“LISTEN, I BEG YOU” CRIED THE SAVAGE, “LEND ME YOUR EARS”

CO-FOUNDERS LETTER Spring 2015

One year on from its inception in a Bloomsbury café, SAVAGE Online has established itself at the forefront of UCLU’s creative publishing. We now proudly welcome you to our inaugural print issue.

We have collated the best cultural commentators and artistic talents from London’s student scene. SAVAGE ISSUE #1 explores our capital’s conflicting utopian and dystopian characteristics.

SAVAGE takes its name from Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, wherein John the Savage observes a future dystopian London through eyes informed by Shakespeare. Like John the Savage, we believe that the arts enhance our experience of the world. 1 To this end, we hope you find SAVAGE as thought provoking and entertaining as we have found the editorial process.

All the best, Jessica and Lucy

Lucy Feibusch and Jessica Sammonds SAVAGE Co-Founders The Trans* Voice – by Lauren Bowes 4 Creative Survival – by Sophia Compton 8 Art, Sex and Zero Tolerance – by Zsofia Paulikovics 10

Death of the Disco Dancer – by Laurie Chen 14 Frank’s Mantra – by Tom Broadley 18 What the Fuck is Genre? – by Jan Kobal 21 2

The Anti-Hero Reinvented – by George Nott 22 The Vice of the Modern Audience – by Edie Jefferys 26 The Dangerous Image – by Marek Maj 30 “LISTEN, I BEG YOU” CRIED THE SAVAGE, “LEND ME YOUR EARS”

32 Bourdin: Art vs. Advert – by Lucy Scovell 34 On Brutalism – by Maddy Martin 38 Obedient Protests – by Charlie Macnamara 3

42 Reclaiming the Theatre – by Rebecca Bainbridge 44 Staging a Global Warning – by Rosie Hewitson 48 Writing Home – by Alastair Curtis

52 Suburbia’s Story – by Jessica Sammonds 54 Where’s Herland Now? – by Sorcha Hughes 58 The Pathetic Apocalypse - Lucy Feibusch JOURNAL THE TRANS* VOICE LAUREN BOWES ON OUR RESPONSIBILITY TO CORRECTLY PORTRAY THOSE OF ALL GENDERS.

Ladies, gentleman, and those of non-bi- the preferred terminology, there is still nary genders. 2014 was full of brilliant a distinct lack of trans* representation moments in which feminism and the gay and awareness in wider modern society. rights movement shone: Malala Yousafzai became the youngest ever winner of the Media coverage of trans* issues is lacking. Nobel Peace Prize; equal marriage acts But even when attempted, journalistic appeared worldwide, and hundreds of ce- representation of the trans* community lebrities declared their supportive stand- is not without problem. The misgender- points. Beyoncé, Lena Dunham, Emma ing of trans* people is common in jour- Watson and Joseph Gordon-Levitt pub- nalese and became particularly evident lically shared their feminist views, whilst in the 2013 media reports surrounding many other celebrities came out to the Chelsea Manning. Apparently confused media: Michael Sam made history as the as to how to address such a sensitive first openly gay NFL player, and Sam Smith personal issue, journalists threw around 4 revealed his Grammy-winning album to gender pronouns in a slapdash manner, be about the man who broke his heart. assuming that it didn’t really matter which These successes may have led you to be- they chose, considering Manning has lieve that we are finally doing enough, that used both herself. Misgendering, or gen- we have finally kicked the kyriarchy and der-neutralising someone like Manning, we are heading towards an all-accepting, who has explicitly requested a preferred utopian society. But there is a major is- pronoun, is not only plain rude, but im- sue that is yet to be fully grasped by the plies a rejection of their gender identity. mainstream media, and consequentially the general public. I am talking about the With the media seemingly deaf to these attention, or lack of, given to trans* rights. outright requests, it is no surprise that in the absence of a full-blown gender The term ‘trans*’ is not reserved exclu- walkthrough, journalists begin to spec- sively for transgender people, i.e. those ulate wildly. Recent reports of Bruce whose gender is the binary opposite of Jenner’s possible gender dysphoria have the sex they were assigned at birth. That little evidence to work with, other than little, all-important asterisk also includes apparent ‘sources’ directly connected those who do not assign themselves to the Jenner family. Similarly, reporters to either binary gender, whether this lost their minds over Angelina Jolie and means identifying as non-binary or gen- Brad Pitt’s parenting, after it emerged derqueer or, more specifically, agender, that their child had requested to be genderfluid or transsexual. Whatever called John rather than Shiloh. Articles “LISTEN, I BEG YOU” CRIED THE SAVAGE, “LEND ME YOUR EARS” were written suggesting that the fam- binary genders; we need to stop presum- ily were indulging their child’s whims, ing that every trans* person out there is claiming John was ‘too young’ to know miserable as the person they are, or feel the significance of identifying with a gen- they are ‘stuck in the wrong body’. Some der different to that assigned at birth people are perfectly happy with the body (though of course, eight years old is obvi- they have, but not with the gender we ously mature enough for him to firmly be assign them for our own piece of mind. female). Reports on both Bruce Jenner and John Jolie-Pitt seem to completely However, there is some evidence of ignore their respective autonomy. Jour- change. In Raigarh, India, a transgender nalists seemed to disregard the fact that woman named Madhu Bai Kinnar has neither wished to publically discuss their just become the first trans* person in the gender, nor come out as trans*. Their voic- country to be elected mayor. Laverne Cox es were erased in favour of speculation. was named Woman of the Year in 2014 and continues to appear on magazine cov- A tragic event of 2014 was the suicide of ers, in catwalk shows and on TV. The BBC Leelah Alcorn, a seventeen-year-old trans- is filming their first sitcom based around gender girl from Ohio. Leelah’s parents re- trans* issues, titled Boy Meets Girl. It fused to acknowledge her gender identity might not seem much, and it is certainly not even after her suicide, and in their Face- enough, but the world is showing promise. book announcement referred to Leelah 5 as Joshua, their ‘son’. The suicide note she Perhaps the biggest indicator of change for posted on Tumblr, in which she begged for the trans* community is Stonewall’s recent change on behalf of the trans* community, move to make their campaigns trans-in- was taken down by her parents. They not clusive. Although surprisingly overdue, it only rejected her identity but also attempt- is encouraging nonetheless. Significant ed to wipe her voice from the internet. progress was made for feminism and gay rights movements in 2014, and it is high The main issue that seems to resonate time that this success was extended to throughout each of these examples is a the trans* community. We need to listen lack of voice. The trans* community is to Leelah, and every other trans* voice fighting hard to be heard, and is met with out there. We need to keep giving these misgendering, censorship, discrimination people the voice they deserve. It is up to and ignorance. We need to stop enforcing us to keep the trans* conversation going. JOURNAL

6 “LISTEN, I BEG YOU” CRIED THE SAVAGE, “LEND ME YOUR EARS”

7

BY ALEX PULSFORD JOURNAL CREATIVE SURVIVAL IN MODERN LONDON SOPHIA COMPTON ON THE SPACES THAT ARE SAVING LONDON’S CRAFTSPEOPLE.

It is difficult to decipher what is really hap- It seems natural to view shared studi- pening to London’s young craftspeople. os as microcosmic. They are small-scale In recent years, buying handmade, locally democracies in that their smooth run- and ethically sourced products has be- ning depends on cooperation. One day come a pastime for the trendy, working somebody may need to make a lot of Londoner. Luxury magazines are littered noise, and another somebody may need with praise for ‘this great new jewellery / quiet for concentration; these are issues textiles / ceramics start-up’, encouraging us that have to be solved collectively. Otis to support our city’s artists and small busi- Ingrams, who founded leather goods ness owners. But the reality of acquiring company Otzi, with business partner and practicing a craft in London is far more Max Hayter, sees the studio on Ridley challenging than gracing the pages of an Road as a micro New Orleans. He says it inner-city publication. The cost of living in thrives ‘on the huge variety of cultures, 8 London is excruciatingly high; consequent- languages and artistic peculiarities, ly, consumers are gravitating towards the creating a wonderful and vibrant mix’. cheaper, homogenised, mass-produced designs made available on the high street. Otzi’s beginnings were modest: Ingrams Studio space is limited and expensive. found himself unemployed and so start- ed learning how to work with leather by However, obstacles such as these can watching tutorials on YouTube, using an prove productive. The reality of a dystopi- awl (a tool for piercing holes in leather) an London has prompted the need for col- made out of a piece of wood and a nail taped lective studios: communal spaces in which together. Both he and Hayter struggled to artists of varied disciplines can work follow the ‘conventional’ career path they alongside one another. One such space is had expected after finishing degrees in on Ridley Road, Dalston – it sits above a Literature and Business respectively. Like Turkish supermarket on the first floor of many others, dissatisfaction with the op- an old factory building with immense in- tions available to London’s graduates led dustrial windows. Here, artists, costume them to seek out a more creative, com- designers, furniture makers and leather munal way of working and living in the city. workers coexist in an open workspace. Sharing space buys time – it gives crafts “LISTEN, I BEG YOU” CRIED THE SAVAGE, “LEND ME YOUR EARS” CREATIVE SURVIVAL IN MODERN LONDON people the opportunity to develop their to talented yet struggling artisans, and skills and business slowly, learning how the young unemployed who need skills the industry works as they go along. Rent for work. Variations of this ethos can be is lower in shared studios, alleviating the found in many other collective studios intense pressure to ‘succeed’ financial- around London. Cockpit Arts, for exam- ly. Communal studios can also serve as ple, a ‘creative-business incubator for melting pots for ideas. Working alongside designer-makers’, operates on a larger different artistic disciplines encourages scale than communal studios like Ridley experimentation, and provides access Road, subsidising and coaching young de- to designers with varied perspectives. A signers in every aspect of their business. glass-blower who is intimately aware of light and dark may influence a film, skirt, The connection between shared studios or painting. Mutual workspace gener- and social enterprise is not coincidental. ates a tangible sense of community: each Members of studio collectives appreci- member of each studio shares the same ate the difficulties of practicing a craft passion and understanding of the risks of in London first-hand, but also the ulti- being a young start-up business. A sup- mate reward. In many ways, craftsman- 9 port network of people who are simulta- ship seems to jar with our fast-paced, neously starting from scratch can be inval- consumerist capital city: it prioritises a uable in moments of doubt and hardship. slower rhythm, expertise, and workman- ship over huge profit margins and mass The rare feeling of community that these production. But once inside these crea- shared spaces kindle is not just limited to tive collectives, members do not simply their direct members. There is a strong withdraw into their artistic-sanctuary, link between shared studios and a wider but often actively engage others that social conscience. The Goldfinger Factory might benefit from these micro-utopian in Ladbroke Grove exemplifies this; they communities. Collective studios make it let out-of-work craftspeople use their possible to be both a functioning crafts- studios for free in return for teaching person and a financially stable Londoner their skills to some of London’s disadvan- – a rare but much needed combination. taged young people. This mission involves every strata of London society, from the trendsetters with a social conscience that want quality furniture with ethical origins, JOURNAL ZERO TOLERANCE ZSOFIA PAULIKOVICS EXPLORES OVER-SEXUALISATION IN MAINSTREAM MEDIA. The elusive and camera-shy Australian her ethereal dancer alter-ego are clear. singer-songwriter Sia burst into main- Ziegler is shown in both videos wearing stream consciousness in 2014 with her a blonde wig identical to that which the single ‘Chandelier’. More precisely, it was fame-shy artist dons for public appear- the song’s now ubiquitous video that ances. But, enhanced by beautiful edit- caught the majority of media attention, ing and evocative acting, the video is ex- featuring 12-year-old dancer Maddie traordinarily vivid – a quality which under Ziegler defying gravity in more ways than different circumstances would deserve one. The singer enlisted Ziegler once nothing but praise in comparison to the again for her latest single ‘Elastic Heart’. plethora of mass-produced pop videos. Ziegler performs a stirring interpretive Whilst the video certainly left me con- dance alongside the infamous actor Shia fused, I did not see a sexual undertone. 10 LaBeouf; in the video they wear matching flesh-coloured bodysuits and give emo- Just days before the video backlash tive performances inside what appears reached its full furore, I came across a to be a human-sized birdcage. Unsur- quotation online. It read: ‘it’s important prisingly, it didn’t take long for an inter- to remember that so much art history net backlash to ensue over this spectacle has been shaped by the sexual fantasies – Sia was accused of careless depiction of white men. There’s a thinly veiled por- of paedophilic content and insensitivity nographic subtext to much of the visual towards sufferers of child abuse. She is- art we consider canon, and we become sued a public apology via Twitter, stating: ‘I accustomed to it through exposure’. I anticipated some “paedophilia!!!” cries for was left with an uneasy sense of recog- this video. All I can say is Maddie and Shia nition. Throughout the ages, we have re- are two of the only actors I felt could play lied on art as an educator in the sublime. these two warring “Sia” self states. I apolo- It is often said that life imitates art, but gise to those who feel triggered by “Elastic perhaps we have failed to realise that art Heart”. My intention was to create some similarly imitates life: we have reached emotional content, not to upset anybody’. a stage where we are oblivious to the omnipresence of sex in the public eye. Let’s be honest, the video is in some way distressing. Sia has previously spoken The truth is, we have reached a state of out about her past problems with addic- ambivalence, in which sex has become tion; the parallels between the singer and both the ultimate taboo and the most “LISTEN, I BEG YOU” CRIED THE SAVAGE, “LEND ME YOUR EARS” quotidian, universal selling point. I wonder unnoticed, we have fallen to the oth- if we are heading towards an imminent er extreme. Ultimately, she states, the sexual saturation, where we achieve an video for ‘Elastic Heart’ is deemed of- erotic normcore, a (seemingly) strange fensive because of ‘sanctioned hysteria’. utopia where lack of sex, rather than its abundance, will become normal. As it Perhaps in the age of zero tolerance po- stands, we live in a time where the ide- litical correctness, we have become our alised, aestheticised woman resembles own caricatures. There is no question that a pre-pubescent girl: thin, frail, hairless. increased awareness and communication When it comes down to it, projecting has had a directv effect on the reduced ideas of paedophilia onto a video show- rate of child abuse, and for that we can ing a grown man and a girl means you only be grateful. But crying paedophilia recognise her as an object of desire. in a knee-jerk fashion, lest we be accused We have arrived at a baffling Catch-22 of showing signs of fatal negligence, is a situation, in which by acknowledging a different extreme in itself. Maybe it is an problem, you further contribute to it. extreme we need, to be able to achieve an eventual equilibrium. Or maybe we Guardian journalist Barbara Ellen makes just need to accept that sometimes, art is an interesting point. She proposes that, just art, and there is no sexual undercur- in a desperate attempt to atone for the rent, however shocking that might seem. children we have failed countless times in the past, by letting molestation go 11

BY EMMA HART SMELLS OF HAIR SHOW WALKING WITH CASE QUEEN JANE SAVAGE LISTEN: ANJELICA BARBE INTERVIEWS CHARLIE STOTT.

‘He smiled joyously into space and kept the beat, though softly, with bop subtleties, a giggling, rippling background for big solid foghorn blues the boys were blowing’ – On The Road, Jack Kerouac Where do you draw inspiration from when songwriting? From music that stretches back through time, and which is constantly changing and evolving as musicians build upon it. From Irish ballads to raucous New Orleans jazz bands to the folkies of 1960s New York. I have a message I want to convey too – but I’m not sure what that is yet! What comes first – lyrics or melody? I connect more with the musicality of a song rather than the poetry of the lyrics. Mostly I find a great melody, harmony or rhythm and put words to it afterwards, though the process of songwriting happens in a different way every 12 time I write a song – there’s no pattern. Bob Dylan on his songwriting process said, ‘the best songs to me — my best songs — are songs which were written very quickly. Yeah, very, very quickly.’ Are you writing from experience or imagination? My lyrics aren’t historically accurate so there are imagined elements. But I feel you can’t write without having some strong, experiential feeling to express – it may develop as you write the song and it may be vague or even subconscious, but it is necessary. Is there a lyricist you particularly admire? In the 1940s the Bebop movement was taking off, pioneered by artists like Lester Young, Roy Elbridge and Dizzy Gillespie – who in turn heavily influenced the Beat poets. Bepop takes an improvisational form with rich, colourful harmonies, which is then captured in the writings of the Beat generation. In turn, the abandon of writers such as Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg inspired Dylan’s free writing style. I love Bob Dylan’s lyrics – they’re like trains of mad, surreal, beautiful images that quickly whip past you – joyous and intense and profound. I think you can hear these styles in my writing. A slang, Jazz style gives the lyrics their own sort of music, with their flow and feel and freedom. I admire Blues artists too – like Muddy Waters and Willie Dixon. Their lyrics are bold, and the solemn and melancholy lyrics of artists such as Lonnie Johnson also complement the era. Traditional blues lyrics work in a different way from the narrative-driven style of folk artists like Joan Baez – the lyrics in blues follow the chord forms beneath them. I try to evoke this same structure in my writing as it builds up the track with a kind of tension. “LISTEN, I BEG YOU” CRIED THE SAVAGE, “LEND ME YOUR EARS”

The rain comes down on the baron roof Flying blue licks are flung into the Silver tops and the tiger's tooth room But I don't always know the truth Chords sound like meadows in now do I? bloom Now ain't that something? And sometimes babe it seems so Ain't that pretty groovy? strange The way you walk your mountain And I'm walking' with Queen Jane range Just-a-walkin' with Queen Jane But who am I to tell you to change now anyway? She's alright, she's alright She's alright, she's alright And I'm walkin' with Queen Jane Just-a-walkin' with Queen Jane And I'm walking' with Queen Jane Just-a-walkin' with Queen Jane Down at the bottom we take it to the top Collect ourselves and make our way Yeah they say we ain't ever gonna home stop Feelin' just like the Caesars of Rome Rollin' outta windows and down to And when I get back I hope I find the road Queen jane Doin' what we can to loosen our load When she is my muse she brings the rain And yes I dig it when I see it in your But she don't owe me anything now 13 eyes do she? In the middle of that mad warm night Yeah it don't half give me a fright And I'm walkin' with Queen Jane To see your raging glory! Just-a-walkin' with Queen Jane

And I'm walking' with Queen Jane She's the best cat to ever walk the Just-a-walkin' with Queen Jane streets In her you'll find no trace of conceit The magic cats they dance down the And as i go in my unburdened mind street No binding attachments can I find Jumpin' ’n jivin' on a mad night's Maybe I'm too far behind but I'm kicks free And into my room put those old records on And up on the roof I see Queen Jane Listen to Muddy Waters singing his Thumbin' her hair in the summer rain song Though I know everything must change I hope it's her I'm loving Then down to the jazz at the end of the day 'Cos I'm walkin' with Queen Jane Skippin' and steppin' up Soho way Just-a-walkin' with Queen Jane Listen to the jazzman blow his horn of grace till the early hours of the morn MUSIC DEATH OF A DISCO DANCER LAURIE CHEN LOOKS AT THE SLOW DEVOLUTION OF LONDON’S CLUBBING SCENE.

London, Berlin, Amsterdam, Tokyo, security and ID checks to potential visitors. New York: rolling off the tongue, these iconic cities are renowned the world Ever-increasing rents and tightened over for their arts, culture and nightlife. council restrictions currently seem to From the decadent glamour of Studio be threatening the survival of a range of 54 to the drug-fuelled hedonism of 90s venues across the capital. Indeed, the rave culture, urban nightlife has notori- single violent incident at Madame Jo- ously captured the public imagination for jo’s – which allegedly involved a couple generations. Furthermore, clubs and the of bouncers and an inebriated patron various scenes that they spawned have – would have been fairly standard at had an undeniable influence on the venues in cities elsewhere, had it not been worlds of music, fashion, art and com- for Westminster Council‘s draconian re- merce. In some cases, they have become sponse. Supporters of the club, which has cultural and geographical touchstones of been a fixture in Soho’s thriving LGBT 14 the cities they inhabit – think Soho, Dal- and burlesque scene for over 50 years, ston, Vauxhall or Shoreditch, each area believe that its forced closure was part of synonymous with a certain type of ‘scene’. the council’s gradual attempt to gentrify the West End area as a whole. Instead of Perhaps this is why the recent spate of being populated by the bohemian outsid- London club closures have led to grow- ers, drag queens and revellers of old, we are ing debates amongst worried club-go- faced with the prospect of an increasingly ers, promoters, producers and DJs alike. homogenous Soho, filled with bland cof- Mourning the loss of established ven- fee-chains, offices and ruthless landlords. ues such as Madame Jojo’s and Plastic People, which closed their doors for the In the wake of these significant closures, last time in November 2014 and Janu- it is no wonder that new large-scale club ary 2015 respectively, people are begin- openings in the capital have become in- ning to fear what the future might hold creasingly rare. Since property in Lon- for other stalwarts of London nightlife. don comes at such a high premium, One particular example is Fabric, wide- entrepreneurs are noticeably unwilling ly regarded as one of Europe’s foremost to take on the expenditure of running clubbing destinations. After having barely and promoting a club on top of the costly managed to hold onto its license follow- administrative and licensing procedures ing a handful of drug-induced deaths on required by councils. However, some its premises, it must now pay for its own promoters are displaying a more optimis- sniffer dogs and introduce more stringent tic approach – one that recognises the “LISTEN, I BEG YOU” CRIED THE SAVAGE, “LEND ME YOUR EARS” DEATH OF A DISCO DANCER

evolution, not death, of the London there are still illicit warehouse parties, clubbing scene. Writing in an online fea- which take place regularly in secret ture for global music distributor MN2S, locations across Hackney Wick. distinguished club promoter Fred Letts Therefore, in order to find the latest concedes, ‘there is a great deal of doom flourishing scenes we are encouraged and gloom in London’s clubbing scene right to think quite literally outside the box. now, and yes, in some areas it has become Cheaper rents and the increasing di- harder for promoters – but I don’t neces- versity of club-goers’ requirements will sarily agree with all the doom-mongering’. continue to drive central London nightlife further afield to, say, Brixton, Peckham, He goes on to highlight the innovative Stoke Newington or Stratford. Despite measures that promoters are taking in the evident uncertainties surrounding order to create the best new events for the fate of established London night- London’s young, creative and hedonistic life as we know it, there remains a sense party crowd. Pop-up events that make the of hope for the future. The creativity, 15 most out of old, derelict or unconvention- hedonism and relentless innovation of the al spaces have thrived in recent years; the scene will ensure that clubs continue to most successful examples include nights survive in some way, shape, or form, ready organised by The Hydra at Studio Spaces to influence other distinctive elements and by LWE at Tobacco Dock. Of course, of London’s cultural life in the future. SHOW CASE ELECTRO JAZZ, THE URBANA BY DAN GROVER

16 “LISTEN, I BEG YOU” CRIED THE SAVAGE, “LEND ME YOUR EARS” ELECTRO JAZZ, THE URBANA I. We tumble out of bars and just keep tumbling, over split pavements and past brownstones that frown with wrought iron brows. II. Night air that tastes like neon, like amphetamines. We couldn’t boil it down into soup, but we lapped up a broth of cigarette smoke. III. Somebody’s humming in the darkness, somebody 17 somewhere is humming and I can feel it in my teeth, and I can feel it in my bones, the electro jazz! That’s what it is: all sirens and dubstep and wub wub wub and Louis Armstrong or Rosemary Clooney. We sway alone. IV. The city buses are swimming by — do you have a line? Maybe we’ll hook one and ride it past broken tooth buildings, over piss-soaked, rain-washed streets.

BY NELL NICHOLAS ELECTRO URBANA MUSIC FRANK’S MANTRA TOM BROADLEY DISCUSSES FRANK OCEAN’S STORYTELLING LYRICS. Looking back over the first half of this dec- at by opposing forces – money, love, anxi- ade in music releases, Channel Orange stands ety, yearning – yet unable to move. Ocean out: a concept album that never overwhelms. is speaking to the indecisiveness in us all. Frank Ocean has created a record that brims with sonic ideas and lyrical talent. Its instant This range of vision is also in the album’s cen- success and long-term popularity among trepiece, the epic ‘Pyramids’. The song moves music fans are proof of its cultural significance. from the bronzed rays of Ancient Egypt to Ocean’s 2011 mixtape, Nostalgia, Ultra, had the seedy neon lights of modern America’s already revealed his poetic ability. However, criminal underworld; it follows how black on his 2012 debut full-length he expanded women, once queens represented by Cleo- his sound, drawing upon a range of genres to patra, are now oppressed by men in the create an album that envelopes its listener in Western world. Ocean summons up dispa- a technicolour, hazy summer smog, soaked rate voices, times, and places, combining them with longing, anxiety and sadness. In an inter- into a fully-fledged, expansive and evocative view with The New York Times, Ocean said, ‘the saga. The towering space-funk of the first work is not me… Even though it’s my voice; part of the song forges a contrast with the I’m a storyteller.’ Rather than going from A second half as it transitions into the modern to B in typical confessional songwriter style, world. Ocean sings about the pimp’s motel life, Ocean conjures up a diverse array of stories complete with VCR and faulty BMW, as if it that combine to make this album inspiring. were the true ‘good life’. Not all of Ocean’s 18 songs take place in such shady or glamorous lo- Although they are often socially aware in cales; his ability to make relatable music hinges their criticism of wealth, his songs are nev- on how he uses the mundane details of life in er overwhelmed by self-righteousness: he ‘Thinkin Bout You’ and ‘Pilot Jones’. Time slows simply investigates the attitudes behind down in these songs because, superficially, not money-dominated lives. Any portrayal of the all that much is happening. However, the small super-rich in such an economically turbu- things, like the refrigerator or the messiness of a lent age could easily fall into reductive con- room, hold an enormous emotional resonance. demnation, but Ocean’s take on their lives is more nuanced. There’s no defence of their Collaborator André 3000 called Frank Ocean maxed-out consumption, their ‘xany gnashing, a whole ‘other kind of icon in today’s age’. What caddy smashing’ excesses in ‘Super Rich Kids’ makes him stand out is also the key to his bril- and ‘Sweet Life’, but he recognises the exis- liance: he avoids the standard formulae of tential anxiety underpinning the palm-tree- hollow materialism and dramatic heartbreak swimming-pool lifestyle, and how futile wealth for a more recognisable world. Ocean’s songs can be in the pursuit of happiness. However, are like the best kind of short stories (think Ocean is not just a critical outsider looking of someone like Alice Munro), filled with the in on the privileged; he is painfully aware of small occurrences of life that are often over- the moneyed life’s dangerous allure, and the looked in music and literature alike. With any cruel, self-sacrificing things people do in orde luck, 2015 might be the year for a new album. r to achieve it. Just look at the drug-deal- Frank Ocean has recently posted one clip er using his girlfriend as a mule in ‘Lost’. He and one cover to his Tumblr – the ambient, is torn between his love for her and his lust techno-haze of ‘Memrize’ and a haunting- for the coke game, along with the kind of ly beautiful Aaliyah cover, ‘You Are Luhh’ – Versace ‘buttercream silk shirt’ it entails. suggesting equally spectacular things to come. These stories are about humans tugged “LISTEN, I BEG YOU” CRIED THE SAVAGE, “LEND ME YOUR EARS” FRANK’S MANTRA

19

BY DANI SMITH MOTHER MUSIC

IS GENRE?

20

BY DANI SMITH MOTHER “LISTEN, I BEG YOU” CRIED THE SAVAGE, “LEND ME YOUR EARS”

JAN KOBAL ON THE RECENT OVERSATURATION OF GENRE. WHAT 21st century music lovers face a challenge: try- ing to place every piece of music into just one of a seemingly limitless number of categories. As a result, I’ve come to the conclusion that, in THE FUCK this day and age, ‘genre’ is an empty term. In an attempt to untangle the frustratingly deep web of modern day genre classification, one has to break down the features of a few key offenders IS in a long list of genres that defy logical definition.

In the summer of 2009, Alan Palomo started making music under the pseudonym of Neon Indian. His music involved going crazy on an- GENRE? alogue synthesizers, equalising everything to is a genre as well, and as I was told by a DJ in the middle of your soul, and feeding everything Fogasház once: ‘it’s just house… But outside’. through an incredibly LFO until you flow com- pressor. It wasn’t long before his low-fi music Vaporwave is a fairly recent insult to the world was called glow-fi and subsequently called of music. Apparently, vaporwave is a parodic chillwave. Suddenly a plethora of musicians critique of consumerist society, 80s yuppie were being thrown under this moniker de- culture and new age music. It’s a VHS night- spite having nothing to do with each other. mare (or Betamax nightmare, depending on 21 which year you weren’t born in): a horribly If you’re having a hard time imagining chill- sampled and chopped 80s or 90s piece of wave, just take one of your favourite 80s pop muzak, completely devoid of emotion and songs, feed it through an instagram filter and replete with depressingly deflated irony. leave it in the fridge to chill at 87 beats per minute. Then, sing over it with enough re- Following this list of musical offenders verb to drown all of your sorrows. The genre is night core – and every other core that reached its acme when Portlandia decided to ever existed. Night core is essentially the use Washed Out’s ‘Feel It All Around’ as their polar opposite of vaporwave laced with title card music. Since the ‘genre’ is relatively a healthy dosage of methamphetamine. easy to make in a bedroom studio, the inter- net became flooded with the spawn of Toro Y Think you’ve understood the concept of Moi and Washed Out; the ‘genre’ lost steam plunderphonics, chillstep (chillwave’s mis- and fizzled out. This genre was meaningless. understood brother), witch house and You don’t see jazz disintegrating or the blues seapunk? I doubt it. The incomprehensi- fading away: they were born out of strong ble list of genres is continually expanding. social movements, not transient blog posts. Lacking delineation, none of these mod- Even genres that used to mean something ern genres are here to stay. Like an orgasm, have become misappropriated in recent times. the hit is great but ephemeral, and you House formerly had a historical movement be- have to start looking for a new one fair- hind it; it is now just a term used to refer to any ly soon. I suppose the question I’m trying two hour Youtube mix with a scantily clad wom- to ask is – what the fuck is modern genre? an looking away from the camera as its thumb- nail. But it doesn’t stop there. Outsider house FILM THE ANTI-HERO REINVENTED GEORGE NOTT EXAMINES THE EVOLUTION OF THE CINEMATIC PROTAGONIST.

The figure of the lone ranger has long Oswald, Scorsese produced an anti-hero since established its place at the epi- that could not be further removed from the centre of American cultural production. ideals of the Nixon and Ford presidencies. Its origins stretch back to seventeenth And so, in a society increasingly jaded by century accounts of British explorer, authority, the anti-hero flourished; an op- John Smith, and to some of the earliest pressive government found its resistance examples of American literature. During in mainstream culture. The anti-hero of 22 the mid-twentieth century, however, the recent years, however, is an entirely new lone ranger manifested itself in a new cin- beast. Unlike the anti-heroes of the 70s ematic form appropriate to the growing who staunchly opposed higher authority, tension between authority and the pub- the new anti-heroes are capitalism incar- lic. With the advent of the Vietnam War, nate, abiding by an ethos readily advocat- the lone ranger became the anti-hero. ed by Western governments. One would Gone is the Everyman of the post-war be hard-pressed to find a better entre- period: George Bailey is no more. The lone preneur than Walter White of the ubiq- rangers of the 60s and 70s are whole- uitous Breaking Bad. As a chemist in a city heartedly anti-authoritarian. In the adap- of low-quality methamphetamine, Walter tion of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, finds a gap in the market. He knows the Jack Nicholson’s McMurphy rages against science but not the business, so employs the oppressive and sexually repressive a savvy colleague. His business starts to machine of the hospital. The name ‘Nurse grow, so he acquires a few employees Ratched’ is a big clue to the soulless force and undergoes a rebrand as the mysteri- McMurphy is pitted against, and to which ous ‘Heisenberg’ to gain a steadier hold he must ultimately, unwittingly, succumb. on the market. As any ambitious busi- Then, a decade after Kesey’s novel and nessman ought to, Walter swiftly hires a a year after Milos Foreman’s film, Mar- lawyer before establishing a long-term tin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver brought us the contract with a supplier that will vastly ex- anti-hero par excellence, Travis Bickle. pand his market. The terms of his contract A total outsider in the ilk of Lee Harvey suddenly start getting broken, but “LISTEN, I BEG YOU” CRIED THE SAVAGE, “LEND ME YOUR EARS” THE ANTI-HERO REINVENTED he recognises his own indispensabil- a fierce negotiator. When an employee ity and decides a hostile takeover is doesn’t play by his rules he fires them, and necessary. In fact, the only real trouble he expands his business to meet growing comes when he decides to forgo his cap- demand. Any authority that might chal- italist agenda for an early retirement. lenge Bloom is non-existent; his business Breaking Bad is not devoid of authoritari- is unregulated – laissez-faire, if you like. an figures, but they seem little more than This might all sound a little gloomy then, a sideshow in Walter’s ultimate quest for if the ethos of our rebels and anti-heroes financial gain. What’s more, it is little co- comes with a government-approved seal. incidence that the show gives more than Yet, perhaps, this points to an optimistic a passing reference to Walt Whitman, future for the anti-hero. Instead of resist- one of America’s earliest anti-heroes. ing authority from the outside – one man 23 It is highly unlikely that the face of Lou against the unyielding machine – we have Bloom, the anti-hero of Dan Gilroy’s re- an anti-hero so decidedly within the ma- cent Nightcrawler, will hit a mass merchan- chine that they may open it up and lay bare dise market anytime soon. Nightcrawler’s the interior. Safe to say, neither Breaking scathing critique of capitalism (and indeed Bad nor Nightcrawler paint a pretty picture mass media) is a more consciously target- of the capitalist ideology, notwithstand- ed attack on current affairs than Breaking ing the irony of resorting to mass cultural Bad but, like Walter White, Lou Bloom is means to do so. But a mass market calls for a thoroughbred capitalist. He wants to mass culture, and the American anti-hero start a business, so he invests what cap- has found a new home in reframing the ital he already has (his racing bike) in the once wholesome beliefs of the Western necessary equipment. Bloom’s business world in a harsh new light. The institu- grows, so he hires an employee and up- tions that advocate Western values have grades his car: in his line of work, this is now found their sense of self-reliance, as tantamount to upgrading a clapped-out never before, caustically deployed against desktop to a MacBook Pro. He is perfect- them by the subversive modern anti-hero. ly willing to play dirty if necessary and is 24 “LISTEN, I BEG YOU” CRIED THE SAVAGE, “LEND ME YOUR EARS”

25

BY WILLA HILDITCH FILM THE VICE OF EDIE JEFFERYS EXPOSES THE FILMGOER’S RELUCTANCE TO RELINQUISH CONTROL.

Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest release used to control, the ability to satisfy curi- Inherent Vice has been identified by cin- osity at the click of the button. Watching emagoers as 2015’s mustn’t-see experi- films at home, this sense of authority is op- ence. Despite wide critical praise, Ander- timised: we can pause to google an actor’s son’s adaptation of Thomas Pynchon’s name, enable subtitles for tricky dialogue, 2009 postmodern novel has prompted an or stop halfway through and resume view- exceptionally high rate of cinema walkouts, ing at our leisure. In short, we dictate our leaving viewers baffled, disorientated, and viewing experience. In the cinema, we mo- ranting on social media. ‘Walked out’ is the mentarily gift that control to the medium second listed twitter search for #Inherent- of film. We are submerged in a world in Vice, with reports of nearly half of audienc- which the writer, director and cast reign es leaving the cinema before the film’s end. supreme; the agency that 21st century It is unfair that this ‘walkout’ phenome- technology has afforded us is lost. Sure, non is clouding the reception of what is prior to taking our seats we can frantically 26 ultimately a brilliant film. Those who left look up the plot on Wikipedia, watch the prematurely missed Anderson’s skilful trailer and read the reviews, as many in- portrayal of hazy 1970s California; In- evitably do. But once within the confines herent Vice is a hallucinogenic series of of the cinema, the control we rely on in disjointed scenes, artfully spliced into a the outside world is absent. The audience blurry amalgamation of excellent cine- is left in the dark in more ways than one. ma. The plot is indeed difficult to follow, By the very fact that the cinema environ- and its fluidity appears to be the biggest ment rejects 21st century control, our problem for viewers. There are none of smartphone authority is rendered useless the traditional markers of beginning, mid- in light of film experience. Without de- dle and end, nor is there clear resolution voting our concentration to a film in full, of plot. It is unpredictable and playful. without leaving behind our penchant for Evidently, modern cinema audiences don’t bite-sized information, we cannot gauge cope well with the unpredictable. We our response. There’s no app to explain are in an age of comfortable technology; how a film is meant to make us feel or how everything is explained, broken down, giv- it resolves itself in our own minds. An- en a handbook. The modern audience is derson’s Inherent Vice has a high ‘walkout’ “LISTEN, I BEG YOU” CRIED THE SAVAGE, “LEND ME YOUR EARS” THE MODERN AUDIENCE rate because this feeling of limbo runs stoner and a token appearance from beneath the film from its beginning. We Owen Wilson. It’s almost as if Anderson never really know what’s going on. This has published a practical joke, which the lack of validation continues even after the audience is only in on if they ‘get’ the film’s credits roll: an uncomfortable position for aversion to more conventional genres. a generation used to instant affirmation. Anderson has ultimately maintained the But this is part of the appeal of Inherent same fluidity of narrative that Pynchon’s Vice. It is supposed to be confusing; Pyn- prose explored six years ago, and in do- 27 chon meant to create something that is ing so has brought to light some home difficult to compartmentalise, and An- truths for the modern viewer. Our inabil- derson does well to portray this. It is sim- ity to handle the unpredictable is both a ply that we, as viewers, are not used to blessing and a curse for future film direc- watching something that isn’t presented tion. It can be an opportunity for playful- in a neat box, tied with the red ribbon of ness, for the creation of a cultural talking resolution – the absence of which seems point and a cult following. Anderson may so disconcerting for the modern view- well have picked the perfect adaptation er. In resisting this structural cinematic through which to challenge our prefer- convention, Anderson has deliberately ence for perfect resolution. But Inherent challenged his audience and their per- Vice also exposes our modern reliance ception of modern film. Even the trailer on controlled experience, our penchant for Inherent Vice, edited by Anderson him- for digestible creativity. Perhaps it’s time self, plays with this attempt to categorise. we recognised that the instant affirma- The film is almost deliberately mis-sold tion of modern technology is destined as another drug-fuelled slapstick come- to be at odds with the world of cinema. dy, replete with the archetypal loveable 28 “LISTEN, I BEG YOU” CRIED THE SAVAGE, “LEND ME YOUR EARS”

29

BY NATHALIE HOLLIS THE SOLACE OF DIGITAL ADDICTION FILM THE DANGEROUS MAREK MAJ LOOKS AT THE LESSONS LEARNED FROM THE CINEMA OF THE THIRD REICH.

From 1933 to 1945, the German film in- central male character, Albrecht, is torn dustry produced over one thousand fea- between his prudish wife Octavia and the tures. Yet, despite forming an important amoral, nature-loving Aels. Yet this conceit part of everyday life in Nazi Germany, is merely a gloss to the film’s true inten- the cinema of the era remains relatively tion: the celebration of pseudo-Nietzs- unexplored. Perhaps the most recognisa- chean values (Aels rides a horse along a ble films are Leni Riefenstahl’s two mon- beach, while clutching a bow and arrow) umentalist masterworks: Triumph of the and the critique of bourgeois morality. It Will (1935) and Olympia (1938). The films is also a film obsessed with death; at one Riefenstahl made for the Nazis are of in- point Aels describes how she euthanised terest because she produced propaganda her dog and later cheerfully says, ‘one is in an aesthetically innovative way, much always close to death, and it’s a good thing 30 like the Soviet directors of the 20s. How- if you smile at him from time to time’. This ever, only a fraction of the films produced is a sentiment that the Nazis would have during the period were overtly propa- been keen to promote in the penultimate gandist or allowed for an auteurist vision. year of the war, as they prepared the Instead, genres that are now familiar and population for the imminent destruction accessible to us today were used to ma- of the regime. In 1944, as it was becom- nipulate audiences under the Nazi regime. ing apparent that the Nazis were going to lose the war, the propaganda machine By far the most popular Third Reich films was moved to encourage an acceptance are romantic – either comedies or melo- of death. The ideological designs behind dramas. Comedies amounted to around Opfergang are easy enough to spot with half of all films produced, and a statistical hindsight. Contemporary audiences, how- analysis of the films’ titles shows that the ever, would have absorbed them without words ‘Frau(en)’ and ‘Liebe’ were the most consciously realising they were doing frequently used nouns. Opfergang/The so in a film where escapism is absent. Great Sacrifice (dir. Veit Harlan, 1944) is a perfect example of how populist, seeming- One of the reasons why documentary is ly banal entertainment can disguise nefar- such an intellectually provocative genre ious ideological messages. This colourful, is because of its inherent slipperiness. The over-wrought melodrama outwardly por- Nazis capitalised on the genre’s blurring trays a clichéd love triangle, whereby the of reality and illusion with chilling effec- “LISTEN, I BEG YOU” CRIED THE SAVAGE, “LEND ME YOUR EARS” IMAGE

tiveness. An astonishing example can be explicit. Using screens, they were able to found in the unfinished ‘documentary’Das subdue audiences by creating the illusion Ghetto, one of the only known films of the of a continuous utopia or by inventing Warsaw Ghetto. The film documented non-existent threats. For a while now, we the everyday lives of the Jewish inhabit- have been living in an age that neglects to ants, focusing on one particularly trou- recognise the power behind the ubiquity bling aspect: the extreme differences be- of film. We blindly consume and create tween wealthy and poor Jews. One shot, moving images – movies, clips, adverts, the for example, shows a prosperous man news etc. – on a second-to-second basis, ignoring corpses strewn on street. For as if they are completely inconsequential over forty years, viewers took the foot- and disposable. We never stop to consider age – shot by German cameramen two the hidden meanings and true ideological months before the ghetto’s population intentions behind them. This is especially 31 was decimated in 1942 – as fact. It wasn’t worrying now that cinema is undergoing a until a missing reel of outtakes was discov- radical process of democratisation, thanks ered in 1998 that the truth came to light: to digital technology and the internet. We scenes had been deliberately staged and should look to filmmakers such as Michael filmed in a naturalistic and documentary Haneke, who work for a cinema of ‘insist- style. Others were edited out of context. ent questions…provocation and dialogue,’ To what exact end this was done remains rather than the ‘American “barrel down” unknown, although one suspects it was cinema of consumption and consensus to try to show the population the suppos- that dis-empowers the spectator’. Haneke edly callous way in which the Jews treated reversed Godard’s trite maxim when he one another. Although Das Ghetto would said, ‘film is 24 lies per second, at the ser- have been fairly unique in its day, the vice of truth’. In order to find the truth technique of ‘staged reality’ has become behind the lie, the moving image must increasingly widespread in recent years. not be simply viewed with passivity, but treated with respect, admiration and fear. The cinema of the Third Reich provides a valuable lesson in film’s dangerous poten- tial. The Nazis knew that through films it was possible to communicate their ideol- ogy on a mass scale without having to be ART BOURDIN: ART VS. ADVERT LUCY SCOVELL REFLECTS UPON THE BOUNDARY BREAKING OEUVRE OF GUY BOURDIN.

Guy Bourdin, the provocative French fash- ries of photographs entitled Britain by Ca- ion photographer, remains one of fashion’s dillac. In these images, Bourdin discards most controversial image-makers nearly the model, preferring instead to photo- twenty-five years after his death. With a graph the stilettos on dismembered man- diverse career spanning multiple decades nequins’ legs. The series illustrates Bour- and a portfolio of work that both disturbs din’s fascination with a disjointed female and seduces his audience, Bourdin is one body and its status as a commodity, ma- of fashion’s innovators. Mentored by Man nipulated purely to sell. Inevitably, the se- Ray, a visual artist intrinsically involved ries was received as a perverse treatment 32 in the French Surrealist and Dada move- of women and provoked some outrage. ments, Bourdin sought to undermine the commercial world of fashion pho- Given that Bourdin was working in a tography. In Bourdin’s world, the image pre-digital age, the vivid clarity and col- takes precedence, while the advertised our of his photographs is striking. How- product is relegated to the background. ever, it is the composition of his images This contention is at its most provoca- that ultimately distinguishes his work tive in a series of advertising campaigns from that of his contemporaries. Scenes completed for the French shoemaker of domestic violence, murdered women Charles Jourdan, between 1967-1981. and reification abound, and one could sometimes be forgiven for thinking that A selection of these campaigns, exhibited his images are more suited to the domain as part of Somerset House’s 14/15 winter of pornography than the glossy pages season, reveal the photographer’s preoc- of Paris Vogue. An unpublished, untitled cupation with fantasy and eroticism. Al- photograph from the 1970s – recently though the campaign sought to advertise exhibited for the first time in the United shoes, the featured stilettos do not dom- Kingdom – is emblematic of his fascina- inate the frame. It is impossible to ignore tion with the relationship between sex, the reified – and what can only be termed consumer culture, and death. Two life- fetishised – female bodies populating the less women dominate the photographic background. However, Bourdin entirely frame; the first is naked and draped over replaces ‘the body’ with ‘the fetish’ in a se- a table, her legs and arms akimbo, while “LISTEN, I BEG YOU” CRIED THE SAVAGE, “LEND ME YOUR EARS” BOURDIN: the other is slumped against the wall, A notable example is an untitled photo- modelling a polka dot dress. More dress- graph from the August 1968 edition of es line the back wall, leaving the viewer to Paris Vogue, which instils a meta-fiction- ART VS. ADVERT question Bourdin’s intentions or, indeed, al dimension to his work and blurs any LUCY SCOVELL REFLECTS UPON THE BOUNDARY BREAKING OEUVRE OF GUY BOURDIN. the purpose of such a campaign. Howev- clear-cut line between artifice and reality. er, during the 1970s and 80s – the apex However, his notion of abstract space and of his career – Bourdin’s visual ingenuity unidentified female models is paramount brought him international recognition and to the success of his unsettling work. it was for this rawness that he was valued. While Bourdin shot to fame for his com- While Bourdin’s images seem to create mercial fashion photography, he con- a dystopian world in which women and tinued to paint and sketch throughout their aesthetic is frighteningly dehuman- his life. A selection of the artist’s prolific ised, a useful parallel can be made with collection has recently been released by Michael Foucault’s notion of ‘heterotopia’. The Guy Bourdin Estate for public view. Foucault defines ‘heterotopia’ as a space The diversity of the material, composed ‘other’ to archetypal hegemonic environ- to visually disturb, reveals the extent of 33 ments that straddle the illusionary and the artist’s mesmerising talent. Bourdin’s the real. Foucault’s prime example is that work leaves the viewer both fascinated of the mirror, for while the reflected space and puzzled. They lure us into a dystopi- in the glass is a space that does not exist, an world where the body politic is of no the physical object forces the viewer to be material concern. Bourdin’s work con- both inside and outside of the work and tinues to inspire a whole host of contem- re-evaluate the way they relate to their porary fashion photographers, including own image. Bourdin, in turn, makes pro- Nick Knight and Tim Walker. May Bour- lific use of compact mirrors in his images. din’s artistic genius continue to inspire.

ART ON BRUTALISM MADDY MARTIN WALKS US THROUGH THE NEW FACE OF LONDON’S BRUTALIST ARCHITECTURE.

If you have ever wandered along the South Bank, or strolled past Bedford Way or The Barbican, chances are you have come across Brutalist architecture. Gigantic, asymmetrical, concrete slabs are mount- ed together to create some of the capital’s most iconic modern buildings, such as the National Theatre. These buildings, with their intimidating aesthetic, industrial ap- pearance and overwhelming ratio of con- crete are currently experiencing a renais- sance. Their cool and plain exteriors are becoming a basis for modern-day design 34 and architecture, with some original Bru- talist flats being privatised and selling for hundreds of thousands of pounds. How- ever, the admiration for these monumen- tal concrete buildings is only recent: their introduction into London’s landscape wasn’t originally received with such high regard. The meaning of the word ‘brutal’ became too closely associated with these buildings not long after they were built. The term ‘Brutalism’ was first coined in the 1950s and is derived from the French word ‘brut’, meaning concrete: nothing to do with the ‘brutal’ aesthetic that the movement is often associated with. The term refers to a specific architectural pe- riod in post-war Britain. Due to the cheap “LISTEN, I BEG YOU” CRIED THE SAVAGE, “LEND ME YOUR EARS” cost of concrete, the government were Smithson’s Robin Hood Gardens (1972) in favour of employing this new ‘brutalist’ also became synonymous with crime, style in order to rebuild social housing, as causing its demolition to begin in 2013. well as public and government buildings. It is hardly surprising then, that these This meant that Brutalist architects such once hopeful and functional buildings as Ernò Goldfinger, Sir Denys Lasdun, became the architectural backdrop for and Peter and Alison Smithson designed dystopian fiction in popular culture. J.G. their buildings with certain ideals in mind. Ballard’s 1975 dystopian novel High-Rise They needed, above all, to be functional (soon to be made into a film by Sightse- for the people who inhabited them, as ers director, Ben Wheatley) tells the tale well as cheap and easy to build. These of an über modern, luxurious set of high criteria produced plain, non-decorative rise flats, closed off from the rest of the exteriors and frank materiality. Especially world with only its high-tech commod- regarding social housing projects, Brutal- ities to cater for everyone’s needs. This ist architects sought to provide a social utopian setting ends with its inhabitants utopia of equal living standards. In high- turning on each other à la Lord of the rise Brutalist buildings flats were usually Flies; it is a tale of crime, murder and vi- of equal size, and areas were built into the olence, not too dissimilar from those of complexes to separate living and leisure Trellick Tower and Robin Hood Gardens. spaces, such as shops. They became al- Brutalist architecture also makes cameo most like a city within a city. Despite this, appearances in dystopian film. Think back Brutalist architecture became increasing- to Stanley Kubrick’s controversial 1972 ly criticised during the 1960s and 70s. It film,A Clockwork Orange, where the Brunel 35 wasn’t just its ‘ugly’ and ‘harsh’ exterior University Lecture Centre becomes the that appalled people (Prince Charles once setting for the authoritarian Ludovico said that when the Luftwaffe ‘knocked Medical Facility. That which was seen as a down our buildings, it didn’t replace Socialist dream in 60s and 70s Britain soon them with anything more offensive than came to signify a totalitarian nightmare. rubble’), it was also the state of the in- The irony of Brutalist architecture is habitants’ welfare that was questioned. huge, leaving it as one of the most mis- Structural issues quickly began to arise; understood aesthetics in modern design. living conditions were cramped, and with It is unfortunate that the monumental- no garden fence to chat to a neighbour ly terrifying, yet fantastic, look of these over, people often became isolated and London buildings became aligned with anti-social. These confined conditions brutality and crime in general, not just arguably lead to an overhanging cloud within fiction but also in the day-to-day of claustrophobia and fear that soon re- lives of the people who lived there. How- sulted in vandalism and high crime rates. ever, as mentioned earlier, Brutalism is These once hopeful utopian communities now experiencing a wave of nostalgic were becoming somewhat dystopian. Fa- appreciation. Trellick Tower, the high mous high-rise buildings such as Gold- rise building known for its violent crime finger’s Trellick Tower (1972) became rates, is increasingly privatised and gentri- increasingly associated with anti-social fied. To alter the famous expression: one behaviour – there were even reports man’s utopia is another man’s dystopia. of rape, and attacks on children. The

ARTWORK BY SOPHIA SIDDIQUI BY JOE JACKSON A shirtless moon is leaning from her balcony tonight But I’m tired. Too tired. Back to Mum and Dad's I go From a different kind of prison. Not Ashfield, not Huntercombe, not College. See, I’m only part-time But I slave my sunniest days Just to muster a mere Meal Deal and two thirds An hour. And do you know What crushes me crushes me crushes me? I’ll be squatting with the toad again Tomorrow. Not Thursday, not Friday (when some other saps graft), Not every other fanged and snarling Sunday. No, the rest of my finite breathing Time has been allocated to a bricked box building, aisles of frozen food, A muppet with a tie and – look! – my famished wallet is sniggering: ‘You need more hours! You're stuck here forever! Feed me! Feed me!' he grins. So that’s that. I’m coated and parked for now, struggling to spark, On a sodden park bench of a squarish grass stain 36 Skirted by metal-fenced Flowerbeds: and I long for My bed. Park trees and pillowed dreams Dwarf solemn tower-blocks By scraping skys yet daring the dark For the sanguinity of a succulent dawn and her resplendent Grapefruit sun. Oh, alone in this most Royal Of Parks, past finger-tipped branches I'll gaze and gaze And gaze; unmarred by sticky benches, sticky condoms, sticky chicken-Greased cardboard – skywards! onwards! gazing! – and perhaps perhaps perhaps I will find a new lighter Tomorrow, perhaps I will scrounge a second job Somehow – but if the world is my Oyster something Needs topping up Before all the shops shut And the streetlamps Cut out. I’ll be leaving the garden soon And I’ve got nothing else planned So God save the Queen And God save me. I’ll be leaving the garden soon And I’ve got nothing else planned. “LISTEN, I BEG YOU” CRIED THE SAVAGE, “LEND ME YOUR EARS”

SHOW GARDENS CASE

37

BY FLORA HASTINGS SUSPENSION ART OBEDIENT PROTESTS CHARLIE MACNAMARA CONSIDERS THE PARADOXICAL NATURE OF EXHIBITING OBJECTS OF PROTEST.

Disobedient Objects was an exhibition of messages by controlling its interpretation. political protest: artwork, demonstration equipment, plans, and how-to guides were As for this exhibition, the cries of protest displayed in a space typically reserved for that these objects had previously rep- more conservative objects. The exhibition resented disappeared when they came collected these objects together to tell to adorn the walls of the V&A. Flood a wider story of protest and ‘political art’ was right – the objects did not need to in the 20th and 21st centuries. The poli- be legitimised by a museum – but what tics of the objects were varied, but can be was not considered was the danger grouped into two camps: those protest- that, put in the context of an exhibition, ing for political freedoms – voting rights, they might lose their entire significance. gender and racial equality – and those 38 fighting against financial ‘neoliberalism’ The exhibition dehistoricised and decon- and global capitalism. Catherine Flood, textualised the objects: juxtaposed with co-curator of the exhibition, claimed that so many others, their individual narratives while these objects ‘don’t need a muse- and visions became blurred. The notes be- um to legitimate what they’re doing’, they side the objects said little more than how ‘gain something from being put into a wid- they were made and used, while their poli- er history’. What is this vague ‘something’? tics and the wider idea of protest remained What ‘history’ was the exhibition promot- unaddressed. Instead, the exhibition pre- ing? What are these ‘disobedient objects’ sented the objects as inventive approach- even doing in the Victoria and Albert es to protest, as intelligent designs. This Museum, the very emblem of Empire? focus displaced attention from the objects’ complex messages onto their physicality, In Ways of Seeing, John Berger argues that reducing their visions to ‘disobedience’. when art objects are exhibited they are of- ten presented as ‘marvellously made ob- The curators, Flood and Gavin Grindon, jects’, rather than as objects representing were somewhat aware of this problem: their own voices, individual ‘ways of seeing’. This exhibition is incomplete, and will fail For Berger, this is part of a process of ‘mys- (hopefully productively) in ways that it tification’ contrived by the establishment isn’t possible to yet identify. The histories and ‘the ruling class’; its purpose is to dis- it uncovers will be blighted by omissions of tract viewers from an object’s subversive balance vis-à-vis the Western movements “LISTEN, I BEG YOU” CRIED THE SAVAGE, “LEND ME YOUR EARS” OBEDIENT PROTESTS

closest to us . . . [and by] gaps in genealogies. against gay rights. They located their nar- There is something brave about the rative of progression in the West and its welcome acceptance of failure. Howev- values, thus the exhibition suggested that er, they didn’t seem aware that the fail- the West had achieved this utopian vision. ure of the exhibition might be inherent These objects were intended to resist in its premise, in the idea of exhibiting authority, but the exhibition made them objects with active voices as ‘forms of obedient, integrating them into its own making’ to be studied; or more clear- narrative, supportive of the status quo. ly, in the idea of exhibiting them at all. Ironically, shortly after the exhibi- The exhibition presented subversion as tion opened, V&A workers went on entirely positive, a synonym of ‘innova- strike to protest about their pay. Wag- tion’. In the centre of the exhibition was a es had fallen relatively by 10% over 39 board of flashing lights on a world map. It the last three years. They were barred displayed the number of protests around from protesting inside the V&A. the world since the 1960s – a decade pop- They still haven’t received a pay rise. ularly considered as the heyday of protest. However, the board showed that political While the V&A should be praised for protests have actually been increasing in its many exhibitions providing free ac- frequency since the 60s. Clocking into the cess to important objects and artworks, 21st century, the map was bright with LED with this exhibition the institution was lights. Within the exhibition’s uncomplicat- trying to appropriate and align itself ed and decontextualised logic, this image with attractive subversive ideologies, suggested a progression towards a vision whose values it doesn’t share. In doing of glowing, utopian, worldwide freedom. so, it both marginalised and misrepre- sented these objects and their voices. Despite the fact that many of the objects in the exhibition were from protests outside of the West, their selection bias was sym- pathetic to Western tastes: they chose banners from campaigns supporting gay rights in Russia, but not material from the sadly more popular movements there UNTITLED BY FREYA MORGAN

SHOW CASE

40

At the outset Freya Morgan’s film portrays a humorous animation of an individual sneezing out his brain – on repeat. But consider the concept behind hese disturbing occurrences and the outcome is unsettling. If we could extri- catethe mind from the body, but replace it again at will, what would happen? WORDS BY ANISHA MÜLLER “LISTEN, I BEG YOU” CRIED THE SAVAGE, “LEND ME YOUR EARS” UNTITLED

41 THEATRE RECLAIMING THE THEATRE REBECCA BAINBRIDGE ON THE RISE OF THE STUDENT THEATREGOER.

Starched-collared, middle-aged and others failed: he filled the 1100 seats middle-class: this is the privileged social of the cavernous Olivier Theatre every clique that typically has the money to af- night, attracting a younger audience than ford British theatre. Defined by an elitist ever before. Fast-forward to 2015, as Ru- stereotype, the pretentiousness of these fus Norris is about to take up the mantle of ‘theatre circles’ is etched into the history directorship, and Hytner has left a legacy of London’s theatre. Fifteen years ago, of affordable theatre in his wake. Students the student traversing Covent Garden’s can now attend the theatre for a mere cobbled streets would have had little £5 per ticket, a phenomenon that has more than a glimpse into the high-priced, been replicated in theatres London-wide. high-society entertainment on their In 2012, the Old Vic Theatre introduced doorstep. Left out in the cold, a stranger an ‘Under-25s’ scheme under the direc- to an exclusively bourgeois domain, the tion of Kevin Spacey. The actor confessed, 42 theatre-going student was an extinct ‘if we don’t reach out to make theatre af- species. Enter Nicholas Hytner, appoint- fordable to the young generation, we will ed as Director of the National Theatre lose them all. It is so short-sighted not to in April 2003, and there arrives the long think about your future audiences’. The overdue remedy to the hangover of snob- longevity of theatre still teetered on the bery that characterised our theatres. brink of alienating young people with ex- Upon assuming his leading role, Hytner be- tortionate pricing, but less than three years came ‘obsessed by tickets at knock-down later and the forecast is looking brighter. prices’ in retaliation to a ‘narrowing of the As the industry shifts its gaze towards its audience base’. He candidly acknowledged wider audience, the former exclusivity of that the cost of theatre had ‘gone up a hell the theatre is gradually becoming inclusive of a lot since 1963 when the National was of the younger generation. The bygone started’. His first season included Shake- age of unaffordable tickets dims in the col- speare’s Henry V – a deliberately anti-elit- lective memory of the audience, and so be- ist approach to theatre fast became the gins the nativity of the avid twenty-some- hallmark of his career. With a black lead, thing theatregoer. But, alas, it is not so and in a setting uncomfortably contempo- straightforward. There persists the zeit- raneous to the Iraq war, the provocative geist of a self-selecting, elitist audience. production saw an equally controversial This self-perpetuating bias became star- release of £10 Travelex tickets. Despite tling apparent when recently attending initial criticism, Hytner succeeded where a production at the Donmar Warehouse. “LISTEN, I BEG YOU” CRIED THE SAVAGE, “LEND ME YOUR EARS” RECLAIMING THE THEATRE

I rejoiced at getting tickets for a measly accessible to those willing to put in a lit- £7.50 each to a sold-out run, a sure sign tle effort. So get out there and discover that the availability of inexpensive tickets the terrific acting talent on the London remains extremely limited. Accompanied stage. Now is the time for students to re- by a fellow student - not one of the ‘thea- claim Britain’s finest theatre, and to put tre-initiated’ - I was a little surprised at her to bed the social prejudices of the past. self-effacing tone as she apologised for her lack of smart dress in her t-shirt and jeans. Just as we were taking our places at the back of the circle, we were shown instead to a couple of vacant, central £35 seats just before the play commenced – I was giddy with delight. It was only then that I realised we were amidst a sea of predom- 43 inantly white faces: the identically garbed and coiffured members of the middleclass. Despite being a self-professed theatre enthusiast, I felt displaced, as though we had intruded upon a private inner circle. Once I settled the tables soon turned as I felt increasingly indignant at sitting be- side a fidgeting man – a person evidently lacking in theatre etiquette! Astonished at my rash judgment, I was made all the more uneasy when my friend gleefully said she believed herself ‘grown-up enough to now appreciate plays of that kind’. At the end of the evening I was, nevertheless, delighted to have acquainted someone else with the delights of modern theatre. With the likes of the Young Vic, Trafal- gar Studios, and Shakespeare’s Globe, to name but a few, promoting stu- BY FRED WOODWARD dent-friendly prices, London theatre is THEATRE STAGING A GLOBAL WARNING ROSIE HEWITSON EXPLORES THE MESSAGE BRITISH THEATRE HAS TO SEND ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE.

The mild mannered, bespectacled UCL guessed it) ten billion. Duncan Macmil- Professor and world leading climate re- lan, meanwhile, is also responsible for searcher Chris Rapley seems like he would Lungs, a powerful two-hander in which a be more at home shuffling through the couple’s personal anxieties over parent- dusty corridors of a university library than hood are placed alongside anxieties over treading the boards in a production at The the moral ambiguity and environmental Royal Court Theatre. Yet this past Decem- repercussions of bringing new life—and ber, that is exactly what he did, taking to 10,000 tonnes of CO2—into a world that the stage of one of the country’s power- is already overpopulated and overheat- houses of new writing in 2071, a 75-min- ing. Paines Plough’s original production 44 ute lecture on climate change written in uses minimal lighting and no set, while partnership with the award-winning play- the German-language version directed by wright Duncan Macmillan. Whilst it may Mitchell has the actors power the lights test the boundaries of what we consider themselves by pedalling on static bikes. theatre to be, this ‘play’ is only the latest in a series of high profile productions about Macmillan is not the only playwright climate change and the environment. preoccupied with climate change. Nick Payne, another star of British writing, Director Katie Mitchell is particularly at- won the prestigious George Devine tentive to the problem, so much so that Award for his contribution to climate she has stopped flying and no longer change theatre, If There Is I Haven’t Found buys new clothes to reduce her carbon It Yet. Like in Macmillan’s Lungs, Payne footprint. 2071 is the second theatrical turns the global predicament into a per- lecture she has directed for The Royal sonal problem, as the global warming Court. In 2012, Mitchell worked with obsessed George neglects his duties as Oxford academic Stephen Emmott on a father and husband, preoccupied with Ten Billion, which focuses on the envi- writing his book about climate change. ronmental problems facing humanity The show attracted a lot of attention at when – by the end of this century – the its Bush Theatre debut where Rafe Spall global population will have reached (you took the lead role, and again at its New “LISTEN, I BEG YOU” CRIED THE SAVAGE, “LEND ME YOUR EARS” STAGING A GLOBAL

York transfer starring Jake Gyllenhaal. from lighting the stage to heating the building, transporting the set and even In recent years London’s most prestigious washing the costumes. British theatre’s theatres have gone head to head where response to the CO2 conundrum has climate change theatre is concerned. Feb- been encouragingly assiduous. Over 100 ruary 2011 saw the opening of both The theatres now share their energy use with National Theatre’s Greenland and The SMEasure, an Oxford University pilot Royal Court’s The Heretic, which present scheme helping them to take informed the controversial subject from completely action to reduce their carbon footprint. different angles. The former asks what can be done now that we know conclusively Evidently, the climate change debate has that humanity is responsible for a signif- had a significant impact on British thea- icant increase in temperature over the tre. If the success of a production as an- past 150 years, while in the latter Juliet ti-theatrical as 2071 is anything to go by, 45 Stevenson plays a scientist who disagrees we should expect this climate to change with her colleagues about their findings. any time soon. If all the world’s a stage, it is easy to see why the big-hitters of British The trend is visible not just in the theatre theatre want to play their part in saving it. we’re watching but also in the spaces in which we watch it. After all, it would ab- surd to attempt to spread any message through theatre if doing so contributed to the problem. In 2008, the Mayor of London launched the Green Theatre Plan in an effort to reduce the carbon foot- print of London’s theatre industry. At the time, this was estimated at a staggering 50,000 tonnes a year, which is unsurpris- ing when you consider the various ways in which energy is used to put on a show, THE FALL BY BENJAMIN LEGGETT

46

Benjamin Leggett’s film is constructed through an exploratio of binary opposites: Light–Dark, Self–Other, Known–Uknown, Good–Bad. As the narrative unravels we discover these oppositions are in constant flux. The fantasies of theprotagonist, Thomas, are filled with his inherent fascination with the body. However, he is drawn towards a figure that poses a threat to his purity. The dark and animalistic Francis presents a dystopia to Thomas’ utopia, and when these converge there is a momentous physical climax between these two wrestling characters. “LISTEN, I BEG YOU” CRIED THE SAVAGE, “LEND ME YOUR EARS”

SHOW THE FALL CASE

47

As is often the case in classical tragedy, after a symbolic fall we expe- rience a moment of enlightenment. In the filmthis is realised through the enchanting Ayla – it would seem that empathy has the power to dissolve the distinction between rivalling uptopic and dystopic states, both of which fundamentally reside within us. The Fall contemplates the relationship of an individual under a complex power system, and serves as a reminder to be grateful for what we have. WORDS BY ANISHA MÜLLER THEATRE WRITING HOME ALASTAIR CURTIS’ RETROSPECTIVE ON THE From the collapse of monarchism, to fas- PLAYS OF TENA ŠTIVICIC. cism, communism and the growth of cap- italism, few European countries can claim to have had as turbulent a history as Croa- tia. It would seem unwieldy dramatic mate- rial, but Tena Štivicić’s 3 Winters distils this history into three extraordinary winters that saw communist Yugoslavia’s birth in 1945, the 1991 War of Independence, and Croatia’s entrance into the EU in 2011. As the play moves between time periods, we see conflict and peace and conflict again. Ideologies bloom, wither and blossom again. And we see, as Bernard Shaw said, how ‘an epoch is a swing of the pendulum; and each generation thinks the world is 48 progressing because it is always moving’.

The home is at the centre of Štivicić’s work. In 3 Winters she brings Croatia’s sweep- ing history into the Kos’s ivy-clad home in Zagreb. If Chekhov’s cherry orchard is Russia, then the Kos family home is Cro- atia itself. Requisitioned from the aristoc- racy and nationalised in 1945, over three winters their home is compartmentalised, de-nationalised, and eventually priva- tised. ‘One can read’, the Croatian writer Dubravka Ugrešić suggests, ‘the history of Europe through the chronicle of a family’s silverware, as it travels from one owner to the next’. The home in 3 Winters, silver- ware and all, represents history’s swinging pendulum. Events are in flux; each winter brings a change in the Kos family dynamics. “LISTEN, I BEG YOU” CRIED THE SAVAGE, “LEND ME YOUR EARS”

Štivicić is no stranger to restlessness. She a temporary escape. Alisa or Mila, or any belongs to the ‘before-and-after genera- of the émigrés Štivicić describes, are all tion’. She was born in Yugoslavia but grew ‘temporary people’ living ‘temporary lives’. up in Croatia. She was just 13 when war broke out in 1991. And though her ear- The émigré experience is not seen often ly plays had been successful throughout enough in our domestic cultural scene. It the Balkan states, like Alisa in 3 Winters, is this that makes Štivicić’s dramatic voice Štivicić would leave Croatia and arrive such a breath of fresh air. Štivicić draws in London. She left behind what Serbian characters both with and without a home, playwright Biljana Srbljanovic describes both victims and survivors of history. Her as a place where ‘life and death happened characters, be they the Kos family in Cro- at great speed,’ and records her experi- atia or the émigrés in London, are all for- ence in her first play in English, Fragile!. ever restless and searching for a sense of The play’s characters have also arrived home amidst history’s oscillating climate. in London from the Balkan states, forced This March, Štivicić’s 3 Winters won the by politics and capitalism to escape from very prestigious Susan Smith Blackburn their home ‘over there’ and create a new Prize at New York’s Playwrights Horizon 49 home ‘over here’. They carry little but Theatre. Here’s to hoping that Štivicić’s dreams of success in the big smoke and success will create a resurgence of inter- hope that these dreams will carry them est in Eastern European drama, and give over the ‘white cliffs – the finish line’. them a ‘home’ on our stage here in London.

But the city proves an overwhelming place for the Balkan émigrés running away and into each other. Some find a home in London and forget and forgive past trauma. Serbian Marko in Fragile! be- comes a successful comic on the fringe. Michi and Tiashi open an underground stripper bar. But their cellotaped dreams are as fragile as the play’s title suggests. Mila dreams of a part in the West End but ends up playing to stereotype: a Russian stripper. She leaves London and returns home. She misses ‘the feel of it’ – Lon- don, she says, ‘doesn’t feel like home’ but BY SOPHIE MEADOWS

Washed up on the grassy hills of Hampstead Heath are urban tides of wandering hearts. They flow to where sea-scape and weed is wed: See from far how our city small imparts Such allure from beyond the hedges there, Where lego building tops across the pink Skyline sweep. Quietly, they sit in pairs, And in their genre new - pastoral - sink. 50 The stop-go lights dizzying heights and all those Transactions and re-en-actions are this Toy town down below. With such distance grows Fondness which often goes amiss. From far come tides of wand’ring hearts to roam Above this city: that which is our home.

SHOW CASE “LISTEN, I BEG YOU” CRIED THE SAVAGE, “LEND ME YOUR EARS” COMPOSED UPON PARLIAMENT HILL

51

BY HUNTER DALY LITERATURE SUBURBIA’S STORY

If there is any region of London that has from, and pertaining to Hampstead. acquired a singular literary resonance, it When John Keats and Leigh Hunt were liv- must be Hampstead. The district – which ing in Hampstead it was a fringe area, not now holds more millionaires within its yet encompassed by the growing sprawl confines that any other region of London of the city. This marginal, suburban local- – has a longstanding reputation for being ity was the place in which Keats spent his a hub of bohemian creativity. For a rela- most prolific and productive years. It was tively small area of the city, it has housed a walk on the heath in 1816 that inspired a remarkably large number of celebrat- the beautiful ‘I stood tip-toe upon a little ed writers. Among its former residents hill’. The poem itself arguably has a specif- Hampstead boasts Keats, Leigh Hunt, ic, suburban identity: the expansive natu- 52 Coleridge, H.G Wells, Waugh, Orwell, ral world one tends to expect in Romantic and Enid Blyton. Even this impressive writings has been minimised. The ‘solemn list represents only a small portion of the height, and mountains’ of Wordsworth’s famous people who have, at times, resid- surroundings undergo a diminution (and I ed in this leafy location in North London. do not mean this pejoratively) to the ‘little hills’ of Hampstead. For Keats, Nature is And it is not hard to see why. For many, ‘gentle’ and ‘silent’, something that can be Hampstead is considered the pinnacle observed from a tamed suburban locale. of London-living: a place where you can He sees ‘flowering laurels’ in ‘diamond be surrounded by hundreds of acres of vases’ thus blending the constructed and heathland, and simultaneously enjoy the the organic worlds. For me, the melding conveniences of a Starbucks, a Sains- of the artificial and the natural perfectly bury’s, and a Zone 2/3 Station. An odd, encapsulates the topography of Hamp- semi-urban utopia; it is an area of Lon- stead, yet for Keats’ contemporary critics, don in which the bucolic and the built-up it lacked ‘purity’ and was labelled ‘vulgar’. worlds collide. Yet despite its longstand- Keats’ aristocratic contemporary, Lord ing reputation as an aspirational post- Byron, pilloried Keats for being part of code, its fictitious and literary identity the ‘Suburban School’ of poets, describing has always been somewhat negative. For him as ‘shabby–genteel’ in a thinly veiled hundreds of years, critics living and writ- attack on Keats’ class status. For Byron, ing outside of this locale have scorned to be suburban was to be part of a lower and condemned the literature coming social and intellectual class. He saw the “LISTEN, I BEG YOU” CRIED THE SAVAGE, “LEND ME YOUR EARS” SUBURBIA’S STORY JESSICA SAMMONDS EXPLORES THE DISCONNECT BETWEEN HAMPSTEAD’S WRITING AND ITS LITERARY REPUTATION.

literature of Hampstead as being coarse, title of ‘Hampstead Novelist’ has argued working class, and inferior to that of the that in the 80s, Hampstead had not quite urban intellectuals or the country gentry. become the millionaires’ playground it is today. Kingsley Amis, one of the great sa- Fast forward a hundred and fifty years or tirical writers of the 20th century, has also so, and Hampstead is no longer the mar- been labelled a ‘Hampstead Novelist’. Yet ginalised place whose inhabitants Lord anyone who has read Lucky Jim can see Byron so snobbishly condemned in his that it is a nuanced and intelligent work, poem, Beppo, as ‘vulgar, dowdyish, and containing an attack on middle-class man- suburban’. By the 1980s, NW3 had be- ners despite its middle-class protagonist. come that perfect urban idyll Londoners now recognise, and was filled with authors Although the area has housed some of 53 of a new ilk. Margaret Drabble, Kingsley England’s greatest writers, Hampstead’s Amis, and Martin Amis are just a few of literary identity has been persistently and the famous people who lived, and wrote surprisingly negative. For hundreds of in this increasingly affluent area, towards years, it has produced some of the most the end of the 20th century. However, enduring and potent writings and yet, Hampstead and its associated literature unfortunately, its position as imaginative became a somewhere that was again crit- living space for the literary mind may now ically lambasted in geographical terms be coming to an end. Aspiring writers and – this time for being too middle class and intellectuals can no longer afford to live exclusive. The 80s saw the coinage of the in NW3; it is now the sole preserve of the term, the ‘Hampstead Novel’, which was rich. Hopefully, though, Hampstead can used largely to sneer at the perceived shake off the negative elements of its liter- singularly middle-class concerns of these ary resonance, and be remembered as one writers. Yet, as Byron’s attack on Keats of London’s historical, creative utopias. in the 19th century did nothing to eval- uate his literary merit instead of his class status, so this 20th century geographical insult does not do much to penetrate the sometimes very sophisticated writings of these Hampstead authors. Margaret Drabble, in defending herself against the LITERATURE

WHERE’S HERLAND NOW?

SORCHA HUGHES CONSIDERS CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN’S FEMINIST VISION IN ITS CENTENARY YEAR. 100 years on, Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s it presents a world in which the effects of Herland is still an affirming feminist read. men have never been felt. Women have Written in 1915, Herland is about three never been subject to objectification; 54 men who discover a world completely their bodies never used to sell a car or a void of their gender. The eponymous ter- beer; they have never been told that their ritory is entirely inhabited, built, and run self-worth comes from their clothes, ap- by women – imagine the kind of place pearance or weight. The women of Her- that would use Beyoncé’s ‘Who Run The land enjoy living in a world where they are World’ as its national anthem. Herland is permitted to just be. They use their bodies presented in the novel as a quasi-utopian as were intended: to build, make and do, society, free from strife, inequality, and war. and to have babies. They are strong wom- en who wear practical clothing, equipped The women of Herland are completely with pockets to carry books and tools – self-sufficient: they are accomplished in everything a self-sufficient woman needs. engineering, building skills, and reproduce Gilman is active in questioning why wom- asexually. Life is sustained without mas- en of her era should be expected to wear culine input, ultimately creating a female anything contrary to this. The differenc- utopia. But Gilman’s novel should not be es between men and women’s clothing read as a manifestation of the man-hat- remains a contentious issue to this day. ing branch of feminism (although works Gilman skilfully subverts social norms and of this nature would come later). Instead, causes us to question established institu- “LISTEN, I BEG YOU” CRIED THE SAVAGE, “LEND ME YOUR EARS”

WHERE’S HERLAND

tions that we take for granted, particular- while because it forces us to recognise its ly in her mockery of the age-old tradition pioneering nature, and Gilman’s role in the of marriage. The three men explain to earliest days of the feminist movement. the women of Herland that in marriage A century later, Gilman’s idealist vision 55 a woman is obliged to take a man’s name. of the feminine future as engendering The women respond by asking, ‘Do your the ultimately powerful, independent women have no names before they are woman is yet to be realised. Her depic- married?’ and, ‘Do the husbands then take tion of families and communally raised the wives’ maiden names?’ – questions children would still raise eyebrows today, which are met with ridicule from the men as would, unfortunately, the concept of and chuckles from the reader. Gilman thin- women fending entirely for themselves, ly veils her potent social criticisms as com- constructing their own social and cultur- ical interjections, but it is in these humor- al infrastructure alone. A world that has ous moments that her comments about eliminated men may be far from a utopia, society are most effectively conveyed. but it is certainly effective in highlight- ing the hostility of a world where an ine- Gilman wrote her seminal novel in 1915, quality between the sexes predominates. only two years after Emily Davison threw herself under the King’s horse and ninety years before the Spice Girls popularised Girl Power. Historicising Herland is worth- MORNING IN THE CITY BY SAM PENGELLY Morning greets its winding streets and grabs them by the arm. Combs its hair, dresses it appropriately, and applies make-up on the train. The gentle murmur of a million lungs, together, coughing, spluttering, sighing life into a new day. Light-switches wink like binary- on/off on/off on/off. Open the front door. Shut it behind you. Don’t look up. Don’t mind the gap. If time heals, blindness procures the wound. Tapping away at phones and globes, 56 9 a.m. Charing Cross Roadeach of us, marooned. “LISTEN, I BEG YOU” CRIED THE SAVAGE, “LEND ME YOUR EARS”

MORNING IN THE CITY SHOW CASE

BY WILL DE VILLIERS

57 LITERATURE THE PATHETIC APOCALYPSE LUCY FEIBUSCH CONSIDERS THE CLIMATE OF DYSTOPIA.

‘Skies are blue inside of you, / The weath- thoroughly bad climate’. Any London- er’s always fine’ croons London’s only ra- er (read: cold, wet urban dweller) ap- dio station on repeat. The year is 682 A.F. preciates Huxley’s cruel contrariness. (2540A.D.), and it’s a brave new world. Aldous Huxley’s classic dystopian nov- In 2002, fellow dystopian author J.G. el depicts a totalitarian London where- Ballard wrote that Huxley was ‘uncannily in everything is regulated: from who is prophetic’. So here’s to eternal sunshine having sex with whom, to how its citizens by 2540AD – hand in hand with eternal perceive the weather. However, social, emotional and intellectual sterility. Brave New World admits the physi- However, in an interview four years lat- cal limitations of controlling nature. It er, Ballard champions a different vision: supersedes the need to command the ‘I think of myself as a kind of weather weather by disciplining the charac- forecaster. I see stormy weather ahead’. 58 ters’ internal climates with a cocktail This quotation is deceptively optimistic. of drugs, and the annoying ditty above. The rules of pathetic fallacy dictate that if the weather is good, nothing bad is go- London’s brave new inhabitants are ing to happen. However, without adver- regulated by soma, ‘the perfect drug’. sity there is no need for resolution – and Soma is euphoria encapsulated in a pill: thus dystopia endures, as in Brave New utopia realised. Lenina, the female protag- World. A storm, then, is the necessary onist, and Henry, her sometime-sex-bud- symbolic weather for demonstrative, dy, trip spectacularly on soma early in the emotional release. The storm that closes novel: ‘They were inside, here and now Kurt Vonnegut’s 1963 apocalyp- – safely inside with the fine weather, the tic novel Cat’s Cradle is described as perennially blue sky…’. In other words, having ‘the stability of a wildly dy- the novel’s World State mechanism for namic sort’. It occurs a result of man’s control is pathetic fallacy. Utopia – it attempt to manipulate nature – specif- turns out – is a perpetually sunny London. ically mud – in an Icarian style defeat.

The only incidents of bad weather in Apocalyptic storms have long been a pow- Brave New World are fleeting and, for the erful literary trope symbolic of man’s folly. majority, fanciful. Whilst sitting in the Think of the ‘all-shaking thunder,’ that King Controller’s study in Huxley’s central Lear orders to ‘smite flat the thick rotundi- London, the token alpha-male charac- ty o’ th’ world’. Lear, having exiled his daugh- ter, Helmholtz, ponders: ‘I should like a ter Cordelia, endures a climactic tempest “LISTEN, I BEG YOU” CRIED THE SAVAGE, “LEND ME YOUR EARS” THE PATHETIC APOCALYPSE

in the heart of the play and challenges acter. By finding a way to exist outside the it to end him and humankind, inciting limitations of nature – cloning instead of sympathy from the audience. Therefore, sexual reproduction, soma instead of rain, Ballard’s storm may give hope of clem- and synthetic food instead of natural pro- ency to an increasingly sinful mankind. duce – humanity simultaneously becomes extinct, giving way to this new, sterile race. Brave New World’s protagonist, John the Savage, is symbolic of contemporary hu- Thankfully, Huxley’s vision has not yet ar- manity. At the end of the novel the Savage rived, and for humanity’s sake we should quietly commits suicide – a micro-apoc- hope Ballard’s stormy forecast is accu- alypse, the end of man as we know him. rate. As the world becomes increasingly Shortly before the close of his life, the technological, man pushes the bounda- Savage uses Shakespeare to challenge the ries of the human condition. Humanity World State Controller on the subject of relies on bad weather for variety, and to 59 London’s soma-pleasure-sunshine cul- ground our expanding cumulative ego. ture. Referring to the blinding of Glouces- Ultimately, there is one thing we can be ter in King Lear, he argues that if one in- sure of: it will rain on Judgement Day. dulges in immoral pleasure ‘the dark and vicious place [will] cost him his eyes’. The Controller replies that ‘providence takes its cue from men’; therefore, because in 682 A.F. promiscuity is encouraged, one can indulge in infinite pleasures without repercussions. The storm will never come.

Then, perhaps we can read Brave New World as a post-apocalyptic novel. In H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine (1895), the nov- el’s Time Traveller experiences a dormant world: ‘the sun, red and very large, halted motionless upon the horizon’. The earth no longer rotates – it is ‘all bloody under the eternal sunset’. In Brave New World the sun similarly seems to stand still, as a con- sistent force inside each brave new char- After contemporary performances of renais- bers moving forward and his rook sance tragedies, the audience would be dissolving. treated to some lighthearted music to rouse He laughs and flips her over onto her back. ‘Ex- them back to the everyday world of cuse me?’ happiness. And, after watching a harrowing She knows his eyebrows are raised in the dark film or one with a particularly powerful and she smiles. She starts to tell him villain, it is comforting to look them up online about her dream, how everything was a game and see them standing dolled up on a of chess, and how she couldn’t quite work catwalk somewhere or read about their fame out what connected the dream to the move- and fortune. The illusion has to be dispelled ments in bed. But he rolls on his back and if we want to sleep afterwards. continues to laugh. She can hear him shaking Afterwards, the girl and the boy lie side-by-side his head slowly left and right on the on the bed, occasionally making pillow. comments about the film that trail off after ‘So strange. I think the same happened to me. some superlative and are met with nods of When I lay down before I think I was agreement from the other. By the time they do gone for a while.’ it they can barely keep their eyes open. ‘The same? A chess game?’ They think about each other at the start, of ‘No. I didn’t want to say anything because I im- course, when the light is on and they can see agined you as that woman, you know?’ everything. But soon, lying there in the dark, ‘Woman? No.’ She wonders if his eyes are open moving little and saying less, their thoughts and if he is trying to make her out in swim back to what they have seen. He lies on the dark, or if his eyes are closed and he is top and buries his head in the pillow. He thinking about the dream. ‘Which woman?’ does not want to move it. With his eyes nose ‘The one in the film, you know? I can’t remem- and mouth smothered he begins to feel ber the name. Tall, quite pretty.’ everything she does (which is not much) and to When she doesn’t reply he gets up and fumbles 60 picture it in his mind. And there it merges for the light-switch. He yawns and with the film. makes for the toilet. She wants to tell him about His back has become a chessboard, she realis- taking his rook. She had been winning, es. Every act that involves pressure in she is sure of it. She wonders how the game some way becomes a move. When she kisses would have ended if she hadn’t said him she does not see her tongue or his anything. She curls up again. When he comes mouth in her mind. She looks out from the eyes back from the toilet he thinks she is asleep, of a chess piece as it moves to a new but she cannot sleep. She is trying too hard to square. As she moves it. She has forgotten her see the checkmate. Or to remember it. limbs, left them in the other world. They A few weeks later they are drinking with have stilled but not stopped. She curls herself friends and the boy says, ‘It was so funny,’ onto her side and buries her face in and tells the friends about how the girl had a pillow. They lie there, smothered. Now nothing dream that she was playing chess while will rouse her. It is only after she has everything happened. One of the friends jokes forgotten him for a few minutes, and he her, about how the boy clearly wasn’t doing that her body jerks back into consciousness. something right if the girl was asleep. How With something like guiltiness she feels that bored she must have been! Chess: of all the she must articulate what she has been things to dream of! Another friend laughs and seeing. Maybe he can read her thoughts, after points out that it was ‘a bit dark’ that she all. was asleep. The girl smiles and says it was okay, ‘Knight to G6.’ he was asleep too. The friends laugh It is the last thing she can remember from the and ask the boy to share his dream. The boy be- dream. It was her move. She had taken gins to think again of the woman in the his rook. Something had happened at that mo- film. It is okay, she thinks, because in the dream ment. Perhaps she squeezed his leg or kissed I could move. In the dream, I was his neck. She can’t remember. But she remem- winning. “LISTEN, I BEG YOU” CRIED THE SAVAGE, “LEND ME YOUR EARS” AFTERWARDS BY OSKAR GORDON

SHOW CASE

61

BY NATHALIE HOLLIS ALICE OUR TEAM CO-FOUNDERS

LUCY FEIBUSCH JESSICA SAMMONDS PRESIDENT & SENIOR EDITOR EDITOR-IN-CHIEF & TREASURER OUR JOURNAL TEAM

62 HANNAH BEER EDIE JEFFERYS HOLLY DOVEY-HUDSON CO-EDITOR CO-EDITOR SUB-EDITOR

OUR SHOWCASE TEAM

JOE JACKSON ANISHA MÜLLER READ EDITOR WATCH EDITOR

NELL NICHOLAS ANJELICA BARBE LOOK EDITOR LISTEN EDITOR “LISTEN, I BEG YOU” CRIED THE SAVAGE, “LEND ME YOUR EARS”

OUR LONDON TEAM

SOPHIE MEADOWS STEVEN DALY JAN KOBAL THEATRE EDITOR ART EDITOR MUSIC EDITOR

GEORGE NOTT ISSY BROOKS-WARD ALASTAIR CURTIS FILM EDITOR LITERATURE EDITOR FILM SUB-EDITOR 63

OUR DESIGN TEAM

REBECCA BAINBRIDGE MARINA SCHOLTZ THEATRE SUB-EDITOR ART SUB-EDITOR

EVE NIGHTINGALE

LAURIE CHEN LAUREN BOWES MUSIC SUB-EDITOR LITERATURE SUB-EDITOR

CHLOE WINSTANLEY 64

BY FREEBURY WILLIAMS