Glasgow University Magazine | Autumn 2008 |Free
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GLASGOWgum UNIVERSITY MAGAZINE | AUTUMN 2008 |FREE SCOTLAND’S OLDEST AND BEST STUDENT MAGAZINE GUM.GLASGOWSTUDENT.NET GUM•1 Editors : Franck Martin & Jim Wilson Features Editor : Catriona Matheson Chief Writer: Gerry McKeever Web Editor : Aidan Cook Content : Franck Martin Design : Jim Wilson Cover Image : Recoat Gallery Contributors: Justin Caselton, Laura Doherty, Zoe Grams, John Hutchinson, Jessica McBride, Scott McGinlay, James Rae, Ali Stoddart. Special Thanks : Zoe, Bob, Amy & Ali, Nicola, Hazel G, Chris & Angie, Gillian, Cara, Jude & Vic Wasps Artists Studios, Urban Outfitters, American Apparel, New Look, Miss Selfridge, Marks & Spencer, Recoat Gallery, Polaroid, Glasgow Science Centre. All works © their authors 2008. Contact GUM Email: [email protected] Phone: 0141-339-8541 Glasgow University Magazine John MacIntyre Building University Avenue Glasgow G12 8QQ 2•GUM Alright pal! Welcome to GUM, your free slice of Glaswegian life and times lovingly complied by a troop of over worked and underpaid hacks. We have trawled the depths of sub-culture to bring you a collection gumof the real, the random and the rapturous. Mr. Andrew Rae, of Monkey Dust fame, was good enough to have a quick chin wag while the proprietors of the Recoat Gallery (323 North Woodside Road) kindly invited us into their urban abode to have a chat about graffiti and angry old women. BUT if that does not get your pulse racing then the surreal world of telepathic may just do the trick. At GUM we do not like to take chances when entertaining you, our precious reader, so in the name of depth we fired in some material about the dreaded credit crunch and asexuality. Failing that our pick of the West End’s best venues and choice of 5 artists to look out for this year will surely keep you happy. No? Well before you throw this bad boy in the bin have a swatch at the travel section and get lost in images of Tokyo, the exotic world of Fijian beaches, a new world wonder and a Bangkok revolution while our damn sexy fashion shoot is the equivalent of a medieval feast for your eyes, yum. If this collection of journalistic riff raff fails to satisfy your brains hunger for something new then GUM has failed and we offer a full and frank apology. Kindly write us a lengthy letter of complaint - we will definitely read it. Safe home! GUM•3 ASEXUALITY INVESTIGATED LAURA DOHERTY Nobody can deny that the world around us is pretty sexy. It’s fit into traditional stereotypes. It’s an attractive place for those how advertising agencies sell products to us, it’s how we like our experiencing ‘unique’ sexual orientation due to the many music videos and soap operas, it’s how we like our agony aunt subcategories of asexuality: the term asexual isn’t quite as columns, it’s just how we like things, ok? But imagine there were simple as it might first seem. Under the asexual umbrella there people in the world who had no interest in sex whatsoever, that are different types of ‘a’s; those who seek romantic relationships would be weird, right? Well, not really: a rather large proportion (‘ro’s), those who lack a romantic drive (‘aromantics’), those of society maintain they have no sexual desire whatsoever, and who maintain romantic attraction to others (-hetero, -homo, what’s more are completely happy with their situation. -bi) and even those who are sexually active within their own relationships but lack sexual attraction. With this in mind, you The definition of an asexual is ‘a person who does not can label an asexual with romantic inclinations to both men and experience sexual attraction’ – not to be confused with celibacy, women as an ‘a-bi-ro’, an asexual-bisexual-romantic: how’s that asexuality is not a lifestyle choice but an orientation itself. for precision? A study conducted in Britain in 1994, in the fallout of the AIDS epidemic, asked participants for information regarding their Angela, a 25 year old asexual, offers her insight into the sexual orientation: 1.05% of those asked answered that they network: “When I found AVEN it suddenly all made sense: It had ‘never experienced any form of sexual attraction’ while was helpful just to know there was a word to describe me and 30% of those surveyed declined to answer this section of the I was not the only one.” Angela had realised the differences questionnaire. between herself and her peers in her early teens: “I could not understand why they would refer to a boy as ‘hot’. I could If we consider the original statistic of 1.05% of the population recognize what others found attractive, it just didn’t do anything claiming that they feel no sexual desire, this percentage still for me. I always assumed I would meet someone and have represents 60 million people worldwide. Dr. Anthony Bogaert, sex to have children, the idea of sex for pleasure didn’t really a Canadian professor of sexuality, has also highlighted that this enter into it.” Now Angela has found her own identity within figure may not be telling the whole story. the asexual label, she finds the sexual presence in the world a lot more bearable: “I have to say I am rather indifferent – it He argues that statistics representing the number of homosexual just doesn’t interest me so I ignore it, although I know some and bisexual people frequently fail to accurately calculate the asexuals can find it alienating.” actual number of people on the ground. Thus when calculating the number of asexuals throughout the world the figure we She remains positive that attention around asexuality can only currently have will no doubt prove to be much higher. be a good thing: “I would like to think that it will mean the word gets out, that the asexuals are there, they just aren’t saying As with any growing community in the world there comes an it. At least if the word is out there they have a word to describe online presence. Aven, the Asexual Visibility and Education themselves and they would know they are not broken. The only Network, is the biggest asexual online community connecting thing is the implications of ‘coming out’ are not as clear: to those wishing to discuss asexual matters. The interesting thing come out as gay you might know what the implications might be about AVEN is that it doesn’t just attract one type of person in terms of your job, religion and family, whereas with asexuals but acts as an information and support point for friends or it is not that clear. Until we get those answers - who knows? A partners of asexuals and is a haven for those who just don’t few more coming out wouldn’t hurt though...” ADVERTISEMENT 4•GUM WORDS : GERRY MCKEEVER ILLUSTRATIONS : ANDREW RAE Andrew Rae has come a long way from his days of producing flyers for a Shoreditch club night. He has published numerous books, released a short film and been involved in over ten major exhibitions while his BBC3 show, Monkey Dust, perhaps his most famous work, a macabre look at modern British society. Following his ‘Of Beasts and Machines’ exhibition at Glasgow’s Recoat Gallery earlier this year, the London-based artist Andrew Rae talks to GUM about art, illustrations, music and plug creatures. GUM•5 uring the last year what have you been ...so it just helps everyone to be involved? working on? Yeh but gradually it’s become a bit more of a... well now we’re a Well at the moment I’ve just been designing some stuff for Ltd company and we have a studio where we all work etc... but GreenThing which is a website that’s trying to raise awareness we still work on individual projects and then on group projects. about green issues. I’ve designed this little character called a So as an illustrator it’s quite nice, you can work on a group Greenthing for the various different things they’re trying to project and step outside of yourself, because as an illustrator get across, like ‘don’t use so much electricity’ - so there’s a you have to have a fairly defined style that people can recognise Greenthing and he’s got plugs for a head, stuff like that. so it’s nice to be able to step away from that. Did you have any qualms in taking on the animation work You do have an instantly recognisable drawing style, you’ve done for MTV? what was it specifically that allowed you to find your own direction? No I didn’t really have any qualms to be honest, how do you mean? I guess it just kind of came around that way really. There’s a distinctive line quality that I’ve stuck to, that was something that Just that a lot of people would argue that the stuff that’s quite early on I definately thought people responded to. So I on MTV isn’t the best, the whole American Hip-Hop thing developed that side I guess, but to me it’s more about getting that’s going on... ideas across. No that’s true, I wouldn’t disagree with that entirely, but So it’s more about the content for you? the stuff I did was actually with MTV Asia so it was a quite different setup really. I went out to Singapore and Kuala Kind of, yeh I would say that. I like using text things as well Lumpur as a kind of build up to it, it’s interesting when you go within things but I think there’s something really nice about out there and see how they’re building all these new buildings, getting ideas across purely visually if you can.