ROUX - Issue 3, Feb 2023

Repro Team, Espace Cultures, Anouk Wies, Karin Langumier, Bianca Pirelli, Rotondes, the lovely people of Student Lounge Belval and all children of SAUL, Dalmat CoffeeHouse, Julie Toussaint, and LLC

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Cover hand-drawn by: José Luis Fernandes Maia

Collages on page 16 by: Kristina Shatokhina, from royalty-free content

Comics on page 18 by: Sof

Photos and text on pages 28 and 29 by: Liza Statsenko

©ROUX Prudent Vaseline

All nights severed

Being a document is not easy – it comes with responsibilities. The text needs to extend its formal boundaries and include within itself its environment, its context, its synchronous reference frames. Zeitgeist, after all, is only interpretable as juxtaposed to its hosting time.

A timestamp, that is what a document needs; that is what differentiates it from a personal note, or a user manual for a washing machine. A timestamp is not only justified; it is downright a necessary feature of any imprint of human (co)existence.

A noteworthy timestamp: 14th February 1990. This is when the Voyager 1 space probe took one last photo of planet Earth, before leaving our solar system. The probe turned around, and took the photo from a distance of 6,055 million kilometres.

I advise you to look up the photo, named Pale Blue Dot. I also advise you to check out on youtube what Carl Sagan, the man responsible for turning Voyager 1 had to say about that pale blue dot. I actually downright urge you to do that.

And then, check out the date to the left of this text: 20th February 2023. That’s today. And now you can connect… well… the dots. Fitting.

by Zoltan Tajti

STUDENT DELEGATION

–who are they, what they do

To kick off the new year’s publication of ROUX I thought it might be interesting to take a deep dive into one of the more important aspects of student life - the student delegation. For those of you who weren’t aware, the student delegation elections took place late October last year, for those of you who were aware –congratulations! You lucky few have decided the fate of student interactions with the university administration for the coming year. How few you ask? Well, all in all the number of votes cast totalled just 829. And of those just under 400 went to secure the positions of our current team of delegates.

Meaning of the roughly 7,000 students enrolled at the University, 12.5% voted, and under 6% are actually represented by a candidate they voted for. A shining example of democratic processes in action in the heart of Europe to be sure! I approached the student delegation for comment on this and many other matters besides, during an interview on the 25th of November, so things may have changed for the better since then:

Firstly, to give the delegates their due they were more than aware of the lack of interest and engagement from students in the elections and assured me that addressing this was one of their priorities going forwards; citing both the relative newness of the organisation (which was brought into being in 2019 with this being the third team to take up positions), as well as some level of political apathy on the part of students – a demographic of which I’m sure we can all agree rarely talk about politics. Which, when considering that the student delegation does not consider themselves a political entity, seemed rather by the by.

DELEGATION

sideration or not. However, on the board of governors this is another story. Only the president of the delegation is in attendance, and they get one vote out of the total thirteen. Which can definitely tip the balance but is nowhere near enough to push an agenda. Especially when you consider that eleven of the thirteen board members are nominated by the ministry of education and presumably align on many issues.

In terms of previous student delegations and their achievements during their terms I didn’t find out too much, only Max Bintener (presidentofthestudentdelegation) had been involved in the previous delegation and even then only for six months. However, there were three things pointed out to me: policies surrounding online examinations due to Covid; the housing petition currently being put forward to the Luxembourgish government; and ensuring that the student delegates were compensated for their work. I won’t talk too much about the first of these three achievements as I still don’t fully understand the ins and outs of the data protection concerns surrounding online examinations but nonetheless it seems a worthwhile achievement.

As for the housing petition, obviously this is a large concern for students currently studying and living in Luxembourg and I was assured many times that (other than visibility) this was the delegation’s top priority. Unfortunately since the interview with the student delegates the petition failed to reach the required 4,500 signatures needed to be put before parliament. Furthermore, the previous delegates had blocked several motions surrounding the upcoming BA in Nursing in order to try and force the university to focus on the housing issue. Although, with the construc-tion on the Biotech building having just begun, it makes you wonder how successful this move actually was.

As for the final, telling, and perhaps most successful motion from previous years. The student delegates were wholly successful in

securing their own pay. As of now they receive a 20 hour a month contract for the work they do, and termly tuition fee waivers of up to €400, not bad for a handful of meetings a year and listening to the few students who can find them! Which coupled with one of the delegates’ candid remark about how easy it was to get elected due to the lack of voters and active campaigning, make for an interesting picture. Although it must be said that I personally am in full support of students being adequately compensated for the work they do, the job of a student delegate is an important one. Furthermore, it would be unfair to level this criticism at the current student delegation who did not make this decision.

Concerning our current delegates then, their proposals for the coming year do go beyond just the housing issues and visibility, with sustainability on campus, putting together an ethics committee and diversifying the amount of student clubs and associations present on campus being just a few of the things they are purportedly setting out to do. That being said, at the time of the interview, a full three weeks after the election, the delegates I spoke to had dealt with the concerns of a whopping two students and had had no meetings with the council or board of directors.

But it is still early days, and with the housing petition gaining some steam, who knows, maybe when we all come back to campus next year the student delegation’s plans for more visibility on campus might start to take shape. With them becoming a genuine force for change on campus and mouthpiece for the student voice.

But I for one, will not be holding my breath until then.

by Kieran Salt

What is it like to study abroad?

By Eleni Mouzakiti

For many of us, studying at this University is not only a choice for our education but also a life choice. The choice to move to a different country and start a new path. A new degree, a new group of friends and a new life. For most, it starts off in front of a computer or in a discussion with friends. The idea gets created. To go abroad, to start a new life, to embark on an adventure like never before.

The process often seems endless. The possibilities many. But out of every one of them one stands out for one reason or the another. For me and for you dear reader that choice ended up to be Luxembourg, a small country in the middle of Europe, and this University. And then a new process starts. To find a room, to make plans to prepare for your new life here and your dream fills with all these matters that should be taken care of and this often wor ries you. But before you know it, you find yourself in a plane and realization hits you. You’re doing it. Every effort, every complication, every step along the way led you here. To a new country, a new start, a new beginning.

You land in a foreign place full of unknown things and opportunities. Eager to get to know the life here, the people, to learn new things, to delve into new experiences. So excited but also a little afraid. The dreams, the goals and the possibilities of a new life and how it may unfold for you in a new and, until now, undiscovered place can seem very exciting.But for everything new and unknown a little fear exists inside you. At first, you will have to learn to spend time on your own and enjoy your own company. To find new favourite activities and places. To be brave and try new things. To take the first step and approach people and make new friends and form new relationships. And then, you will be able to make new friends and create new habits.

Create new bonds and friend groups with people from around the world that you never thought you would be able to meet before. You see your dreams and goals coming true in every aspect. You study, you learn, you discover and you get excited to achieve even more. However, there will also be the times that you will be homesick. The times that you will find yourself among crowds that speak another language. The times that you will miss the simplicity of home, the ease of having access to everything you may need without having to think about new rules, new customs, language barriers and different people. The times you will miss your family, your friends, your favourite places and all the things you used to enjoy back in your country.

But in the end you will realize how worth it it will be! How proud you will be of yourself by the end of this adventure for all you achieved on your own. For all the studying, all the people, all the travelling, all the experiences and even all the problems you had to face along the way. The problems that made you stronger and pushed you to discover your new limits and strengths. So in the future you can always look back on this time of your life and be able to smile and be happy that you took that step and had the courage to leave home and start a new adventure abroad on your own.

TOP 5 HABITS OF SUCCESSFUL

With a new year now well underway, the exam period here at the University of Luxembourg wrapped up, and most resolutions now thoroughly abandoned, it seems like a good moment to look into what makes a student successful. To do so is not merely to look at scores, however; as Aristotle said, excellence is a habit, not a singular result. Therefore, it is the habits we must look at to see what is really necessary for success.

1.Leaving work for the last minute

Whomst among us hasn’t looked up at the time or date, after a nice lie in and a lazy afternoon, only to realise that it is 4pm the day before an essay deadline – for which you have naturally done not so much as the preparatory reading – only to then plant ourselves in our seat and churn out two or three thousand words on the topic just in time to send it to the professor at 11:59? Certainly, no student who would admit to having failed in such a situation could ever be a successful one; it therefore follows that doing so is the mark of a successful student. QED.

2.Writing under the influence

Though some institutions of higher learning prefer their students to turn in a well structured essay, rigorous and regimented as a rifle battalion, they have also been known to accept essays that are essentially streams of the student’s consciousness. That stream can sometimes find itself dammed up, however, and so the odd bit of hard liquor can be quite the convenient bouncing bomb to drop on your brain if struggling with a topic. At the very least, you will think your writing is improving, and is that not almost as good? Any student who cannot earn a good grade with such a process clearly doesn’t have what it takes to be successful.

SUCCESSFUL STUDENTS

3. Skipping classes

On the one hand, the opportunity to study at university is an invaluable one, one that has the opportunity to impact the shape of the rest of your life, and a big part of that is the transmission of knowledge from our erstwhile professors over the course of classes, seminars, and such. On the other hand, getting out of bed in the morning is hard, and sleep is also very important for you, so could you really be blamed for not showing up to classes – including afternoon ones? Any student with the makings of greatness should be able to catch up on their own time, or maybe even bring forth ideas to outclass their teachers as though birthing Athena, no classes required.

4. Not doing the reading

It has been said that “whoever cannot draw upon 3000 years of history is living hand to mouth”. No doubt, the person who said this had also many times in their life heard the saying “shut it, nerd”. With so many ways to enjoy life – the parties, the romance, the Netflix binges accompanied by equally extravagant binges of Ben and Jerry’s – who wants to sit around and read all day? Especially books that don’t even have a good action scene, or unnecessarily graphic descriptions of unreasonably attractive people having sex? Sure, some students who try this might fail, but the same is true of university generally; truly, success with this approach is what separates the wheat from the chaff.

5. Not sleeping

Many scientists say that sleeping is crucial to your ability to learn and function. On the other hand, you can only really do anything if you’re awake; it therefore follows that sleep is for the lazy – and since a lazy student could not possibly be a successful one, it is all but self evident that a student who does not sleep is a successful one, and indeed that the less a student sleeps the more successful they are. Some useful tips for avoiding sleep are: playing loud music long into the night – or alternatively having neighbours who do –, drinking caffeinated drinks round the clock, and if you’re really dedicated there are pharmaceuticals (and also less refined products) which can help.

So there you have it: a fool-proof list of habits and behaviours that will help you be a successful student. Let it never be said that we at Roux do not care about the academic performance of our readers.

by Jack Moller

Two trillion years after the big bang, the universe is progressing toward its inevitable end. The heat death has signalled its beginning and with it, the end of all that ever was. The last new star has been born about one billion years ago. Any new space explorer would find the irreversible truth that the universe has already reached a homogeneous end. The only remaining sources of light and heat are the long-lived dwarf stars scattered along the once-luminous arms of the former Milky Way. Most of the Galaxy has long been absorbed by billions of black holes – the last and only true rulers of the universe.

Saturnus

by Zornitsa Doleva

A single human colony, the last of its kind has established a final home - a small space station orbiting a brown dwarf named Saturnus, located in the constellation Capricornus about 140.2 light years from the once lively cradle of human civilization the mother-planet Earth. Now long since swallowed by its dead Sun.

The station is home to about 500,000 earth descendants, unrecognizable to their once proud, free ancestors. Increased cases of genetic mutation, caused by the star’s heavy radiation prevent normal reproduction for the population. There could be no more than five more human generations. Thereafter the great people of Earth, alongside the remnants of their civilisation will become nothing but debris drifting across the black expanses of the Universe.

During the end times, it is like humanity and the universe are dying together. Unlike the prolonged, black time of the space ages, however, a human’s death is quick. Their deaths have always been quick, ever since the time of the Earth.

If you ask the people on the station, they will tell you that they are the last living creatures. No one can confirm if this is true – the light from the nearest star is so faded and distant, any story it might tell is several million years old. The few visible stars are all that is left of the observable cosmos, humanity’s entire knowledge horizon. The rest of the universe has either died out long ago or has drifted so far away that it can no longer be detected.

The days around Saturnus are short. At sunrise, thousands of grey-green human faces can be seen lined up around the Station’s plasma windows to soak up the faint light of their adopted sun. The toxic light is as vital as it is dangerous. A symbolic paradox, analogous to humanity’s relationship to so many things dangerous and deadly.

At night an endless horizon of darkness is revealed, and the photons of the last stars slowly count the moments of the last millennia of the universe’s life.

To the people on the station, this universe seems cold and foreign. Darkness stretches trillions and trillions of light years. The story of a once bright star-studded galaxy is an ancient legend to them. Nobody remembers the earth and the Sun is a myth from a lost time, akin to a distant memory of a merciful God who once created man because he loved him.

During this sunrise, two thin silhouettes bathed in the rays of Saturnus can be seen holding hands in a small cabin on the south side of the station. A man and a woman. They look at the pale light with eyes missing any pigmentation. The man’s hand is warm and moist. A memory of a book read long ago comes to the woman’s mind. A book about marshes and the soft moss that once covered them. Small ecosystems harbouring millions of microorganisms. The notion of a place so full of life and energy seems to her as beautiful and mystical as it is foreign. They stare into the cosmic horizon; Saturnus rising each short day and slowly gliding across the artificial sky – a cosmic clock counting the time until everything dissolves into a homogenous mixture of nothingness.

At the Station, hope is a bygone term – used only to refer to the past – it describes events from the mythical history of man. Glorious tales about discovery in the search for a new home for humanity. Saturnus’ people live day by day. Immersed in the darkness of the last aeon, happiness is understood as whatever is in the present. Every dim sunrise, every pale remnant of stardust, and every voice of childish laughter echoing off the walls of the station is a testament that they are still here and that the present is the only time that matters. The only one that has ever mattered.

At times like these one could almost wonder why the children laugh. Don’t they know that the world is over?

“How heavy is the fate of the first eye to ever gaze upon the world?” She whispers, looking at their intertwined hands, “You know, there was once a wise man who claimed that things only made sense if they happened for the eyes of conscious beings?” she raises her voice and turns her gaze from the clasped hands to the eyes facing the window. “To be responsible for our own meaning? What a curse!”

His eyes turn to her. The red sunrise has enveloped her face in pale light, and he feels a sweet heaviness in the depths of his chest. The realization that she is the last human being who would ever truly know him dawns on him. It seems to him that somewhere in the vast infinity of space, contrary to everything he had known about entropy, a new star is born, the first in a trillion years of darkness. “And what luck that, at least for a moment in the life of the universe, it so happened that two pairs of eyes met and looked at each other?”

Saturnus’ weak light struggles to illuminate the face of the man facing her. She lifts his hand and places dry lips on his fingers.

don’t they know the world is over?

His body turns to her and in their clasped hands she feels the life of the marshes as if she is stepping through them. A thought crosses her mind. Don’t the children laugh because happiness is what is found in the very mystery of existence? Isn’t this what should be cherished regardless of all the silence that lies ahead?

“Meaning is what the eye finds meaningful.” He whispers quietly. “The gaze finds nourishment in beauty even at the edge of the abyss.” His nose casts a small shadow on his smile. “What a great miracle to have eyes to see the end with”.

A night lasts several hundred human breaths.

What a great miracle to have eyes to see the end with...

S P HY N X

it’s me your green-eyed daughter who dwells in the lake’s darkest waters whose caress cuts their skin wide open who sharpens your sword for the slaughter

it’s me your green-eyed daughter watch my dance when the night gets hot when I swallow the moon wicked serpent rests between my thighs Holy Altar in my lines, and my Sigh is Divine

yes it’s me your green-eyed daughter in my mouth find Eternity rotten noble maid of thy days hungry ghost of thy nights who guards mysteries they have forgotten

O Dear Father

I prepared the horse and the saddle kiss thy child ere you go for a battle but leave her home

for her Fury is a dangerous fruit in cruel passion she’d take poisoned arrows you shoot stab them into her heart she yet not knoweth the truth: how immortal is the soul of the green-eyed daughter

Shatokhina

poems by Kristina

surely, you’d think there must be a limit a point, where it doesn’t hurt as much healed by time healed by kindness

and there are hours and days when the ground does an amazing job of not slipping from under my feet and I hear children laughing and feel your arms around me and ceiling stops moving at last and I fall asleep and don’t dream

and I think: I’m getting there I’m getting there soon until I don’t and children start crying and screaming have you seen their tiny rotting bodies spread on the ground of our garden? their small pale limbs torn off tortured in a pit, where a swimming pool used to be so I open my eyes

ceiling is moving in time

I begin again

Little Wounds

collages by Kristina Shatokhina

survivor syndrome is also known as a survivour’s guilt (noun Psychiatry) – a characteristic group of symptoms, including recurrent images of death, depression, persistent anxiety, and emotional numbness, occurring in survivors of disaster.

Nietzsche’s Eternal Recurrence == !Time

Premises:

A: Recurrence is eternal, i.e. infinite in at least how time progresses.

B: One relives qualitatively the same life every time he lives.

C: One can have retrospective memories of traumatic events of his previous life.

D: One can have prospective memories of traumatic events of his next life.

Deductions:

1 If (A, B, C) { the infiniteness of recurrences is finite both ways;

}

#There can be no initial life if that life has to be qualitatively identical to every other life, and #that initial life cannot contain a memory referring to an event in a previous life, because if a #life is initial, there can be no lives before it.

2 If (A, B, D) { there is no difference between retrospective and prospective memories; }

#If every life one lives is exactly the same as a previous one, then the event of having a #prospective memory about a life after is an event that has already occurred in a life #before. Also, if the event the memory is about is bound to happen in a life to come — a life #identical to the one one lives in the present — that event is bound to happen in this life as #well.

Proposition: If (1, 2) { !time; }

#In case there is no first and last life — the succession of lives are infinite both ways — the #succession of life must be and endless loop. If that is true, lives do not unfold on a linear #timeline. If that is true, a life’s events also do not unfold on a linear timeline. If that is true, #there is no past, present and future. #Two things stem from this: there are no events that happened before and after the other, #and there are no lives that happened after the other. In such a case there is no causality, #since events don’t occur in linear succession; they occur without time differences, all at #the same time. Thus, the infinite loop of time along which the events occur is one point #(since there are no preceding and succeeding points).

#A point does not have dimensions, no measures. If time is but a point, then time does not #exist. Zoltan Tajti.

Sinner Get Ready

Review of the album by Lingua Ignota by Zornitsa Doleva

Sinner Get Ready is the latest album by musician, composer, and multi-instrumentalist lingua Ignota (aka Kristin Hayter). It was released in August of 2021 to praise from critics and fans alike. With Hayter’s experience in the neoclassical, industrial, and even noise and extreme metal genres, her music is rich with references and compositional variety. She is known for exploring very intense, emotionally heavy topics which dig deep, both sonically, and lyrically. This makes her a uniquely provoking musician with an impressive arsenal of complex, haunting, and inflaming pieces.

Sinner Get Ready is a darkwave, neoclassical, avant-garde musical project. Similar to her previously released work, the music deals with themes of loneliness, pain, betrayal, abuse, and the exploration of faith. In this latest release, however, she uses a much less aggressive approach in dealing with the subject matter and is heavily inspired by Appalachian hymns and church music.

Although the album does not have a narrative structure, one could still read it as a conceptual piece. The concept manifests in an emotional, even spiritual journey through the songs which guides the listener

from feelings of rage, hopelessness, despair, and loneliness to acceptance, peace, safety, and even salvation. This emotional pilgrimage where the suffering is understood as con stitutive to the final emotional culmi nation of spiritual growth is apparent from the very first listen, though the details of the work’s thematic depth could be felt to shift and change with subsequent listenings.

The opening track brings the listener to a fluctuating atmosphere of grandiosity and unease achieved by an alteration of beautiful hymnic harmonies and harsh noisy sequences brought about by the mixing of singing, piano melodies, and sampling. The protagonist of the piece is both impersonating a relentless, incessant deity and an ecstatic praying devotee. The harsh smashing of the piano keys, the noise-inspired shreds, wails, and beautiful angelic vocals followed by a sample of a man reminiscing about his late mother’s singing in church is a really fitting introduction to the album’s thematic universe and atmosphere.

A person's relationship to the divine in times of struggle and hardship has been a subject of lengthy exploration in works of art and literature for centuries. Looking for meaning in the face of suffering

is a natural response for any sensitive but also rational soul. Our natural desire for justice and purpose oftentimes leads us to ask the sky questions we cannot find answers to on earth. Why did this painful thing happen to me? Why am I suffering when the one who harmed me is not? What is the purpose of my pain? And ultimately what does this mean for my existence in this world and my purpose as a person? The attempt to answer these questions is present in all of the album’s compositions in one form or another. In “MANY HANDS” and in “REPENT NOW CONFESS NOW” the pain is understood as a divine punishment. The same pain is seen as meaningful and even necessary for a deeper healing and salvation in “PERPETUAL FLAME OF CENTRALIA” and “THE SOLITARY BRETHREN OF EPHRATA”

The idea that the destructive power of suffering is hope-destroying, on the one hand, and that the same suffering is inherently meaningful, needed, and even sacred on the other, seem to battle for dominance throughout the album. Another layer to this is that pain is seen both as inevitable, cosmic, and divine, but also as intimate, private, and even isolating.

Hayter has been very vocal about her experience with domestic emotional and physical abuse. This context illuminates the deeper meaning behind some of the pieces. A survivor’s pain could be redeemed through revenge, which is understood as divine intervention in "I WHO BEND THE TALL GRASSES”. The monological structure of the song where the protagonist is begging a silent deity for retribution creates an atmosphere of desperation and profound anger in the face of unjust suffering. Further in the album this pain is finally seen as a moment of a spiritual journey. A martyr’s path through which one is ultimately redeemed. Forgiveness not for the abuser, but for oneself, as seen in “THE SACRED LINAMENT OF JUDGMENT”.

Ultimately, one person is not enough to bear all the pain. And even though we cannot carry the burden alone and trust seems impossible, there is still hope. This is the conclusion Hayter comes to in "MAN IS LIKE A SPRING FLOWER”. Affirmations of what man truly is are continuously repeated throughout the song, but once examined within the context of the full album they seem to ask genuine questions about human nature and what it truly means to suffer. Is the heart of man really “Unbearable to hold”? Is love really not enough?

Lingua Ignota is a master of haunting, complex, and beautifully profound compositions. The pristine production of the album in addition to Hayter’s proficiency in all the instruments used contributes to creating a musical atmosphere that is all-consuming and immersive. She has an impressive ability to manifest and materialize the very depths of the human soul, achieving an emotional complexity in her pieces that are hard to compare. The dichotomy between the personal and the divine is reflected in the grand melodies and soul-wrenching vocal performances providing an artistic experience that leaves you exposed like an open nerve. A truly transformational work of music.

UN RAVEL 2

Released in 2018 Unravel 2 certainly is not a new game and many may have seen it on shelves or in different stores.

However, I think it would be nice to review a casual game that can be played in two-player couch co-op in a time where the gaming scene may feel overwhelming with so many great names, and big open world games being released.

You play two cute creatures made of yarn that are bound together by a thread. There is not much to be said for the story in this game, there is a backstory, however it plays an insignificant role and offers more of a visual experience in the background of the gameplay.

And the gameplay is where it is at.

A video game review by Jennifer Jacquemin

Unravel 2 is a casual platformer of a simple nature. You have to traverse 2D environments through the use of jumps and of the yarn threads of your creatures. You can switch between the creatures at any point if you are playing the single player mode. But if you are playing with another person then each player controls one of the characters. Having two creatures is also where the gameplay’s intricacies come into play. The creatures can extend their threads of yarn in order to grab onto certain objects or onto the other creature, this can be used to swing over ledges or climb higher. These simple actions get used wonderfully to craft a platforming experience that is at times fast and at other times puzzling, thanks to the simple but engaging level design of this game. The gameplay can be enjoyed in both single and multiplayer mode. However, the game really shines when played with a friend.

Navigating the levels and puzzles together is a fun, albeit sometimes nerve wracking, experience. The game was made with two players in mind, and it shows. Lastly, let us discuss the graphics. The levels are meant to be everyday locations seen through the eyes of two small creatures, like parks, forests, or houses. Therefore, the developers chose to implement a rather realistic art style. The graphics are not all too sharp, even for a 2018 game, with textures feeling a bit muddy when inspected too closely. However, when playing through it, the graphics coupled with some nice particle effects give you a feeling of jumping through the park as a small creature, and thus it serves its purpose.

All in all, Unravel 2 is a good modern platformer that offers an enjoyable casual experience.

While it can be played solo, it is really meant to be played with a friend, as it does make the pacing feel better. As the game’s campaign clocks in at about 6 hours, it is also not too overwhelming to play in couch co-op, making it rather easy to pick up and enjoy. It is however on the expensive side for such a short game, coming in at around 30 euros. However, if this does not stop you and you are searching for a game to play with your partner, friend, or roommate, then definitely try Unravel Two.

Hooked for real, or what

“Hello, mother” – that’s what astronauts say to their spaceships when they wake up in the morning. Right before coffee. Mother is always a machine, man made intelligence with lots of brains, and usually very little heart. Oftentimes, she turns on her children.

We beg: is artificial intelligence something to be feared?

AI is all over. It tells us what to listen to on Spotify, what to watch on youtube, it tells our fridges and TV-s and washing machines what to do, it tells my damn phone which wifi to connect to, in spite of my own intentions. It looks like it has its own mind. It looks like it doesn’t listen. As for me, I only hope I don’t listen to it. Her. Him. Gender much.

by Zoltan Tajti

HELLO MOTHER

We value our freedom, our cultural heritage of power in our will, but we might be delusional. TV commercials fool us, still frames projected in fast succession fool us, tiny shiny dots on flat surfaces fool us. The ego is hard to fight, and it’s a freaking machine that might do it for us, needed or not.

Multiplica Festival — 2402—0503

Digital Arts and Realities // multiplica.lu

Zeros and ones, yes and no, true or false, current or the lack of it; that is the information penetrating the boundaries between man and its tools. Art corresponds: by maintaining the sender-receiver medium, it exchanges perceived free will for results of intelligent design, eaten up by the blind search for aesthetic satisfaction. Or a time to chill. Our ego is once again elevating itself into the stratosphere by unassumingly creating its sweet mirror image.

This February, in a few days actually, Rotondes will host its festival on exploring our relation to digital society through arts, encounters of all types, and human-to-human workshops. Our university – hello, mother – will participate by hosting a workshop with painter Akiko Nakayama.

Akiko depicts the energy of movement through installations, photos, and performances. On 27th February, 16:00-18:00, in the Black Box (MSH) you will have the chance to observe the boundaries of colours wash away and fluctuate, during the creation of an “alive painting.” Sand collected with geologist Natascha Kuhlmann (uni.lu) will be used to create the painting with a camera and a projector.

Join the events to mock, or join to celebrate. Join to investigate, inquire, to judge, to inspire and be inspired. Join them for fun, for meeting humanoids, for sharing emotions, thoughts and experience. Join to belong, and to be outside the bubble. Or… join only for the coffee. I’m sure there will be coffee, too. Mother’ll make sure, I’m positive+

by Zoltan Tajti

To all long-distance commuters!

Hey there! Commuting to the university and back can be boring, but sometimes we can slow down, look around and see the places we pass by every day from a different angle. By noticing small details we can make these journeys less monotonous.

by Liza Statsenko