08 - Design

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The student magazine of Victoria University, Wellington

i design

salient.org.nz

Issue 8 Design

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Salient Vol. 74

contents The Regular Bits Editorial 3 Ngāi Tauira 6

er! n Twitt We’re o agazine! tm @salien

Faces to Deface

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News 8 Week That Wasn't

12

LOL News

13

Overheard @ Vic

13

Notices 43 Letters 44 Puzzles 46 Comics 47

The Features Aesthetics in Design

16

When it's Not So Black and White

19

Brick with Butterfly Wings

22

A Font of Wisdom

24

From Cut-Out to Couture

26

In Good Company

28

The Columns VUWSA President

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VUWSA Exec

5

Politics with Paul

14

Local Politics: Kate Follows Celia

15

Animal of the Week

31

Healthy Minds on Campus

32

Laying Down The Law

33

I Am Offended Because...

34

Peas & Queues

34

Ask Constance

35

Beer Will Be Beer

42

Lovin' From The Oven

42

The Arts Film 36 Music 37 Books 38 Games 39 Visual Arts

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Theatre 41 Like Salient on Facebook! 1525 people can’t be wrong!

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Issue 8 Design

The Team

Editors: Elle Hunt and Uther Dean editor@salient.org.nz Designer: Dan Hutchinson designer@salient.org.nz

Chief Reporter: Natalie Powlesland natalie@salient.org.nz Feature Writer: Selina Powell selina@salient.org.nz Feature Writer: Zoe Reid zoe@salient.org.nz Chief Sub-Editor: Carlo Salizzo carlo@salient.org.nz

editorial

News Editor: Hannah Warren news@salient.org.nz

Online Editor: James Hurndell james@salient.org.nz Arts Editors: Louise Burston and Blair Everson arts@salient.org.nz

Contributors

Hayley Adams, Morgan Ashworth, Auntie Sharon, Jessica-Belle Greer, Sophie Birch, Chris Bishop, Stella Blake-Kelly, Ben Boardman, Seamus Brady, Jennifer Brasch, Barney Chunn, Alex Clark, Michelle Collins, Paul Comrie-Thompson, Constance Cravings, Johnny Crawford, Donnie Cuzens, Martin Doyle, Judah Finnigan, Ally Garrett, Cameron Gilbert, Astrid Gjerde, Adam Goodall, Jason Govenlock, John Gregson, Natalie Harrison, Tegan Howden, Jess Hunt, Hanna Jackson, Russ Kale, Robyn Kenealey, Alice Lawn, Sarita Lewis, Renee Lyons, Brendon Mackenzie, Callum McDougal, Timothy McKenna-Bolton, Shaun McRoberts, Cam Eddie Mitchell, Sam Northcott, Angharad O’Flynn, Kate Pike, Fairooz Samy, Rebecca Soper, AcushlaTara Sutton, Romany Tasker-Poland, Michael Torr, Noelene Vakavivili, Ta’ase Vaoga, Juliette Wanty, Doc Watson, Edward Warren, Orinoco Flo Wilson and Nicola Wood.

Contributor of the week: Sam Northcott. DINOCOP!

About Us

Salient is produced by independent student journalists, employed by, but editorially independent from, the Victoria University of Wellington Students’ Association (VUWSA).

Salient is a member of, syndicated and supported by the Aotearoa Student Press Association (ASPA).

It is printed by APN Print of Tauranga. Opinions expressed are not necessarily representative of those of ASPA, VUWSA, Printcorp or Rodney Hide LOL, but we of Salient are proud of our beliefs and take full responsibility for them.

Contact

VUWSA Student Media Centre Level 3, Student Union Building Victoria University PO Box 600, Wellington Phone: 04 463 6766 Email: editor@salient.org.nz

Advertising

Contact: Howard Pauling Phone: 04 463 6982 Email: sales@vuwsa.org.nz

Other

Subscriptions: Too lazy to walk to uni to pick up a copy of your favourite mag? We can post them out to you for a nominal fee. $40 for Vic student, $55 for everyone else. Please send an email containing your contact details with 'subscription' in the subject line to editor@salient.org.nz This issue is dedicated to all the good sorts that made it to the Salient office on our open day.

Especially those of you that ended up in The Hunter Lounge’s kitchen by mistake.

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13 at to their work. Th d if it sounds ss might not be cla So, if possible, an sh gli En el lev be into, take a your 200— u’d nt yo t even be cohere like something no t rn igh m it ct— perfe Aro. You might lea make paper down at Te imum word limit, interest an as it at tre but meet the min e n’t shov something. Just do sh to Von Zedlitz, that delirious pu ne, go it’s d an x, paper. bo it through a letter is dead to you. t en ’, nm sig as at Say ‘Hipstamatic! forever. Th r he Ut & Elle salient.org.nz

Salient Vol. 74

PREZ COL

president@vuwsa.org.nz vuwsa.org.nz facebook.com/vuwsa

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Seamus Brady

Hey everyone, welcome back.

I hope you have had a great midterm break.

I know I did, but it wasn’t all fun and games—power never sleeps and VUWSA has been hard at work while you deservedly partied all night and slept all day. In between gag-worthy Royal Wedding stories, devouring season two of Gossip Girl, and seeing (and enjoying) Never Say Never 3D, I represented VUWSA at the City Council’s ANZAC Day ceremony and was hard at work with the Education Team as we continue to develop the Student Charter.

Also during the break the Academic Board approved the terms of reference for the Review of Undergraduate Education at Victoria. This is part of the University’s Learning and Teaching Strategy, specifically the objectives that aim to ‘establish a distinctive vision for education and the student experience at Victoria’.

This review, although it sounds kind of boring, is actually really important. It will help shape Victoria’s response to changes in government policy. The review will help Victoria to figure out a way to deal with the constraints that all universities in New Zealand must operate within—including pressures like ‘real value’ funding decreases, the growing emphasis on course completion rates, and global developments in education.

This review will provide a crucial opportunity for Victoria to clarify its vision for education and the advantages it can gain for students studying here.

VUWSA supports this review and its terms of reference. We believe that it will help alleviate some of the confusion students have around programmes or other issues students often face when entering tertiary study. VUWSA hopes that the review will also lead to a better overall educational experience at Victoria. Keep your eyes peeled and your ears cocked for more information on the review and its eventual recommendations.

The Learning and Teaching Strategy wasn’t the only exciting bureaucratic machine to get its wheels turning over in the mid-trimester break. Victoria has also

Feedback you and other students give will directly influence changes the University makes extended the closing date for consultation on the Student Experience Survey so it can get as many responses as possible. If you have completed the survey, you will now go into the draw to win one of ten $100 vicbooks vouchers (Yay! Incentives!). If you have not done so already, I encourage you to take this opportunity to give the University a piece of your mind on what is working well for you and what needs to be improved. There are loads of things we could make better about our study time here at Vic and the feedback you and other students give will directly influence changes the University makes in improving our student experience.

Finally, to ‘James the BA Student’ who wrote to Salient wishing the old Meeting Room Two in the Student Union Building be returned to its former cavernous glory— never say never. It is currently being returned to the pool of bookable student spaces and will be ready as soon as it is cleaned up and given a new paint job. This will hopefully help alleviate the current demand for bookable club spaces, and provide clubs and groups with greater a greater range of venue sizes that suit their needs. And to ‘Ulysses ft. Mista Bear literate of kittens’ who suggested someone needs to give me a hug—I’m not the ‘hugging’ type (you usually have to buy me drinks) but thanks for the thought.

To every other student who didn’t write me a letter, don’t worry, I’m not upset. And welcome back, there’s not much longer left to go. Before you know it, this trimester will be over faster than Rodney Hide’s leadership.

Love you, Seamus Brady

Columns

Issue 8 Design

Welfare Officer Ta’ase Vaoga In third form, my art teacher looked at me in shock when I asked her if I could take her fourth form class. The audacity of me asking her was obviously humorous, so I took Graphic Design instead.

However, I soon found that my calling was music and math (fat lot of good that does me today studying Public Policy). Needless to say, I don’t really know a lot about design. But I feel there is no time like the present to talk design—in particular the re-design and rebuilding of Christchurch. I was down last week for work and saw first-hand the path of destruction left by the September and February earthquakes.

It was hard not to look on both somberly and in awe of the sheer magnitude of destruction. Where buildings had once stood, there was only rubble and flowers laid in tribute to those who had been tragically killed.

Amongst the destruction lies hope. A hope that permeates the hearts, lives, and ideas of those who remain to rebuild their own lives and claim back the city that they once enjoyed. Design, architecture, and aesthetics are all creative mechanisms that can spur vision into life and innovation. For any design, whether it be for your life or the rebuilding of a city, the foundations you lay are important. The blueprint to start you off is imperative to ensure that that any frills you add are for aesthetic pleasure, rather than acting as the substance that holds things together.

University can be the start of a good blueprint for life. It is a time that you can get creative and test your ideas. Write them down. Your hopes and aspirations. It will be worth it, even if you have to re-write and re-design them as you go along.

Amongst some personal things, I hope that the rebuild of Christchurch is reflective of what its residents want, and what is most sustainable for the future in its full design—from engineering and architecture, to aesthetics and landscaping.

Despite the tragedy, it is a rather exciting time for New Zealanders. We have already showcased our comradeship toward Cantabrians; it is now time to showcase our innovation in rebuilding Christchurch.

In the words of Tyler Durden: “Only after disaster can we be resurrected.”

With resurrection comes new hope, new ideas, and a renewing of spirit which I know for certain Cantabrians have in abundance despite the endured disaster. I look forward to seeing the redevelopment of Christchurch and hope that government agenda doesn’t thwart the aspirations of Cantabrians and New Zealanders alike, in the rebuild.

Get creating!

Ta’ase welfare.officer@vuwsa.org.nz

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University can be the start of a good blueprint for life Kinship

at the Margins

A postgraduate symposium

Speakers: Hollie Doar Ryan O’Byrne Dionne Steven Elisabeth Kosnik Stephanie Symington Discussant: Ruth Fitzgerald, Otago

6th May

1.15-6.30pm

WR12203 Stout Centre Seminar Room

Exploring such practices as refugee marriage negotiations, transnational romance, same sex civil unions, and ‘fictive’ relatedness in volunteer work, Kinship at the Margins seeks to reveal the multiple modes of relatedness in contemporary New Zealand society, and to demonstrate their relationship to wider kinship patterns and anthropological theories.

Afternoon tea and wine reception provided.

Register by emailing ryan.obyrne@vuw.ac.nz

For more info see: www.victoria.ac.nz/sacs/about/news-and-events.aspx

salient.org.nz

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Salient Vol. 74

Ngāi Tauira

Kapa Haka 2011 FREE ANONYMOUS SIMPLE TEST FOR HIV & SYPHILIS

20-60mins

complete HIV test

Awhina Centre Level 1, 187 Willis St, WELLINGTON Ph 04 381 6640 for appointment E. contact.awhina@nzaf.org.nz www.nzaf.org.nz

Rāmemene mai ki te marae o Ako Pai! Ka tū tō tātou wānanga tuatahi hei te 7-8 o Mei Kāre he utu heoi kia whakaaro rangatira —ahakoa he iti , he pounamu!

“Ngāi Tauira, kia tahu te ainga ki tā te manawa i kāwata ai” Come one, come all to Ngāi Tauira Kapa Haka wānanga Ngāi Tauira Kapa Haka is starting up again for 2011.

We welcome any tauira who are interested in being involved.

When: 7-8 May Where: Ako Pai Marae, Karori Campus Cost: Koha (e.g. Kai, $$)

See you there!

Please register your interest by sending an email to: smithruth@myvuw.ac.nz or leave your details with either Makere Kupenga or Ruth Smith

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Issue 8 Design

Faces to deface

the designers edition

Dutch Han, Elnt Hule, Harren Wannah and Lerg-Shaw van den Bewis

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Salient Vol. 74

the news

Student Escape Plans Thwarted

You wouldn’t steal a car,

Stella Blake-Kelly

When they weren’t displaying Pokémon, Facebook profile pictures turned black over the university holidays as students rallied against new copyright law

The Government has announced further cost-saving changes to the student loan scheme, setting their sights on those overseas who are failing to repay their loans.

Tertiary Education Minister Steven Joyce has indicated that there will be a push towards the collection of loan repayments in next month’s Budget, which could save several hundred million dollars over four years.

15 per cent of former students have moved overseas and they collectively owe $2 billion; 35,000 of whom are behind on their payments. Targeting them, Joyce has indicated debt collection agencies may soon be seeking out the wayward borrowers.

The Student Loan Scheme Bill, which would give the Inland Revenue Department the right to recall the entire loan and allow them to take defaulters to court, is currently before the house.

A pilot programme in Australia using debt collectors has recovered about $1.5 million so far. Once jurisdiction is given, debt collectors will also be used in the UK. While NZUSA Co-President David Do doesn’t object to requiring students to pay back their loans, he is calling for acknowledgement of how we got into this situation.

“What we need to remember is why some of our best and brightest have gone overseas in the first place. Some were pulled away by higher wages, but many were pushed away by their student debt.”

Further changes signalled by Joyce include reducing the current three-year loan repayment holiday—currently available to those on their OE—to one year, and introducing a four-year freeze on the income threshold for loan repayments.

Mature students’ access to student loans is also under consideration, with Joyce indicating they were looking at restricting those aged 55 and above to borrowing only for course fees and not living costs.

but you’d download one if you could!

Nicola Wood

People who download and share material like music and software risk having their internet connections cut off by the government under the Copyright (Infringing and File Sharing) Act, which was passed under urgency in April.

The law’s stated purpose is to give copyright holders the power to protect their property. It replaces similar legislation introduced by the previous Labour government which was widely criticised for its “guilt upon accusation” approach to account suspension.

Public opposition to the new law has quickly grown, with critics saying it repeats the worst parts of the previous legislation by retaining the provision for account suspension.

A Facebook page formed to oppose it has been “liked” by over 10,000 people in three days, many of whom expressed the opinion that internet access has become such a necessity in day-to-day life that it should be considered a modern human right.

Green MP Gareth Hughes agreed, stating in Parliament that “we should not have a provision in the Bill for account suspension”.

The Green Party’s nine MPs, along with independents Chris Carter and Hone Harawira, were the only members who voted against the Bill which passed by 111 votes to 11.

Labour MPs expressed their “fundamental opposition” to account suspension during the debate but voted for the Bill.

“Our compromise position was to leave it in but require the Minister to put what’s called an Order In Council into effect to switch it on,” explains their Communications and IT Spokesperson Clare Curran.

The Order In Council means that the account suspension clause is ‘frozen’ until the Minister enables it. Critics of the Bill question why the power to cut off internet access is in the Bill if it is not going to be used.

Students spoken to by Salient disagree with the way the government has approached the issue of copyright.

“In its current state the bill is unenforcable. It’s a sad indication of the gulf between government and technical reality. The nature of the bill’s urgent passing and its almost unanimous parliamentary support highlights serious issues with the priorities of the major parties.”

Issue 8 Design

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Bright Future For Vic Students’

Solar House Hannah Warren

Victoria University students have designed and built an entirely solar-powered house to compete in the US Department of Energy Solar Decathlon in Washington DC. The team, made up of Architecture students Ben Jagersma, Anna Farrow, Nick Officer and Eli Nuttall, is the first ever from the Southern Hemisphere to be selected for the competition—one of the most prestigious design competitions in the world.

The team will travel to Washington in October to display their house for ten days alongside 19 others in a temporary ‘solar village’ on the National Mall.

The challenge is to produce a solar-powered house which is cost-effective and energy-efficient, judged through ten contests: architecture, market appeal, engineering, communications, affordability, comfort zone, hot water, appliances, home entertainment and energy balance.

The Victoria team has attracted interest from Meridian Energy, which is now the main sponsor of the project.

"We’re 100 per cent committed to renewables and have demonstrated this with our investments in New Zealand and offshore. With our interest in solar power this project was a natural fit with us," said Meridian’s General Manager (External Relations), Guy Waipara.

“In addition, it’s great for us to be involved in supporting some of New Zealand’s top young talent.”

Officer said the team is thrilled to have energy experts from Meridian helping out with the project.

“Everyone here is very excited to be working with Meridian not least because the company is just as invested in sustainable, renewable energy and building as we are.”

Nick Officer told Stuff.co.nz that they were confident about their chances, but admitted it would be a new concept for the Americans.

"We're trying to find a balance between how Americans love to live—inside with the airconditioning on—and how we live, we open the windows when it's hot.

"It's a 21st century reinterpretation of the Kiwi bach."

The house, now called Meridian First Light house, has been fully constructed and is in place in Frank Kitts Park ready for its official launch and public exhibition from 7 to 24 May.

salient.org.nz

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Salient Vol. 74

‘Bullying Stops Here’: Maybe we Petition to Key will get roads and trains?

Jennifer Brasch

A pink shirt was the outfit of choice for many Victoria University of Wellington students on 14 April 2011 to support Pink Shirt Day’s campaign to stop homophobic bullying.

Natalie Powlesland

Despite being in an era of climate change and rising fuel prices, the Wellington City Council (WCC) has decided to support a $2.4 billion roading upgrade.

In a meeting last month, the council gave its support to the Government’s roading project. This project is designed to improve roading from Levin to Wellington Airport.

Three Vic students took the reins in this years’ campaign to fight for gay rights and fight against homophobia. The team, comprised of Queer Rights Officer Tom Reed, Genevieve Fowler and Joseph Habgood, presented a petition demanding better education and awareness-raising programmes in schools.

They collected approximately 1650 signatures and sent the petition to New Zealand Prime Minister John Key. Genevieve Fowler said the message they are trying to share is one of rights.

“When it comes down to it, gay rights are human rights. And any kind of inequality in society affects everyone.”

The project includes several options for the central city, including duplicate Terrace and Mt Victoria Tunnels and a flyover at the Basin Reserve.

Fowler was pleased that the 15 volunteers were both straight and gay, saying “this was a cause which bought people together from across the board.”

In a massive turnaround, Wellington City Mayor, Celia Wade-Brown, supported the motion despite her preference for public transport.

Pink Shirt Day originated in Canada when David Shepherd, Travis Price and their teenage friends organized a high-school protest to wear pink in sympathy with a Grade 9 boy who was being bullied.

She says she is happy the project now has a clear direction and is pleased it will take a consultative approach.

“I welcome the proposal by the New Zealand Transport Agency for a consultation committee... to ensure the views of all Wellingtonians are heard.”

Mum, what’s a Carrotmob?

Wade-Brown campaigned against roading projects in last year’s election and says she still supports public transport solutions despite the council decision.

Natalie Powlesland

“I remain committed to advancing a light-rail route between the Railway Station and the Airport—public transport has always been my priority.”

Councillor Simon Marsh told Stuff that support for the project does not mean public transport is not an option.

“It doesn't mean that Darth Vader and the Death Star is going to be swooping down destroying cycleways and walkways. It is a broad approach that includes all forms of transport.”

This broad approach includes government funding for a $1 million study to consider options for a high-quality public transport route through the city to the hospital.

Students spoken to by Salient appear to favour public transport as an option.

“How do more roads help reduce carbon emissions?” asks one student.

“Better public transport would be great, although many of the roads into the city need to be improved too,” says another.

First there were angry mobs. Then there was the Mongrel Mob. Now there is Carrotmob.

A ‘carrotmob’ is a consumer power that rewards environmentally responsible businesses with a ‘mob’ of customers. Using the well-known metaphor, the idea is to provide a carrot, rather than a stick, to encourage sustainability.

The idea began in San Francisco and has recently been taken up in Wellington by non-profit group Conscious Consumers.

In a recent bidding war, Memphis Belle Cafe won the pleasure of being ‘mobbed’ by pledging to spend 201% of the takings from the mob to increase the energy efficiency of the cafe.

“The carrotmob gives us a great incentive to make improvements we’ve been looking at since Memphis Belle opened,” said owner Matt Graylee.

Memphis Belle was mobbed on 9 April and received $1396 in takings. The cafe matched this amount, giving them $2792 dedicated to efficiency improvements including a new energysaving coffee machine, replacing two old fridges, and sealing their chilled cabinet.

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Issue 8 Design

From Japan with Love Hannah Warren

Team Victoria

Wins Gold at Uni Games

The students who fronted the fundraising project for the Japanese disaster at Victoria have reported a huge success.

Fails to Qualify for ‘Timely Arrivals’ Medal

Over two weeks they raised a total of $1540.69; sending NZ$1386.69 (JPY90,357) to the Red Cross in Japan and NZ$154 to the Red Cross in Christchurch on April 11— exactly one month after the Japanese earthquake and tsunami.

Victoria students headed north last week to compete in the 2011 Super City University Games, held in Auckland.

Students who contributed to the fundraising were mostly Japanese students on exchange at Victoria from Japanese universities and Kiwi students who are majoring in Japanese. The National Bank also offered support in the form of sausage sizzles.

Aiko Sato, one of the students leading the project, expressed her gratitude to everyone who got involved.

“On behalf of all the students who contributed for fundraising, I would like to report the result and show our application to all Vic students and staff. The support from people in Vic were much appreciated in this tough month for all of us who have whanau back in Japan.

“This extreme disaster is quite shocking experience but we never forget this two weeks of fundraising in New Zealand which is also recovering from the earthquake.

“Thank you very much for all your thoughts and support.”

Engineers revisit childhood, build new friends Astrid Gjerde A group of engineers revisited their childhood and had a go at playing with Lego at university last week.

Engineering students from Victoria and WelTec joined academics and professionals to build and race Lego Mindstorm robots on the evening of Wednesday 27 April in Alan MacDiarmid Building.

Participants had to build the robots from scratch using Lego Mindstorms, a line of robotics and construction toys, and completely programmable sensors and cables.

The event was organised by Wellington engineer Mike Bransfield and Victoria engineering student Danny Tomicek. It involved teams of six randomly selected members working together to create the original robots.

They then raced the robots around a challenging maze created by Victoria lab technicians.

The event was a good opportunity for students to “show what they have got” to professional engineers, said Mr Bransfield.

Hannah Warren

From 26 to 29 April, more than 1100 students from 16 tertiary institutions across Australia and New Zealand battled it out across 20 sports.

The event, which was hosted by Auckland University of Technology (AUT) and Auckland Student Movement at AUT (AuSM), pitted university teams against each other in sports as diverse as karate, waka ama, wheelchair rugby and tennis.

When Salient went to print, Victoria had picked up gold medals for men’s team épee, individual épee, ultimate frisbee and debating; silver medals for individual épee (fencing), men’s foil team (fencing) and table tennis doubles; and bronze medal for cross country. Victoria also came second overall in the rowing.

However, the Victoria team failed to make it to the Games’ opening ceremony, due to serious issues on the roads.

The Ultimate Frisbee team spent an hour in Taupo Hospital with a University of Canterbury student suspected to have meningitis; the basketball team broke down 40 minutes outside of Auckland; the karate team had to divert to pick someone up in Napier; and all the teams had to contend with traffic and icy roads.

Despite this, VUWSA Clubs and Events Manager Melissa Barnard, who has accompanied the Victoria contingent to Auckland, said she was very happy with the teams and their performance.

“It’s going really well. Our teams are competing to an incredibly high level and picking up a lot of medals. We’re in lots of semi-finals, so hopefully we’ll get some more medals tomorrow.”

VUWSA President Seamus Brady said he was justifiably proud of the Victoria team.

“It’s great to see Team Victoria performing so well despite not having home town advantage. We’ve medaled in all one but event [at the time of writing] and all our teams have reached the semi-finals... Team Victoria always puts in a solid effort and I’m sure this year will be be no different.”

The University Games were first hosted in 1902 by the University of Canterbury, and they are now the second largest multi-sports event in New Zealand. salient.org.nz

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Salient Vol. 74

Thirteen Not So Unlucky For Some

Chris Bishop & Michelle Collins

Edward Warren

Even the curse of the unlucky 13 could not stop Victoria University’s domination of the 2011 University Games debating tournament in Auckland last week.

GoldenPalace.com—Catchy, Isn’t It

Leading Vic Debsoc’s charge for the tournament were Udayan Mukherjee and Ella Edginton of Victoria One, and Asher Emanuel and Paul Smith of Victoria Two. Following a Victoria versus Victoria semi-final, Victoria Two beat Auckland Three in the final debate in a 2-5 split decision, leading Victoria to victory for the 13th consecutive year.

Vic also cleaned up in the personal awards, with Emanuel and Smith named as the NZ Universities’ Impromptu Debating team, with Edginton as the first reserve and Mukherjee as the second reserve.

Emanuel won the Dame Cath Tizard Cup as the best speaker of the tournament, and was also named captain of the NZU Team, while Jodie O’Neill of the Victoria Three team received a promising speaker award.

Although Victoria Two and Victoria One dominated the competition, O’Neill and Duncan McLachlan of Victoria Three finished fifth. Victoria Four’s Nick Cross and Aric Shakur finished eighth and Victoria Five’s Cameron Price and Johanna McDavitt finished 12th, both on four wins.

In Vic’s other achievements, adjudicator Stephen Whittington won the Centennial Cup for best adjudicator, while trainees Campbell Herbert, Emma Smith and Olivia Hall were all accredited.

Debsoc President Seb Templeton told Salient, “I’m very pleased—winning 13 years in a row is a great record. I’m very relieved and happy. There has been a lot of hard work from team members and those behind the scenes.”

Below: Seamus brings all the babes to the yard

A woman has been paid $15,199 by Golden Palace Casino to change her full, legal name to GoldenPalace.com. Challenged by her partner to put her naming rights on ebay.com when she told him she thought it might fetch a good price, Terri Illigan was bought out by the bizarre website and is now legally GoldenPalace.com. In the past, the website paid $28,000 for a grilled cheese sandwich purportedly displaying a picture of the Virgin Mary, and paid one Karolyne Smith $15,000 to have the domain name tattooed to her forehead.

Sexy Ladies Wail On Hobos In Florida, a case has gone to court regarding a company SheFights.

Com that pays homeless men $50 USD to let scantily-clad woman beat them down. The videos are then put on the Internet, where you can pay $2.99 USD to watch live streams of the action. The website also advertises similar companies, “Belly Punching Fist Fights at BellyPunishment.com” and “ShePunishes.com—Where Your Pain Is Our Pleasure”.

Steven Seagal Needs to Cool It In March, Steven Seagal of the reality TV show Lawman drove a tank through the walls of Phoenix state resident Jesus Llovera’s house on suspicion of its being used as a base for an illegal cock-fighting ring. Llovera was found to have 115 chickens in his house, but has since been acquitted of any such charges. The only real lead that Segal had was Llovera’s misdemeanour conviction for attending a cockfight in 2010. It appears that Llovera just really likes chickens.

New York Resident a Model Citizen Granted this is an old one, but it’s still good. In 1995, pageant competitor Barbara Ricci was voted Mrs. Congeniality at the Mrs. New York State Pageant, receiving 22 out of 28 votes. However, six months earlier, she’d faced charges in court that alleged she’d tried to run over an 11-year-old neighbour she had beef with. The kid managed to scarper before she was injured, and the jury was unable to achieve the voting majority to convict Ricci.

Weird Mexican Lady Denied Invite In the lead-up to the Royal Wedding, Mexican teenager Estibalis Chavez went on a 16-day hunger strike in an attempt to get an invite to the celebrations. She was denied entry into England based on the fact that she had no safe place to stay in London and not enough money to support herself while she was there, but the teenager was willing to live on the streets even just to get a glimpse of the regal affair.

Goldfish Races Banned In Washington Bar The title says it all really. Animal rights activists took umbrage with the competition, which was happening on a weekly basis in the Harmon Tap Room, located in Tacoma, Washington. The goldfish, bought on the cheap from a local pet store, were guided by patrons wielding squirt bottles, down two-metre troughs. Since the complaint, bar-goers have returned to weekly games of beer-pong.

Issue 8 Design

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y

c Bla Bla Bla

Victoria Rowing

Cleans Up At Awards Ceremony Actual rowing goes reasonably well too Edward Warren The Victoria University Rowing Club has claimed more prizes than ever before at this year’s University Rowing Games, winning Best in Friendship, Most Handsome Boy, ‘Handsiest’ Girl, and Best Time Had Overall.

Victoria also came second overall in the final tally of race points, which “wasn’t too bad either”, according to general consensus.

Vic novice rower Glenn Flanders won the prize for Most Handsome Boy, after beating out some very tough competition from Otago and Auckland, but not really from Lincoln. New Zealand Rowing Selector Donald McDonald said Flanders was guaranteed the title thanks to his “rakish good looks and piercing blue eyes”. Most Handsome Girl went to a very tall and stern-looking rower Eunace Bilge from Otago.

‘Handsiest’ Girl went to Victoria’s Laura Hope after getting “very familiar and, quite frankly, a bit inappropriate” with coaches from Massey Wellington and Auckland University, and a security guard at the Leamington Pub, where the after-party was held on Saturday.

Coach Hhneaughh Peterson spoke briefly with Salient about the team’s success, particularly, one Michael Laramet’s first place in the Best Time Had Overall category.

“It’s been a great weekend for us all but a few individuals shone through, like Mike, who won the award for Best Time Had Overall. He put his heart and soul into running around like a headless chook, getting on the piss, making new friends, and laughing. He really did us proud. Boy, he had a good time.”

The real victory for Victoria, however, came in the form of the prize for Best in Friendship. The award was based on intricate considerations including the number of high-fives per team over the course of the weekend; which team had developed the most in-jokes; which teams were still able to maintain friendly relations even after severely fucking up a number of races; and so on.

Otago was pipped at the post when they lost a number of vital points after a particularly frightening Men’s Tournament rower pulled the arms off a teammate for coming out of time with the rest of the crew.

The victorious Wellington team celebrated their triumph by sitting in ten hours of Easter weekend traffic and talking very loudly over one another for the whole ride home.

Email snippets of life at Vic to overheard@salient.org.nz, or find Overheard @ Vic on Facebook

the week that wasn’t

CRIM 323 lecturer, giving examples of crimes against nature: “Take this tiger penis for your twitchy eye...”

Hayley Adams Student 1: “I’m going to Singapore in the holidays.”

Student 2: “Singapore’s a city, eh?”

Student 1: “Yeah, I think so.”

Hanna Jackson ECON 130 Lecturer: “If you break the law, they’ll send you to the torturer, and your utility will go to minus infinity.”

Acushla-Tara Sutton Student 1: “What happened to my laptop?!”

Student 2: “It dieded.”

Noelene Vakavivili ECLM 211 Lecturer: “I’ve never seen so many spelling mistakes. I think I saw five in one slide!”

Student: “Yeah... probably because I was drunk when I made it.”

Cameron Gilbert PSYC 231 Lecturer: “Play with someone tonight!... I meant it in a nice way!”

Student: “Will that be in the test?”

Lecturer: “No, there will be no interactive questions in the test.”

Rebecca Soper ENGR 101 Study Skills Co-ordinator: “What makes you guys happy? Yell some things out.”

Student: “SODOMY!” Alice Lawn MUSC 166 Lecturer: “If composers wrote things that sounded ‘all right’, where would the world be now?”

Ben Boardman Overheard on the overbridge: “Don’t disturb him, he’s reading erotic poetry.”

Michael Torr Female student: “My stomach is like... having a heart attack.”

Shaun McRoberts One student to another, overheard in a lift: “I think I’ll use a rectal thermometer—something I suffered as a kid, but it goes right up there and is fairly accurate.”

Cam Eddie Mitchell Overheard on the overbridge: “You just want to throw him into a cage and set some lions on him.”

Tegan Howden salient.org.nz

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Salient Vol. 74

Infringing File Sharing or Infringing Democracy?

Paul Comrie-Thomson, that is Over the mid-semester break, news of Dr Brash’s intentions to replace Rodney Hide as leader of the ACT party, and Defence Minister Wayne Mapp’s admission that the SAS had been involved in a mission targeting insurgents responsible for Lieutenant Tim O’Donnell’s death, have been at the forefront of political discussion.

However, the passing of the Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Amendment Bill under urgency at the end of last term raises some significant issues.

Informally dubbed the ‘Skynet Law’—after New Plymouth MP Jonathan Young’s awkward comparison of the Internet to Skynet, the artificial intelligence network in the Terminator movies—the new law imposes a number of measures to deter file-sharing of copy righted materials.

Set to come into force on September 1, the ‘Skynet Law’ sets into place a ‘three-strikes’ regime, using one of the current Government’s two most adored phrases, (the other being ‘step-change’). Copyright owners can inform Internet Service Providers (ISPs) that copyright has been breached, and the ISPs subsequently send warnings out to customers. After three notices without action from the user, a claim can be made to the Copyright Tribunal who has the power to impose a penalty of up to $15,000 on the user.

If, after two years, the Commerce Minister decides that the law is ineffective as it stands, ‘termination’ (a six month suspension), can be initiated through the activation of an Order-In-Council. Under the subsequent tougher regime, cases would be referred to the District Court who could enforce the six-month suspensions.

Interestingly, the ‘Skynet Law’ won broad support across Parliament with only the Greens alongside independents Chris Carter and Hone Harawira voting against the bill. Support came despite general misunderstandings throughout the House, about what file sharing actually entails.

The previous Labour Government has passed similar legislation, but their much-resented ‘Section 92a’ law was repealed by the current National Government following significant protest over the heavy-handedness

and dubious efficacy of the law. Labour MP Clare Curran has insisted that her party’s support comes simply to facilitate a compromise in the replacement legislation that saw the aforementioned Order-In-Council provision included, in the face of the “Government’s bottom line…to have termination in the Bill.”

The ‘Skynet Law’ is admittedly remarkably better than Labour’s previous failure, but whether it is workable remains questionable.

Stuff.co.nz’s Andrea Vance has highlighted a number of issues, concerning the problems surrounding shared Internet accounts, and the fact that in general, people aren’t limited to one Internet connection. “Finding ways of dodging the punishment is not too hard to imagine from someone who has managed to ignore all the warnings and avoid paying a $15,000 fine.”

Furthermore, it’s arguable that with the centrality of the Internet to the functioning of today’s society, termination seems like an extreme punishment for copyright infringement.

The other key issue raised through the passage of the ‘Skynet Law’, goes to process.

Ironically, its passing came on the same day that Labour MP Grant Robertson and right-wing blogger David Farrar united in protest over the Government’s consistent reversion to the use of urgency.

Urgency allows the Government to extend the sitting hours of Parliament in order to see a higher volume of legislation passed, as well as enabling the Government to bypass important parts of the legislative process. While urgency is sometimes warranted, the current National Government is using the measure excessively. In its first two years, 17 laws have been pushed through without public consultation, compared with the four or five bills in each term of the previous Labour government.

Interestingly, the ‘Skynet Law’ was thoroughly analyzed by the Select Committee, but having waited for a second reading since November, the bill was suddenly rushed through the second reading, Committee of the Whole House, and third reading in one sitting, completely undermining what had until then, been the transparent progression of a controversial piece of legislation.

Recognizing the role urgency plays, but concerned with its overuse, Robertson has suggested that a 75 percent vote in Parliament should be required before the Select Committee stage can be missed.

It’s unlikely such a provision will be instituted in the near future however, and no doubt the confidence of the current Government will continue to see these consistent subversions of democratic process.

Columns

Issue 8 Design

BEEf with a Sculpture Kate Pike Photo by Neil Price, WCC I’ve had a beef with Celia and the Wellington City Council lately. They’re all too happy to increase rates to cover the cost of projects the public don’t want; Celia’s come out in favour of this Basin Flyover business; the Central Library will be closing earlier; some councillors don’t appear to respect Celia at all—the list goes on. I also have continual beef with the Rugby World Cup, which I suspect stems from my general dislike of sport.

When the two combine (and a Salient theme of design is added to the mix), you end up with a sculpture that epitomises my beef.

The Council have decided to spend $350,000 on a sculpture for the Rugby World Cup. It will be four to five meters tall, and will doubtless end up on the waterfront. Designed by Weta Workshop, boss Sir Richard Taylor says it shows players jumping in a line out in

“celebration of the pursuit of the ball”.

Also represented: Island Bay, fault lines, two aggressive forces coming together, and individual pursuit.

Personally, I prefer the suggestions of what it better resembles made on a recent Wellingtonista blog post. Favourites include “tourist drawcard, on a par with Dannevirke’s Viking”; “woman-positive depiction of a labia and vaginal opening”; and “a horde of zombies emerging from the earth in order to wreak destruction and consume brains”.

Taylor believes this sculpture to represent Wellington, and the love our city has for rugby. I disagree with both of those statements. As the annual

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Sevens competition is more about the party, and less about the rugby, the only time Wellington as a whole will be focused on the sport is when the World Cup rolls around in September. So, this sculpture will represent Wellington for six weeks—but after that, its tackiness will be a lasting embarrassment. And what if the All Blacks lose? This sculpture could become a constant reminder of an increase in domestic violence. A landmark erected in honour of football— hell, roller derby—would better represent Wellington. I don’t even know the name of the local rugby team.

And it was designed by Weta Workshop. Why is a special effects and props company responsible for this piece of public art? Has the Council heard of the Wellington Sculpture Trust? From the look of their name, I’d say this project would be right up their alley.

Finally, I dislike that the Council is spending so much money on this.

Residential rates have increased yet again—but to fund this? If we must spend on the World Cup, there are alternatives.

Subsiding public transport during the World Cup period, for example, would make for happier tourists, and do more to encourage them to return than a kitsch sculpture on the waterfront. I do not believe that $350,000 worth of sculpture will bring in $350,000 worth of extra tourism spending.

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Salient Vol. 74

Des Aesthetics in

When everything is designed for the consumer, how do we manage to get such ugly things?

Zoe Reid

Why do all of the new cellphones seem to come in a particularly garish pink? Well, it seems obvious the moment you think about it but even the most aesthetic of items, such as a painting, has to conform to some basic principles. Designers have to take a lot into consideration, and are the only ones who can make tough choices between how functional, and how attractive, an item is.

When designing, many different issues are taken into consideration, depending on why the product is being designed, who it is for, even the structure of the organisation designing it. Cost becomes a very important factor, and something which the designer has little control over. For example, to design a cellphone, a designer may be given an idea of which features it must include (text messaging, a camera, etc.), and how it should look (for example, “we want the thinnest cellphone on the market”). A designer takes all of the specifications given by the company who want the design, and comes up with, say, a cellphone which does absolutely everything the company has asked for. It is the thinnest may contradict the values or needs of the client What

cellphone on the market, on the with market, all of with the usual all of the features usual features required. required.

But toBut be that to bethin, that the cellphone thin, the cellphone requires requires certain certain expensive components. expensive components.

If the company If theiscompany unable is to maketothe unable make cellphone the cellphone as cheaply as cheaply as budgeted, as budgeted, they they will will simply simply go go back back to thethe to designer designer and and telltell them them to to “make “make it cheaper.” it cheaper.”

Something Something has has toto give—the give—the cellphone may break easily, or be a bit thicker than it could be. The keypad may have to downgrade to a cheaper, uglier version. If a designer works within a company, they are simply given the specifications, and have to make it work.

Unfair? Perhaps.

A problem many fail to see with respect to the design industry is just how much of a hand everyone else has in a design. One must design for someone else—very few designers do something of their own volition purely for themselves. So even on the most basic level, one must design for a client. That’s two different viewpoints, understandings and opinions. The client knows what they want to use something for, perhaps has an idea of how it should look, and has intimate motivations for getting the product. They have to be able to effectively communicate all of these motivations, needs and desires to the designer. The designer then has to apply their technical knowledge and ability to those needs, and see what they come up with. They will have to explain why a toilet can’t literally be made from gold, or why a rooftop can’t be a certain shape, and use that knowledge to suggest the best possible alternative to the client.

Added to the existing needs of the designer and client, often the client will be selling the item designed. The client thus needs to know their target market’s motivations to purchase items. Are they providing an essential item? Will they need to convince the market they need the item? Is it a niche market, or do they need to best the competition somehow?

The clients, supposedly, will have done their research and have an idea of the priorities of their target market.

A target market is a beautiful thing if understood well. Designers are taught not to appeal to everyone, but rather maximise the possibilities of who a

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Issue 8 Design

Types of pleasure in design Physio-pleasure: Pleasure derived from the senses. Is it rough or smooth, too light or heavy, does it have that ‘new car’ smell?

Some things may change drastically with trends and cultures over time, for example how one dresses may have great aesthetic appeal in the 1970s, but very little today, while considerations such as comfort are unlikely to change much at all.

sign Socio-pleasure: Pleasure gained from interacting with others. A talking point in your home, like a painting from a famous artist.

Implication of social status, for example crystal glassware. Does it encourage interaction with others, for example a spa pool? Is it fashionable?

product will appeal to. A basic example here would be to design a pair of sneakers with more than one colour option, so the market most likely to buy sneakers is more likely to find that particular design aesthetically appealing. If one were to design formal dress shoes, however, making them available in more than one colour is unlikely to maximise appeal, as most people purchasing dress shoes will want them in black. Target markets can aid the client in having a more specific idea of what is needed from a product, and the priority level of each requirement, but this is only useful when the client talks this through with the designer! Furthermore, the needs of the target market may contradict the values or needs of the client themselvesif a client is dead set on producing eco-friendly clothing for male teenagers, they will have to accept that the market (number of people likely to purchase their product) is a small one. Design is a minefield!

So, between the multiple chefs in the kitchen, the designer is responsible simply for making the food. The designer does not have to ensure the food is appealing. The designer does not have to make a great selling soup. The designer doesn’t even have to ensure that the soup will still be hot when it reaches the table.

The designer just has to make a soup that their boss, the restaurant owner, is happy with. In theory, the restaurant owner is happy when customers are happy. (But in practise, the restaurant owner may realise pineapple flavoured soup was a bad choice long after the customers spit it out, and blame the designer.) Is this why my cellphone is a garish pink, and Te Papa looks like a squashed robot bug?

Not quite.

Psycho-pleasure: Pleasure gained from the successful, easy completion of a task. This could be a simple, understandable cellphone interface, or a can opener which can be used easily.

Items complete a task, and make life easier.

Ideo-pleasure: More abstract pleasure, an enjoyment of the item itself. A ‘good’ book, or eco-friendly products, listening to music.

An elevator with enjoyable music has good ideo-pleasure. This concept has a lot more subjectivity to it, as different people enjoy different things.

Beauty has been defined by a number of principles since the beginning of time

What we find attractive or unattractive is very subjective. Walking past the Bucket Fountain, you may see a monument to the creativity in to Wellington, I may see a vomit-filled, badly painted eyesore.

Looking at tattoos, you may see a permanent symbol of lunacy, and I may see a beautiful expression of love for Elmo. Beauty is subjective and designers exploit that subjectivity in a detailed, sociologically fascinating way.

Beauty has been defined by a number of principles since the beginning of time. One such principle is ethics—if an object is ethical, it is beautiful, and vice versa. A sustainably made, fair trade, organic cotton tshirt has a sense of beauty which we ‘see’ regardless of its actual appearance.

Anne Galloway, a lecturer at Vic’s Design School, is currently exploring how certain technologies can help consumers see the origin and story of materials used in products, a move which would, for one, endear consumers more to the products. The outcome of such study is not that clients understand consumers better, but rather that more consumers may begin supporting concepts such as fair trade, because they are better able to understand what such concepts entail.

In a similar way, Meredith Yayanos, Editorin-Chief of Coilhouse Coilhouse magazine, Magazine,notes notesthat that the aesthetics of her magazine are considered holistically, as opposed to just nice words and pretty pictures. Beauty is considered from beginning to end, from paper cut and quality (they round the edges and use high quality paper), to order of content, number of pages, and even the costly decision to move from a blog to physical magazine.

“Words and images in print just feel good between your fingertips.” Coilhouse Coilhouseare areable ableto totake takethis this approach as money is not their primary motivator; salient.org.nz

Words and images in print just feel good between your fingertips Salient Vol. 74

euphrates.wpunj.edu/courses/arts350/aesthetics.html

In a similar vein, anything fit for its purpose has a beauty or irresistability.

The classic 2B pencil which we have to sharpen manually, for instance. Te Papa largely looks the way it does because while natural light was preferable, direct sunlight would harm the exhibits. As a result, Te Papa was designed with a large number of windows, but the entire shape of the building was developed to ensure that no sun enters the building, year-round. In this way, Te Papa is an absolute architectural feat, and lauded by many. But, importantly, most of us don’t understand the reasons why Te Papa looks like it does, and many couldn’t care. To us, Te Papa is just one ugly building. The response, of course, is that the various national treasures which Te Papa houses are safe from environmental damage—which is more important.

So, in sum, designing for attractiveness’ sake is a lot harder than one would think. Notions of beauty are varied, and ensuring an object is fit for purpose is much more important than whether it looks good while doing so. The only way around it is hiring your own designer and beating them mercilessly around the head for failing to adequately balance beauty and utility—something the Vic Design School has assured me won’t end end well.well.

Simplicity in Technology: fastcompany.com/magazine/100/beauty-of-simplicity.html

so the editors are less concerned with appealing to the masses, and thus rarely compromise their vision. It is this lack of compromise and holistic approach to creating a magazine enjoyed on aesthetic, sensory, and intellectual levels which makes the magazine so seemingly beautiful.

What do we mean when we say something is beautiful? Beauty is an emotionally loaded concept. Situations, emotions, tastes and people can be beautiful. Newborn babies are rarely attractive- but they’re beautiful. Food is beautiful if it tastes and feels good in your mouth, it is likely to seem more so if it is well presented. Actions properly done are referred to as beautiful. Beauty is such a loaded concept that aiming for beauty in design is less about how something looks, and more about how it makes you feel.

There are some fast and easy techniques designers use to keep their products as appealing as possible, for example symmetry, contrast, flow (leading the eye across the surface), scale (making sure components don’t dwarf one anot,her) and unity. Some techniques, another), however, are fast and easy ways to make the product appeal to a different market.

For instance, simplifying colours so the item appeals to children, or adding a QWERTY keyboard to a cellphone so it looks more like a more expensive PDA. Techniques which don’t necessarily add value, but appeal to certain parts of society, enables designers to create items which really appeal to some people, but not at all to others.

Technology, most specifically, is highly valued for its ease of use. Google and the Apple iPod are two technologies which have summoned phenomenal success, in part owing to their simple, clean interface. Neither of the technologies is substantially easier to use than its competitors—the quality of one’s hits on Google is still based in the user’s ability to pick key words, and the iPod has an initially quite confusing keypad—but they appear quite simple, and this simplicity is attractive. Few consider how pretty the Google site is, but its appeal owing to simplicity is obvious.

Types of pleasure in design: ergonomics4schools.com/lzone/aesthetics.htm

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Issue 8 Design

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Black & White When it’s not so

Elle hunt Illustration by Juliette Wanty

We all know the basic rules of plagiarism prevention: acknowledge others’ ideas, reference the source of those ideas, and be honest about their origins. But pinpointing unoriginal work can be more problematic than simply running a dodgy essay through TurnItIn—especially in creative fields. Salient co-editor Elle Hunt looks at the line ruled between inspiration and theft at Victoria University’s School of Architecture and Design.

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Salient Vol. 74

It’s every final-year student’s worst nightmare: in 2008, design student Brittany Bell was barred from graduating from Victoria University.

Bell, who was on the cusp of gaining a Bachelor of Design with Honours in interior architecture, had been found guilty of plagiarism after she allegedly failed to adequately attribute images used in her final project. The University’s Disciplinary Appeals Committee recommended that she should fail the paper—a verdict that would have sent Bell back to uni for at least another semester.

However, Bell disputed the Committee’s ruling that she deliberately attempted to pass other architects’ work as her own. The images that she included in her final project were from the design website suckerPUNCH, and included the work of award-winning Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava and recent graduate Sarah Schneider. Bell argued that she had referenced both the website and the artists’ works in the appendix and bibliography attached to the final draft of her project.

The Committee upheld the ruling on appeal, and so in mid-2010, Bell began legal proceedings against Victoria University at the Wellington High Court.

Plagiarism is easy to detect.

The University has systems in place to identify it. Plagiarism is simply not worth the risk This is the crux of the issue. There is a fine line

separating inspiration from theft, and no more so than in creative fields such as architecture and graphic design, in which the use of artists as ‘precedents’ is encouraged. This makes validating suspected instances of plagiarism problematic: how much ‘borrowing’ is too much?

In “Brothers From Another Mother”, an article published for the online magazine The Morning News, contributing writer Clay Risen pointed out that architecture is held to a different set of standards than literature, making it harder to detect plagiarism.

“A book’s value is decided in large part by the accumulated impressions gained from reading it; therefore, if part of the book was written by someone else, its author has rigged the reader’s appreciation of their work... [but most people] judge a building by the sum of its parts to the near exclusion of its individual elements”—meaning, therefore, that it’s more difficult to prove that one architect stole from another. A striking resemblance between two balustrades is not conclusive enough evidence, and for this reason, catcalls of plagiarism in architecture often go unheeded.

However, Risen argues, to accuse architects of theft is to underestimate the design process, which sees “artists draw on and play off each other as a way of getting closer to particular aesthetic truths.

“Is it fair, or even wise, to expect every architect to be completely isolated from others, and for every building to look completely different?... Architects are not trained in a vacuum, so why expect them to work in one?”

Though Risen’s argument is idealistic—all creatives, not least of all architects, should be able to secure ownership of their ideas—he makes a fair point. Budding architects and designers are taught to refer to others’ works to learn the tricks of the trade, sometimes to the exclusion of genuine original thought. For example, NCEA Level 3 Visual Arts students are required to refer to “established practice” in order to achieve the external standard, which suggests that that work that lacks obvious precedents might not meet the achievement criteria.

This trend of using precedents, or ‘artist models’, continues at a tertiary level, although not to the same extent. While students are encouraged to use the process or ideology behind a work as a starting point for their own designs, a straight interpretation

If there was any intention to deceive...

Ms Bell went about it in an extremely unusual way.”

Old Enough to Know Better?

Plagiarism is often dismissed as the offence of new students still getting to grips with academic referencing: a crime borne of sloppiness or ignorance. But Bell, in her fourth year of study, would have been in no doubt as to what was expected of her, argued defence counsel Bruce Corkill QC. Corkill said course guidelines were “crystal clear” as to the requirements for sourcing images, and that students were reminded to refer to them at regular intervals.

However, Bell’s lawyer Les Taylor noted that Bell had in fact referenced the images in the appendix and bibliography attached to the final draft of her project.

“It would be a curious form of plagiarism that directed the examiner to the very work being copied.

If there was any intention to deceive... Ms Bell went about it in an extremely unusual way.”

The University responded that the website citations Bell provided were vague and inadequate.

Moreover, a series of panels on her final project lacked references altogether.

Taylor said that the design Bell submitted, of a conceptual seed archive, was “clearly heavily influenced” by Schneider and Calatrava, but that it was an original work.

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Issue 8 Design

of a designer’s aesthetic does count as plagiarism.

So, design and architecture students more so than their Kelburn counterparts are required to tread that fine line, as their courses require them to draw from existing work—but not too much.

Imitation is part and parcel of the design process

Tribute or Theft?

What constitutes “too much”, however, is debatable—bringing us back to Bell. At the end of 2008, her seed archive was featured in the influential online magazine Dezeen. There, unaware of the allegations levelled against her, commentators picked up on the influence than Schneider and Calatrava had had on her work.

However, Zaha Hadid, Ross Lovegrove, Hernan Dia Alonso and other architects were also speculated to have influenced Bell, while earlier in the year, Dezeen readers dismissed Schneider as a “wannabe Zaha”. This reinforces the notion that imitation is part and parcel of the design process: Bell draws from Schneider, who has in turn found inspiration in Hadid.

As much truth as there might be in this argument, it’s not given credence at academic institutions, and perhaps this is for logistical reasons: after all, the policing for plagiarism motivates students to at least aim for original thought.

Victoria University’s website gives a broad definition of plagiarism (it extends to “design and ideas”, as well as “the organisation or structuring of any such material”) and a grave warning of its consequences.

“Plagiarism undermines academic integrity simply because it... involves stealing other people’s intellectual property and lying about whose work it is... If you are found guilty of plagiarism, you may be penalised under the Statue on Student Conduct...

You could fail your course or even be suspended from the University.

“Plagiarism is easy to detect. The University has systems in place to identify it. Plagiarism is simply not worth the risk.”

The University’s “systems in place” include the use of plagiarism detection software TurnItIn, which identifies sections of text that bear resemblance to other sources. That’s all well and good for students cribbing paragraphs from their readings, but TurnItIn is of little use at the Te Aro campus. So what is the process for plagiarism prevention and detection there?

“Information is included in all course outlines within the Faculty of Architecture and Design.

It states: “The University defines plagiarism as presenting someone else’s work as if it were your own, whether you mean to or not,” says Jenny Christie, the Faculty’s Associate Dean of Teaching, Learning and Students.

“‘Someone else’s work’ means anything that is not your own idea. Even if it is presented in your own style, you must acknowledge your sources fully and appropriately.”

Perhaps in a bid to address the ineffectualness of TurnItIn at detecting plagiarism in visual projects, a declaration form relating to plagiarism and copyright is being trialled in one course this trimester. Christie says that this could result in a full rollout at the Te Aro campus later this year.

Moreover, an “academic integrity online interactive learning module” has been spearheaded by Deputy Head of Design School and senior lecturer Margaret Maile Petty as one of the funded Learning and Teaching Development Projects scheduled for 2011.

As for Bell, Justice Denis Clifford of the Wellington High Court found fault with both her and the University’s appeals committee. Justice Clifford said that the University’s finding that Bell had plagiarised others’ work was not unjustified, but that the committee had failed to take into account a number of factors, such as the website references included in her project. The committee had also failed to prove that the plagiarism was a deliberate attempt to deceive, and neglected to give Bell a chance to respond to their charge that it was intentional.

Justice Clifford recommended that the appeals committee reconsider the case, and that process is ongoing, although Bell now works at Weta Digital.

If we’re to accept that some level of imitation is par for the course in artistic fields, the level of influence exhibited in Bell’s work might have been considered acceptable for a practicing architect.

However, as a student of Victoria University, Bell was held to rather more stringent standards, and perhaps this is understandable: cries of “copycat” are even harder to prove in the workplace environment, which lacks lecturers and tutors to monitor and vouch for the development of one’s work, and this might have resulted in a freer flow of ideas. At this vulnerable stage in their careers, though, design and architectural students would do well to err on the side of caution in their bibliographies. Not only will it uphold your academic integrity, it might also foster origianlity that will be rewarded later on in your career. And what’s more, just as it’s difficult to prove instances of suspected plagiarism, it’s hard to disprove them.

The University defines plagiarism as presenting someone else’s work as if it were your own, whether you mean to or not salient.org.nz

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Salient Vol. 74

Bricks with

Butterfly Wings Doc Watson

Photos by Alex Clark

If you’re ever in Narnia, look for the meaning of the term ‘artistic design’ and bring it back. ’Cause it sure as hell isn’t in this world.

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o ka O P arewa Te Wh

neke

Issue 8 Design

aesthetics, In the glitzy world of ects that asp o tw are art and design like rock stars and complement each other o are together, tw the clean living. When how often do but ng, thi d goo it’s a damn g MSG off rtin you see Mick Jagger sno cisely. It’s Pre rt? wa Ste a the tits of Marth the doctrines of a very rare thing to see nice with each y art and design ever pla s, angels sing pen hap it en other, and wh . rus So why it never out in immaculate cho thing else, Te failed every ith the to-do list is on h So, having seems to factor hig a building w at: the O Poneke is a and ak — w od re e to do th go ha . v W ok a h lo beyond me n to e to an v e ke But we don’t rk is a prime no other purpose th esthetic on was a at. It looks li Wellington’s civic artwo ti th a ape c en sc lo ev d s e n t’ y, anag better analog of the la burnt aterfron y of w it fails to m it es r ec u example. For want of a p pi . It’s h; the h shit. We need someone dry-retched e talking though this begin wit er our desk is cluttered wit ing all th brick. It’s as o e it furth d ow go v kn e o Le to b a e, ong sh wr id to ld e ic u to u o y -s sh er tr toast on rd to u to see where we’ve gon e m of tuitiv mmitted a who’s building selection g mess on counter-in structure co what we can do right: on with a t the ensuin e just ti go c w ’s e o’s t wh on a ir d and gt e , th n t ney th li s mo in tha and Wel rtwork g prompts a n because they have the d di e il .5m we n bu g 12 le ly$ si is so nk bubbles wil ke the orly-de li artistic o p se display. Th ti r— t ri fo io dropping their artsy spu y pr ause tha d to pa hy do we to look than the ouse. Bec happene d function? question: w -h e an o e . nilly. And where better n ll os a e rp c w e th d nded tics in this city, the endeavour over pu spent on into the woo ve only e s, very pinnacle of aesthe could ha lpture en want to go ckyard. It’s resource io scu ev r en e ’t a we n th bet n r , e do wa I le the sc battlefront in e peop waka’s ba g that th re in e ha v th a W e h nt.

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Salient Vol. 74

A Font of Wisdom

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Selina Powell

For many people, typeface is not much more than ink on paper, pixels on a screen.

Communication is in the words that are selected, not in the form of the words themselves.

Sure, most would think twice about submitting their CV in graffiti script, but the subtleties of font can prove more difficult. Perhaps you have contacted an employer in the typeface equivalent of jandals, submitted a seminar paper that reads like an Hawaiian shirt or accepted the default font option as naturally as you would wear slippers out of the house.

These are not major social blunders considering that the general ambivalence of typeface selectors is matched by that of their readers.

Not so for typeface devotees. There are those who have never seen a poem as lovely as Helvetica, and who believe that typeface is to text what accent is to speech. To find out more about typeface from those involved in its design, Salient spoke with Jack Yan of JY&A Fonts and Elaina Hamilton and Duncan Forbes of The International Office.

Jack Yan

Jack Yan is a man of many trades. He established his own typography business in the mid 1980s when he was 15, designing a Christmas menu while all of the other design firms were closed for the festive season. Yan’s typeface endeavours

helped him pay his way through a double degree in Commerce and Law at Victoria University.

His business, Jack Yan & Associates now includes consultancy and media initiatives as well as typeface design.

Last year, an already busy Yan lost further allocated sleeping time (he often works from 9am until 2.30am) with his campaign to become Mayor of Wellington.

The Lucky Book Club at St Mark’s Primary in Wellington offered Yan an early exposure to typography, publishing a lettering book for schools which Yan describes as “the book to get in 1979”.

Not wanting to burden his parents with the princely sum of $4.95, Yan could only watch enviously as his classmates copied and traced the letters from the book. Without the book for guidance, Yan began to imagine his own typeface styles.

“I remember it being this great book I would have loved to have had it, but I think actually not having had it was better.”

Yan believes that typography is comparable to fashion in the way that trends change. For this reason Yan does not have a ‘favourite’ typeface but

believes that typefaces will be effective for certain purposes in certain periods of time. He uses the example of someone who has a favourite wide lapelled shirt, “if you love that, then I’m sorry but you’re going to be stuck in 1973 for the rest of your life. It has to evolve”.

Although Yan is hesitant about choosing a font that he admires most, he has little difficulty selecting his least favourite typeface.

“Arial is by far my least favourite typeface family and I don’t think anyone should ever use it. If they do, I think the font police should come by and arrest you.”

Yan explains the story behind the depth of his dislike for Arial. The typeface company, Monotype, effectively put their own design in Helvetica’s silhouette and named it Arial. Yan says that this method of stretching designs is flawed because the hybrids are a strange mix of different design heritages. The Grotesque typeface was of English design heritage while Helvetica comes from a background of Swiss modernism.

“You can’t say, ‘Oh, I like the look of a Mini but actually what I want is something the size of a Commodore’. You can’t go, ‘Right, let’s just take the Mini design and scale it up to Commodore size’, because that would just look absolutely stupid.”

The strong stance that Yan takes on typeface issues seems to indicate his genuine concern for the design form.

When asked how he became interested in type, Yan replies, “It must be something inside you. There wasn’t

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one incident that brought me to love type, I’ve always loved it. I think these things you are born with.”

The International Office

Elaina Hamilton and Duncan Forbes established the International Office in 2007 after perceiving a lack of good, bold typography in Wellington graphic deisgn.

Duncan explains, “We used to walk down Cuba Street, and all the posters on the bollards were a mess—we thought, “We need to clean this up”.”

Elaina and Duncan, design graduates from Canterbury and Auckland Universities respectively, set about pioneering a more typographically pleasing city. Their initial strategy was to redesign material and then send it back to the offending institutions (including yours truly, Salient). Understandably, there was a mixed reation, with some viewing it as unsolicited criticism, but the initiative also had the effect of recruiting The International Office its first clients.

The International Office is now an established design firm with a variety of small- and medium-sized local clients including the Adam Art Gallery, the Goethe-Institut, The New Zelaand Film Archive and fashion designer Lela Jacobs.

When asked if there is a story behind the company’s name, Duncan points to the irony of describing their studio (which employs three designers in total) as an International Office. Elaina also notes how the name is relevant to the style that the company works in, which is the Swiss Modernist style—also known as The International Style.

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There’s a lot of expression within just one typeface.

Just within Helvetica— there are so many layouts to express different things The International Office produces typographic work that is inspired by modernism, but Duncan does not think it can be characterised as purely modernist.

“Modernists were trying to not have any meaning in the design piece itself, and we do put more meaning into the design—it has more warmth.”

Central to the company’s work is the idea that a small range of high quality typefaces should be favoured over the use of superfluous and poorly designed work. Duncan and Elaina believe this does not impose any restrictions on what can be communicated.

“There’s a lot of expression within just one typeface,” says Elaina. “Just within Helvetica—there are so many layouts to express different things.”

Duncan believes using too many tyepfaces is a trip that many New Zealand design students fall into.

“They’re [design students] going through university using a billion typefaces and they just need to get good at working with just a couple— because then they’re focussing more on the concept.”

Ruben Doornweerd, a Dutch intern working at The International Office who recently graduated from ArtEZ Art & Design in Arnhem, points out that a

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designer’s role is broader and in some ways separate to the typeface they use.

The final quality of a typeface design will be determined by the skill of the designer, not the selection of typeface.

“A typeface does not make a design good, I think. It is the job of the designer to make it look good, to communicate it well, and it doesn’t matter what the typeface is.”

What Type are You? With a recent rise in the number of initiatives that put font in the limelight, it appears that typeface design has accrued an increasing crowd of followers.

A local example is the Fringe play earlier this year aptly named Typeface, about an office worker who categorises her colleagues into fonts according to their personalities. Then there’s Simon Garfield’s book Not My Type, which explores the evolution of typography through a series of stories that are more fireside in tone rather than that of a lecturing historian. For those with a few moments to spare on the Internet who would like to find their typeface twin, there is Pentagram’s ‘What type are you?’ webpage.

However, you don’t need to read a book, attend a play or complete a quiz to become involved in typography.

Typography is everywhere—it is on the street signs you walk past, on the menu you browse and the bus timetable you scan. You cannot hide from typography.

A familiar typeface is waiting to greet you in every country.

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Salient Vol. 74

From

to

Cut-Out Couture Jessica-Belle Greer & Michelle Collins

Like anything else, it starts with an idea. Inspiration may fly in the window of a stuffy studio in the form of a dancer’s movement, a French film, or a screwedup page of newspaper. That might be all it takes to ignite a flame that sparks fashion design into process.

This concept is developed in the mind of a designer, either working alone or as part of a team; pinned up on mood boards; and stretched to cover a season’s collection. Even if you have no interest in fashion, you wear clothes, and by doing so, you contribute to a global industry that is a major player in economic and cultural spheres. As the ‘Devil’ told Anne Hathaway, that lumpy blue sweater filtered down from Oscar de la Renta to Yves Saint Laurent to other designers’ collections to department stores to be eventually found in a favourite clearance bin.

The amount of work that goes on beyond the frills and chiffon is endless, and it starts with a croquis: an impressionistic draft of the designer’s proposed creation. Its model tends to be nine heads tall—accepted proportions for fashion illustration—and utilise a balance line that centres weight on one side of the body for dynamic grace.

Then, using CAD and other computer design software, this sketch is then turned into a flat, a computer-generated graphic that looks like a cut-out doll’s dress and defines a garment’s specific trims. Fabric pinned onto a mannequin tends to follow this process, as the draping of specially-weighted muslin can help designers get a better feel for fit.

Textile specialists are in great demand due to the ‘fibre frenzy’ of the 1990s and recent innovations in natural and sustainable styles—even here in New Zealand

Trips to trade fairs, showrooms, and representatives’ offices are essential.

Sample yardage is pored over in large swatches called headers, and quality, timing and cost are discussed before an order is finalised. On top of this, many fashion designers prefer to design their textiles in-house for more creative freedom and control over the look of the final garment.

Textile specialists are in great demand due to the ‘fibre frenzy’ of the 1990s and recent innovations in natural and sustainable styles—even here in New Zealand. AgResearch, a state-owned independent research and development company with arms in biomaterials and textile chemistry, has developed a new process that enables blocks of colours and graphics to be printed into wool during one dyeing process. It was presented at the AgResearch Fashion Collection runway show last year, where designers such as Annah Stretton and Stitch Ministry displayed a range of garments using the fabric. The technique has been picked up by apparel company BGI Developments, who are looking to take it overseas.

Once a textile is selected, the garment is broken down into a cut paper or computer-aided pattern: a plotted foundation that can make or break a design. At this stage, fashon designers often use the rub-off technique to further play with the pattern. This technique enables them to remove seam-lines, alter the overall shape, and style features of an existing pattern to create a new aesthetic.

Then comes editing, an important stage in the process, as a garment’s design can balance delicately on having just enough bound buttonholes. Furthermore, the sample, of which up to three may be made for promotional purposes, must be pristine, as these are the garments that will eventually tempt us in the pages of fashion magazines.

And it’s big business: for the past decade, New Zealand’s average clothing exports have boosted our economy by $230.6 million per year (Fashion Industry New Zealand). Most of that

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is manufactured in big factories in the Asia-Pacific region, which have reduced marginal costs through the division of labour and high-tech capital. A marker, for example, positions all the garments’ pattern pieces on one piece of paper, often digitally, for efficient use of resources.

The spreading process piles fabric so garments can be cut in bulk. Shade sorting ensures there is the right amount of piles for a desired colour. Correct tension, lay stability, and elimination of static energy are all required to achieve the level of quality demanded by consumers. The actual cutting of the fabric can be done in a separate factory with the aid of high-tech machinery and more workers; techniques include die, laser, waterjet and ultrasonic cutting.

The sewing process presents another array of choices: there is always something to be considered and co-ordinated. Seam types are determined by aesthetic standards, durability, and machinery. They can be superimposed, lapped, bound, or flat. Seam strength and elasticity are also needed to “make it work”, as Project Runway’s pedantic guru Tim Gunn says (too often).

Then come the stitch types, such as lockstitches, chainstitches, and handstitches. To achieve these, more technicalities, such as sewing machine feed mechanisms and thread packages are dealt with, too. The grading process of standardised sizes occurs at the factory, and ensures that clothing sizes remain more or less the same from store to store.

Furthermore, labels, linings, warmth wadding, eyelits, zip fasteners, pleating, and more are influenced by seasonal trends and cultural ideals.

Fashion design is a huge process that is both deeply embedded in our culture and greatly beneficial to our economy

No matter how appealing an outfit is, it may never be worn without sound business practice and a solid body of networks

Then, the finishing touches to polish off the garment are applied, ensuring that it is fit for the retail rack. Pressing can smooth away crease marks, give contours to the garments’ mould, or adds strategic creases for stylish expression. A garment can also be finished with wet processing, with anti-microbial, aroma, moisture management and even UV guard finishes to choose from.

The garment is then whirled through editorials, buyers’ offices, catwalks, advertisements, wholesalers, boutiques and retailers, before making its way into your wardrobe.

No matter how appealing an outfit is, it may never be worn without sound business practice and a solid body of networks. Some designers prefer to go it alone. Other designers move under the cover of umbrella companies, mainly for economic practicalities; even Balenciaga signed under LVMH last year. For example, Australasia’s Long Beach Holdings puts together ranges, controls merchandises, travels for trends, designates production, ships, and imports for brands such as Glassons and Max. So, there you have it. Just as that Prada-wearing skeptic told her hapless assistant, there is a lot more to your ‘cerulean’ jumper than meets the eye. In reality, fashion design is a huge process that is both deeply embedded in our culture and greatly beneficial to our economy. Perhaps you should think about that at ‘T-shirt time’.

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Salient Vol. 74

Astrid Gjerde

Coco Chanel once said “there is no fashion for the old”. The bright young sparks behind local pop-up shop ‘In Good Company’ are testament to the importance of fresh ideas in the ever-changing world of fashion.

As hard as it is to find a job in fashion, up-and-coming designers are making names for themselves in a difficult industry, while balancing full-on workloads at university.

From 31 March to 3 April, Wellington’s hippest and chicest were invited to check out students’ wares at ‘In Good Company’.

Salient writer Astrid Gjerde talks to the project’s key organisers Sophie Burrowes, Jinny Chin and Alice Howard about how the pop-up shop came to be such a success, and why having a design degree—a qualification that is often undervalued—is so important to their labels.

Pop-up shops allow designers to sell sample pieces or sale items at a store that ‘pops up’ for four or five days, and then disappears again. Sophie Burrowes, who has her own clothing line and is in her final year of fashion at Massey, came up with the idea to sell her winter range at a pop-up store instead of holding a fashion show—but she knew she couldn’t do it on her own. With spatial design student and independent jewellery designer Jinny Chin

Issue 8 Design

29 onboard, Sophie approached Massey alumni Phillipa Lake and Alice Howard of collaborative project Philippa & Alice, as well as Miriam White from Sunday Apparel.

From there, the project grew to eleven designers in total.

About a month before the planned opening of ‘In Good Company’, the team began holding weekly meetings, emailing each other in between to keep up to date with the progress of the store. They researched other pop-up stores around the world, as there haven’t been many in Wellington.

“I’ve only been to one... and it was pretty crap, honestly,” says Jinny. According to Sophie, the aim was to make the shop look refined and elegant, “not like a marketplace or a craft fair”.

Through a contact of Sophie’s father, they managed to locate a great space on Hunter Street on Lambton Quay. Rent wasn’t cheap, but even taking into account all the costs needed to run the shop, the designers hoped to pull more of a profit than they would through their original retailers. The launch party on 31 March drew swarms of Wellington fashionistas, there to celebrate the designers’ hard work. In fact, the turnout well surpassed expectations: Alice says they’d anticipated about a hundred, but were overwhelmed when that number swelled to around two or three times that on the night.

“Even over the next few days, we had a lot of people coming in loving the stuff and really happy to spend their money to support us as young New Zealand designers selling New Zealand made product.”

For Sophie, whose garments are predominantly sold online, the store provided a more tangible opportunity for customers: girls were encouraged to try things on, as opposed to choosing clothing based on a photo on the website. Since she aims to take a step back from the business this year to concentrate on the final leg of her degree, the shop was a good way to round up financially.

The designers hold faith in the skills gained through a design degree, saying that they are indispensable to their own labels.

Alice mentions the financial benefits: “The degree was definitely a big help—particularly the technical skills we picked up in construction and pattern-making. We still do that all ourselves to keep costs down, which is a big challenge.” Massey also encourages designers to put their work out there and make contacts through internships and competitions, she adds.

Jinny’s aesthetic was borne out of expertise acquired from interior architecture university papers. “I remember learning how to use the laser cutter at uni and, at that time—that was about maybe two or three years ago now—laser cut jewellery was kind of getting more popular at retail stores,” she says. After seeing them in expensive design stores, she decided to make her own at uni for a fraction of the cost. Her forms were also influenced by her study, turning out geometric and structural.

In fact, Jinny credits her whole jewellery line to her spatial design degree, from the use of software such as Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop, to the actual materials. “I use four millimetre hard wood to make the pendants, so I wouldn’t have known what that material was if I didn’t do the course that I do at uni.”

Her line is simple, six pieces in total, but has received a very positive response. Starting out making items for herself, she soon began preparing orders for personal contacts. Demand grew, and from there she set up her business: making posters, a website, business cards and doing general marketing and promotion. At the moment, her jewellery is only available through personal orders, but her proudest memory was the commercial launch of her collection a couple of years ago. “[It] was at Boombox Gallery off Cuba Street. That was such a while ago now. But I remember that was a real highlight in the collection. I think that launch party brought maybe 250 people that night and so that was the most positive feedback that I’ve gotten… it was really encouraging.” salient.org.nz

Salient Vol. 74

What sets her apart, she says, is her combination of materials and form. Her collection features cute and unique wooden silhouettes in forms such as paper cranes and hexagonal patterns. “Using the hard wood—it’s one of my favourite materials, because when using the laser cutter it burns the edges of [it], so you get a nice black trim around the edge. It really makes the design stand out. Combining it with the gold chain I think makes a difference as well.”

Sophie Burrowes Designs and Philippa & Alice have also had great reception in Wellington, as well as the rest of the country. Both design labels were in the final three for the Westpac Young Designer awards at New Zealand Fashion Week last year. The experience was a rare look into the fast-paced and stressful world of fashion.

“It was good just to see the hustle and bustle backstage... It was pretty intense,” says Sophie. Alice agrees, “It was a pretty amazing experience—it gave us a great insight into how big time New Zealand fashion works and prepared us for all the stress and hard work that goes on behind the scenes.”

Philippa & Alice was created out of a lack of design jobs in the local market—the recent graduates decided to take matters into their own hands. “We both wanted to design and there just wasn’t much in the way of opportunities out there for that, so we just made jobs for ourselves. We bought a few machines, turned Phil’s old rumpus room into a studio, took a few courses and made our first collection. The rest is history really,” says Alice.

The two designers have an easy working dynamic, each bringing different strengths to the table. They have had great exposure: an article in Frankie magazine was a really big break, and features on fashion blogs such as Wet Dreams and Fashion Guru NZ have helped get their name out there. Their clothing is available through Salisbury Boutique and Belle Bird in Dunedin; Blue Caravan, an Australian ethical online store; and also directly through the designers via their website, philippaandalice.co.nz, or Facebook.

Alice describes their garments as “a little nerdy, a touch sexy and a hint worldly”. Their mix of structural with soft and fluid elements proved hugely popular at the pop-up store: the sales from ‘In Good Company’ have even enabled Philippa & Alice to start work on their summer 11/12 range.

Sophie is known for her girly pieces that Wellingtonian women feel good in. Her feminine elements have become a staple in her line, but she also likes the edgier direction the label is heading. “It’s kind of developing—past seasons it’s been a little bit more pale and girly… and then this last collection’s quite black. I think it’s more like my aesthetic.” Starting her line while studying was a good idea, she says, as she’ll have a head start when working on it as a graduate. “I think it’s good to do this while I’m at uni, and then learn what I like for collections so that when I leave I don’t spend three collections kind of getting my groove.”

Jinny says the popularity of the pop-up shop was in its novelty.

“There’s not that many fresh things like that happening, so it was a good opportunity for me… and a rare opportunity as well.” The success of the pop-up shop has the designers considering making it an annual thing, creating something bigger and better each year. But these are students and young people after all: none of them know exactly where they will be in a year’s time. Sophie just wants to finish her degree before she starts to worry about life as a graduate.

“Everyone keeps asking me, it’s basically just old people, like parents and things being like, ‘oh, what are you doing next year?’ I’m like ‘dunno, seeing if there’s any jobs available’ (laughs).”

Again, in the words of Chanel, “elegance is not the prerogative of those who have just escaped from adolescence, but of those who have already taken possession of their future”. If this is true, then these up-and-coming designers are elegance personified.

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The Pink Fairy Armadillo

Column

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Elle & Jess Hunt

I went to the zoo during the midtrimester break, as one does, and while I was there, I got to thinking about evolution. As one does. With some animals, it’s easy to see why they are how they are: the pygmy marmosets, for example, are tiny, so that they can hunt for insects along the pliable branches of the rainforest canopy. But, as ‘Animal of The Week’ shows on a weekly basis, much of the natural world defies explanation and logical thought. Why do giraffes have those funny, stumpy horns? What purpose do they serve?

It’s a head-scratcher, all right—but giraffes’ funny, stumpy horns seem pretty self-explanatory in comparison to the pink fairy armadillo, the smallest member of the armadillo family. It looks like a white, tailless mouse with claws that are in drastic disproportion to its four-inch-long body, and an armour of pale pink scales. The females are called ‘zeds’ and the males, ‘listers’, while their collective noun is a ‘fez’ (a fez of pink fairy armadillos evokes rather

spectacular imagery, doesn’t it?). The pink fairy armadillo is an endangered species in its home country of Argentina, and so in an attempt to increase numbers, permission has been granted to keep them as pets in certain American states.

However, many owners have trouble providing for their fairies’ ant and larvae-based diet (see for yourself on YouTube!). Those Wolverine-esque claws are also a bit of a threat—the fairies use them to soften sand to enable burrowing.

They can bury themselves in a matter of seconds if properly motivated—by food, predators, or simply the need to reflect on their absurd design and seemingly meaningless existence.

salient.org.nz

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Salient Vol. 74

Understanding Low Feelings

makes us tick, and develop ideas about what might make us feel better. Even if the factors that make us sad can’t be easily changed, we can still address the issues. I’ll give three examples of common issues for students.

Home-sickness

John Gregson This is the first of four Salient articles in 2011 about feeling down. These articles are not, by and large, about being clinically depressed, but about feelings that most of us experience fairly often.

Most of us have times when we feel sad, unlikeable, pessimistic and unable to enjoy things. I want to consider those times. I believe we can use these feelings to our advantage, and gain control of them to get enjoyment back again.

Many of us have a cycle to our feelings. The cycle may relate to the time of day or year. Women may find it relates to the time of the month. Recognising the cyclic nature of our mood reminds us that we will feel brighter again.

Outside such cycles, feeling low often relates to what is going on in our lives. It’s common for students to experience an anticlimax after all the excitement of arriving at university settles down, and the ordinariness of everyday life cuts in. I suggest that thinking about feelings can be useful in understanding what is working well and not so well in our lives, although it’s important not to have unrealistic expectations of unconstrained happiness.

If there are more down times than we would like in our lives it’s useful to ask why. We can then understand what

If home is distant you can think about who or what you miss, and bring that into your life in some way. You could email or phone people, or put pictures up. You might also realise as you reflect that there are similar things that Wellington could offer you haven’t been taking advantage of.

Relationship problems

Once a relationship moves beyond the first few weeks issues will crop up. S/he will not seem quite so exciting. You may wonder whether you want to be in a relationship with them. Even if the answer is yes, you’ll be moving to the stage of negotiating how the relationship will function in the longer term.

Thinking about your feelings may tell you it’s time to end a relationship, or to see whether it can be significantly changed. You may also realise that you’re attracted to people you hadn’t expected to be; take some time to understand this too.

Course issues

What is fun and what’s not about what you’re studying? Think about study skills you could develop to help with the hard stuff. It may be too late to change courses for this semester, but consider what will work best for next time. If you aren’t enjoying something, be cautious about committing yourself to more of the same.

In my next article, in two weeks’ time, I’ll discuss some strategies for lifting spirits.

Student Counselling Service 463 5310

Left Bank Arcade, Cuba Street Strictly for a limited time This offer is available Sunday to Thursday Not to be used in conjunction with any other promotions This voucher is not redeemable at Tulsi Restaurants

Columns

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33

The Justice System Gets A Makeover Natalie Harrison & Sophie Birch

In November last year, Simon Power introduced to Parliament the shiny new Criminal Procedure (Reform and Modernisation) Bill, touting it as the “biggest change to the criminal justice system in 50 years.”

According to the Government, the law reform the bill proposes will result in 43,000 fewer court events annually, fewer cases going to trial and more flexibility with juries.

Initial response to the Bill was lazily positive— possibly because it’s over 500 pages long, and it was less time consuming/painful to just repeat points from the press release than to actually read the entire thing.

The majority of the Bill is sensible and will undoubtedly improve the efficiency of our courts. However, certain provisions are warily regarded by litigators, commentators and the judiciary as an attempt to undermine human rights and attack the foundations on which the criminal justice system has been built.

Presently (as stated in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990), anyone charged with an offence for which the maximum penalty is over three months can request a jury trial. The Bill aims to extend this tariff to three years. It seems illogical that a right declared as fundamental only 20 years ago could be abolished with such ease and that the important societal function a jury serves might be disregarded. Juries encourage civic participation, serve as a check on an over-zealous prosecution, and provide viewpoints and life experiences that a judge alone may lack.

There are some crimes with a maximum penalty currently under three years that will clearly still need to be heard by a jury, regardless of any law passed: these include infanticide, bigamy, indecency with an animal and assault with intent. Similarly, there are electoral offences that Parliament has affirmed must always have a

jury trial. These considerations appear to have been disregarded in favour of one-size-fits-all legislation that might not even do what it claims to.

The Bill requires that defendants, prior to trial, inform the court and the prosecution which elements of the offence they accept, which elements they deny and any defences they intend to argue. Silence on the defendant’s part can be used to infer evidence of guilt, although this can’t be the sole basis for conviction. This provision could drastically impinge upon two fundamental rights. First, it is a foundation of our criminal law that a defendant is presumed innocent until guilt is proven beyond reasonable doubt by the prosecution—the intended changes

Presently (as stated in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990), anyone charged with an offence for which the maximum penalty is over three months can request a jury trial. The Bill aims to extend this tariff to three years will shift this onus of proof onto the defendant, who lacks the state’s power and resources. Second, the defendant’s right to remain silent is also set out in the Evidence Act 2006. There is no way that silence can reasonably infer guilt—the only thing one could reasonably conclude from a defendant not talking is that the defendant doesn’t want to talk! (Which could be for a multitude of reasons other than guilt.)

Notable Select Committee submissions opposing the bill come from Supreme Court Chief Justice Dame Sian Elias, prominent barrister Judith Ablett-Kerr QC and the Human Rights Commission. Perhaps the most interesting is that of the District Court Judges, which seems to suggest that if the Bill is passed, they will ignore it. Any good law student will know that if the judiciary refuses to apply law Parliament creates, a ‘Constitutional Crisis’ (!) could occur, which has never happened in New Zealand before. While it would be cool to see what a ‘Constitutional Crisis’ actually entails in this day and age, it’s probably not in the best interests of a sound and secure legal system. Lame.

salient.org.nz

Salient Vol. 74

Columns

34

An Open Letter

to the Girls on the NO.9 Bus Ally Garrett Dear Girls on the Number Nine Bus, I thought this column could be a good place to contact you. On Thursday the 24th of March you were both sitting on the backwards facing seats of the 7.54am number nine bus, avidly clutching your Victoria University Laws 214 notes. I’m writing to you because over the course of our brief but bumpy journey I found myself feeling a little offended. My problem wasn’t with the notes or the seats or the bus. My problem was with you. More specifically, my problem was with your conversation about StudyLink being ‘gay’.

Now GOTNNB, I’m going to assume that you were using the word as an insult and not talking about StudyLink’s sexual behaviours, mainly because StudyLink is a sexless, genderless and completely useless Government service. It’s not like you might bump into StudyLink at Ivy on Saturday night. I don’t think, but please correct me if I’m wrong, that StudyLink and WINZ have ever engaged in a bout of sweaty tribadism. (Look it up!) You were using gay as a pejorative term and I get it, there’s a lot to complain about with StudyLink. The constant letters, the missed payments, the Internet log in system with security settings that would stump Mata Hari. When I heard you using the word gay though, I didn’t think about those things. I didn’t even get the Dave Dobbyn-through-theearpiece flashbacks that I usually get when talking about StudyLink. Funnily enough, I mainly just thought about how gay people in New Zealand still can’t get married or adopt children. I also thought about how the leader of our country voted against the civil union bill. Did you know, GOTNNB, that same-sex-attracted

As long as you use the word ‘gay’ to mean ‘bad’ then you are telling gay people that they are bad people teenagers are twice as likely to be bullied at school? Or that gay men are six times more likely to attempt suicide than their heterosexual counterparts?

GOTNNB, you want to grow up to be lawyers, right? I’m guessing this because it’s not like anybody does LAWS 214 for fun, apart from perhaps Conrad Reyners. As prospective lawyers you must have some kind of understanding about the power of words. A word can be the difference between guilty and not guilty. Words can be flippant and they can be uttered in jest but ultimately words mean things. And no matter what your intent, as long as you use the word ‘gay’ to mean ‘bad’ then you are telling gay people that they are bad people. To me, this doesn’t seem that great in light of the adoption thing and the bullying and the suicide. And the stoning in Uganda.

And the ‘corrective rape’ in South Africa.

And the Matthew Shepard in Wyoming.

Using a sexual orientation as a slur is irresponsible. It’s harmful. Atticus Finch would hate it. As lawyers in training, you have the potential to change the world.

Think Atticus, not Russell McVeagh.

StudyLink isn’t gay. StudyLink is a steaming pile of shit.

With love, Your favourite offended blogger AND fellow bus user, Ally Garrett.

Charity reps: menace t ee r t s The

Auntie Sharon

With the world coming down around our ears, and seemingly less money to go around, the streets are getting crowded with wellmeaning but irritating charity reps all vying for your borrowed dollars.

Their numbers are growing so quickly that councils are only just catching up with by-laws to stop them from intimidating old ladies into forking over their pension. The rest of us are often caught off-guard, and accidentally or politely engage in conversation, invariably walking away with another $15-a-month commitment.

You’ll know these street menaces by their clipboards, their positive attitudes and more often than not, their UK accents. They’ll often leap out in front of you with a handshake at the ready, grinning at you like you’re old friends. If you’ve been meeting a lot of new people lately you might actually think you met them at that zombie party in first semester. You didn’t. They just want your signature and bank account number.

While I encourage you all to be charitable and, if your budget has room in it, to give regularly to a charity that

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Issue 8 Design

constance cravings you have researched and know is aligned with your values, it doesn’t mean you have to give in to every sprightly idealist on the street.

We’ve all avoided eye contact, pretended to be texting or talking on the phone, and sometimes crossed the street to bypass them—don’t be ashamed. You may also want to try*: • Telling them to fuck off. I know it’s what you’re thinking. Just say it. It’ll feel good.

• Telling them you’re from another country so can’t sign up. This is risky, because if they’re fellow ‘travellers’, they may engage you in further conversation. I tried this once and our conversation ended in a hug. Try if you’re lonely.

• When they open with ‘Hi, do you care about the environment/Africa/children with disabilities?’ tell them, ‘No, I’m into mining/survival of the fittest/ eugenics.’

• Pretend to be an over-worked, unpaid NGO worker who is ‘making a difference’ by working in the sector, sacrificing your other better-paying and more prestigious job offers to help people.

• Tell them you have a tight budget but do your bit by volunteering 10 hours a week (you should actually do this).

• As you approach, accept the eye contact, and then when you get about a metre away, point to their shirt or shoe with a look of confusion—they too, will look in confusion, long enough for you to make your escape.

A couple of things that won’t work: • Under no circumstances should you tell them you already give their represented charity money. This will lead them to either ask for increased donation or give you a different form which asks you to sign up your friends (without getting paid to do so).

• Telling them you can’t afford it. They have ways of bamboozling you with sums that make you think you really can afford it and that after all that starving child/elephant really does need it more than you.

The most important thing though, is not to feel guilty about avoiding them—when you have your fancy degree and your fancy job, and can actually afford it, I know you’ll be good citizens and do it. * These strategies can also be used with Hare Krishnas, politicians, those dudes selling their CDs outside Burger King and Israeli backpackers selling tacky jewellery

Need help with a sticky situation?

Auntie Sharon may be able to help: auntiesharon@salient.org.nz

Got a sex question? Want to ask anonymously and see it in Salient? Go to askconstance.com for your hard-earned 15 minutes of faceless, pantsless fame.

Hey CC! I’m not gonna beat around the bush for this. I don’t know if/ when I orgasm during sex! When I masturbate, I use clit play, (hardly ever finger) and I’ll orgasm. But with sex, I just don’t know if I do or not. I feel the pressure building.

And I feel fine after intercourse.

But I don’t actually know whether I’ve orgasmed. I feel as if I’m “faking”, but I’m not doing it on purpose... I dunno if this makes sense at all, but. Help? :/ Confused nympho.

Nympho, welcome to the club. The club which consists of 75% of women who can’t orgasm from vaginal sex alone.

Trust me when I say that’d you would know if you were coming, and the fact that you’re unsure means you’re probably not.

You’re not faking (unless you’re yelling “I’M COMING” from the top of your lungs), because feeling the pressure building means you’re probably somewhere fun on the climax mountain, just not at the top.

This is totally okay.

If you have your heart set on coming during sex, then try and introduce some clit play while you’re

It can be really hard to adjust to someone else’s attempts, but with patience and guidance you can get there fucking. Or help your partner to last longer and see where that building pressure eventually takes you. You can do that by getting them off in foreplay first (round two is usually longer), or by taking the sex a bit slower. Also, try a vibrating cock ring with a clit piece.

However, if you’re happy to make peace with the fact that you might not be able to come from vaginal sex, then the world is still your sexy oyster.

Make foreplay longer and sexier, with heaps of head and clit play so that you might come before the vaginal sex.

Or, why don’t you show your partner how you masturbate so they can pick up on your preferred technique, and it doubles as a sexy show. Throw in nipple pasties for extra effect. Or don’t.

Orgasms are fantastic, but not everyone comes from shared sexual encounters—let’s face it, most of us get really used to our own unique way of doing it ourselves. It can be really hard to adjust to someone else’s attempts, but with patience and guidance you can get there - at least in foreplay. Relying on the ‘in-outin-out’ of vaginal sex for an orgasm when most of your nerve endings are in your clit doesn’t cut it for many women. So don’t feel disheartened— just get creative.

The other thing to remember is that if you get too focussed on coming, it might stress you out and put you off. So, focus on having fun, and seeing where it takes you, instead of chasing an orgasm. salient.org.nz

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Salient Vol. 74

Film

rubber

review

s ut review Check o Punch, r e k c u of S and Foo Armadillo ack and B — Fighters nline!

Forth o

And Everything is Going Fine

Adam Goodall

Johnny Crawford

If you’re going into Rubber expecting a movie about a killer tyre killing folks and being bad-ass, boy howdy have I got news for you.

One of the most versatile directors working today, Steven Soderbergh’s chameleon-like nature makes it difficult to define a ‘Steven Soderbergh Film’ even if he retains a relatively high level of artistic control and quality across his body of work.

Rubber may have been marketed as some nutso pisstake of the high-concept film, upping the ante by drenching an inherently ludicrous plot with enough blood to keep an entire bus full of crash victims alive, but the reality is far weirder— Dupieux has lured you into his film with the intent of mocking you for coming to see a film about killer tyre killing folks and being bad-ass.

The film opens with a speech delivered by Lieutenant Chad (a brilliant, laconic Stephen Spinella) that asks the important questions—why was ET brown?

Why don’t they ever go to the bathroom in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre? Why, in The Pianist, was Adrian Brody hiding and living like a bum when he could play the piano so well? The only answer, in Chad’s eyes, is that “all important element of style”: no reason. However, this is just a red herring, as we realise there is a reason—it’s because we, the audience, demand it. The film sells this by switching between Robert, the killer tyre who just wants to be loved, and a rag-tag audience of stereotypes watching the action through binoculars a few miles away. The audience cheers when Robert blows a beer bottle up with his ‘psychokinetic powers’—in response, he begins blowing up bigger and bigger things. The audience questions his motivations—in reponse, he falls in love with a French girl and watches his rubber brethren burned in a tire fire. The audience makes lewd comments about the French girl he’s stalking—in response, he enters her room.

Everything Robert does, he does for the audience.

Dupieux’s view of the audience is not glamorous—they demand too much, they moan about things not making sense, they eat food like dogs; they are, in a manner of speaking, ‘animals’. However, his mockery of our myriad demands (“That can’t be it! FEAR NEVER DIES!”) never crosses the line into mean-spirited and is tempered by a similar send-up of the cynicism of Hollywood itself in the figure of Lieutenant Chad.

Further, Dupieux’s excellent cinematography—never has an American desert looked so warm—and cannily evocative score make it a feast for the eyes as well as the mind and a damn good time overall.

Despite being directed by Soderbergh, And Everything is Going Fine cannot reasonably be called a Steven Soderbergh film.

It is well and truly a Spalding Gray film.

The actor Gray had performed for Soderbergh twice before. He had a small part in King of the Hill while Gray’s Anatomy is a filmed version of one of his 90-minute monologues. Six years after Gray committed suicide, Soderbergh has released this third and final offering, a documentary that combines footage from performances, interviews and home movies to provide an account of Gray’s life. Even though Gray had no input in the creation of the final film, Soderbergh essentially lets Gray, a much more gifted storyteller than he, narrate his own tale and the result is a beautifully poignant and darkly hilarious meditation on love, religion, sex, family and mortality.

Gray was a fantastically compelling speaker. During his theatrical monologues he would ask members of the audience questions, listening to them as they surprised themselves with incredible insight due to Gray’s frankness and gentle questioning. In Gray’s Anatomy he turned a feature length monologue about a bung-eye into oratory gold which was only occasionally punctuated with these admissions by other people. Even smaller amounts of time in And Everything is Going Fine are dedicated to other voices; most of its length is simply Gray speaking. The first to admit his unreliability as a narrator, the fact that his extensive recollections contain fabrications is beside the point.

Substantial insight can be gained from the way in which he recounts them. In hindsight, his recollections are not only funny, compelling and clever but they also devastatingly foreshadow what is to come. The film doesn’t mention its subject’s death but one does not have to do much reading into the words of this ingenious, tragic figure to work out that everything was not, in fact, going fine.

Theatre The New Zealand International

Louise Burston

Laughter doesn’t suit me.

Whereas some lucky souls have the ability to transform themselves through laughter into seemingly angelic entities, positively brimming with radiance and joy, I am doomed to mutate with every torrent of giggles into something rather less cinematic. So it is with a touch of trepidation that I look forward to the New Zealand International Comedy Festival. Rioting through Wellington from 29 April until 22 May, the Festival offers everything from stand-up to musical comedy, so rest assured that your favourite flavour of funny is on offer. There will be Salient reviewers braving laughterinspired facial disfigurement for five of the upcoming Comedy Festival shows, all of which I seem to have an opinion on, despite not yet having seen them.

The Boy with Tape on his Face by Sam Wills: May 2 - 7 at San Francisco Bathhouse. I predict an

engaging, surprising and altogether charming silentcomedy from this man, along with a fair bit of audience participation.

Grown Up by Brad Zimmerman: May 3 - 7 at Club Ivy. I predict a show which will be enjoyed by anyone

who isn’t totally sure how to go about becoming an ‘adult’ and wonders whether it really has to happen to them. I hear that it’s highly relatable and should be a little gem.

Dan is Dead / I am a Yeti by Natalie Medlock and Dan Musgrove: May 10 - 14 at BATS. I predict that you’ll either love or, ummm, strongly dislike this zany new work from the powerfully observant comedy duo. It could be hilarious but maybe only if you’re a cool kid from Auckland.

that Salient might not be able to get tickets to this show since it’s nearly sold out. Danny Bhoy is mind-bendingly, heart-wrenchingly, spine-tinglingly funny. He is also Irish and just a tad easy on the eyes. I consider it my duty to watch his show and so should you.

Politics the Musical by the Improvisors: May 17 – 21 at Circa Two. I predict that those who don’t know

a thing about politics will have a cracker of a time at this show but that those who do will have even more fun.

s r e t Disas

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‘Fa

Comedy Festival 2011

Messenger (Please Do Not Shoot) by Danny Bhoy: May 13 - 14 at the Opera House. I predict

The Arts

ted a l e R ign- Theatre s e D s’ in mou

Issue 8 Design

na I whe y VII ilding. r n e H u d ce of f of the b nd ha rman oo ffin a eath perfo atched r o a c on g a n t i th in od r s t e u lf h d r d e t e s n to sh im e Bu t dow set fire led h y got cru burn nd e sea gu Louis eatre he play a hen h he poor h to T w e 0 t g lob play 199 f him. T durin s in a on’s G ed in Juda cene. n, di d on top o Lond was fired f a i o c i s g e ole n a ma pour the r e hanging cano rrus, concrete him. ying th h Bu o f lst pla during i h Josep le heap o ers got t w self olo, o cu Louise Di Pa anged him a wh time res nato e or Re dentally h t by th c a Facebook e i h c t c a 0 0 r, In 20 ate Easte r Messages her pals celeb

William O’Neil and Jane Wenley, lighting designer/operator and costumier respectively, to ask them a bit about what it is they do.

What was your first experience of working with theatre design?

William: I had the opportunity to be involved in the 2010 season of Young & Hungry, which gives young people aged 15-25 years the opportunity to gain hands-on theatre experience within a professional structure, mentored by industry pros. I totally recommend it purely for the connections you can make.

Jane: My first costume design experience was working with Sophie Hanover on VUW’s The Master and Margarita.

This was a great starting point as a chance to experiment with a fantastic script and work within a budget.

If you weren’t involved with your area of design, is there any other role in theatre that you’d be interested in pursuing?

William: I’d like to properly try my hand at writing, one of these days. That sounds like such a pretentious white middle-class thing to say but there you go.

Jane: Something I would like to try is lighting a contemporary dance show; working with the design and how light affects dancers’ bodies and movement on stage.

If you could pick any person, living or deceased, to mentor you in your field then who would it be?

William: I think it might be interesting to take some tips from some famous dead painters (I wouldn’t know who, because there was no room for art history papers in my science degree). Light and paint are obviously very different mediums but in both cases attention to and an understanding of the way light works has a big impact.

Jane: I would love to be mentored by Yumiko Takeshima who designed beautifully fluid costumes for the RNZB production of A Million Kisses To My Skin. The colour palette and texture of the pieces was stunning, and it would be amazing to learn about creating costumes for movement.

Who is your current favourite NZ designer? (Fashion, architecture, artist – whatever).

William: Some work I’ve really enjoyed recently was the posters for the Wellington Young Feminists Collective by Natasha Sawicki Mead. Simple and effective.

Jane: At the moment I’m really liking Kelly Thompson’s illustrations. salient.org.nz

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Salient Vol. 74

Books

E-readers vs.

Books:

Asking the easy questions Fairooz Samy In these modern times, is there a fear of being left behind? Can an electronic book, by definition, even exist? Consumers are told that they live in a world obsessed with upgrading the staples of twentyfirst century existence. Find your inner geek or be found wanting.

Such is the thought process behind E-book readers like the Kindle, Nook, and various other types of electronic text processors. Salient breaks it down:

E-readers: • The shiny factor: E-readers are pretty, glossy things that are sure to please the more status-conscious among us. Downsides include looking pompous and lip-pursing.

• The convenience factor: Much like how the iPod destroyed the cultural credit of having a CD collection, lightweight E-readers let you store, and whip out 1000 of your favourite reads literally anywhere. Other bonuses include the ability to read in the dark.

For all the times you wished you had War and Peace on the walk home from town!

• The privacy factor: Tell people you’re reading Atlas Shrugged while scrolling through the second Twilight book.

• The limitation factor: For the few readers with Wi-Fi, surfing the net is like using a Swiss Army-keychain knife to chop up vegetables. There’s also the $200-400 price range, restricted battery life, and breakability level to take into account.

Bound Books: • The cheap factor: A library card is free, and you can borrow for yourself or lend to your friends within a maximum 14-day period.

• The nostalgia factor: bedtime stories, treasured classics, and trawling through bookshops on idle afternoons. Some enjoy the ‘old-book’ smell, and page textures are a plus for fetishists.

• The mystique factor: Deep moments are best had with a book in a coffee shop/Laundromat/pier/the rain. Being seen reading a (battered) copy of One Hundred Years of Solitude gives off a mysterious charisma that’s both inviting and unpretentious.

• The durability factor: Stain it, throw it, or back a car over it, the humble paperback will often outlive the average human.

It’s Pulitzer time: A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan has been deemed luminary enough to win this year’s Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Boasting a layout so bewildering critics initially thought it a series of short stories, the novel spans fifty years and features eight characters whose narratives intertwine across the New York music industry scene. Described as post-post-modern, and recognized by the judging panel for its “big-hearted curiosity about cultural change at warp speed”, the novel’s prose is unapologetically point-blank, spitting out episodes from the lives of disjointed, eyebrow-raising hipsters. Heading the charge is Bennie Salazar, a vitriolic punk led astray by the sleaziest music mogul in the city, Lou Kline, whose demise represents the birth of digital supremacy and subsequent breakdown in human communication. Egan’s bold writing style (case in point, the chapter written entirely in PowerPoint form) and willingness to take risks has seen her walk away with the 2011 National Book Critics Circle Award, and rumour has it that the HBO powerhouse is planning to adapt it in to a mini-series.

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Worst Book Covers

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A Quote From...

Harry Ricketts—poet, author, English and Creative Writing lecturer here at Vic, and one of the loveliest chaps you could hope to meet: “I’m sure E-Readers will be popular and are here to stay but whether they will kill off the conventional book, I’m less certain. After all, acoustic and electric instruments happily co-exist and complement each other, and I don’t see why E-Readers and books shouldn’t do the same.”

The Arts

Issue 8 Design

Games

39

Anomalous Materials:

Silent Protagonists Donnie Cuzens

Video games are a unique form of creative media for a plethora of reasons, too many to list on this page alone. But one aspect that distinguishes a game most starkly from its filmic or literary counterparts is its characters, and specifically, your character.

It is the only medium where the protagonist of a narrative can accurately be labelled as such—where you are a player, not just an observer or reader, being projected into the narrative world itself via your in-game avatar; your actions affecting the world in ways as simple as a single footstep or as complex as the downfall of an entire city. It is also one of the only media where that protagonist can go an entire story without uttering a single word.

Silent protagonists in games are not a rare occurrence by any stretch. In fact, some of the industry’s most instantly recognisable icons like Zelda’s Link or Half Life’s Gordon Freeman himself have not spoken one syllable, audible or readable, in their respective mega-franchises’ entire life spans. These wordless heroes span every type of game from intensely violent shooters and epic fantasy RPGs to cartoonish platformers (think Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon). These characters are almost always an artistic choice by the developer. They can provide players with a blank slate, a medium through which they project themselves upon the game’s universe in any way they choose. The absence of your avatar’s voice allows you to imagine your own in place of it, or to shape your character’s thoughts through interactions with other characters and the world itself. Though these heroes may be are silent, they are not always devoid of character themselves.

In Valve’s timeless Half Life, you’re placed firmly in the shoes of veteran scientist Gordon Freeman, a bespectacled man of few words whose aptitude with a crowbar saves his life and others’ countless times.

Gordon stays resolutely silent throughout the series’ four currently released chapters. However, through his interactions with the other masterfully crafted characters in the series, you get a very vivid sense of his own identity. During the opening to the first game, before the quantum shit has hit the metaphysical fan, nods and welcomes from security guards and your fellow scientists

give you the impression that this amble through laboratory corridors is something Gordon has done every day for years. Some of the older scientists regard you with sarcasm, while others are respectful and even jovial. All the way through these games, the universe of Half Life impresses itself upon you, making you feel a part of it and terrifying you with the scope of Valve’s vision. All without speaking a single word.

Silence is not always golden however. My recent review of Crysis 2 touched briefly on the less-thanastounding story and its inability to make you care about the characters involved. The most glaringly awful part of how the story progressed was that almost all of the conflicts between the few people around you stem from a case of mistaken identity, which in turn is caused by your character Alcatraz’s lack of tongue. You spend three quarters of the game being shot at by trigger-happy guns for hire who assume you are someone you’re not, simply because your character supposedly has his jaw wired shut. Even your main lifeline for the first half of the game doesn’t blink an eye when the man he thinks is his friend is stoically noiseless. In fact, a simple sentence of “I’m not this Prophet guy you think I am, what the fuck is going on!?” would have eliminated the vast majority of the story’s conflict. Other than the impeding annihilation by alien invasion, that is.

Characterisation is as important a part of games as anything else involving narrative structure. The interactivity of the medium can provide so many ways for game developers to immerse you in the universes they build. From conversing with humble villagers to making first contact with a strange alien race, a well-written protagonist with a voice of their own can make for compelling storytelling. But silently exploring a world that is just as intricately detailed as its characters is an experience few visual media can rival. Just make sure that world is one worth exploring.

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Visual A

Interview with

Jessie Henson lives and works in New York City. She works with mixed media in installation and collage form, often integrating textiles and photographs. One of her most charming works assembles an armada from found paintings of ships.

Fuck Yeah Women Artists Morgan Ashworth

Salient writer Morgan Ashworth talks to Caroline Knowles and Rhiannon Platt, founders of the Tumblr Fuck Yeah Women Artists (womenartists.tumblr.com).

Andrea Dezsö creates deeply personal narratives in a wide range of media.

Her mosaic at the Bedford Park Boulevard subway station, Community Garden (below), was awarded Best American Public Art 2007. A series of embroideries humorously depict Dezsö’s Transylvanian mother’s favourite sayings.

Who is behind Fuck Yeah Women Artists? Are you women artists?

FYWA is collaborative effort between Caroline and Rhiannon. Caroline studied art history as an undergrad and Rhiannon is currently working on her MA in Art History. We both also work as female artists—Rhiannon minored in film as an undergrad and creates short films and Caroline dabbles in illustration and painting.

What is FYWA all about?

C: Sharing women’s art with the largest audience possible!

Tumblr is the perfect forum for this because people can so quickly “reblog” our posts and share it with even more individuals. We try to stick to just the art and leave out commentary and let the work really speak for itself.

R: Representing both traditional and non-traditional female artists.

Why do you think it is important to showcase women artists specifically?

Pre-feminism, art history was very biased towards the idea of “the male genius artist”; think Da Vinci. Post-feminism forgotten female artists are slowly getting added into the art history canon, but receiving nowhere near the attention of their male counterparts. It’s about representing the unrepresented, both in terms of showing emerging artists as well as helping to rewrite the canon.

Do you think there is a noticeable difference between the work of female and male artists?

This isn’t really the issue. Instead it’s an issue of why women artists have not been integrated into the canon of art history as their male counterparts have. When you ask someone to name famous artists, you will most likely get a slew of male artists: Jackson Pollock, Leonardo Da Vinci, Banksy.

Everyone should read “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” by Linda Nochlin. She explains it very well.

Man it really sounds like I’m picking on Da Vinci a lot...

Are there any other requirements other than being a woman artist to be featured? Have you run into any difficulties or had anyone object to the site or its purpose?

No other requirements. And thankfully all of our readers are awesome. No mean notes, but some super nice ones.

When did you start the tumblr? Has it received much attention?

We started it back in February so it hasn’t been around too long but we’ve been receiving a lot of positive attention for it! Every day we gain a few more fans and followers. We encourage our blog to be interactive and for our readers to submit artworks and “artist of the day” suggestions for us to feature.

Who are some of your favourite artists or pieces that have been featured on the site?

C: My favorites are some of the more up and coming contemporary artists—Jessie Henson, Emma van Leest, Noemie Goudal, etc.

R: I didn’t know that much about Andrea Dezsö, who we featured the other day. I loved her craft-as-art work. Also, I’m really into representing female filmmakers. I feel like filmmaking is left out of the arts because it appeals to the general population. So getting to put female directors like Julie Taymor and Jamie Babbit is amazing.

Music

Spotlight on:

Forest Spirits Flo Wilson Auckland-based bedroom producer Liam Richardson, otherwise known as Forest Spirits, has recently released his debut EP under label Sonorous Circle, to rising acclaim in local circles. In the short amount of time Forest Spirits has been active, a clear progression in musical styles is apparent. While still clearly experimenting with his style, there’s already a characteristic blend of early 20th century film sound and emerging European experimental dance music... Read more online!

Kia ora, kids! In light of New Zealand music month, the next few Spotlight segments will be focusing upon the music that currently thrives or is moving up our local music scenes. I’m aware that the previous articles have been geared towards finding music offshore, but I’ve probably been doing an injustice to those doing well in our own fair country, so here goes!

The Arts

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This week in music: • Friday 6 May: The Drab Doo Riffs at Mighty Mighty • Saturday 7 May: Beastwars, Razorwyre and Old Loaves at Bodega • Swedish dark dance band The Knife are recording their first new album in five years. It will be released next year.

• It’s albums all over the show! Bon Iver have a new one coming out in June.

• Wellington band Diana Rozz have released their first EP ‘Numbskull’ on Muzai Records...

• ... while the Family Cactus return with their second album ‘Spirit Lights’, out through Arch Hill on 20 May...

• ... and Princess Chelsea gears up to release her debut album on Lil’ Chief.

• Ladi6 has won the 2011 Taite Music Prize for her album ‘ The Liberation Of...’

• Please come and write for us! The music page is always looking for music lovers to string a few words together and it can only be what you make it. Send an email through to arts@salient.org.nz.

• Oh yeah, it’s New Zealand Music Month. So over the next few weeks, we’re going to publish a few things about what we think about it. This week, Brendan Smyth from NZ On Air.

Ghost Wave: Ghost Wave (and also a bit of a NZ Music Month rant) Timothy McKenna-Bolton It could be easy to pass this EP off after a single listen as straight-forward breezy, jangly, guitar rock.

However, there’s an intelligence and subtlety behind the songwriting and arrangements which give it a surprising amount of depth. It’s also the kind of alternative music that could appeal to people who are of the opinion that alternative music is generally wanky... Read more online!

Brendan Smyth, Music Manager at NZ On Air, on New Zealand Music Month Barney Chunn As New Zealand Music Month moves into its 2nd decade, it would be a prudent time to assess what exactly it is and/ or does, how it works, and what it aims to achieve. While its logo can’t be missed in and around May, and fans of the widely recognisable target have a chance to increase their t-shirt collections, what exactly is it there for and what does it do for New Zealand bands and the music they make? Brendan Smyth, the music manager of NZ on Air, was a part of the establishment of New Zealand Music Week in 1997 and has been an integral cog in the Music Month wheel... Read more online! salient.org.nz

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Better Beer at Home Brendon Mackenzie I have been brewing beer as a serious hobby for about 15 years (off and on), and I want to describe how accessible this can be. Brewing at home is easy and inexpensive, and can be more satisfying than some commercial beer.

Richard Emerson of Emerson’s Brewery in Dunedin considers one of his home-brewed beers the best he’s ever brewed. That’s how good it can be!

In the first of my home brewing articles, I will introduce you to the ‘partial-mash’ technique, which allows you to add character to the beer using speciality grains. The normal, supermarket ‘kit-and-kilo’ brews only require the addition of malt extract and sugar, which is fine in some brews (such as Belgian ales), but basically, it’s just a cheap way of adding alcohol. The recipe I’m going to use will make a strong, hoppy pale ale—think Emerson’s Bookbinder but with more alcohol. For the budding beer geeks out there, this beer will be about 5.5% alcohol by volume and 32 bitterness units. Here’s what you need.

will be

Equipment

• A 30l Fermenter with lid, airlock and tap—obtainable from Great Expectations in Lower Hutt for $45. Don’t worry, you can get items delivered for about $5 • A thermometer, range 0-100 degrees Centigrade—again, Great Expectations stock them for $14.50 • 2 pots—one should be of a largish size, such as an 8l stock pot (try The Warehouse) • A sieve—though a large sieve and a tea-leaf strainer (The Warehouse) would be better • A large stirring device, such as a soup ladel or spatula, made of metal or plastic but not wood • A Kitchen Whiz for crushing the malt—or if push comes to shove, a rolling pin or empty 500ml glass bottle will do • A pint glass • A box of Gladwrap • 2 metres of PVC tubing for attaching to your fermenter tap (Mitre 10 usually sells this by the metre) • A bottling wand—about $15 from Great Expectations • Bottles with caps—I suggest 24 litres worth of PET bottles (go for the 2l ones to save you some bottle washing). Avoid bottles that have had soft drink in them, as you can never really rid of that flavour. A 2l bottle can be purchased from Great Expectations for $1.80. If you use glass bottles, you will need to get hold of a capper.

• White cane sugar for bottle priming

Ingredients The ingredients for this brew cost you about $2.40 a litre. Now that’s inexpensive craft beer!

• Two 1.7kg tins of Cooper’s Lager—Woolworths in Johnsonville stocks them for about $15 a tin • 1/3 cup of unscented bleach • One can of cheap industrial beer • The following specialty malt and hops, which are available from Liberty Brewing and should come to about $20 in total. You can also get Jo at Liberty Brewing to crush the malt for you: • 200g Weyermann Caramunich II malt • 20g Baird’s Pale Chocolate malt • 20g NZ Styrian Golding hop pellets • 20g NZ Fuggle hop pellets • 12g SafAle US-O5 yeast (you can also get 11.5g packets of yeast from Great Expectations)

Got everything together? Head to salient.org.nz for Brendon’s step-by-step instructions!

Lest We Forget Hayley Adams A good batch of home baking is a powerful thing. It can cheer someone up, thank a person who has helped you out, or make a great birthday present for someone special. The thing I have always loved most about baking is seeing the people in my life really enjoying it.

Last week was the 96th commemoration of ANZAC Day, on which we remember those who fought at Gallipoli in World War I. ANZAC biscuits have forever been associated with those who sacrificed themselves during that battle, as they were sent to soldiers because they were cheap to make and had a good shelf life on the long journey. Today the word ‘ANZAC’ is protected by Australian law, but exceptions are made for the use of ANZAC biscuits, so long as it is referred to as a biscuit and never a cookie. They are still a Kiwi favourite almost 100 years later, and the recipe is roughly the same. I know it’s a little late but here’s a recipe so you can make a batch at home.

ANZAC Biscuits • 1 cup of each flour, sugar, oats and shredded coconut • 175g butter • 2 tbsp golden syrup • 1 tsp baking soda • 2 tbsp boiling water Preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius and line a baking tray with baking paper. Put all dry ingredients except the baking soda into a bowl and mix well with a fork or whisk to make sure there aren’t any stray lumps of flour. In a pot, melt your butter and golden syrup together. Mix baking soda and boiling water together into a cup until dissolved. Mix baking soda into golden syrup mixture then add to dry ingredients and mix quickly. Roll the mixture into balls and pop on your baking tray. Flatten the balls with a wet fork or with your fingers. Bake for 10 minutes or until flattened and brown.

Cool on a wire rack and store in a airtight container.

On another note regarding the power of baking, there will be a bake sale at the Cotton Street end of the Maclaurin foyer from 11am to 1pm on Wednesday 4 May, so make sure you come and say hi and purchase some scrumptious snacks. All proceeds will go to Wellington Rape Crisis to help them with the amazing work they do.

If you are interested in donating a plate, flick me an email on hj.adams91@gmail.com—your support would be sweet.

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Notices Salient provides a free notice service for all Victoria University of Wellington students, VUWSAaffiliated clubs and not-for-profit organisations. Notices should be received by 5pm Tuesday the week before publication. Notices should be fewer than 100 words. Forprofit organisations will be charged $10 per notice. Send notices to editor@salient.org.nz, with ‘Notice’ in the subject line.

CAREERS AND JOBS

Toastmasters

Recruitment for 2011/12 Internships and 2012 Graduate Jobs has started!

And closing SOON!

Wednesdays, 12-1pm, Room 218, Student Union Building

Full details on CareerHub: careerhub. victoria.ac.nz Internships and Graduate Applications Closing in May and June: 16/5 – Curtis McLean 22/5 – GHD 25/5 – Contact Energy 26/5 – ANZ 27/5 – Tonkin Taylor 31/5 – PKF Martin Jarvie; Halliburton – Australasia; NZ Institute of Economic Research (NZIER) 1/6 – Transpower 12/6 – Walt Disney World 13/6 – Frucor; Prudential 17/6 – Intergen Employer Presentations – check details/book on CareerHub: 12/5 – Curtis McLean, 4.30pm Careers Expos – check details CareerHub: 19/5 – Campus Careers Expo, 11am – 2pm 20/5 – ICT Careers Expo, 12pm – 2pm 11/8 – Science Careers Expo, 11am – 12pm Vic Careers: 463-5393, careers-service@ vuw.ac.nz, 14 Kelburn Parade

International student needs your help!

Dear Victorians, I am Ang Ching Ting, a third year student of B.Ed TESOL and B.A Linguistics. I am a finalist for the 2011 New Zealand International Student of the Year award and I need your great help!

Please read my article and vote for me, for I am • excelling at my studies • participating in university and community activities • really getting involved in Kiwi culture and experiences Only two steps to vote: 1st, ‘Like’ http://www.facebook.com/ NZEducated 2nd, ‘Like’ http://www.facebook. com/notes/new-zealand-educated/ international-student-ofthe-year-finalist-ang-chingting/10150166571169361

Because communication isn’t optional, Toastmasters is a club dedicated to helping people practice public speaking in a fun and supportive environment.

Everyone - no matter what your current public speaking ability – is welcome. Come along and see what Toastmasters is all about.

Please come along this week if you are interested because unless enough people show we will be shutting down.

Visit us online at vicuni.freetoasthost. info

VicIDS ‘Ecuador and Fairtrade Bananas’ Speaker Event Monday May 2, 5:15pm, CO304, Kelburn Nick Pharazyn will be speaking to us about his time volunteering in Ecuador and his experience of fairtrade there.

He will also discuss the rainforest conservation fundraiser he is running, with the goal of helping to save an area of Ecuadorian cloud forest. Pharazyn has also spent time working for All Good Bananas - the first importer of fairtrade bananas in New Zealand. He will be discussing the importance of All Good Bananas at the speaker event as well.

direction of drug policy. This coincides with the government’s review of New Zealand’s 35-year-old drug law.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

Mexico-based Aram Barra is on the international board of Youth R.I.S.E, a global network of young people working on drug policy reform. Aram has been a youth activist for the past ten years, he has been working in HIV/ AIDS and harm reduction issues in Latin America for the past three years.

Are you a L.D.S Student or Staff, or are you thinking of learning more about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints?

The workshop is organised by the New Zealand Drug Foundation. For more information or to register contact Catherine Milburn (04 801 6303, catherine.milburn@drugfoundation. org.nz ).

Film Society Do you want to watch a chance to watch a vast range of weekly movies with fellow students?

Do you want to eat homemade popcorn while doing so?

Do you want to pay dirt cheap prices for it?

If the answer to these questions is ‘yes’ then come along to Film Society.

Are you a student or staff who attends Victoria University?

We are looking at starting up a club/ group for those who are L.D.S and those who are wanting to learn more about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. In order for us to start a group/ club, we need to have a list of twenty current students who want to be members of this group in-order for this group/club to become a club.

If you are interested or would like to know more about this group then please feel free to e-mail the following: lds_ students_and_staff@hotmail.co.nz In your e-mail, please say when it is best to meet as a group such as the days, times and place. Then we can start looking at running a group/club. If you have anything questions please also e-mail. Have a great day.

6.30pm, Thursday nights Memorial Theatre in the Student Union Building

New Zealand Sign Language Week: Film Showcase!

This week, pay only $15 for a year’s worth of films or $2 for a single non-membership screening and watch the awesome 1950s sci-fi classic (giant ants!) Them!

Screening held at the Language Learning Centre, on the big screen in VZ003. Free admission, be early as seats are limited. Foreign films screened with English subtitles.

Free faitrade tea and coffee will be provided (if you can, bring a cup!)

Film Society: The perfect way to spend a Thursday night.

Global Drug Policy Reform Workshop

Volunteer collectors needed for the Wellington Rape Crisis Annual Street Appeal

Date: Wednesday 4 May Time: 5pm The Silent One (NZ 1987) Run time: 92min A mythological children’s drama about the relationship between a deaf mute boy and a rare white turtle. The boy’s differences lead to suspicion from his Rarotongan village. When the village suffers drought, and then a devastating storm, the boy is blamed.

Run time: 92min Venue: VZ003

Are you concerned about the impact drug policy has on young people? Do you want to get active in drug law reform?

Take part in this workshop run by global drug policy reformer Aram Barra, in Wellington, Wednesday 10 May. The workshops are targeted at people who have been affected by drug polices who want to be involved in working towards a healthier drug law for young people.

The workshop will focus on the effects of drug policies on young people and how young people can influence the

6 May 7:30am-6pm. Even volunteering for an hour would be a great help.

Contact Natasha on 021 032 2049 or annualappeal@wellingtonrapecrisis.org. nz. Please donate generously.

There will be also be a bake sale at the Cotton Street end of the Maclaurin foyer from 11am to 1pm on Wednesday 4 May, with all proceeds going to the Wellington Rape Crisis.

If you are interested in donating a plate, flick Hayley an email on hj.adams91@gmail.com.

Date: Thursday 5 May Time: 5pm Through Deaf Eyes This documentary explores 200 years of Deaf life in America. It tells the story of conflicts, prejudice and affirmation that ultimately reaches the heart of what it means to be human Venue: VZ003

Cheers!

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Letters Looking for love... on earth hm, so i guess we aren’t doing blind dates this year? or no interested hippieliking guys? so, to plan b: one for your so-far-non-existant personals column.

Wanted: hippie boyfriend. The whole bare feet and dreadlocks aint really necessary, it’s all the world view, man. Ideal maturity 21-24, actual age irrelevant (within reason). Must have some interest in tramping. Write to me at hippiechick05@live.com - no really, do it, i’m an approachable sort. cher.

Stop us if you think you’ve heard this one before Dear Handsome Devil, This night has opened my eyes and I want you to accept yourself. Because frankly Mr Shankly you’ve got everything now. Please, please, please let me get what I want. I know it’s over.

I keep mine hidden but i know that some girls are bigger than others. Work is a four-letter word but heaven knows I’m miserable now and I’m so sorry.

Last night I dreamed that somebody loved me but i woke in a panic. Why are you girl afraid you sweet and tender hooligan? Am I unloveable?

It seems as though bigmouth strikes again. It seems as though these things take time but what difference does it make? It’s back to the old house for me. You are the boy with the thorn in his side.

Yours forever, A vicar in a tutu.

A bright idea Tena Koutou Katoa Salient, Here we are past the halfway point of this trimester and the outside lights outside the first floor of the Union Building continue to not work despite my and I am assume other people’s complaints to Campus Care that these lights need to be on before anything unpleasant happens in that area.

At the same time I wish to acknowledge the polite manner in which I have been listened to everytime I have chosen to register a complaint and the fact that vegetation has been cleared from the back of the area where the VUWSA offices used to be making it slighter safer but still those lights fail to work.

Perhaps it is timely for Salient to do an article on those areas that do need action on them to make them safe.

Nga mihi, Chris Renwick Editors’ note: These lights are now on.

Good work, team!

Can we come to nacho night?

To thy most important, I like apples a lot, (I also like avocado’s) Some metal smelling fuckers stole my happy apples and put them in a smiley bag of whispers and shadows…

AND WIND. Now all I have left is rotting mush, and my avocado be gone from me’ tree…

Can I please borrow a happy seed please? Any fruit will do, also, an avocado for nacho night?

And I will be a happy tree growing above those lazy merino wool suited corporate cuntiecunts and wave my branches with delight as I shake my leaves of left over kush on their heads.

easter hunt doesn’t include the Te Aro campus. Don’t you love us ‘peoples coffee’ drinking faggots who hang out on Cuba street in our vintage clothing, wearing $3.90 wayfarers, carrying them vintage brown leather satchels full of moleskin unlined exercise books with our creative musings, sketches of our naked boy/girl friends, and very few notes (as our courses are practice based). Just because we shop at hunters and collectors, and ziggurats, and have our septum’s pierced doesn’t mean that we aren’t VUWSA lovers. we deserve an easter hunt!! statistically, our architecture students are the most likely to kill themselves, and don’t you think it would be nice to give those suicidal mac nerds an easter hunt before they throw themselves onto vivian street at 5pm.

Maybe you should just whisper at them

VUWSA, you have made a terrible mistake by not including the Te Aro campus, we want our fucking easter hunt!!! maybe we will vote in favour for the VSM, and not pay you guys anything so you can’t ever have another fucking easter hunt.

Dear Salient and peers,

booyaa

I think we should revolt and protest against the university. Im sure many of you are extremely busy this week with tests assignments and essays all due. It’s hard enough trying to keep the quiet levels free of annoying people who come in pairs or groups to ‘study silently’ on the quiet floors but to add to that and the stress and pressure... we can hear those noisy tools for which i do not know the correct name.. and oh! would you look at the time! It’s 10am.

So contrary to what all the signs say... the builders appear to be working outside the hours of 5pm and 9am. This is BS vic. Our learning is being affected by your stupid project that we wont even get to use because we would have all graduated by the time it is actually complete. I’m sick of my education being compromised for things are not even useful. So i suggest we protest to the big guys and tell them to either quit it or at least adhere to the rules they set up. Where else am i supposed to go? I need quiet!

sincerely, a very dis-satisfied (see normal) hipster.

KIDWHOWANTSKEBABRIGHTNOW. B-)

sincerley, pissed third year ps get the f off of the quiet floors if your gonna talk, Im probably about to yell at you

The eggs will be dark chocolate. Dark and bitter.

Hi there salient so i’ve decided that you guys are the people who get shit done. the movers and shakers of the university.

I’m totally gutted that the VUWSA

Consider investing in a boomstick sALIENt, To the girl last week who wore a tinfoil hat to Geography: When you explained to the lecturer that it was to protect yourself from a zombie apocalypse and the government, I couldn’t help but laugh.

Not because I disagree - they are both plausible risks to man kind and our liberty. I will question your state of mind though if you honestly believe your tinfoil cap will protect you from those nasties. Other kitchen objects, such as a Tefal wok, would be far more effective in deflecting intrusive radio waves manipulating your opinions.

And a buckled strap would put a stop to arthritic brain hungry fingers any day, and keep it on your head whilst protesting at Waihopai with Keith Locke. I do however give you kudos for your Jedi plat, braids are so last century. Please don’t take what I say as insulting, I think we would get on. What’s your opinion on facebook conspiracy theories?

Regards, Skippy ps @ Salient, I think it’s really awesome how you have such a wide range of student involvement this year. I hope your double awesome open office day didn’t turn into Spaces to Deface: Salient HQ. Though that would make

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a great new feature. But not when it’s aimed at the Women’s Room - I hope Pat caught the culprits. Milk and Honey would be far more deserving due to their discrimination policy.

Undergrad feeling sour Has Victoria University become a Fascist state? Has free access to cafes on campus ever started a var? Has the postgraduate faction ever sired a bastard child?

I hope their Milk & Honey curdles in the sun.

Your’s Sincerely, Help! I’m in a nut shell @ Vic

Droppin’ some F-bombs Bill English your dead!!!!

So this is how were meant to catch up with Australia eh? Having a 30% wage gap then claiming that it gives us an advantage because some fucking call center can give us jobs because were cheaper than Bangladesh, na real good national real good. First you fuck us with tax increases you fuck the people of Christchurch who lost their homes and livelihoods after last years quake you allowed innocent miners to die due to your fucking greed and now my dad feels like a fucking third former carrying a fucking note to work everytime he has the shits, its all good though cos we get 2.9% wage increase to make everything better right..

WHAT THE FUCK CAN I DO WITH AN EXTRA $7.48 A YEAR YOU FUCKING DONUT! this fucking credit card shit and air points really pull my dick, I haven’t even been out of the country and your shit for brains wifey can go anywhere she fucking wants for the same price as a ticket from Waterloo to Ava. Anyway WHAT THE FUCK?!? is this the answer to all our financial problems? claim that having cheap labour gives us an advantage?

NO GO DIE YOU FUCK, now your just taking the piss, you fuck us and now your telling our mums all about it!!! I cant believe that Bill ‘im rich bitch’ English would scoop so low, give us some fucking respect New Zealanders work extremely hard just because you live in a million dollar mansion and sip champagne when you thirstaay (Smalls, 1994) doesn’t mean everythings ok. spend a day in the shoes of any minimum wage worker with two kids to feed, you will feel the pressure when grocery prices increase 10% and wage rates stay the same you fuck.

If you aint red your straight dead, even Bloods know not to vote for National thanks Ventlient

More quiet fury

Salient Letters Policy 2011

Sweet Jesus in heaven!

Salient welcomes, encourages and thrives on public debate—be it serious or otherwise—through the letters pages. Write about what inspires you, enrages you, makes you laugh, makes you cry. Send us feedback, send us abuse. Anything.

Letters must be received before 5pm Tuesday, for publication the following week.

Why oh why do people insist on talking on the non-talking floors in the library??? I know people are constantly having a bitch about this and the letters are never ending to Salient, but for Pete’s sake - SHUT THE FUCK UP! Seriously, if you could see my thoughts of what I would like to do to you as you sit there chatting to your chums, you would be running ten miles. I just don’t get it. You are fucking with MY education and other peoples when you disrupt the peace. SHUT UP! Right pissed off.

Shiny Dear Sa(insert insult to show how cool I am for not giving a shit)lient Just wanted to say I dig the weekly references to Doctor Who, It makes my belly fizz. Can’t wait for the new series (will totally be available online on the 24th for all your whovian readers) Also, the new (well I haven’t seen him before) guy at Unistop who actually gives my card back is bitchin and he should totally be given lots of hugs by sexy people.

Why have I not watched Firefly before now? It was great to watch as I was recovering from my food poisoning (Thanks Mondo!!) I can now jump on the bandwagon for Nathan Fillion to be Nathan Drake in the Uncharted movie.

Is there any reason, in that ad for the super city uni games, for the events to be listed alphabetically from top to bottom and for the “pseudo sports” to be in thought tags, rather than speech tags? A little offensive to players of the popular sport “Wheelchair Rugby”

Letters must be no more than 250 words. Pseudonyms are fine, but all letters must include your real name, address and telephone number. These will not be printed.

Please note that letters will not be corrected for spelling or grammar.

The Editors reserve the right to edit, abridge or decline any letters without explanation.

Letters can be sent to letters@ salient.org.nz, posted to Salient, c/- Victoria University, PO Box 600, Wellington or dropped into the Salient office on the third floor of the Student Union Building.

m to ~

Send ‘e

.nz nt.org @salie s r e t t le t c/ Salien ersity n U ia iv Victor x 600 PO Bo on

gt Wellin

Rup

salient.org.nz

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Salient Vol. 74

Suit Up! This week the leftover letters spell a quote from one of Shakespeare’s plays.

answers

Puzzles ACROSS: 1. ADRIFT 4. MISHAP 8. VILE 9. DECOR 10. INSIST 11. STATIC 13. CAJOLE 14. STEALTH 16. TAWDRY 18. JUBILATION 20. ARISTOCRAT 21. BEDLAM 26. SURPLUS 28. POTTER 30. CRITIC 31. QUEASY 32. THINK 33. RICH 34. STINGY 35. SCARCE

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DOWN: 1. To prefer (6) 2. A predisposition (8) 4. Complain (5) 5. Luminosity (5) 6. Meticulous (8) 7. Amass (6) 12. Unawareness (9) 14. Uproarious (9) 15. Frequently (5) 16. To pry (5) 18. Brand (5) 19. Destroy (5) 24. Falter (8) 25. An adventure (8) 27. Terminology (6) 28. Buccaneer (6) 30. A fad (5) 31. Subsequential (5)

ACROSS: 3. Nimble (5) 8. Infertile (6) 9. Danger (6) 10. Moola (5) 11. An update (8) 13. Appreciative (8) 17. Power (7) 20. To imagine (5) 21. To enchant (5) 22. A grove (7) 23. An age (5) 25. Upright (5) 26. Worried (7) 29. Crib (8) 31. Killer (8) 32. Trivial (5) 33. Courteous (6) 34. A peculiarity (6) 35. To decorate (5)

35

CRYPTIC DOWN: 1. Our favourite good deed for someone (6) 2. Inclination to some decency after ten (8) 4. Bemoan the growth anomaly (5) 5. Both gills to set on fire (5) 6. Nit-picking over the dance tip (8) 7. Build up a troupe (6) 12. Lack knowledge of one racing (9) 14. So funny, us on an airy hill! (9) 15. Repeatedly net most foe (5) 16. Poke around the Dogg (5) 18. Identify the laboratory and initial every line (5) 19. Strike hard items! (5) 24. Think twice to sit in heat before the start of the evening (8) 25. A little desk, a paid caper (8) 27. The specialised language pot is gone! (6) 28. Evaluate 3.14 sparrow jacks (6) 30. The craze of twitter sides finish (5) 31. The later ferret face (5)

CRYPTIC ACROSS: 3. The bag I left is lithe (5) 8. Sterile pub and headless songbird (6) 9. Threat of cane in me (6) 10. Cash the Simpson sound of frustration (5) 11. Admit after the male bovine announcement (8) 13. Flat hunk is indebted (8) 17. Manage the convention for the monster under a bridge (7) 20. Elaborate admirer from the outer country (5) 21. The allure of the Chinese tea room (5) 22. A plantation for warlike humanoids is difficult (7) 23. Time for Asian chocolate-dipped sticks (5) 25. Put up before the city (5) 26. Anxious over in the sun (7) 29. Cradle tine after the lower clef (8) 31. A hired gun, two donkeys and a little tavern (8) 32. Inconsequential and less than attractive (5) 33. Well-mannered Post Office, now with less sugar (6) 34. Do it yourself, dot abnormality (6) 35. Embellish the road to number (5)

SUDOKU

ARIZONA DIAMONDBACKS BROKEN HEART CALL A SPADE A SPADE CANADIAN CLUB CLUBHOUSE DAVID SPADE DIAMOND LIL DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER HALFHEARTED HEARTHSTONE HOPE DIAMOND IN DA CLUB LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND MARQUIS IN SPADES NIGHTCLUB OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB QUEEN OF HEARTS SAM SPADE SPADEWORK THE ART OF WAR UNCUT DIAMONDS

DOWN: 2. RUCKUS 3. FORSWEAR 4. MERCY 5. SWITCH 6. PRIMORDIAL 7. GATHER 8. VIABLE 12. MANTRA 15. ABET 17. WEIGHTLESS 18. JERK 19. NIMBLE 22. ECLECTIC 23. WRETCH 24. OPAQUE 25. CRAYON 27. SENIOR 29. SCARY

Issue 8 Design

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Comics

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