly is the genius behind Gene Vision™? Gene was an… interesting man. In fact, his idea of pleasure was (in his own words) “waves and waves of cum exploding out of me.” He wasn’t a categorically “good” person, but by the standards of the 60’s, many of his directorial choices were considered progressive. The skimpy outfits that clothed many of the women of Star Trek were welcomed by the actors. Following the extremely strict Hays Code, prohibiting profanity, violence, and even suggestive nudity in Hollywood – showing skin was liberating. Gene petitioned to have Nichelle, a prominent black woman, on centre stage in his stories.
However, this doesn’t entirely reveal what Gene Vision™ truthfully was. He resented women. To the extent of marring his writing so much, many people consider Star Trek: The New Generation’s first two seasons the worst in the whole franchise. He also cheated on his wife with multiple cast and crew members. Gene Vision™ doesn’t officially exist, not really. But it was the fanbase, the actors, the showrunners and the workers behind the scenes that made Star Trek what it is today. They made it sexy, in a good way. And Star Trek was always sexy! That’s the real message here, the naked truth. Sex is an important part of human life, and Star Trek began a movement of sexual liberation on screen. Unfortunately, Gene Vision™ was cemented in the objectification of women and the removal of agency, especially of black women. In spite of this, Star Trek has managed to come a long way to where it is today. Star Trek exists in a universe where everyone can be sexually liberated, where the humanity of these characters can be considered before their sexuality. So, I urge you. Go boldly where no one has gone before. Be horny. Watch Star Trek.
ARTWORK: Rose Dixon-Campbell
The Speed of Light (Rail) Elizabeth Walker ALINGA Runway cleared for takeoff, a clear morning is heralding this service. Onboard, we will fly though this small universe using highly sophisticated light rail technology. Red backed sentinels will oversee their metal dominion, protective of the finest blue spiral-patterned seating that $675 million of government money can buy. I give you: The Fare-Evader’s Guide to the Northern Canberra Galaxy. ELOURA The air of this tundra blows in icy, colliding with an increasingly humid airlock interior. Representatives of the Eloura jurisdiction appear in the form of a young couple, deep in terse conversation. They are directly followed by another, shrink-wrapped in black spandex, his neon green socks pulled flush to shivering knees. IPIMA Dried grass sprints alongside as we glide into the next dock. I see the husks of residential halls hovering to the right, old Fenner Hall gone feral, dystopian. Orange neuron skeletons litter the avenue with roadkill. They lie supine on their side, with white helmets disjointed. Cranial and skull-like, they reflect the sunlight like bleached plastic bone. MACARTHUR ABC Canberra stands unadorned on the crossroads, traffic swarming before it. Onlooker to many, messenger to some. Inside the station, the radio corps that have been enlisted in service will broadcast to those few willing to listen. The young couple vacate the shuttle, braving the frost in tandem. Hotels with hundreds of tiny matchbox rooms
have shot up from the earth. DICKSON The environs of this planet open up, streets suddenly wide. A few creatures mill around the forest floor, with glass trees towering above. Cranes swing their metal branches in the breeze. SWINDEN Here, the glass trees are swiftly cut down to squat brick dwellings. Wire cages encircle asphalt courts, fencing in the inhabitants. They are clothed in matching uniforms, their bodies in a perpetual game. The ground is struck with force, as they run over, around, weaving between one another, up and back again, always focused, rhythmic. PHILLIP The world has its back turned. The graffitied rears of houses are sheepish, afraid to meet my eye. Any unique terrain is obscured by scrubland, only occasionally peeking out from behind stiff-lipped pines. I spot a figure zooming across the scenery. A motorised skateboard, weilding a tiny dog on leash. The four-legged beast is frantic, barely keeping pace with the four-wheeled beast that drags it. EPIC An empty expanse, either abandoned, or biding time in wait for harvest. The frozen plateau is packed hard by hooves and tyre tracks. Offseason has silenced the baying of all creatures, their convoys shuffled on. Freedom fighting has long since begrudgingly packed up, migrated, with no trace but memory remaining. White combat boots and moon-soled sneakers rush up to the doors, eager to be sheltered from the harsh elements outside.
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ARTWORK: Rose Dixon-Campbell SANFORD Passing by the light rail stables, the rest of the fleet are standing by. Pilots idle, hands twitching for another stint at the reins. To the left, a fish bowl is full of runners. They race no one and get nowhere. In ceaseless worship, they toil, Sisyphean, for the Club Lime cause. Carpet Choices and War Memorial stand side by side, their warehouses occupied, allegedly. There is a lack of life, despite the warning signs. WELL STATION The Green Shed flashes by. Mecca for share house dwellers – an epicentre of cheap furnishings, wobbly tables and mismatched dining chairs. We pause at a platform. It is landmarked by a turnoff, suburbs with the names of fathers of friends I only vaguely remember. Mitchell, Franklin, Harrison - I sat at their family dining table eons ago, universes away. The loudspeaker warns us that the doors are closing. The doors never opened to begin with.
NULLARBOR A billboard floats above highrises, boasting “Times Square.” Maybe if I strained my neck, I could just about spot our Lady Liberty – Telstra Tower. And as the journey surged forward into cosmopolitan Canberra, I couldn’t help but wonder… If New York City is the Big Apple, what
does that make Canberra? Rotten to the core? MAPLETON The car creaks around the corner, protesting its own weight. The mechanical belly of this beast is suddenly bloated with passengers. A suburban sprawl seeps through the surroundings. Brown brick McMansions, piles all the colour of syrup, drip from streets and cul-de-sacs. MANNING CLARK Apartments huddle together for warmth in lonely paddocks. White sedans roam the fields. Eight little dollhouses sit forlorn in a blasted heath, webbed like toes and joined at the unfortunate hip. GUNGAHLIN The end of the line, furthest distance allowed by my public transport safety tether. Another terminal, mirror image of Alinga, played in reverse – passengers drain out instead of pour in. A new crowd is exchanged for old as I remain sat on my blue patterned perch, observing a faraway planet. It is alien to me, although I too am an alien to this land. A blow-in from a distant station, unknown to the crowd now chattering around me. Judging, anonymous, from behind a paper mask and clicking laptop keys. My reflection on the dusty carriage window scowls at an uncaring audience. The car goes quiet for a moment before jerking backwards, flying again into the concrete beyond.
ARTWORK: Karolina Kocimska
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ARTWORK: Jessica McLeod-Yu
Astrology and the Dating World Alex Bekier
It doesn’t take a statistician to notice that belief in astrology, or the study of celestial objects and their impact on human life, is rising in popularity. Evidence suggests that when societies are undergoing existential threats or stress, like pandemics, natural disasters, or conflict, they are more likely to turn to scientifically unfounded belief systems. Given the state of the world, this probably isn’t surprising. This concept is corroborated by Dr Victor Grech, whose studies uncovered a surge of interest towards astrology in the wake of the 2016 American election. Additionally, the rise of astrological predilection is, perhaps as expected, highest amongst women. As I am just like the other girls, I have a casual interest in astrology. But I have a much greater interest in asking men about astrology. What is even better than that, for me anyway, is going on a date and correctly ‘guessing’ their star
sign. Little do they know, it is already listed on their Hinge profile. I have an Aries Venus and a Taurus Mercury, if that explains anything. Whatever you believe, I don’t ask men their zodiac sign as a means of examining basic compatibility. It isn’t that I am searching for a common interest, nor do I use it as a way to mildly aggravate, however tempting that may be. It is definitely a method of finding out more about my date, but the outcome is not solely based on their reported sign. I find it to be a useful tool in gauging potential worst qualities. If interrogations result in a disdainful response, let alone a lecture, I can reasonably rule them out as a love match, or even a casual lover. I’m not searching for someone who is also interested in astrology. However, I am looking for someone who is relaxed enough to indulge all sorts of questions, and open-minded enough not to be immediately judgemental.
ARTWORK: Jessica McLeod-Yu
It also cannot be left unsaid – the primary reason I ask men about their star sign is to decipher if they are a misogynist or not. Astrology has been, and remains, an interest that is predominantly enjoyed by women. Often, it is a safe and empowering space for us. It allows individuals to dig deep into areas of their life they may need to work on, work out. Through this, many women use their signs to find their own power. Writing off an interest in astrology as an irrational belief in the paranormal, immediately excludes the aspect of self-development sought after amongst committed believers. While I couldn’t describe myself like that, it fills a practical function. It is dangerous being a young woman going on dates, even with people I already know. Unfortunately, many women like myself also must rely on surreptitious methods of vetting potential romantic partners. When I polled women aged between 16 and 25 via Instagram, almost all respondents expressed that they also had negative experiences with men, after discussing astrology. This isn’t breaking news, with respondents to previous surveys echoing the stories supplied through my Instagram study. In a 2018 Vice article, a male respondent stated that “If you bring that shit up with me, I’ll think you’re a mindless bimbo.” Delightful. Another 2018 study by I. Andersson,
entitled Even the Stars Think That I Am Superior: Personality, Intelligence and Belief in Astrology proposes a link between belief and psyche. Findings divulged a negative correlation between belief in astrology and intelligence, and positively correlated narcissism with belief in astrology [in men]. For me, what is attractive isn’t about disbelief or belief, but rather about acceptance of one another’s beliefs, so long as they are not harmful. My ideal date isn’t necessarily someone who has even a casual interest in astrology. In fact, I think it is someone relatively apathetic about it, but lets me enjoy my silly little stars while they enjoy their silly little sports. Or whatever it is that they like, that I myself take no interest in. On the lighter side, in the youth hostel I stayed in while writing this, I quizzed some of my male roommates on their thoughts. Was it a red flag for them, if women ask about their star sign? My Canadian, American and Australian hostel mates all had the same response. Basically, “If you had asked me five years ago, I would have thought you were intellectually inferior, and even lectured you about it, but now I just answer and wait for the analysis”. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a chance to ask the men in the room next door to us, who catcalled us on the way back from the showers, what they might have thought about it all. Something tells me I don’t need their star sign to work out if I want to date them or not.
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PHOTO: Gus Delvey
ARTWORK: Jessica McLeod-Yu
There’s No Such Thing as Aliens: An Interstellar Post-Humanism Max Babus This title contains two pretty loaded and rather confusing words. Let me break them down for you: Post-humanism: an idea in the social sciences that says instead of focusing on the human as what we analyse, we should equate humans with the natural world and focus on their interactions with each other. I use post-humanism below as illuminated through Anna Tsing’s 2015 book The Mushroom at the End of the World. Interstellar: associated with outer space or the great expanse which lies above us. Before we begin with the guts of this, I need to note that a lot of post-humanist thinking is heavily inspired by, and has trouble paying credit to Indigenous communities, knowledges and worldviews. As a non-Indigenous Australian, I do not consider it appropriate to comment on which groups influence which strands of thought, but this is something to keep in mind as we go along. As we are essentially made of stardust and inspired by billionaires’ flying off into outer space, I want to think of what an interstellar posthumanism could look like. Whilst typical posthumanism tends to say “what would it look like if we acknowledged our place on Planet Earth,” I’ll attempt to justify and then reason about “what would it look like if we acknowledged our place in the cosmos.” In The Mushroom at the End of the World, or rather bits of an extract I read about a year ago, Tsing writes that pre-industrial livelihoods “make worlds too… and show us how to look around rather than ahead” (p.22). Here, we can extend our gaze skywards and look ahead in terms of many many kilometres and light years rather than metres. Later, Tsing comments that humans are not unique in their ability to make and construct worlds, citing a series of biological processes which also do so. In interstellar posthumanism, we should acknowledge the physical processes which allow stars and planets to form – life as we would consider it biologically is not
necessarily unique in its ability to create worlds. But what does this all mean? Or rather why should you be listening to the semi-pseudoacademic ramblings of a third-year university student? We’ve so far seen that humanity’s effects on ecosystems and natural processes extend beyond the atmospheric bounds of the planet. Two examples which spring to mind are the problem of space junk (masses of waste which float in space such as dead satellites) and light pollution (the stars not becoming visible from Earth). So when we consider an interstellar post-humanism, it would mean acknowledging that these problems which float above earthly realms can be just as damaging as the ones which are at home with us and within earthly bounds. Hopefully, this might inspire some kind of action on these problems – attempting to reduce space junk and light pollution might be a start – though I remain sceptical about this. If environmental planetary problems are being solved slowly, why would interstellar ones be solved any faster? An interstellar post-humanism could also be humbling, and on a grander scale than earthly post-humanism. In the limited bounds of theory, it might also help us come to terms with other alien life. What are aliens then anyway if we’re all bound up within the same cosmos? They’re certainly not alien to us – they just inhabit another part of space. Look, all of this presupposes a gentle cosmos and a gentle universe, not one filled with scales of cosmic horror which I might read one too many fictional things about. In any case, I’d rather hope to live, and thus theorise about, living in the first scenario rather than the second. So as you gaze into the sky and see what little you can of the stars, the vast inky emptiness of the night shouldn’t really feel that empty. Rather this inkiness is a part of us and the subsequent paper our universe is written on.
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ARTWORK: Navita Wijeratne
ARTWORK: Indy Shead Content Warning: Discussions of Sexual Assault
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ARTWORK:Jasmin Jasmin Small ARTWORK: Small
The Girl at the Asian Grocer Holly Ma $5.90 pork wontons, a jar of XO sauce and a pouch of roasted sunflower seeds. I gently laid them on the counter. She barked at me in English, not a second of hesitation, like the arms that pushed me into this vat of cold, white paint, leftover from The Block houses. The Chinese girl behind the counter writhed at the sight of my tattered Air Force 1s as if they were screaming. The security TV was screaming on behalf of each aisle, flinching as I scrambled past. A Pokémon in a Bratz world. Or a Bratz in a Pokémon world? A corruption of culture, identity, and everything her mum had ever told her that girls like us should look like. Maybe I’m dramatic. I feel like how the sun must feel in skyscraper smog. Maybe that’s dramatic. The sun is not suffocating. It’s shining somewhere? Maybe I’m an alien, the Asian girl at the Asian grocer
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ARTWORK: Jessica McLeod-Yu
From Me to You Sisana Lazarus
I am the ocean of flesh and blood The ticking metre of breath and sweat Wandering on my tiny stilts You are the girl who lives in the mirror Flushed and startled like the day we were born Weeping and laughing at the brave new world You hate when people touch our hair Call us by the wrong name Think us fervid without good reason You the foreigner and I the familiar I love you but I do not know you The way you have always known me I think I am too far away To ever hold you And return your sombre crown I say goodnight You stay awake And the rest will come when fate is done
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COURTESY OF: Karolina Kocimska &Rose Dixon-Campbell
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ACROSS 2. They cloned a sheep (5) 5. Which planet has the most volcanoes? (5) 6. Ziggy Startdust (5) 9. 2016 Denis Villeneuve film (7) 10. The company of yet another infantile white man launching his toys into space (6) 12. A disdain for horoscopes on the first date (3,4) 16. God of wine (8) 18. As a dodo? (7) 19. Russian space traveller (9) 20. Which constellation represents a hunter and weapons? (5)
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DOWN 1. Sexiest Star Trek race (7) 3. $10 billion USD telescope (4) 4. 1998 song by the Beastie Boys (13) 7. Shimmer colourfully (8) 8. Planet, to a poet (3) 11. Creature purported to inhabit the Himalayan mountain range (4) 13. “So long and thanks for all the __” (4) 14. Jar Jar Binks’ home planet (5)
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Down Across 1. sexiest Star Trek race (7) 2. they cloned a sheep (5) 3. $13 Billion Telescope (4) 5. Which planet has the most volcanoes? (5) 4. 1998 song by the Beastie Boys (13) 6. Ziggy Startdust (5) 7. shimmer colourfully (8) 9. 2016 Denis Villeneuve film (7) 8. planet, to a poet (3) 10. The company of yet another infantile white man launching his toys into space (6) 11. creature purported to inhabit the Himalayan mountain range (4) 12. disdain for horoscopes on the first date (3,4) 13. "So long and thanks for all the __" (4) 16. God of wine (8) COURTESY OF: Karolina & Angus McDonald 14. Kocimska Jar Jar Binks' home planet (5) 18. as a dodo? (7) Answers will be posted online. See Woroni.com.au
ARTWORK: Jasmin Small
Beyond the veil Charlotte Cameron
Crush me up into a pretty, glittery dust Grind me between your thumb and forefinger Fingers that know me from before Pulverise me with your knowing fingers and make me fine Use all your power to press upon my bones Devastate the decorated cage My rib cage will crack and crumble; my skull will shatter and squash My skin is a papery, silken sack, soft still Scrunch it, stretch it and rip it again and again, over and over Please please please touch my skin Stroke my hair to disintegration My blood will dry and my organs too, shrunken and pulped The final step, collect the brutal mess in a mortar Use your hungry fingers for a pestle Your sympathetic fist mills my body to a powder And you graciously offer up the powder With solemnity and reverence, you offer up the powder The selfish wind accepts the powder My beauty please don’t cry when the wind Cold, detached, pragmatic and void Snatches the powder you laboriously prepared Thank you for your hands upon my body Thank you for toiling to create something new Thank you thank you thank you
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ARTWORK: Rose Dixon-Campbell & Ned Atkinson
Deep Techno and the Vocoder Oksana Kauhanen CW: Mentions of drug use and psychedelic experiences. I was trotting along an empty street in this eerily quiet industrial suburb. Empty warehouses with small windows loomed on both sides of me. The sky was a hollow blue, completely void of stars but the moon shone with a blinding, burning brightness. The lack of streetlights in this part of town wasn’t so much of a problem under the moonshine. The doof had officially started two hours ago. The wind was unusually still for this time of year, and the temperature couldn’t have been above 4 degrees. My pores had opened up and I was starting to sweat. The 2CB was taking hold. I turned down the last dilapidated street on my journey and was met with lights from huge iridescent lasers and searching hollow signals. How did I only just notice them? Whatever, my mind felt like it was playing tricks on me. I walked into the cavernous warehouse, the rhythmic bass guiding me through like sonar. Around me the faces of people (were they people?) blurred into almostunrecognizable forms, seemingly melting into hectic caricatures whenever I tried to focus. A bit scat, but no matter. We soldier on. I heard someone call out my name and turned around to see my friends and a group of others standing together. The guy standing next to Kate had an oddly bulbous head - everyone looks a bit weird at doofs so I thought nothing of it. I took a hit out of the bulbous-head guy’s nebuliser and stumbled backwards at the effect. DJ Multi-Limbs was just coming on to start his set. Perfect timing. We moved through the masses of bug-eyed people who seemed to stare right through us as
we made our way to the front. Words seemed to disconnect from the bodies of people who spoke them. The warehouse set-up was unlike anything I’ve seen before. The room seemed to pulse, enlarging and contracting like a massive balloon. Was it just me? There were massive planetarylike orbs of light hovering above the decks. I swear they were moving. They seemed to search through the crowd. These hypnotic hallucinations filled my brain. I’d been to doofs before, but everything seemed to feel so cosmic here. The crowd was moving awkwardly, yet morbidly in sync, all vibing but not quite to the pulse of the music. They moved like shitty versions of the JabbaWockeez. The low rumble of the soothing bass carried my body in time. I felt each beat move from my fingertips into my chest, vivid yet soft. Primal almost. I closed my eyes and felt the warmth of the red and blue light on my skin, seeping in through my pores and filling my veins with intoxicating euphoria. The force of hundreds of Doc Marten boots, Salomon trail runners, funky Nike kicks and some guy in a disturbingly convincing E.T. costume could be felt reverberating through the floor. The orbs of lights started to soar and swoop in time with the heavenly synths the DJ mixed flawlessly. The concept of chronology had moved beyond my comprehension, and my body was begging for fluids. I approached the makeshift bar setup and asked for a drink. This bug-eyed lanky man with speed dealers on handed me a little plastic cup. I thanked him with a smile. The first sip was refreshing: the beverage was room temperature, but the act of sipping, gulping and swallowing was cathartic nonetheless. Upon my second sip I realised something was wrong with the tepid liquid. As the lights around me flashed in a chaotic strobe frenzy I saw the ‘water’ wasn’t quite clean… “Where did you get this water from?”
ARTWORK: Rose Dixon-Campbell & Ned Atkinson “The bathroom” bug-eyed lanky man with speed dealers on replied bluntly.
after doing what felt like three full revolutions of the chamber I stumbled upon the door.
“The tap in the bathroom?”
The abnormally large man in tight security wear blocked this, the only exit, with his bulking arms crossed. My vision doubled and for a moment I saw four arms folded across his bulging and… lumpy body.
“No. The bowl that contains the water” the bug-eyed lanky man with speed dealers on said completely earnestly, his wide pupils staring straight through me with no clear focus. This man had just given me toilet water to drink. “What kind of sick joke is this?” Observing the water in my hand closely, bug-eyed lanky man with speed dealers on sighed and scurried off to talk to an abnormally large man in tight security wear. What the fuck was going on here? They’re lucky I was on too many drugs to care about some toilet water... I lent against the wall and exhaled. This was definitely an experience. Sounds of conversation floated towards me in ways I couldn’t decipher. What language was I hearing? I kept catching mention of the ‘mothership’. Regardless of whether it was a code for some hectic kick-ons, the reverent tone with which they mentioned it was weird. A new DJ had come on, bringing with her a vocoder. She commanded the room like a prophet sent from above. Morphing into unusual figures underneath a huge overcoat, she felt important and grandiose. All pupils in whatever forms they took were glued to her. The familiar bass continued, replete with robotic sounds and frequency jumping tones. It seemed like she was sampling R2-D2? The room and the people almost rose with the pitch of the music, stretching my aural sensitivity to new heights. Okay, time for fresh air. I wandered around the pulsing warehouse trying to find the exit and
“No outside” he promptly informed me, looking into my eyes and through my retina, all the way down into my esophagus and suddenly buoyant stomach. With my insides moved by his words and feeling less stability in my legs, I had no choice but to turn around and find my way back to my group. I ran my hands along the wall, my fingers tracing a spongy surface. I pressed my hand harder into what was supposed to be in my understanding a concrete and completely solid warehouse wall, only to see it disappear, completely enveloped by a warm and welcoming membrane. I retracted my hand in disbelief and my fingers returned covered in a sticky and viscous slime, tingling. This was definitely a new feeling. The music was building, a deep throttling that severed any depth perception I was desperately holding onto. The DJ turned globular, like a cup of jelly floating in zero gravity. Her eight eyes blinked as my gaze landed on them. Remind me to hit this 2CB guy up again. My feet had by now long left the ground, as had everybody else’s. I saw Kate and my group of friends floating peacefully a few meters away. I breaststroked through the air and some odd bodies, feeling the breeze flow and slide past me like water. I grabbed Rufus’ hand and Sarva squeezed my ankle reassuringly. Glancing upwards towards the bright cavity of light; we began ascending. Kate, Rufus, Sarva and I all looked at each other quietly, smiling and accepting our odyssey.
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With love from Woroni.
Playlist from Outer Space
66. ARTWORK: Rose Dixon-Campbell
