Utopia | Issue 22

Vol. 78

Issue 22

utopia

21 September

Contents REGULAR CONTENT

4–15 NEWS AND COLUMNS

3 Editorial 8 Ask Agatha 8 Bridget Bones’ Diary 10 Māori Matters 10 The Week In Feminism 12 The Moan Zone 12 We Drank This So You Wouldn’t

Have To 14 Letters 14 Notices 36 Science 38 Games 39 Books 40 Film 42 Music 44 Visual Arts 45 Fashion 46 VUWSA 47 Puzzles

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Editor Sam McChesney editor@salient.org.nz Design and Illustration Ella Bates-Hermans Lily Paris West designer@salient.org.nz News Editor Nicola Braid news@salient.org.nz Investigative News Editor Sophie Boot Chief Sub Editor Kimaya McIntosh Sub Editor Zoe Russell

Senior Feature Writer Philip McSweeney Feature Writers Sharon Lam Gus Mitchell Distributor Beckie Wilson News Reporters Tim Grgec Emma Hurley Charlie Prout Beckie Wilson Elea Yule News Interns Jordan Gabolinscy Alexa Zelensky News Photographer Jess Hill

Section Editors Sharon Lam (Visual Arts) Jayne Mulligan (Books) Bridget Pyć (Science) Kate Robertson (Music) Fairooz Samy (Film) Jess Scott (Fashion) Cameron Gray (Games) Other Contributors Auntie Agatha, Bridget Bones, Te Po Hawaikirangi, Brittany Mackie-Ellice, Tom and Luke, Lydia and Mitch, Bronte Ammundsen, Kari Schmidt, Sarah Dillon, James Keane, Ellen O’Dwyer Cunliffe, Kate Dowdle, Josh Ellery, Harold Coutts, Rick Zwaan, the VUWSA Executive, Puck.

How you like dem apples?

Stuck in the middle with Q(S)

16–35 FEATURES 16 20 26

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Liam and Jono Talk About Stuff!

The Day the Internet Died In the Shadow of the Kowloon Walled City A Twentieth-Century MacGuffin

Read Salient online at salient.org.nz Contact Level 2, Student Union Building Victoria University PO Box 600, Wellington 04 463 6766 Advertising Jason Sutton sales@vuwsa.org.nz 04 463 6982 Social Media Philip McSweeney philip@salient.org.nz fb.com/salientmagazine @salientmagazine Printed By Inkwise, Ashburton

About Us Salient is published by, but is editorially independent from, the Victoria University of Wellington Students’ Association (VUWSA). Salient is a member of the Aotearoa Student Press Association (ASPA) and the New Zealand Press Council.

Salient is funded in part

by Victoria University of Wellington students through the Student Services Levy. The views expressed in Salient do not necessarily reflect those of the Editor, VUWSA, or the University.

Complaints People with a complaint against the magazine should first complain in writing to the Editor and then, if not satisfied with the response, complain to the Press Council.

See presscouncil.org.nz/ complain.php for more information.

Editorial Random thoughts in lieu of an editorial: 1.

3.

7.

VUWSA set up a “great debate” last Thursday about NZUSA in an attempt to stop the VUWSA Candidates’ Forum becoming solely about NZUSA. It failed in the sense that people still talked (a bit) about NZUSA. It succeeded in the sense that the “great debate” itself was a total waste of time that nobody went to, thus allowing VUWSA to keep avoiding any meaningful discussion on the subject.

Before you jump to conclusions, that last paragraph wasn’t about Rick Zwaan.

LET’S TALK ABOUT SOMETHING ELSE NOW, FUCK’S SAKE.

4.

8.

So apparently Rory McCourt collared one of the Leave campaigners and told them it was “ironic” they were a Labour member. LABOUR ≠ NZUSA, RORY, YOU’RE REALLY NOT HELPING YOURSELF HERE.

Facebook’s getting a “dislike” button?

Dislike. The last thing we need is a new tool for cyberbullying.

2.

Most of those who at the start of the year were against NZUSA have, over the course of the year, drifted into positions of ambivalence, apathy or tacit support. The movement to leave NZUSA has gone from a broad consensus among student politicians to a campaign driven by a tiny group of people who, for various reasons, are unwilling or unable to own their views in public (not necessarily their fault). This is stupid; there are decent arguments either way but it’s hard to take the Leave campaign seriously when nobody’s willing to front it publicly or explain its overblown claims that NZUSA DOES NOTHING.

5.

Neither of the VUWSA Presidential candidates were willing to say which way they were intending to vote in the referendum (see page __), both claiming it was up to the students.

I know it’s up to the students, you fucking idiots, that’s not what I was asking.

6.

I didn’t really mean that. <3 u Jono, <3 u Liam.

9.

Yes, people can already post mean comments beneath posts but this always runs the risk of the commenter looking like a dick.

10.

Facebook validation is shallow but even so, one of the warm-fuzzier moments the medium can provide is a quick click-and-scroll of the “people who like this” list on your latest post.

Imagine that, but the opposite. That subtle negging is gnawing.

04

Person of the week

Vivienne Westwood

salient

BY THE NUMBERS

126 The number of Emmy nominations network HBO received this year.

7.6 million People have been displaced within Syria and 4m have sought asylum abroad.

71% Proportion of 18–24-year-olds who say the internet is their main source of news, according to the Pew Research Centre.

Fashion designer Vivienne Westwood recently drove a tank to British Prime Minister David Cameron’s house to protest the Government’s fracking policy. The UK’s Conservative Government has offered licences for fracking in Yorkshire and may use the controversial method to search for and extract gas. Anti-fracking is only one of the many causes Westwood has put her name to, including ethical clothing, the defence of liberty and habeas corpus and the British Green Party.

54-44 Malcolm Turnbull’s margin of victory of Tony Abbott in the recent leadership spill. The vote made Turnbull the new Australian Prime Minister.

10 tonnes The size of a tram pulled by champion female powerlifter Oksana Kosheleva last week.

www.salient.org.nz

issue 22

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N EWS. K E E N E Y E F OR N E W S? S END A NY TIPS, LEA D S O R G OSSIP TO N E W S@SA LIENT.O RG .NZ

How You Like Dem Apples?

Good Rory wows us with his melons and his carrot Beckie Wilson

Last week saw the launch of VUWSA’s first fruit and vegetable market hosted on campus.

Held in the Tim Beaglehole Courtyard (the main courtyard), it will finally provide students with fresh fruit and vegetables at cheap prices on campus.

VUWSA’s Wellbeing and Sustainability Officer Rory Lenihan-Ikin, aka Good Rory, masterminded the new market. Lenihan-Ikin told Salient that “a vege market makes perfect sense on campus. The 10,000+ students and staff at Kelburn will now be able to pick up their fresh produce on the way home, and the availability will mean students will be able to eat more healthy food.”

Good Rory aims to provide services that are “both sustainable and improve student wellbeing. This market does both, giving farmers a better deal than they get from supermarkets and giving students cheap,

healthy produce.”

The market will have stallholders from the Wellington Region, similar to the Newtown and Willis St markets.

Students have reacted positively to the idea, with Facebook comments like “this would be so much easier” and “if only they had this at the start of the year”.

The market will start off small on a trial basis for six weeks, but aims to become a regular, larger-scale fixture in 2016.

So avoid the hungover Sunday market trips and get your mid-week dose of vitamin C and leafy goodness.

The market will be held 2–6pm every Wednesday afternoon during the Trimester. editor@salient.org.nz

06

salient

News and Columns

Stuck in the Middle With Q(S) Nicola Braid Victoria University has officially moved to 229th place among more than 3,500 universities across the globe, according to the latest QS University Rankings.

“Being a globally ranked capital city university is not only important for our region, it is also essential for New Zealand.

Victoria holds an unparalleled position as the university which can lead New Zealand’s thinking on major issues,” Guilford says.

VUWSA President Rick Zwaan told Salient that VUWSA is “pleased to see Victoria’s rankings increasing”, but that it was “important that we continue to focus on genuinely improving academic quality rather than getting too fixated on how to play the rankings game, which relies on questionable methodology”.

Zwaan is not alone in his criticism of the rankings and the methodology used. University of British Columbia Associate Professor Michelle Stack claimed that “rankings owned by media or other multinational corporate entities [Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) is a British company] have a responsibility to investors, not the public good.

“What gets left out in the formulas used by popular ranking is the responsibility of universities to the public good. Reputation can be bought. The QS produces international and national ranking tables but, for an audit and licensing fee a university can apply to be a QS star,” Stack said.

In 2012, the Cambridge Student reported “there is also too much focus on research and not enough focus on gauging the teaching quality, which misses the point of what a league table should achieve”.

Currently, the surveys are based on more than 76,000 academics and 44,000 employers and include a range of criteria. www.salient.org.nz

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22 :# 15 20

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23 :# 12 20

Vice-Chancellor Grant Guilford hailed Vic’s nominal ascension. “The outstanding reputation of our academics and the quality of our research is vital to our success,” he said.

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The University has moved up 46 positions from its place in 2014 but remains in fourth place among New Zealand universities after Auckland, Otago and Canterbury.

How it’s tested

4.

•

Education 1. University of Auckland (26) 2. University of Otago (51-100) 3. Victoria University (51-100) 4. University of Waikato (51-100) 5. Massey University(101-150) 6. University of Canterbury (101-150)

• • • • •

40% academic reputation from a global survey, academics are asked where the best work is currently taking place in their field.

10% from a survey of graduate employers identifying universities that produce the best graduates.

20% is based on how often the university’s published research is cited in academic literature.

20% from the ratio of academics employed to students.

5% from the proportion of foreign students at the university.

5% from the proportion of foreign faculty members.

How we stack up Accounting and Finance 1. University of Auckland (26) 2. University of Canterbury (51-100) 3. Victoria University (51-100) 4. Massey University (51-100) 5. University of Otago (101-150) 6. University of Waikato (101-150) 7. AUT (101-150) Biological Sciences 1. University of Auckland (51-100) 2. University of Otago (101-150) 3. University of Canterbury (301-400) 4. Massey University (301-400) Communications and Media Studies 1. University of Auckland (101-150) 2. Victoria University (101-150) 3. University of Waikato (101-150)

University of Canterbury (201-250)

Law 1. University of Auckland (33=) 2. Victoria University (45=) 3. University of Canterbury (51-100) 4. University of Otago (51-100) Math 1. University of Auckland (51-100) 2. University of Canterbury (251-300) 3. Massey University (251-300) 4. Victoria University (301-400) 5. University of Otago (301-400) Global Rankings 1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) 2. Harvard University 3. University of Cambridge ...

82. University of Auckland 173. University of Otago 211. University of Canterbury ...

229. Victoria University ...

337. Massey University 338. University of Waikato 373. Lincoln University 481. AUT

issue 22

News and Columns

07

Another year, Another Forum Nicola Braid Once again student politicos and friendsof-hacks gathered in the Hub to hear this year’s candidates tout their experience and use catchphrases about the collective student voice.

Current President Rick Zwaan, whose haircut really isn’t that bad, welcomed audience members and told punters to “tweet the thing on the thing”. Another rousing opening by our student figurehead, now in his Zwaansong.

Minus some exceptions, candidates did a good job of giving their credentials and peppering in some topical zingers when appropriate (shout out to Rory Lenihan-Ikin for his “stick-on moustache” joke, A+ from this reporter, would trade again).

Almost all of the nominees were questioned by audience members about the “will they/ won’t they NZUSA referendum”, and most said they were willing to vote yes to staying with the association.

The resulting looks from Zwaan and NZUSA

President Rory McCourt—who observed proceedings from a balcony above— reminded Salient of some sort of pass-ag family dinner; Mum and Dad were fighting again and the kids didn’t know whom to ask for dessert. It was tense.

Everyone was diplomatic in their responses when it came to the NZUSA issue, with basically everyone expressing their willingness to maintain a “united student voice” and a “strong national student voice” and all concluded that the referendum was “ultimately up to students”.

Treasurer-Secretary nominee George Grainger talked a lot about cash cushions and surpluses, but we liked the cut of his jib.

He looked like the accountant dad Salient always wanted. (Also he said he wouldn’t let VUWSA talk about money in committee so often, so future Salient writers might actually BE ABLE TO WRITE SOME SHIT ABOUT THE EXEC MEETING).

Club rep nominees and to-be Engagement Officers emphasised the need for more student PaRtIEs and EvEnT$$, and Presidential candidate Liam Gallagher-Power claimed

“even Lincoln has a Garden Party…”. The aspiring Execcies also committed to the ongoing facilitating of stress-free study weeks, interclub relationships and all round advocating.

Publications Committee nominees were quizzed on whether they would keep Salient TV and how their background lent itself to deciding the future of your fav student mag.

The main takeaway from the forum was that “everyone should work together” and “everyone will try their hardest to do their best”. That’s what they all say.

Top Five Most Used Phrases • • • • •

“passionate” “student voice” “advocate” “reforming” a system and/or experience “raise awareness”

Voting for next year’s VUWSA Executive opens on Tuesday 22 September and closes Thursday 24 at 5pm. You can do this online at voting.vuwsa.org.nz.

VUWSA Election’s got #twittergame Jordan Gabolinscy It’s that time again: a time for democracy and equal opportunity for all. It’s also time for people to take the piss.

The 2015 VUWSA elections are on the horizon and the candidates for the various roles within VUWSA have been announced.

Two candidates will run for President— current Academic Vice-President Jonathan Gee and late entry Liam Gallagher-Power.

The full list of candidates’ names and positions are available on VUWSA’s website.

Along with a vote for the candidates, students will also be asked whether VUWSA should remain a part of the New Zealand Union of Students’ Associations (NZUSA).

VUWSA was a founding member of the association but left in 2014 after it decided that paying the $45,000 levy to NZUSA was not in students’ best interests.

Several “election watches” have sprung up on Twitter in the last few weeks, offering deep

insight and equal-opportunity debate about those running for positions. By that we mean just taking the piss, which is absolutely fantastic. @VUWSAWatch2015, @VUWSAwatchOG and @realVUWSAwatch have stormed our news feed with all three accounts fuelled by what seems to be an undying adulation for current President Rick Zwaan.

Despite basically trolling everyone who throws their hat in the ring, the election watches occasionally provide helpful information about the election, and according to some students may even motivate them to vote this time around.

Regardless of their contribution to democracy, the Zwaan-themed memes and snarky asides can only be described as “on point”.

editor@salient.org.nz

08

salient

News and Columns

Ask Agatha

Hi Agatha, I’m a first year and want to go flatting next year, but all of my hall friends are splitting into factions and I’m feeling more lost and directionless than the Labour party. Do none of my friends like me? Am I the one that everyone tries to avoid? What can I do for next year?

HELP!

You’re actually in a fun situation now of being able to slot into a flat group without any real drama. Flatmates Wanted on TradeMe has a wonderful array of weird flats all over the show, and you can ditch them if it’s not a good fit because you have no real connection to the other flatmates.

get away with drinking as much as them when I have all of this work to do. Do you have any advice?

Also, don’t freak out. First years all around New Zealand put a lot of stock into where they end up flatting for their first ~real~ flatting experience. It’s probably going to be damp and shit and you’re going to love it regardless.

What you need to do is try and do a Hannah Montana and have the best of both worlds. I’d just fake the drinking in the meantime. Go hard. I mean people who make such a big deal out of drinking are probably half faking it themselves.

So just get some soda water and some lemon and tell everyone you’ve been drinking some vodka sodas. Have a “power shower” and “pass out” super early and you’ll be able to enjoy a night with your friends, have an excuse for an extra shower, and get an early night—all without the hangover the next day.

Forgotten Flatmate

Good luck finding a place to call home,

Hi FF,

Agatha.

I’m not going to sugar coat this for you. Maybe you are the one all of your friends try to avoid. Maybe you’re awful.

However, maybe they just thought they’d be better suited to living with other people because they don’t want you to overhear their bowel movements or taste their terrible cooking.

Dear Agatha, All my friends are getting super turnt and I have so many assignments to do that I could cry. I don’t want them to stop inviting me to things, but I can’t

Sober Sally.

Hey SS,

Party hard, Agatha.

Bridget Bones Diary Do you wanna do butt stuff?

Otherwise it’s probably going to be horrific and end in pain and possibly poo.

There’s this weird stigma surrounding anal sex. For the most part, in straight/ cis relationships, there’s a strange sense of degradation and fear that comes with a mix of taboo and serious excitement. Let’s face it: we all like booty. So it’s perfectly normal to want to put your penis in one/have a penis in yours, or whatever takes your fancy.

Most people see anal as “special occasion sex”. I don’t understand what it is about someone’s birthday that suddenly makes you decide to take a dick up your arse, but whatever.

If you’re going to do it, make sure it’s on your terms, and you’re well and truly prepared for it. And remember these top tips to ensure your anal experience is one you’ll remember for the right reasons!

When it comes to anal sex, I’ve heard you either love it or you hate it. It’s one of those things where you have to try it to find out; someone else’s sexperiences just aren’t going to cut it when it comes to butt stuff. And if you decide you want to try anal, you’ve gotta make sure you do it right. www.salient.org.nz

1. Poo first. Seriously. If there’s even a chance you might need to go poo during sex, ABORT THE MISSION and go find a loo. Don’t think you can hold it in. You can’t.

2. Relax. You want your butthole to

be nice and relaxed (oh my God), otherwise it’s going to hurt. Take a deep breath, and let all that tension out. If you really can’t relax, but you still want to do it, sex shops sell numbing spray that apparently helps.

3. Use toys/fingers first. Don’t go straight for the kill with a penis.

It’s a shock to the system.

4. Use lube. Lots and lots of lube.

Take things slow, find out what you like and what you can handle, and don’t put too much pressure on the situation. There’s nothing “gross” or “slutty” about wanting to have, or even enjoying, anal. It can be fucking awesome, as long as you do it right. xx

News and Columns

issue 22

09

Sy-STEM-ic Sexism?

Alexa Zelensky

Auckland University recently held its annual “Women in Science” forum, somewhat ironically sponsored by L’Oreal, on their campus, with presentations from leading female scientists from across the world.

150 girls from 15 Auckland schools attended a special event targeted at cultivating a love of science in young women today. It aimed to counteract perceived stereotypes and notions that STEM careers are no place for a women.

Traditionally speaking, science and career choices within the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) fields have been a boy’s game.

Last week French company Opinionway held an online “Women in Science” survey of 5032 people in which two out of three respondents said women don’t have what it takes to become top-tier scientists.

Former Vic student Rachel Wilcox, who recently gained her Master’s of Science in Marine Biology, said that although she couldn’t recall any specifically sexist experiences during her time as a student she acknowledged that “the general feeling in the science industry that the higher you go, the fewer women there are”.

“It’s almost an expectation that women will drop out of academia to have babies, or that we have to sacrifice family/relationships for the sake of a career,” she said.

However, the issues aren’t exclusively structural. Another student, Bella Ansell, who studied for her Bsc Hons in Geochemistry in Melbourne, told Salient she often received comments about what she was wearing and a male supervisor gave her the nickname “fashionista” while a male colleague told her that “having a girl tell me what to do is like having someone younger than me telling me what to do”.

can be optimistic and say that some of these people will trickle up”.

“During a Skype call in which I was talking to a technician while I was fixing a pretty delicate and expensive piece of laboratory equipment I was told by the technician in question he ‘liked seeing a girl getting her hands dirty’ and that I ‘really knew how to work a screwdriver’,” Ansell said.

Vice Provost (Academic and Equity) Allison Kirkman told Salient that she “regularly asks Victoria Academic Review Panels to consider the gender balance of both staff and students. This is particularly important in programme such as STEM where there may be a lack of women internationally and nationally.”

In New Zealand, there are various grants and scholarships in place to help women in science excel. UNESCO has partnered with L’Oreal Paris to offer a $25,000 grant for women in science, with the first ever one being awarded to an Otago University geologist, Dr Christina Riesselman.

While Riesselman said she was “incredibly privileged” to win the award, she acknowledged the gender imbalance in academia.

When it comes to the Technology sector, the gender gap remains the same if not worse, with a Stack Overflow survey finding 92 per cent of 26,086 web developers worldwide identified as male. In New Zealand, ITSalaries.co.nz found 79 per cent of the tech workforce was male.

Kirkman also stated that because of the small number of female academics in STEM fields, “women scientists may find their support and mentoring networks with those in other universities in New Zealand. Victoria always encourages this with all women academics.”

The Government Budget last year put aside $85 million for science subjects in tuition subsidies for STEM students.

“Between my two departments, there are no full professors who are women,” Riesselman said. However, the Otago University lecturer remained positive, suggesting “maybe we editor@salient.org.nz

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NGĀ POU O NGĀI TAUIRA I tēnei tau i tito tētahi o ngā tauira i te waiata nēi. Ko te mātu, ko te kiko o tēnei waiata e aro atu ana ki te pou tuarongo, te pou tokomanawa, ā , te pou tāhūhū .Ka t ū whakahihi ana ēnei pou i rō te whare, nā ko te whare o Ngāi Tauira. He momo waiata whakangahau tēnei, nā ko te tūmanako ka noho tēnei waiata hei tangata whenua mā ngā tauira Māori o Wikitōria mo ake, a ke, ake.

salient

News and Columns

Verse 1 Nei au ka noho ki te mahau o tōku whare O Te Herenga Waka Ka hoki mahara, ki ngā rā o Ruka, o Paaka Ki ngā rā o pohewa....nā rātou te mauri i whakatō Hei Tūāpapa, mō roto Chorus Taku whare onamata Taku whare reo Taku whare mātauranga Taku whare keo-keonga O Ngāi Tauira Verse 2 Haere te rā, haere te pō Haere te wā o te kokoraho Ko te hua ko te reo Māori Kei runga rā o whakaaro Taka mai ana i te arero Ko te reo te Poutuarongo Chorus Taku whare onamata Taku whare reo Taku whare mātauranga Taku whare keo-keonga

O Ngāi Tauira Verse 3 Piki ake ki runga I te ara o Tāne-te-wānanga Mā te Hiringa i te Mahara Ngā kete o te Mātauranga E kapo ake ai Hei Poutokomanawa Verse 4 Tuia te ao, tuia te pō Tuia ko ngā tini aho o mōhio O whānau, o kōingo Hei Tāhūhū mō taku whare kōrero Hei Tāhūhū mō taku whare kōrero Chorus Taku whare onamata Taku whare reo Taku whare mātauranga Taku whare keo-keonga O Ngāi Tauira x2 End Whakaarahia ake ngā pou o tō whare o Ngā Tauira

The Week in Feminism

Slutshaming Brittany Mackie-Ellice White Ribbon New Zealand defines slutshaming as the idea of shaming or attacking a woman for being sexual, having one or more sexual partners, acknowledging sexual feelings, or acting on sexual feelings. Shaming can be done verbally, or online (usually found in comment sections). Another way of defining slut-shaming is the act of making a woman feel guilty or inferior because she has sex that traditional society disapproves of. A form of slut-shaming that has popped up as a consequence of the image sharing features of Instagram, Twitter and Facebook is shaming based on looks. This means that someone will decide a woman engages in lots of sex based www.salient.org.nz

on her appearance and consequently shame her based on this assumption. It means that girl’s outfits are judged by how much skin is showing, whether there is any cleavage, and if they photograph themselves in a revealing pose.

Slut-shaming is a way for people to police women’s appearances and actions, and force them to fit into a way of dressing and behaving deemed appropriate by either a majority or just a really vocal bunch of people. A recent example of this practice that has happened in New Zealand is on the radio station George FM, where two anchors named and shamed two girls on Instagram for posting what they deemed sexually suggestive pictures. The hosts, Thane Kirby and Kara Richard, used derogative terms such as “slut” and “hoes” while abusing the girls. They have since been suspended from the radio station and made a public apology to the two girls involved.

This deplorable example is made even more upsetting by the fact that it was broadcast

nationwide on the radio, which held the two girls up to public scrutiny and humiliation.

When people from the media use their privileged platform to slut-shame, it becomes a step closer to becoming socially acceptable, justifiable, and even deemed harmless. Perhaps the scariest part of the public’s comments on articles covering this story is the idea that these girls deserved it because they posted the pictures to a public forum, which serves as an attempt to redirect blame and normalise the hosts’ actions. In both cases, the hosts gave out the girls full names and both girls have since said that they have been messaged by strangers. This is an awful case of abuse of a position of privilege in New Zealand media to slutshame two young women.

News and Columns

issue 22

11

Taking Refuge in the Capital Charlie Prout Wellington Mayor Celia Wade-Brown has launched a petition to increase New Zealand’s refugee quota from 750 to 1500 over five years along with Masterton Mayor Lyn Patterson and Carterton Mayor John Booth.

Booth told the Wairarapa Chronicle “I think what has been requested is a feasible approach and a balanced way of doing it” and pointed to the emotional impact of refugees’ struggles.

“I saw that picture of the Syrian boy that had died and I think you’d have to be a coldhearted person if that didn’t pull at the heart strings,” he said.

Wellington Deputy Mayor Justin Lester also spoke of the benefits increased refugees number would bring to the capital.

“You’ve seen it in the past. In Wellington we host a lot of refugees, around 200 to 250 per annum, and they add and contribute

to society. [Refugees] give us a cultural understanding and awareness, making our country much stronger and richer.”

It is not just politicians pushing for an increase in refugee number. Anglican Bishop of Wellington Justin Duckworth said congregations across the lower North Island have offered to house and financially support 40 families—approximately 160 people.

“As a country we have been criticised for not doing enough to respond to the refugee crisis. We want to say loudly and clearly, as the Anglican Church of New Zealand, that we are prepared to help in a practical way.

If resources are the limiting factor in our government’s decision over what level to increase the quota by, we are committing to take over the wellbeing and support of 40 families,” Rev. Duckworth said.

Wellington has the largest Syrian community in New Zealand and have taken in 67 Syrian refugees since November. Most have settled in Berhampore, Newtown and the Hutt Valley.

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow Sam McChesney

ambivalent about the haircut.

VUWSA President Rick Zwaan is unhappy with his latest haircut, and has been hiding his hair beneath a beanie.

“His haircut is on his head,” Engagement Vice-President Toby Cooper said. “There is less hair on Rick’s head than there was before his haircut.”

Zwaan made the revelation during a meeting with Salient last Monday. Zwaan said he got the haircut at Snips on The Terrace, but was unhappy with his new, closer-cropped look.

On Tuesday, though, he was reluctant to comment. “Fuck off,” he said. “You’re not doing a story on the fucking haircut.”

However, Zwaan eventually opened up on his anguish. “Hair is precious,” he said.

“When someone cuts it, they’re cutting away a piece of you.”

Despite his general hostility to and fear of haircuts, Zwaan said that he had no plans to grow his hair out to a great length and use it as a replacement for clothes. “I don’t think that’s something I’ll be pursuing,” he said.

Zwaan’s

colleagues

at

VUWSA

were

Cooper himself has recently had a haircut, which he described as “great”. He called on Zwaan to take a more positive attitude toward his recent shearing. “I feel like Rick hasn’t fully embraced his new haircut, as he hasn’t changed his Facebook profile picture.”

Clubs and Activities Officer Rory McNamara liked the haircut. He told Salient that it was “unbecoming of a president to wear hats inside all the time” and described Zwaan as “such a fucking hippie”.

By the time this article went to print, Zwaan said the haircut had reached the “sweet spot” where it was neither too long nor too short, and he had decided to lose the beanie.

“I really don’t care about the haircut any more, to be honest,” he said. editor@salient.org.nz

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Are we a thing?

Part 2 It’s time to take a break from the hilarious new Snapchat update to help a brother in need, because let’s face it—girls actually think about other stuff besides whether or not that one person likes them. The hostel romance/anti-romance really is our area of expertise. So listen up and take notes, because unlike MGMT101, I will not be posting the slides on Blackboard.

Because you have a life, I’m sure you will be going home in the summer—Luke’s the same, Tom on the other hand…

salient

News and Columns

That final week is getting closer and closer.

You should be more excited about it than Christmas, because unlike Christmas, you might actually get something worth telling your mates about. We have long said that this year will be over before you know it, and guess what?! We were right!

After a year of uni, you can see just how much the American Pie variety of movies have lied to you. For one thing, it was never windy there.

In part 1, you kinda liked that other guy/ girl, but no one apart from you thought you might have a thing, not even them.

Haha—especially not them. But now things have changed. The two of you have a real friendship and people are beginning to see that. The most resounding sign of this is the continuation of jokes like “Do you have a girlfriend bro???” and “Where’s _____ bro?” and “What does _____ think about that bro?”

All sarcastic, overblown, excessively loud and sure to freak out that other person if they were to hear. If this sounds familiar then congratulations, you have a thing.

Everyone is now at the stage where it is now weird to get with randoms in town. Not only does this decrease the risk of catching some sort of jungle fever from someone whose name you can’t remember with any certainty, but it’s no longer cool (unless she’s really hot). It took a while, but you’re there.

Some of the more diehards will rebuke this, but hey, don’t hate the playa—hate the game.

Now here, class, is what will be in the exam, so listen up. It all comes down to the last week. Exams are over. Everyone is still knocking around the hostel in jandals (we’re writing this while wearing puffer jackets, but don’t worry—your time will come. Unless you’re in Vic House, then you are probably burning your textbooks for warmth and light). You will have your end of year hostel function. This is the day to make it or break it.

Stay tuned.

Luke and Tom.

We Drank This So You Wouldn’t Have To Lydia and Mitch

Jim Beam & Zero Sugar Cola Cost: Friendship is free Alcohol volume: 4.8% (1.3 standard drinks) Pairing: Red Peak Verdict: “I like it as much as I like Jeremy Corbyn. In theory, but not in practice.” www.salient.org.nz

In an unusual turn of events, we actually conducted this review while at a party attended by real people, instead of drinking on a weeknight while watching conspiracy theory videos on YouTube. For that, as well as finishing the entire can of this bogan-lite disaster, we deserve the highest praise.

For what was a throwback to high school for one reviewer, Jim Beam with Zero Sugar Cola is an uncomfortable reminder of that boyfriend you went to your school ball with but grew apart from when you started university. Much like that boyfriend, this drink was slightly sticky, totally classless, and finished the night with several different lipstick smears on its person. It seems to be a recurring theme for us than any sugary drink reminds us of high school. We like to think that this fact is both an indicator of a youth well-spent and an effective personal brand shift upon entering tertiary education.

If you’ve ever have the misfortune of drinking those $1 cola cans from the dairy then you already know what this tastes like.

It has no sugar, which is probably a plus if you’re a person who likes “Sugar Free Mum” on Facebook, but if that’s the case then you almost certainly shouldn’t be drinking Jim Beam in the first place. If that’s the case, you also have no business reading this review and we would kindly appreciate you getting in the sea. We’re not here for any cleaneating bullshit.

If this drink is, as it claims, the “world’s number one bourbon”, I never want to have bourbon in my life ever again. While Jim Beam with Zero Sugar Cola might seem more reliable than your pre-university boyfriend, we would suggest you extend your horizons as just because you can have something, it doesn’t mean it’s good for you.

With an election and referendum in the wind, we suggest two courses of action to survive this week. Firstly, stock up on some supplies, just don’t fall for the bad bourbon mixed with dishing washing liquidflavoured cola trap. Secondly, if you vote to retain NZUSA in the referendum, we’ll review French champagne next week to celebrate.

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Industry complains that complaints are too expensive Students free to keep stealing music Emma Hurley Illegal downloaders are escaping punishment as New Zealand record companies protest that the complaints process is too expensive.

Only one complaint has been laid with and upheld by the Copyright Tribunal this year, compared with four in 2014, and 18 in 2013.

To prosecute for illegal downloading, rights holders have to identify an illegal downloader and file a notice with their Internet Service Provider (ISP), who then notifies the account holder at $25 per notice.

Three notices are required within a 12-month period before a complaint can be laid with the tribunal, and the rights holder then pays $200 to formally lodge their complaint.

Tech Liberty spokesman Thomas Beagle said the industry had almost given up on filing complaints because of the costs. “My understanding is that the Copyright Tribunal

process is too expensive and a lot of people are switching to streaming services,” he said.

“While $25 seems like a low cost, it turns out to be quite expensive considering they are losing so much money to piracy.”

InternetNZ chief executive Jordan Carter said the regime is costly because “the Government has correctly insisted upon fair process in these matters, and expected rights holders to meet the costs of enforcement.

Record Music NZ general counsel Kristin Bowman said the complaint process is too costly to be effective in stopping piracy.

“When rights holders allege that they suffer many thousands of dollars in damages for copyright infringement, it seems strange that a $25 charge is too much to prevent that.”

“Every time we send a notice it costs us $25.

We would love to do 1000 of those a week, but we just can’t afford it.

Luckily for struggling artists out there, Spotify offers to pay them $0.006 to $0.0084 per stream.

“We definitely won’t give up though, because we constantly want to get the message out there that piracy is illegal.”

BandCamp, a site where streams can be monitored and restricted, requires listeners to purchase a track after a set number of plays.

Bowman wanted ISP companies to pay for the bill, or for the Government to subsidise the fees.

Expand your career options

engineering

Study towards a postgraduate qualification at UC! • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Bioengineering Chemical and Process Engineering Civil Engineering Construction Management Earthquake Engineering Electrical and Electronic Engineering Engineering Management Fire Engineering Forest Engineering Human Interface Technology Mechanical Engineering Software Engineering Transportation Engineering

UC Masters and PhD scholarships available. Applications close 15 October.

For more information: engdegreeadvice@canterbury.ac.nz +64 3 364 2608 www.engf.canterbury.ac.nz/postgrad editor@salient.org.nz

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salient

News and Columns Letter of the Week:

Live Below the Line

Careers and Employment 2015-16 Internships and 2016 Graduate Jobs See Recruitment Schedule for details: http://bit.ly/1zGNacY Currently recruiting: EY, Westpac, NZX, Aviat Networks, OMD, Fisher and Paykel, Zomato, Communication Agencies Association NZ (CAANZ), Accenture, Scion, AgResearch… and many more.

Connect with employers via Recruitment events: http://bit. ly/1DOS0WK Careers in Focus Seminar for Law students (Legal work in NFP/ Charitable/Community organisations) – 22 Sept, Careers Without Borders – 23 Sept, NZX Graduate Open Day – 1 Oct Check in with a Careers Consultant during our daily drop-in sessions! http://bit.ly/1A1ORgv Get help with your CV, Cover Letter, Interview skills etc For more info, login to www.victoria. ac.nz/careerhub with your Student Computing login!

Ngā Taura Umanga Constitution Kia ora. Ngā Taura Umanga, the Māori Commerce students’ association, is in the process of amending our Constitution. If you want to review the Constitution and have your say in the process please come to us! Our office is located at Pipitea Campus in the Railway Building, level 2, room 207.

Amnesty at Vic Kia ora. Ngā Taura Umanga, the Māori Commerce students’ association, is in the process of amending our Constitution. If you want to review the Constitution and have your say in the process please come to us! Our office is located at Pipitea Campus in the Railway Building, level 2, room 207. www.salient.org.nz

TEARFund and Live Below the Line are working together to raise both money and awareness to fight human trafficking in Central and Southeast Asia, which has one the largest sex slave industries in the world. The Live Below the Line campaign is challenging you to make a stand and support this mission by living on $2.25 a day during the 21st to the 25th of September or donating to the Victoria University Live Below the Line team.

To sign up or donate, just search for ‘Wellington’s Fight Against Human Trafficking’ on Facebook or go to https://www.livebelowtheline.com/ team/victoria-university.

Hey, my local bum did a BA and he’s just fine!

Dear Salient As my time at university is fast coming to an end after many years, I would like to offer some words of wisdom to those who I am leaving behind! Firstly don’t do a BA degree unless you are looking at being a bus driver or a teacher. These two career paths are generally what the BA will lead to and as bus driving is harder than teaching, then teaching is the preferred option of these 2 possible careers. Secondly, keep up with your assignments, attend all your classes, and don’t get behind! Thirdly, I would recomend doing a Commerce degree which has much more possibilities than the BA! Lastly, enjoy your time at university.

There are many ups and downs on the way as well as meeting a lot of new people and actually learning new stuff. The fees are way too high as you know but stick at it - graduation is an achievement!! Good luck to you all!

Golden Oldie!

We assumed you were at the “we’ll take any help we can get” phase. Apparently not.

Dear Salient

Letter of the Week receives two coffee vouchers and a $10 book voucher from Vic books.

Salient letters policy

Your article “Politics society launches at Vic” reports that George Dooley spoke as an “International Socialist Organisation activist” at this forum.

While we agree with the sentiments quoted, and believe New Zealand should welcome refugees, we need to record here that the ISO club on campus did not attend this event nor did we send a speaker endorsed by our club. We’re not sure who George Dooley is, nor how this misunderstanding and mis-attribution came about.

Salient welcomes, encourages, and thrives on public debate—be it serious or otherwise— through its letters page. Letters must be received before 4pm on Thursday for publication the following week. Letters must be no longer than 250 words. Pseudonyms are fine, but all letters must include your real name, address and telephone number—these will not be printed. Letters will not be corrected for spelling or grammar. The Editor reserves the right to edit, abridge, ordecline any letters without explanation.

Email: editor@salient.org.nz Post: Salient, c/- Victoria University of Wellington Hand-delivered: Salient office, Level 3, Student Union Building (behind the Hunter Lounge)

We have no interest in sharing a platform with the likes of ACT’s David Seymour. We are, however, interested in campaigning with other students on this urgent question of raising the refugee quota.

Corrections:

Shomi Yoon Daniel Simpson Beck for the Victoria University International Socialist Club

The article “0800 Omg Just Let Me Add to My Debt” in issue 20 of Salient was written by Alexa Zelensky.

The article “The Good, the Bad, the Bad, the Ugly, the Ugly, the Ugly, and the Ugly” in issue 21 of Salient stated that Ruby Sycamore-Smith was President of OUSA when OUSA withdrew from NZUSA. In fact Ryan Edgar was Acting President at the time.

News and Columns

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THAT M A ES I R

ER TT

STO

issue 22

Good lick with ur art American man Nick Stoeberl has seen his fair share of achievements at the tender age of 26. Not only does he have the Guiness record for the world’s longest tongue, but Stoeberl has now used his “gift” for making artworks- by dipping his tongue in acrylic paint and dragging it over a canvas. So far the whopping 10 cm “brush” has already completed a picture of a badger; the animal really appeals to his taste.

A burger that’ll make your heart skip a beat A restaurant in Chihuahua Mexico is currently offering the Locomotora Recargada burger (recharged locomotive burger) for the equivalent of NZ$17. This artery-clogging monstrosity includes four cheeses, mushrooms, onions, avocado, five different meats (at least two of which are from a pig), chillies and waffles.

Hair Food: Get it While it’s Hot Chinese website Taobao has started selling plastic food hair clips.

The hair clips are about as big as your hand and include shapes like a fried egg, what looks like a pork chop, a chicken wing, dumplings and shrimps. The clips look to cost around US$1.40$2.50 each and allow for a veritable feast, right on ur Hur.

The most non-Kosher religion

A Sour Taste in Abbott’s Mouth

Membership of the United Church of Bacon has reached 12,000 people after the congregation started offering free weddings, baptisms and funerals. The ‘religion’ was founded in Las Vegas in 2011 by prophet John Whiteside who has also been dubbed the ‘Institutionalised Thought Leader’ and ‘Funkmaster General’. The Group even has nine commandments including ‘be sceptical’, ‘praise bacon’ and ‘normalise atheists’.

Australians have responded to their country’s recent coup by placing onions outside their doors to commemorate former Prime Minister Tony Abbott, in a somewhat Phillip Hughesbased homage. Abbott remains one of the most controversial and besieged leaders in the former penal colony’s history and was infamously filmed eating a raw onion on a Tasmanian farm.

Cos like, he’s rul tough you know?

editor@salient.org.nz

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LIAM AND JONO TALK ABOUT STUFF! Your two candidates for VUWSA President this year are Liam Gallagher (no, not that one), and Jono Gee. To try and win you over, they came to the Salient office to talk about stuff. The conversation began with some awkward chat about socks—Jono had some snazzy Barkers numbers on, and revealed that “I choose my socks first, then the rest of my clothes around it.” Ever the Southern Man (he’s from Christchurch—that counts, right?), Liam had chosen unseasonably thick woollen socks, which he “regretted”. “My feet are hot,” he complained. Outstanding.

Thankfully, things improved from there. You can read the rest of the interview below. Warning: this article contains student politicians talking about themselves.

Salient: Why are you running for President?

Jono: This year I’ve been Academic Vice President at VUWSA. I’ve really enjoyed my time here standing up for students in the academic sphere and I’m really keen to push that forward next year. Obviously for me it was a commitment this year not just to be Academic Vice President, but a commitment to VUWSA as a whole. So that’s why I want to run for President next year—I want to continue my vision from this year.

What’s your platform?

Jono: I’m campaigning on “a better deal for students”. The reason I’m pushing for that is what I’ve seen in the academic sphere—we pay $5000, $6000 in fees every year, yet we don’t get the same kind of quality education, same level of services for that. As Academic Vice President I feel really aggrieved in the academic sphere and I think that extends to other parts of the University as well. So that’s why I’m running for a better deal for students when it comes to your fees.

A better deal for students when it comes to your city as well. So, developing those relationships with the local council, the fact that it’s the local body elections next year is a really good opportunity for VUWSA to lobby City Council candidates for student-friendly policies.

Liam, why are you running for President?

Liam: Having come up this year to study at Vic, I thought the students’ association’s not nearly half as visible as it was where I was studying previously, at Canterbury. So I thought maybe a good outsider’s point of view, to bring some spice to the organisation, was www.salient.org.nz

necessary—the sort of community that exists at Canterbury and Otago with the student body doesn’t appear to exist in the same way up at Vic. So I thought a new approach, an outside approach from someone who hasn’t been involved in the organisation before, could help to bring some new ideas.

And what’s your platform?

Liam: I’m running on a platform of “a better experience for students”.

The best student experience in New Zealand is what we’re going for.

Vic is already internationally rated as one of the best universities in the world, I think academic life is fairly good, but I think it’s important to actually have a community of students who care about these things first. So, to build that community by creating a better student experience.

So what specific ideas can VUWSA import from UCSA? Liam: Well specifically to Wellington, more collaboration with the other students’ associations and student groups in Wellington, so Massey, Weltec, Whitireia, to create that scale that we need to create the larger events, the more inclusive events, and to help support clubs through more funding and greater interaction to produce those sort of results.

So how do you see VUWSA being able to improve management of clubs given VUWSA’s not the ones in charge of them?

Liam: I don’t see the problem as who’s in charge of the clubs, it’s more about the interaction between the clubs—for instance, the law society and the science society working together to coordinate events.

Jono: I definitely agreed with Liam that we have to improve the

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student experience, particularly in the area of clubs. I guess for me, I feel I have taken an extra step in that sense in that I’ve already developed relationships with the law students’ society, with the Victoria commerce students’ society, with the students over at Te Aro campus, and other student societies and clubs as well. Also on the campaign trail this week I’ve managed to talk to a number of club presidents and hear their concerns. Their relationship with [university] clubs management at the moment is very transactional— even when it’s trying to get a venue booking it’s been very difficult for them. I think there are very, very real issues there, but I think I have a vision to make that better for those clubs.

One thing that’s often noted about the student experience in Wellington as opposed to Christchurch or particularly Dunedin is that the student population in Wellington is scattered and decentralised, that there’s about half a dozen campuses in Wellington. So do you see that being a significant issue and if so, what would you do try and overcome that geographical challenge to improve the student experience in Wellington?

Liam: So in Dunedin they’ve got the Forsyth Barr stadium, they use that for all their O-Week events, and also they’ve got the Zoo—every time there’s a Highlanders rugby game there, there’s a student area.

We can do the same thing here at the Cake Tin or the TSB Arena, to provide a central focus for the different campuses to join in.

Jono: From talking to city councillors and the Deputy Mayor what I’ve heard is that yes, Wellington is a student city, but it’s also many other things as well. We’re the capital city, we’re a cultural capital as well, a creative capital, we’re many other things aside from a student city. So to enhance the student experience, yes we can work with other students’ associations here in Wellington, but I think we have a great opportunity to work with students’ associations around the country as well. We’re the third biggest association, we’ve got a really great relationships with OUSA and with AUSA, and to some extent UCSA. I think it’s about extending those relationships and get in, potentially, international acts to O-Week for example, having a bit of a more coordinated O-Week so we can provide a better deal for students around the country. So I think the vision is bigger than that.

Liam, you mentioned that UCSA is much more visible around campus than VUWSA is. What are some examples of that?

Liam: So for example they run quirky things during lectures such as “careless whisper”, where a particular student who’s nominated by other students wins a prize for that week. They’re located in Canterbury’s equivalent of the Hub, so they run sausage sizzles, they help support clubs all the time, and there’s events that connect students with each other throughout the trimester, which VUWSA could do as well.

One of the common concerns that’s often raised about associations like UCSA and OUSA is that they’re able to provide all these services and be so visible because they’re so well funded by the university. And yet they don’t seem to have much of a political voice when it comes to criticising the university on matters of academic quality or the student experience. And that seems to be something that VUWSA values quite highly, its political voice. Do you think that there is a tradeoff there? Did you ever observe UCSA taking the university to task?

17

Liam: In terms of UCSA and Canterbury’s relationship, from the outside it seemed that there was a constructive relationship. Reading, for example, the President’s column in Salient as opposed to the one in Canta, there seems to be a lot more confrontations over academic quality and where the student levy’s being spent, and so forth.

Whether that actually achieves anything is up for debate. I think you may be right that there’s a tradeoff in terms of what is being said, but being realistic and actually making a difference to the student experience, a more constructive approach might be just as effective and also get increased funding.

So what you’re saying is that that political role is largely for show?

Liam: Yeah, in some ways.

Jono: Can I respond to that?

For sure.

Jono: I’m really proud that we have a students’ association that is willing to be independent and fight for students on issues like academic quality, like democracy on University Council. I think if VUWSA was just a service provider we wouldn’t need elections, we wouldn’t need an Executive. We have an Executive to fight for students. Anyone can provide a service. So yes, there’s still a lot of work to do on service provision. That’s what students see—they see the free food, they see the food bank, they see the advocacy service.

But on top of that there’s so much to what VUWSA is. There’s that representation side too.

Unfortunately when it comes to other students’ associations, they value that funding agreement with the university so much that they sacrifice that independence. We’ve been able to fight for things like democracy on Council, we’ve been able to fight for preserving that two-week mid-trimester break in trimester 2. If we were just a service provider, we wouldn’t be able to do that, and that’s not a better deal for students.

What can VUWSA do to improve its financial position?

Jono: Since voluntary student membership revenue has been an increasing issue here. Obviously at the moment we’re almost at the whim of the University where we have to negotiate constantly for our services, for our wellbeing, for our other support that we get for our staff. So my vision as well is to improve that. I have a really good relationship with the General Manager and the other staff at our students’ association and I’m keen to work with them to create an operational plan to diversify our revenue streams. In terms of where that comes from there are a few options—grants and that sort of thing. But I think we also need to choose our own values. There’s some organisations that might want to fund VUWSA that we might not want a relationship with.

So you won’t be opening a strip club to get more revenue then?

Jono: Exactly.

Liam?

Liam: Funding is an essential issue. Compared to OUSA and UCSA, VUWSA’s not funded to nearly half the extent. But I think that’s where the critical mass of other students’ associations comes in.

With events, with more students attending events like O-Week, we editor@salient.org.nz

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can afford to increase the scale and therefore the quality of events.

Large companies—for instance, Russel McVeigh with law students’ societies—often sponsor student events around the country, so it doesn’t seem that big a step to find a sponsorship contract with a commercial organisation that would help to sustain VUWSA’s core services.

How would you get students more involved in student politics?

Liam: Using the spaces that are more visible to students like the Hub, to a lesser extent the Hunter Lounge, use those areas to convene discussions, to have debates around areas that are important to students. Increasing VUWSA’s online presence to engage students, particularly on social media.

Jono: It is more basic than that as well. You don’t see the representation side, you don’t see VUWSA fighting for students behind closed doors at Academic Board meetings, for example. So I think it’s about publicising that. A great example is the campaign to restore democracy on University Council. I was really proud to be part of the student body when there were students coming to us saying “we really believe in this, we support you guys in pushing for this”. I think it’s winning hearts and minds in that sense that helps gets students more involved in student politics.

What is the value of experience in student politics?

Liam: Experience can be overrated sometimes, when weighed up against the benefit of having a fresh look in. Having said that I have experience of other universities, of what student life can be like. But any person can learn the job within several weeks, and it does not take long, if you work hard, to build relationships. When put next to a new perspective, experience comes second.

Jono: I’d like to emphasise that I’m not campaigning based on my experience, I’m campaigning on what my vision is for students.

I’m very new to student politics as well, I’ve only been involved in VUWSA this year, that’s the extent of my student politics experience.

But the value I bring is that I’m a normal student as well, I’m a student who’s been at Vic for four years now, I came to Wellington and to Victoria because I love this city, I love this university. I’ve been involved in a range of parts of the student experience including being a club president. As a law student I’ve been based down at Pipitea campus, I’ve seen what it’s like to be a student down there as well. I’m not running on experience but on the fact that I am a student myself.

Do either of you have any political affiliations?

Jono: No. Liam: No.

Who did you vote for in the last election?

[After some laughter and protestations] Liam: I voted for the Labour candidate and the Green Party.

Jono: I voted two ticks Labour. Though I think when it comes to student interests and student policies we can transcend politics in a students’ association.

www.salient.org.nz

salient

So it’s just been a coincidence that all VUWSA Presidents have been Labour or Green supporters?

Jono: Potentially! I think it’s also just the type of person you get.

Though having said that I’ve noticed there are a few centre-right candidates running for election this year so that’s really exciting.

Oh, who? We need to hound them out of town!

What way are you intending to vote in the NZUSA referendum?

Jono: I wouldn’t want to say. Student politicians have bickered about this for too long. The reason we’ve brought this to a referendum is that students have the right to decide this issue. I will honour that referendum whichever way it goes, though my bottom line is that we need a national student voice to campaign for tertiary education issues. The question students are being asked is whether NZUSA is the best organisation for that, or is there a credible alternative?

Do you believe there is a credible alternative?

Jono: At this stage I haven’t heard any credible alternative, I’m very open to hearing what any alternative might be. But at the end of the day we do need someone to campaign on national student issues.

Liam?

Liam: Students really have the right to decide for themselves whether we are a part of it or not. It’s not for me to say either way.

You’re a student though.

Liam: I’m a student. As a student representative I will implement whatever the vote comes out as. But I believe there is a definite need for a student voice.

How much do you intend to spend on holographic stickers?

Jono: We’ll see. I don’t know.

Liam, do you have a holographic sticker budget in mind?

Liam: Not off the top of my head, unfortunately!

Would you rather have legs for fingers or fingers for legs?

Liam [after long pause]: I would go for fingers for legs, just because I like playing the piano and other musical instruments, and you can use your hands for a lot more things than you can your legs.

Jono: I would go the same. I like my fingers!

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Features

The Day the Internet Died PHILIP MCSWEENeY

Among the niche community of early Rock ‘N’ Roll lovers, 3 February has been forever memorialised as “The Day the Music Died”. It was on this day, back in 1959, when Buddy Holly, Richie “The Man” Valenz and J.P. “Big Bopper” Richardson were killed when a plane they were all on careened into a cornfield in Minnesota. For the nascent Rock ‘N’ Roll scene it was a tremendous loss, made worse by the knowledge that these musicians were only reaching the height of the powers. What music lovers lost in that wreckage was, to some, irreplaceable.

If history had taken a slightly different turn, a niche community of cypherpunks, anarcho-crypticists and internet enthusiasts would be lament the events of 4 February, 1993, and perhaps commemorate it as “The Day the Internet Died”. On this day, the US government announced its support for the “Clipper Chip”.

This wasn’t the first time the US government had enacted measures

to take control of cyberspace. In 1977, a remarkably prescient piece of legislation defined strong digital encryption as a “munition”. In 1990, the FBI launched “Operation Sundevil”, a crackdown on hackers or anyone perceived to be engaged in hacking-like activity that even supporters admitted was over-zealous. The next year, Joe Biden tried to spearhead a piece of Senate legislation that would require electronic service communication providers to hand over all data to the government; he was narrowly voted down.

The Clipper Chip, however, was deemed the worst infraction on internet freedom yet, and led to what has retrospectively been called “the first holy war of the information highway”. The chip, which was to be made mandatory, would hold all communications in “key escrow”; information could then be transferred to the government upon request. It would be a forced universalised standard of encryption for all internet transactions, to which the NSA would hold all the keys.

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For many internet users, and especially cypherpunks, this chip represented the pivot of history. Whether it was enforced would determine the course of internet freedom for the century to come.

Would Big Brother win? Would internet surveillance and erosion of “civil liberties” become the norm? And if so, what would the internet look like?

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Thanks to avid campaigning from hackers, cypherpunks, concerned citizens and senators, widely published papers exposing flaws in the Chips encryption systems, and a polemic entitled “Cyphernomicon”, the program was rendered defunct by 1996. The internet was safe, PGP coding was still damn-near watertight, surveillance schemes had been averted. It was a good time to be an internet user. Cypherpunks had won the battle.

In September 2013, a few months after Snowden made his ominous pronouncements, the FBI conducted a massive raid of the TOR network, armed with information gleaned from surveillance and the Five Eyes Network. It was heavy-handed, taking down all websites hosted by “Freedom Hosting”—including the very legitimate, arguably essential anonymous email service, tormail—and tarring all users of Freedom Hosting websites with the same brush. The problem for those who are wary of government intrusion on the internet? This raid was also “the closest” the FBI had come to eradicating child pornography from the internet. Countless people were found and charged, websites were shut down and those that weren’t disappeared after the owners were rattled. Many deep web denizens remain deterred to this day. Child pornography become harder to access and, better, more dangerous to make.

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It’s 6 June, 2013. A young man sits on a chair facing two interlocutors, stubbled and bespectacled, fear palpable in his eyes. More than anything, he looks exhausted. “Even if you’re not doing anything wrong,” he says, “you’re being watched and recorded.” The man is Edward Snowden.

It’s easy to see why unchecked monitoring rankles, and not just because of the simplistic argument that people who have done no wrong don’t “deserve” to be spied on. At the same time, a lot of the terms thrown around—“the death of freedom of speech”; “the death knell for our civil liberties”; “Big Brother has taken over”—seem a bit overwrought. Indeed, both sides err on the side of embellishment and exaggeration.

He has just leaked an unprecedented amount of classified information straight from the NSA archives, and he’s making his case to two journalists, Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras. The trove of disclosures revealed staggering levels of intrusive surveillance from the United States and its allies on their citizens. While it was not a complete shock to many people, bearing witness to proof of the enormity of malfeasance was chilling.

For his troubles, Snowden was charged with espionage and theft. He is currently in hiding. Whether you think he’s a hero or a menace, an inspiration or a petty criminal, there’s no denying that his actions sparked intense and complex debates over information privacy, or how free the internet really is.

I don’t want to belabour the whole cause and effect thing, but the internet we know and love today is the way it is because of the actions and protests of a group of cypherpunks, radicals and weirdos.

Without their protests and subversions there would be no internet freedom or anonymity. There would certainly be no TOR network or 4chan or even reddit. All of our passwords would be known to the government.

The thought is jarring, considering the ubiquity of the internet and how goddamn wonderful it is. I’ll go on the record and say it might be humankind’s greatest achievement, something we didn’t know we needed but that connects us to troves of information, enables companionship and sharing of media and resources which are only a click away. It’s kind of magical. It might seem hyperbolic to compare its necessity to things like food, water and shelter, but France recently made internet access a basic human right—right or wrong, that gives you an idea of how integral it is to our society, anarcho-primitivists be damned.

But if Snowden is correct, then the internet is not as safe and free as we know. It might even be in jeopardy. Prior to Snowden’s revelations, many thought the internet too big, too unwieldy and diverse to control; clearly the NSA and our own GCSB have other ideas.

On the side of the government there’s the insistence that surveillance is a necessary step in keeping citizens secure and protected from terrorism and similar threats; on the other there’s assertions that censorship, or even monitoring, of the internet represents the end of democratic ideals and impinges on fundamental and legally bestowed freedoms, and that it’s all towards the end of turning civilians into malleable shills of the state—“sheeple”. Both of the claims are apocalyptic in their severity; to the outsider, it seems as though we’re one button-push away from devolving into something out of Mad Max. For many crypto-anarchists, though, these fears are genuine. “Crypto”, in this instance, refers to the internet as a spatial plane where the fundamental tenets of Anarchism can be realised. However, cryptoanarchists can be separated into two different factions with radically opposing, even antithetical, worldviews.

There are your more “traditional” anarchists, those that believe the internet has the potential to emancipate the world from capitalist dictates and superstructures, and who genuinely believe that a world without government would see humans in their natural state as caring and empathetic; who left alone will create flourishing and equitable societies.

Then there are the libertarians, who believe that the internet fosters a “laissez-faire” economic market, completely free from government regulation or “distortion”. For these ideologues, money would be private and untraceable, and everything—and I mean everything— would be up for sale.

One side of the cryptos wants to destroy capitalism. The other wants to realise it in its most complete iteration. They may share a distrust of localisations of power, especially the government, cops and the justice system. They both believe that complete anonymity and privacy on the internet are essential to a flourishing, functional editor@salient.org.nz

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and utopian society. But their politics are also completely and utterly irreconcilable—right?

hackers the resources both to make a utopian idyll come true and to code, create and experiment to their heart’s content.

Not according to Calafou.

This is how Calafou came to be known as “hackerfou”. Without being there, I imagine it to be not unlike the base in Mr. Robot.

There were reports of crypto-anarchists coding for 48 hours at a time, without breaks, chain-smoking rollies, working on dozens of projects at a time. The place attracted strange bedfellows. At one stage the commune was home to Smari McCarthy, social justice activist, bleeding-heart liberal and welfare supporter, and Amir Taaki, Anonymous-loving libertarian right-winger. They coded sitting directly next to one another.

Nestled amongst the rolling hills on the outskirts of outer Barcelona lies a long-abandoned textile factory with 28,000 square metres of production space. It was derelict and half reconquered by nature.

Where most people saw a safety hazard and a building in dire need of a wrecking ball, Enric Duran and the “Catalan Integral Operative” (CIC) saw something else.

Duran had earned himself the nickname “Robin Banks” after stealing about half a million euros from a group of Spanish banks. The method may have been inelegant—he convinced 39 different banks to give him a loan, paid back early loans to get a good enough credit rating to borrow as much as he could, and ran off with the money, dispersing it amongst various social activism groups along the way—but God was it effective, and it was his “donation” that gave CIC enough money to rent-to-buy the land and the abandoned building. The site was given a new name, “Calafou”, and given a slogan: “eco-industrial postcapitalist colony”.

Today there is no mention of Duran’s involvement on the website, which I assume is because the man is wanted by the Catalan Police, but the anarchic origins of the colony permeate the pamphlets anyway: “Since its inception, the intent is to develop a network based on a network of cooperatives, individual projects and housing in a collectivised area. This seeks to facilitate the sharing of ideas, goods and resources to foster synergies in a natural way. A place for social innovation, technology and policy based on self-responsibility and cooperation.”

Calafou is an anarchist commune, an attempt at collective living. The inhabitants run and manage it and share all their resources. There are about thirty permanent residents, although many more radicals come and go. Their vision is to find ways of living outside capitalist machinations, based on the premise of political and economic selfdetermination.

Do not mistake it, however, for one of those communes or cults that yearns for primitivism, or pre-industrial life. Though there is a focus in creating an ecologically sound social system—experiments include trying to adapt car engines to run on water, and there are workshops on how to make foodstuffs yourself—the commune has embraced technology and strives for ways to disassociate technological advances from capitalist structures. One of its pet projects is the PLN—“Phone Liberation Network”—which would, if implemented, provide a free alternative to phone companies.

The most integral part of Calafou, however, and the facet that draws the most people, is its “hacklab”, a room where the best and brightest in the business are encouraged to create free, open-source software and other computer-related tools for the purposes of liberating the people from capitalism and its perceived evils. Especially surveillance.

When the Snowden leaks occurred in 2013, Calafou was suddenly the place to be for hackers and coders with a crypto-anarchist bent.

For the price of one hundred Euro a month, Calafou offered these www.salient.org.nz

The main project of hackerfou in 2013 (though there were many, many projects) was guaranteeing an anonymously-circulating currency.

Crypto-anarchist Tim May postulated that alongside universal use of PGP encryption and the ability to browse the internet anonymously, an anonymous e-currency would complete the holy trinity necessary for the endgame of capitalism. The problem was that the most widely used variant of cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, is notoriously vulnerable to prying eyes.

Bitcoin is a decentralised unit of currency that is entirely digital.

The cons? It is entirely theoretical, prone to widely fluctuating stock prices, and has been pronounced “dead” no fewer than twenty-nine times. The pros? It’s peer-to-peer; there’s no single administrating body controlling it; bartering in it does not charge the additional fee that credit cards company hack on. Because of its theoretical guarantee of anonymity and the relative ease of laundering it through various “bitwallets” (an online program that stores Bitcoin), it is frequently used for criminal enterprise as well as for legitimate online products and services, but it’s losing the stigma once attached to it.

One city council in America even taught its homeless population to mine Bitcoin to keep them fed and sheltered.

It is also, of course, a crypto-anarchist dream. It takes money away from the state and from institutions and puts the individual in direct control of it. It’s either a complete rejection of capitalism or its capitalism’s inevitable endgame. It makes transactions completely anonymous, without state interference or surveillance.

Or it should; in reality, savvy hackers and governments are able to trace transactions through faulty exit nodes and wallets with poor security features. According to one study, because of its less frequent use, it is easier to trace transactions to the source when Bitcoin is used than when the user’s bank account is out in the open, so to speak.

Hence the project concocted at Calafou: the Dark Wallet. The Dark Wallet, which was released last year, was a huge step forward for cryptocurrency. It essentially buries Bitcoin transactions between layers upon layers of newly coded security measures. It creates “stealth addresses”, which are basically a couple of proxy addresses that are noted on the “blockchain” ledger that records Bitcoin transaction. It jumbles up transactions that are happening simultaneously among other dark wallet users, so no-one knows who sent what to whom, even those involved in the trade—only that there’s the right amount of money in their wallet. The release was literally years in the making, but the hours spent coding, checking and double-checking paid off.

It made Bitcoin addresses nigh-on untraceable.

The ramifications of this development are pretty obvious (what if

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social media sites switch to blockchain? No more targeted ads, no more employer snooping). But is it a wholly good thing? If Tim May’s prophecy proves correct and people do switch to online currency, that would remove the government’s power to monitor us, and even their power full stop. Is that necessarily a good thing? It’s easy to rally against government, but without well-orchestrated ones will there be accessible schooling, hospitals, welfare systems, protection for society’s most vulnerable, protective safeguards for our most fundamental human rights? You could argue that unless something happens, and swiftly, this is the way our Western governments are going; that these things are being eroded by corporate interests anyway.

A decentralised currency system might not be the best answer. When everything is for sale, nefarious things are bound to crop up. In the world of crypto-anarchists, things like child pornography and guns are elephants in the room, usually waved away awkwardly as an “unfortunate consequence” or a “small issue” or “unlikely to be wanted without capitalism as the dominating social system”. In the words of Cody Wilson, who helped realise Dark Wallet, “understanding that rights and civil liberties are something that we protect is also understanding that they have consequences that are also protected, or tolerated. That’s just the way it is.”

This, to me, is a cop-out. I wanted to find someone to broach the issue with more candour and less dismissiveness and hopefully more logic and coherence. Certainly measures to eradicate child pornogaphy, for example, have been zealous and resulted in collateral damage, but they’ve worked and protected children. Isn’t that a good thing, on balance? This is why I turned to the Deep Web and Torchat to try to track someone down.

After tracking down, adding and getting blown off and/or personally insulted by a slew of deep web characters—predictably, hardcore TOR denizens are pretty protective of their privacy—with a deadline looming I, in a slightly panicked state, ended up posting a thread on a renowned chan. I asked if there was “someone to talk to about their views on internet freedom”, that I was “wondering how people justify it even if it entails CP [child pornography] and assassination markets” and ending with the assurance “I promise I’m not FBI lmao”. I was contacted by one of the mods. A proud and public crypto-anarchist, we and a couple of others rendezvoused on the e-equivalent of a smoky, unlit, empty bar—a thread on a “chan”-imageboard in the internet arse-end-of-nowhere.

The moderators’ answers were, I suspect, affectedly simple and ungrammatical in the name of obfuscating their identities. They were also the most sane of the bunch. As it turns out, this was not a difficult achievement.

The reasoning for averting censorship was this: “broadly we don’t mind people posting links to the uncensored hidden wiki because we believe that internet should be uncontrolled by Big Brother and their LEA [law enforcement agencies] shills.” But what if this allows for the proliferation of child pornography?

He was unrepentent. “i personally dont see the attraction in kiddy porn, but i think people should be able to fap to whatever they want to fap to. we should respect their [paedophiles] freedom of speech too,” he said, before explaining “there are always going to be sick fucks and kiddy-fiddlers in the world. and that sucks. i hate the thought of children suffering. but that’s just the way it is. it’s

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human nature. its going to happen in any society irregardless [not a word] of whether you try to stop it. what doesnt have to happen is government control over our democracy and freedom.”

Ultimately, to this advocate, the pros of freedom outweighed the cons; or, rather, the ends justified the side-effects. In his own words, “tor has got big brother running scared, revealing themselves as corrupt greedy ineffective and useless”. Following this rant was a somewhat anti-climactic conclusion: “thanks for getting in touch”.

If this seems wayward at best and delusional at worst, it at least wasn’t as flagrantly errant as the views of another anonymous commenter who offered their opinion on the thread. Their thesis that “The main reason CP is illegal is because CP helps the government come up with excuses to enslave the populace.

You might think this is a crazy idea, but if you follow my logic, you will realize it is actually true” was not followed by anything approximating logic but instead an extended diatribe invoking nuggets of wisdom a la “911 was almost certainly an inside job”, “they performed this false flag” and the clincher: “In actuality, terrorism and pedophilia are both excuses used by the government to surveillance and control the populace”.

After reiterating the treatise that “They [the people] are just making themselves into more docile slaves. The government is better able to control them, if the government can surveillance all of their activities on their computers and the Internet”, they concluded that “Our privacy and freedoms will only continue to erode, as long as pedophilia is demonized”. In the face of this overwhelming tirade, I responded “what the fuck”. Either their or another anonymous commenter’s rebuttal closed the thread: “>back to 4chan or le >reddit or le 9fag with you, faggot. something a little more your speed. adults are talking”. A picture of an antiSemitic caricature of a Jew was attached to the comment.

The prevailing reaction seems to be “there is nothing we can do to staunch the flow of child porn and murder markets”, whether that’s incorporated in a deranged argument about government control or otherwise. It’s ironic: the people who refuse to accept the status quo, who are adamant they can change government systems and that we can achieve a cyber-revolution, don’t want to take on the child porn industry. For a group that claims to be informed, it’s remarkably uncritical. For every fiercely intelligent leaders of this protest there lurks countless bottom-feeders that stand behind them.

Until this dynamic changes, and crypto-anarchists attempt to engage in a meaningful way with the ills their revolution would bring, their vision cannot be called utopian. While their goals of subverting government appear laudable, ultimately their envisioned paradise isn’t so different from the world they claim to loathe: a place where the most vulnerable and powerless are cast aside in favour of ideology. Unless this is rectified, or at the very least considered, the crypto-revolution is nothing but a pseudorevolution.

editor@salient.org.nz

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Features

In the Shadow of the Kowloon Walled City

issue 22

It is the 1970s in Hong Kong, and you are eleven years old. Early one evening, you go out to a nearby neighbourhood for dinner with your family. A five-minute walk from your primary school, it is also a place you frequent with your friends. The food here is good and especially renowned for its fishball noodle soup, which is what you always get.

You’ve been here so often that navigating the subterranean corridors to the noodle stand is easy, and you know where to step to avoid the ceilings that drip the most. Your bowl of noodles arrive and you slurp them down, unaware of the fact that over the next couple of years this very neighbourhood will peak in its population and its infamy, and remain even decades later as one of the most remarkable social anomalies in recent history.

At its peak, the Kowloon Walled City was home to 33,000 people in just two hectares of land—the size of about two rugby fields—making it the densest place on Earth at the time. It was a hastily put together conglomerate of tiny apartments, one of top of the other, caged balconies slapped onto the sides and connected through a labyrinth of damp, dark corridors. All the while, the rest of Hong Kong went about as normal, seemingly unaffected by the crime and squalor within the Walled City.

This unique society and its complete neglect by the rest of Hong Kong was born of the equally unique political conditions of the Kowloon site. Initially a Chinese outpost for the salt trade during the Song Dynasty (960AD–1279), it was later turned into a military outpost with an added coastal fort in the 1800s. When China lost to the British in the first Opium War, Hong Kong was ceded and officially handed over in 1842.

However, the Kowloon site was an exception, with the British allowing the Chinese to stay at the site as long as they did not politically interfere. China went on to fully reclaim the ownership of the Kowloon site in 1947, but its separation from the mainland meant they did little to enforce laws, while Britain also went with a “hands-off ” policy. Free from both sides of the law, squatters soon flooded in, and so began the legend of the Kowloon Walled City.

By 1950 the population had grown to 17,000. People moved to the Walled City out of bankruptcy, lack of choice, and to either flee or exploit the lack of law. Construction proliferated alongside population, a truly

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modern vernacular free from any building regulation or code. Within the darkness of the Walled City, crime, unregulated businesses (everything from opium dens and brothels to plastic bags and spring rolls) and family life went on day after day.

It wasn’t until 1984 that both governments decided the Walled City had become enough of a backwards embarrassment and eyesore that they had to tear it down. In 1992, residents were evicted and given monetary compensation, and the site was converted into a public commemorative park.

Despite my many, often lengthy, trips to Hong Kong, I have never visited the park.

It is not a well advertised or well heard of tourist attraction, nor is it a place of local pride. In fact it was from the mouth of a Swede that I first heard of the Kowloon Walled City and each time since then that the Walled City has come up, it has been from Caucasian commentary. In my urban design paper, the Kowloon Walled City was brought up as an example of a “slum” that showed the consequences of the lack of building regulations. There was no mention of the delicious bowls of noodles one could find there. Rather, the Kowloon Walled City is in conversation usually described as “postapocalyptic”, “scary” and “crazy”.

Compare this to the way in which my dad talks about the city—a smirk broke across his face as soon as the name was mentioned, and I was surprised to learn that his primary school was just next door from this “crazy” mass of drugs, gangs and crime. In fact, most of our conversation focused on the food that you could find there. He describes the place as “very special”, both as the only place in Hong Kong that went unaffected by British rule and as a unique community in itself. He went on to describe the physical environment of the place, with an energy that I have only otherwise seen during one of his jam-making frenzies. Smiling, he recalled the constant dripping of water leaks everywhere and the surreal disappearance of the sky once you entered. He also went on about the many unregulated businesses there, with special mention to the many unlicensed dentists that could operate liability-free, and also the dog meat stalls, which found success while canine cuisine was illegal in the rest of Hong Kong.

He admits that he knew of people being mugged and that people generally avoided

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the place after dark, but otherwise my dad complimented the Triads on their organisation of the Walled City. Acting as a de facto city council (albeit one funded by drugs and enforced through violence), the Triads organised a volunteer fire brigade and rubbish disposal, and resolved civil conflicts, particularly those between competing businesses.

The way my dad speaks of the Walled City, with something approaching pride, gives a very different impression to its popular depiction—it is much easier to tell a story of depraved lifestyles in a dark maze of inhumane living conditions. This isn’t to say that this wasn’t the case, but rather that this wasn’t the only story that the Walled City had to tell.

A documentary on the Walled City chronicled this complexity firsthand. Filmed by an Austrian with English subtitles, the 1980s film gives an intimate look at life in the Walled City. We meet a breeder of illegal racing pigeons (an alternative to betting on horses), a kindergarten, and even a Triad-funded pensioner. All these stories, however, are set against a dark, dim architectural backdrop. It is a strange experience—harrowing English subtitles that compare the people to “the dead rats nobody takes umbrage at”, but their attempt at shock-horror is heckled by the background Cantonese, with children wittily mocking the camera crew. This, perhaps, best represents Hong Kong—scary from the outside, but energetic normality within.

While it would be false to say that the documentary makers were exaggerating the extent of the squalid conditions, poverty and cramped spaces, these qualities are only striking in their intensity—not at all in their absurdity. In fact, the most Louis Theroux-ish thing in the whole documentary is an English missionary who resides in the Walled City, curing heroin addicts through her “spiritual touch”. The rest of the picture is grossly inhumane, yes; but illogical, no.

Given the conditions and consequences in which the city was conceived, and its complete neglect, it could have turned out a whole lot worse.

The surprising liveliness and community of the Walled City shows that when free from law and liability, things aren’t going to be that great, but they do not have to be an entire editor@salient.org.nz

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My dad describes the place as “very special”, both as the only place in Hong Kong that went unaffected by British rule and as a unique community in itself.

Smiling, he recalled the constant dripping of water leaks everywhere and the surreal disappearance of the sky once you entered.

He also went on about the many unregulated businesses there, with special mention to the many unlicensed dentists, and also the dog meat stalls. www.salient.org.nz

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failure. When the Kowloon Walled City was torn down by outside forces, many of its residents were dissatisfied with their eviction and not even financial compensation restored the community they left behind. Many, years on, even when fully resettled into the rest of Hong Kong, look back to their days in the Walled City as a “happier time”.

When still under British rule, it is important to remember that the Kowloon Walled City was not the only place of such density in Hong Kong. Contemporary to the Walled City were other urban squatter settlements, also ad hoc conglomerations but only of one storey, and roomier with just 4900 people per hectare—about 2m² per person. The settlements sprang up from the population boom of the 1950s, when Chinese refugees fled into the city following political turmoil in the mainland.

After their family land was taken and relatives killed, both my dad’s mother and my mother’s mother were such refugees, and they both experienced some time in informal settlements upon arriving in Hong Kong.

They were both lucky, however, and were soon able to settle into more comfortable and stable conditions, helped by the government’s public housing schemes. With this ancestry, and my own upbringing as a Hong Kong-born New Zealand citizen, it irks me to see the persistent fascination with the current density, of housing in particular, in Hong Kong. While physically long gone, the shadow of the Walled City and its colonial conception remains. The multiple photography series, gawk-tourism, and critique of the city’s never-ending apartment towers has not-so-distant roots to the outsider curiosity that drew British colonials to the Walled City as a tourist attraction in its early days.

The common, lazy judgement thrown upon unfamiliar cultures is everywhere. Online,

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in conversation, and even from university tutors, I have come across phrases like “how can people live like that” and “so crazy how cramped it must be” in regards to small living spaces in Hong Kong and other South East Asian metropolises. Often these phrases are followed by a smug thankfulness that they themselves not have to live in such “terrible conditions”.

My grandmother has, from her arrival into Hong Kong to the current day, lived in public housing. These towers are the most ubiquitous building form in Hong Kong, largely identical and replicated over and over across the city, often painted in pastel for both differentiation and a “happy” aesthetic.

There are over 680,000 apartments across 160 public housing estates, with 15,000 more apartments built each year.

Just as with the Walled City, there is rarely any mention of the lives within the towering walls nor the delicious bowls of noodles.

Photos of these seemingly endless modules disregard and crop out any sense of thought behind the buildings, ignoring what have in fact been decades of design evolution and an increasing quality of public housing. The average living space has changed greatly over the years (see table), and current legislation makes site-specific considerations, sustainable implementations, thoughtful interior and master planning mandatory.

An example of this was the redevelopment of the Ngau Tau Kok Estate, consisting of 5400 apartments across seven blocks, one of these apartments being my grandmother’s. While the original estate was close to amenities such as wet markets, public transport and schools, many of the residents were elderly and found the steep incline of the road leading up to the estate difficult, if not impossible, to walk up (myself included).

The new location was just a ten-minute walk

away from the original site, meaning that all the same facilities were still accessible, and no longer atop a steep hill. The new location was also immediately next to a subway station, adding an important opportunity to the public transport options, and the site also underwent micro-climate studies, identifying wind channels and ventilation opportunities.

with almost all social activities and vibrance exhibited in market and food places, stores, and community spaces. Since life in Hong Kong focuses on the shared street areas rather than in the home, pragmatism and functionality within the home are the main concerns for residents—something that public housing satisfies.

Interior planning was also carefully considered.

Within each dwelling, partitioning, electrical sockets and light switches were made as flexible as possible in a standardised design. Standardisation also meant that there could be more dedication towards commercial and community facilities like covered markets, stores, community centres, and playgrounds. As you walk through these places, residents exercise and children run around; a case of master planning that has actually been successful.

Accessibility ramps of minimal inclines, slipresistant surfaces and haptic aides for the visually impaired are also important, with over half of Hong Kong’s elderly residents residing in public housing.

This is something that is seen across all socioeconomic groups in Hong Kong. Luxurious privately owned flats are just as architecturally standardised and repetitive, and a very small majority of Hong Kong residents live in large standalone houses. These houses aren’t simply reserved for the very wealthy—they are simply not desired. An apartment on a bustling street is the dream. A large house in a quiet, dead neighbourhood? “How can people live like that?” my grandmother would ask.

Upon completion of the redevelopment in 2002, the residents, or at least my grandmother and her friends, have seen many improvements to their everyday lives.

Efficient facilities within their homes and easy access to amenities have replaced the aging walls and difficult access-ways, and with most of the residents of the redevelopment being residents of the original Ngau Tau Kok estate, community bonds and friendships have been able to remain intact. There has also been a noticeable increase in natural daylight and ventilation, allowing residents to save money on mechanical ventilation and electric lighting.

Outside criticism of these estates focuses on the lack of personality, identity and variety, and apartment size. However, the culture of Hong Kong is focused on life on the street,

Period

Average Area of Average Area of Living Space per Flat (m2) person (m2)

1950s-60s

11.5

2.23

1970s

36-44

3.25

1980s

28-55

4.25

1990s to date

17-52

7-10

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The notion that my grandmother would not give up her apartment—the size of three parking spaces—for any private, lawned house is sometimes difficult to comprehend.

Westerners often describe the small size of flats and high-density living in Hong Kong as “overcrowding”. However, Hong Kong has a past and present of dense populations and scarce land, unseen in most parts of the world, making the definition of “overcrowding” a culturally relative term.

The judgement also shows up the double standard that exists with the increasingly trendy “small house movement” in Western countries. There is something uncomfortable about how those who have the space but choose not to occupy it are hailed as innovative, while there are literally millions of people across the globe that will never have any other choice but to live small. Whether under the flag of sustainability or socially conscious design, these veganism-pushingTED-talkers are hailed as heroes, with little regard given to their inherent cultural and geographical privilege. There is also little credit given to Asian metropolises like Hong Kong. In a documentary entitled Microtopia, which recently filmed at Wellington’s own Architecture Film Festival, the audience clapped at projects made by emerging Western heroes, while not even a nod was given to the Tokyo Metabolists or Korea’s rooftop culture. Since these movements were born out of necessity, they automatically do not have the same innovative merit. It is almost as if these places are connoted with conditions and qualities closer to the Walled City than current reality, and it is only now, with micro-houses on wheels and bearded

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men living in Pinterest-worthy treehuts, has living small been done “right”.

The Kowloon Walled City’s lack of prominence in Hong Kong itself is not due to political embarrassment, but because it is culturally unremarkable. Today, problems often associated with density, such as crime and sickness, are not notably prevalent in Hong Kong. In fact, crime rates are low on an international scale, and the city has the world’s fourth-lowest rate of infant mortality and also fourth-highest life expectancy.

Intimidating and eerie from the outside, dedicated public housing allows even Hong Kong’s elderly to stay self-sufficient.

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If the energy of young designers in both Hong Kong and abroad were focused less on criticising places that are actually doing fine (public housing and the majority of the population’s living conditions) and less on prefab glamping caravans (Pinterest has enough pictures as it is), there are real urban and social problems in Hong Kong that are currently, like the Walled City once was, being neglected.

Density will always be a fact of life in Hong Kong, manifested to its extreme in the Walled City and resolved in public housing today.

The city’s cultural apathy toward density sees it excel in other forms—but in the shadow of the Walled City, those without access to public housing still face squalor. The quarters given to the populous domestic maids really are too small, and immigrant housing is an increasing concern, with people renting out taped-off sections of rooftops for residency.

editor@salient.org.nz

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A Twentieth-Century MacGuffin Sam McChesney

“Roads? Where we’re going, we don’t need roads.”

In exactly one month from now—21 October, 2015—Marty McFly is scheduled to arrive in The Future: a place of transparent plastic ties, inside-out pants and (surprisingly accurate) Kanye boots; where lawyers have been abolished, making the justice system “much more efficient”; where wait staff have been replaced by automated TV screen images of Michael Jackson and Ronald Reagan; where skateboards hover and, of course, cars fly.

We should really get on that, shouldn’t we? It’s turning into a bad habit; there was no Jupiter mission in 2001, and we look set to miss our Blade Runner deadline of sentient robots by 2019. Where are our laser guns and lightsabers, our holographic movies and meal pills, our robo-pals and moon resorts?

Above all, where the hell are our flying cars?

Matt Novak hears this question a lot. Novak is the founder of, and the world’s sole recognised expert in, paleofuturism—a field he stumbled into/invented during a university assignment in 2007. Paleofuturism is the study of historical depictions of the future; Novak, a selfconfessed research nerd, trawls through old books, magazine articles and microfiche to uncover the odd and kitschy predictions of previous generations, including flying cars. His blog, Paleofuture, was sponsored by the Smithsonian and can now be found on Gizmodo.

Paleofuture is a trove of flying-car minutiae. A Library of Congress image from 1885 shows an array of mooted “flying machines”, including a floating screw-shaped vehicle and a balloon towed by a squadron of giant flying hawks. A 1901 article in the Lincoln Evening News showed a picture of “the very latest form of flying machine”—a 100-foot-long dirigible that could allegedly carry up to five people and travel at a whopping 45km/h—and predicted that “wealthy Americans will soon be flying about in private aerial cars as they now speed over the county in their automobiles. ‘Own your own flying machine’ will probably be the advice of dealers in ‘aerials’ in the very

near future.” In 1909, The New York Times quoted a prediction “that motor cars will in a hundred years be things of the past, and that a kind of flying bicycle will have been invented which will enable everybody to traverse the air at will, far from the earth.”

Although the idea of cars with wings, capable of flight, cropped up occasionally over the following decades, it wasn’t until the 1950s that the idealised flying car truly began to take shape. The key innovation was the requirement for vertical takeoff, and for a vertical propulsion system that removed the need for wings. After all, a car with wings might technically be a “flying car”, but really it’s just a cross between a car and a plane. To Novak, these barely qualify as “flying cars” at all; as Lionel Salisbury, flying car aficionado and editor of the Roadable Times, notes, “it’s like trying to mate a pig and an elephant. You don’t get a very good elephant, or a very good pig.”

A flying car that could take off vertically was crucially different to an elephant-pig winged car because it was possible to envisage such a car as a suburban, middle-class vehicle—a direct, futuristic surrogate for a ground-car. A car with wings, on the other hand, would need significant horizontal space to take off and land—in all likelihood, it couldn’t be used in cities, or in concentrated numbers. An elephantpig car, in the popular imagination, could only ever be a rich person’s rural plaything.

In 1958, This Week magazine promised that a flying family car that could “land in the backyard” would be available within two years.

In 1959, the Chicago Tribune touted the imminent arrival of the “Shopper Hopper”, a “kind of flying carpet” for short-distance trips; and the same year, the Chicago Daily Tribune ran an alarming headline that cheerfully promised/threatened “In 50 Years: Cars Flying Like Missiles!”. Yet these never arrived.

Instead, almost all real-world attempts at flying cars have been elephant-pigs. In 1950, the Yuma Daily Sun reported on a new “Aerocar” with fold-back wings—“According to its Longview, Calif., designer, the airship can be converted to the auto ‘even by a woman, without soiling her gloves’.” In the early 1970s, entrepreneur Henry Smolinski strapped wings to a Ford Pinto, and would take the car editor@salient.org.nz

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“Today’s political, social and business leaders were pretty much watching The Jetsons on repeat during their most impressionable years.”

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on periodic flights to an altitude of a few metres. In 1973, one of the wings malfunctioned in-flight, leading to a fiery crash that killed Smolenski and his business partner.

It’s a similar story today. Most modern-day commercial attempts to produce flying cars have been little more than light aircraft with inflated marketing claims. Prototypes frequently crash. Many more have simply been vaporware, securing funding through outlandish promises while working models perpetually remain “two years away”.

Real estate mogul Paul Moller has been “working” on a commercial vertical-takeoff car since 1963, but the only time the car has been seen in operation was 2003—during which it was strapped to a crane.

Novak is scathing about most of these attempts, vowing this year to “literally eat the sun” if the elephant-pig AeroMobil, a prototype of which crashed in May, comes out as promised in 2017. “I realise that flying cars have been promised for a century,” he wrote. “But we need to stop fetishising this one symbol as the only true barometer of future-ness. Until we have affordable, driverless vertical take-off and landing vehicles, the flying car will remain a dream for the vast majority of humans on this Earth.”

There are three main—though not mutually exclusive—explanations for our lack of flying cars. The first is technological. In his New York Times article “I Was Promised Flying Cars”, astrophysicist Adam Frank pointed out that of the four physical forces known to humanity, we have mastered only one, electromagnetism. And electromagnetism, while allowing for some incredibly sophisticated and complex devices, isn’t great at getting large objects into the air.

To make things fly we primarily use aerofoil design and combustible fuel—both of which are electromagnetic phenomena—but this way of doing things is primitive and not very efficient.

Of the three remaining known forces, we have a decent understanding of, and some level of control over, the strong and weak nuclear forces.

These forces promise the kind of raw power that would easily— and cleanly—solve almost all of humanity’s energy problems. But modern-day nuclear power plants work on the same principle as 19th-century steam engines: the reaction heats water, which generates steam, which spins turbines. As Frank puts it, “compared with the precision of an electron microscope (or even a grocery-store laser scanner), our handling of nuclear forces is still at the level of slamming rocks together.”

As for the fourth known force, gravity, we still don’t actually understand it—a quantum theory of gravity is one of physics’ great missing pieces. And while we are able to use electromagnetic and, in theory anyway, nuclear forces to help us overcome gravity, we are nowhere near an understanding of how to directly manipulate gravity itself. “All our ways of flying involve a heavy-handed application of the electromagnetic force through fuels and engines,” Frank concluded. “The noise, the danger, the pollution and the inefficiency that accompany the current ways of flying are a testament to our crude approach to defying gravity.” Given these limitations, the flying car has simply never been worth pursuing on a cost-benefit basis.

The second explanation is economic. David Graeber, a Marxist anthropologist at the London School of Economics, lays the blame on market logic and the advent of post-modernism. In his article “Of Flying Cars and the Declining Rate of Profit”, published in The Baffler in 2012, Graeber traced our lack of flying cars—in addition to our non-existent “force fields, tractor beams, teleportation pods, antigravity sleds, tricorders, immortality drugs, colonies on Mars,

www.salient.org.nz

Features

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and all the other technological wonders any child growing up in the mid-to-late twentieth century assumed would exist by now”—to “bureaucratic corporate capitalism”.

According to Graeber, the rate of scientific progress slowed in the mid-twentieth century as research and academia were overtaken by market forces. Scientists found themselves at the mercy of capricious, results-driven funding models, leading to risk aversion and a decline in blue-sky thinking; a bureaucratic culture that bogged them down with paperwork and publishing requirements; a competitive environment that undermined the intellectual commons; and shortrun incentives that directed most research toward either consumer products or the military. All these changes, Graeber thinks, have brought about a cultural shift away from “poetic technologies”—those designed to “bring wild fantasies to reality”, and that characterised the “mad Soviet plans” of much of the last century—toward “bureaucratic technologies”. In other words, our economy is set up to provide CAT scans and incrementally improving smartphones, but it won’t send us to Mars any time soon, nor give us flying cars.

The third explanation is sociological. As film critics are fond of pointing out, most science fiction is less about technology than it is about people. The gadgets and settings aren’t so much a serious portend for the future, but a kind of thought experiment, one designed to get at some deeper social or psychological truth about humanity.

The flying car has always been a form of science fiction—and the debate as to why we haven’t got them yet misses the deeper and perhaps more important question of why they became so culturally ingrained in the first place.

It’s this last line of thinking that most interests Novak. Paleofuturism is less concerned with why the “promise” of flying cars was never fulfilled—to Novak, all futurology is an unreliable pseudoscience— and more with what our fixation on flying cars and other gadgets says, or said, about our society and psyche.

In 2012, Novak produced the series 50 Years of The Jetsons for Smithsonian—an episode-by-episode recap of the original, 24-episode season of the classic Hanna-Barbera cartoon. “It’s easy for some people to dismiss The Jetsons as just a TV show, and a lowly cartoon at that,” Novak wrote in his first post in the series. “But this little show—for better and for worse—has had a profound impact on the way that Americans think and talk about the future.”

First airing in 1962, The Jetsons follows the life of the Jetson family in the year 2062. George Jetson, the husband, works 20 hours a week at a “push-button” desk; his wife, Jane Jetson, is a homemaker who cooks meals by pulling a lever. They have two children—Judy, a boyobsessed teenager, and Elroy, a rambunctious six-year-old—as well as a dog and a robot maid. George drives a flying car and disapproves of Judy’s musical tastes. Jane likes to shop.

While few of the futuristic visions in The Jetsons were original to the show, Novak says the show was “the distillation of every Space Age promise Americans could muster. People point to The Jetsons as the golden age of American futurism because (technologically, at least) it had everything our hearts could desire: jetpacks, flying cars, robot maids, moving sidewalks… what The Jetsons did do successfully was condense and package those inventions into entertaining 25-minute blocks for impressionable, media-hungry kids to consume.”

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watching The Jetsons on repeat during their most impressionable years,” Novak writes. “Thanks in large part to the Jetsons, there’s a sense of betrayal that is pervasive in American culture today about the future that never arrived. The Jetsons and everything they represented were seen by so many not as a possible future, but a promise of one.”

Yet that vision of the future was, as Novak points out, a fundamentally conservative one—the Jetson family and their futuristic society are deeply rooted in the social norms of the early 60s. And it’s tempting to wonder how our expectations—our lives, even—might have been different had that outlook been somewhat more progressive. As Novak asks, “what if George took a flying bus or monorail instead of a flying car? What if Jane Jetson worked outside of the home? What if the show had a single African-American character?”

Indeed, for all the technological advances shown in the show, there’s little appreciation of how technology might alter the basic assumptions on which everyday life was built. The car itself, for instance, was a revolutionary piece of technology—the tool that freed the middle classes and led directly to the rise of suburbia. What changes might the flying car bring?

As a discipline, futurology tends to assume that technology is simply a means to realise our innate desires with greater and greater accuracy.

The idealised, suburban nuclear family may have been made possible by technologies like the car and the Pill (not to mention valium); but at the time, to its advocates, this lifestyle was more—the summation of previous generations’ hopes and aspirations, the American Dream incarnate.

But not only is this view highly debatable, it assumes that the social effects of technology can be predicted, that the “innate desires” actualised by new gadgets are more than post hoc and can be mapped out in advance. The car may have created suburbia; but suburbia, in turn, has been accused of fostering individualism and class exclusion, pushing society politically to the right. Was any of this foreseeable?

Would the America of the 1930s, the one that accepted the New Deal, have wanted it? Today, climate change and population growth are eroding the social conditions that fostered our collective obsession with private vehicles. Flying cars are last century’s MacGuffin— despite their residual kitschy appeal, we’ve largely moved on.

This is why Novak cares little for futurology. While the field is “a great measure of our greatest hopes and our darkest fears”, the discipline itself is, for the most part, academically bankrupt. “The people of 1900 were about as good at predicting the year 1930 as the people of 1970 were at predicting the world of the year 2000,” he told The Verge in 2012. “Which is to say, not very good.”

In particular, Novak criticises the “single creator myth” that futurology buys into. “Visions of the future (movies, books, comic strips, etc.) are generally constructed by one person or a relatively small group of people,” he says. “But it takes the forces of an entire society to build tomorrow.

“The idea that pleated shorts made of plastic might very well be the hot fashion trend of 2020 could be the flap of the butterfly’s wings that makes your concept drawing for the car of 2020 look ridiculous.

The greatest visionaries in the history of the world have never been able to predict the minor changes that will completely re-shape what it means to make a successful phone, or revitalise a city, or cause governments to topple.”

And those same kids grew up to be enormously culturally influential.

“Today’s political, social and business leaders were pretty much editor@salient.org.nz

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salient

Is It Getting Hot In Here?

BRONTE AMMUNDSEN A quick guide to all the climate change “hot words” that are constantly used, but barely ever explained. Apparently we’re all supposed to just happen to know this shit.

When I was a kid, every time I heard people mention “greenhouse gases” and the “greenhouse effect”, I thought the problem was harmful emissions from the greenhouses people used for growing plants. Fast-forward a few years, and I found myself taking a university paper on energy resources and use, and soon discovered that amidst the media outlet of the global warming debates, the growing use of climate change as a political weapon, and the financial gain for businesses by labelling their products “green”, not many people were taking the time to explain what the fuck it all meant.

The Greenhouse Effect and Greenhouse Gases

In some ways, you can think of the sun as a giant ball of energy. Because of space and the universe and big things happening, it sends a whole bunch of energy to Earth, mostly coming in the forms of heat energy and light energy.

When this hits the earth, the land and water on Earth’s surface absorbs a lot of the energy, while some of it is reflected right off the surface—like shining a light on a mirror and having it reflect back off.

Of this rejected energy, some of it goes back into space. A good chunk of it, however, gets trapped in a layer of the atmosphere made up of gases that trap heat, like a blanket around the earth. Because Earth absorbs energy, without the blanket to trap some, above the earth’s surface would actually be below freezing point.

The large amounts of anthropogenic (manmade) emissions produced are added to this “blanket”, making it thicker and thicker, so less heat can escape. This is the greenhouse effect.

To put it another way, think of a baked potato www.salient.org.nz

wrapped in tinfoil. The potato represents earth and the tinfoil is our blanket of atmospheric greenhouse. The heat comes in from the oven, and the potato absorbs some of it, but the rest is bounced off. The shiny tinfoil traps some of this heat, and sends it back to the potato, to keep it warmer.

In case you hadn’t guessed, the gases that make up this atmospheric layer around the planet are the greenhouse gases, like nitrous oxide, methane, and carbon dioxide.

Weather and Climate

Weather is the current, observable state of the atmosphere. If you look outside and it’s hot, cold, sunny, rainy, whatever it is—that’s the weather.

The climate is the average weather in a particular location over a period of time (usually measured in 30-year periods). This “average weather” can be measured in terms of many different features of the climate, like the average temperature or average rainfall over the time period. When people talk about the Earth’s climate, it’s the average of these features everywhere in the world.

That’s why when talking about Earth’s average temperature, it may sound pretty high for a place like Antarctica, but rather underwhelming for the tropics.

Global Warming and Climate Change

While the phrases are often used interchangeably, climate change and global warming are not the same thing.

Global warming can be defined as the temperature increase produced by adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.

Climate change is a change in the typical climate of a location. This change in typical climate must be sustained over a long period

of time. Climate change can be caused by global warming.

Why do people go on about carbon emissions?

Thinking back to greenhouse gases, I mentioned some of the key players: Methane—a primary component of natural gas used for fuel, and also a byproduct of the cattle digestive system in agricultural practices; you may remember the 2003 “fart tax” proposal.

Nitrous Oxide—a byproduct generated from agricultural fertiliser production and use.

Carbon dioxide—the greenhouse gas of most immediate concern, largely produced by our excessive burning of fossil fuels.

While carbon dioxide isn’t the most heattrapping gas, it’s present in the highest concentration in our atmosphere and has a long atmospheric lifetime of up to 200 years.

Meaning the carbon dioxide you released driving to university today will still be chilling up in Earth’s gas blanket, glaring at your grandchildren.

The Carbon Cycle

All living things are made of carbon (and many non-living things, like rocks and minerals, have a large carbon component too). Carbon dioxide (CO2) is formed when certain reactions cause oxygen molecules to attach to carbon molecules.

The carbon cycle refers to the long-term and short-term natural processes in which carbon and CO2 is continuously exchanged between parts of the climate system. Short-term, CO2 is constantly being exchanged between plants, trees, animals, the atmosphere, and the oceans—like when we breathe CO2 out as waste, or when plants consume it to feed themselves.

Long-term, 99.9 per cent of carbon is stored in reservoirs in rocks and as fossil fuels. This carbon is slowly released through natural processes such as rock erosion, resulting in carbon movement into the ocean and atmosphere. Most of our oil reserves are the result of plant and animal remains being buried in sediment millions of years ago,

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Science

can result in extreme temperature events. For example, destabilisation of polar vortexes.

These are large pockets of very cold air, positioned above the North and South Poles.

As global temperature rises, snow cover and ice coverage decrease and the ocean temperature increases, yielding a subsequent increase in evaporation and transpiration, altering pressure and temperature gradients across these polar vortexes and destabilising them. When strong and stable, the vortexes contain their cold air. Weakening of them can result in some of the freezing air breaking out and travelling into regions not accustomed to such cold.

then being subject to heat and pressure over time. By extracting and burning these fossil fuels, we’re releasing excess carbon from long-term storage reservoirs at increasingly rates—much faster than it can be returned to storage.

For millions of years, Earth has tightly regulated the levels of atmospheric versus stored carbon dioxide, encapsulating the natural carbon cycle. However, carbon dioxide emissions have dramatically increased since the industrial era, destabilising this natural cycle.

How do we know the problem is manmade?

Through ice core extraction, we’ve been able to analyse the gaseous compositions of air bubbles trapped in ice formed as far back as 800,000 years ago. Such research has allowed us to trace changing atmospheric gas levels, showing that atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases were largely consistent until the industrial era, where they began to rise sharply. Today, atmospheric CO2 concentrations are nearly 40 per cent higher than preindustrial levels.

sea levels can also increase intensity of powerful storms, and bring them further inland. Even a rise of just one metre puts coastal habitats at high risk of devastation.

When Weather Gets EXTREME

The weather system is filled with complex interactions, and any adjustment can have a range of repercussions. Observable weather events occur primarily from air pressure differences between two locations, which can be caused by variations in air temperature and air moisture content. For example, the angle of the sun can influence pressure contrasts. As the sun is angled more directly at the tropics, locations further from the sun receive less direct sunlight and are, on average, cooler. The contrasting temperature can influence air pressure.

Rising temperatures can cause increased evapotranspiration—the total water evaporating from plants, soils, and water bodies, influencing the intensity and frequency of droughts. Conversely, a warmer atmosphere can hold more water vapour, which increases risk of extreme rainfall events.

Sea Level Rising—More than For Fuck’s Sake, No, Colder meets the eye, you see?

Rising temperatures can cause sea level rises Winters Don’t Disprove Global in two key ways: the expansion of water as it Warming heats, and melting of land-based ice sheets and glaciers—both of which are implicated in a range of unfavorable climatic repercussions.

Rising sea levels can push cause seawater further inland—contaminating our soils, causing destructive erosion, and jeopardising the habitats of fish, birds, and plants. Higher

While it sounds counterintuitive, rising average temperatures can in fact influence the intensity of our winter seasons in both temperature and storm incidences. There are multiple weather systems in place that account for temperature variations throughout the seasons, and destabilisation of any of these

Ocean Acidification—It’s not as trippy as it sounds

As carbon dioxide emissions continue to offset the natural carbon cycle, the excess carbon is stored both in the atmosphere and in the ocean. Ocean absorption of CO2 is a natural part of the normal carbon cycle, however the rate of CO2 being absorbed is causing the ocean water to become more acidic. This is because of a natural reaction between CO2 and seawater. CO2 reacts with water molecules, and forms a weak acid called carbonic acid. Excess CO2 absorption results in higher levels of acidity, which can completely destroy marine habitats.

Well, that sucks then.

Yes, yes it does—but fortunately, experts are ensuring us that it’s not too late to, you know, fix the planet and shit. Basically, after hearing all the ads telling us to have shorter showers and walk more and actively save energy, rather than rolling your eyes because “yes, I KNOW ALREADY”—actually try to adjust your habits. Put the car keys away and save on the fuel bill. And next time you’re panting your way up Devon Street in the rain, when it’s easy to pity yourself and wish you were driving, just catch your reflection in the windows of the poor people on display that keep forgetting to close their curtains and remind yourself—you’re Captain Frickin’ Planet.

When all is said and done, I don’t see why we don’t steal some climate terminology for the 420 world. Goodbye hotboxing, hello greenhouse gassing.

editor@salient.org.nz

Games

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salient

PREORDERING VIDEO GAMES IS BULLSHIT Cameron Gray

Just over ten years ago, when I was just a precocious preteen who adored his PS2, those five words in the title would have been almost unheard of. We still overwhelmingly bought games from brick-andmortar gaming and electronic shops, even on PC, and downloading whole games was still something of a novelty, if not entirely impossible given NZ’s shitty internet. Pre-ordering meant you were guaranteed a copy at launch without having to wait in lines or for new stock, and you were pretty much assured that the game would at least be playable since patching was still fairly new, especially on consoles.

Funny how things change in such a relatively short time. Since then, we’ve seen two whole console generations, with a massive array of innovations and evolutions in both hardware and software. Internet connectivity, once an optional extra, is now an absolute must to get the most out of gaming experiences. You can now buy and download whole triple-A titles without a disc to be found, as well as little extras as DLC. Patching is done all the time.

And yet, we still pre-order video games. To the detriment of everyone involved.

The absolutely appalling states of some of the largest triple-A launches over the past few years has proved that the industry is willing to sell us unfinished products. Developers are becoming more complacent with regards to bugs; the assumption that “we can just patch it up later” is all too prevalent, and it is to the detriment of the final product.

To pre-order now is to buy something where you don’t even know if it will be any good, or even playable. No other sector of the entertainment industry has shown itself to be so arrogant that it will sell us something that they haven’t finished producing yet. You wouldn’t see a blatant animation error in a film as it would have been spotted in post-production, so why should we allow game-crashing bugs to stay behind in a major release just because it can be fixed later? It’s simple—we shouldn’t. If developers can’t guarantee that their games will work at launch anymore, then everyone who preorders will just be throwing their money away.

But this is nothing compared to probably the most blatantly anticonsumer practice the industry is engaging in right now: pre-order bonuses. The name is a bit of a misnomer since what they are really www.salient.org.nz

doing is taking parts of the game that were made during the main development time and making them available only to a small subset of the player base. In the most egregious cases this includes game-altering objects such as weapons, extra in-game currency for multiplayer, and even entire sections of the story. Some games have even advertised their pre-order bonuses before a trailer or screenshots were available, most infamously Evolve, a game that turned out to be a platform for DLC and nothing else. Remember that game?

Don’t worry, neither does anyone else, considering it was released in February.

The game that finally convinced me to never pre-order a game is one that’s still in development, but has already produced the worst preorder scheme imaginable. Square Enix has put together a program called “Augment your Pre-order” for Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. It lets you choose the digital pre-order bonuses you want to get for your Day One edition of the game, selected from five different tiers that unlock progressively based on the publisher’s (unknown) pre-order goals for the game.

The first tier, the only one unlocked so far, allows you to choose between a skin pack and a special weapons loadout. Tiers 2 and 4 have somewhat optional yet still substantial things: choose between a sample of the soundtrack and a digital artbook at 2, and between a comic book and a novella at 4. At tier 3, an extra mission is unlocked.

At the highest tier, the whole game unlocks four days early. These will only happen if enough people pre-order.

Let me repeat that: these will only happen if enough people preorder.

I nearly lost my lunch when I saw this. This is a sales manager’s fucked-up wet dream come to life. You cannot put content behind a wall like this; we don’t even know how many pre-orders there have to be to unlock the higher tiers. It’s marketing an illusion of choice, yet there is no choice at all. Hell, we still don’t know if the game will be any good, and this scheme is all they’ve been pushing.

This is what is wrong with pre-ordering, and why it needs to stop right now. For the love of the gaming gods, please vote with your wallet and do not pre-order games anymore. It will make the industry better, I promise.

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Books

Starling Jayne Mulligan Starling is New Zealand’s newest literary journal, focusing on fresh young voices. Poet and current Burns Fellow Louise Wallace is the person behind this initiative. I talked to her to find out more about the journal. With their first issue looming, she wants submissions— that poem, essay, or short fiction piece you’ve worked on might be just the thing she’s looking for.

What was the inspiration for this journal?

I was always interested in English at school, but I didn’t necessarily know how to direct that enthusiasm myself. When I started university I began to get into poetry. I was really learning how to write as I went, but I was very hungry for opportunities—submitting my work to competitions and journals. So the creation of Starling has really come out of my own personal experience, which I imagine is pretty similar to lots of young writers—they just want opportunities to showcase and advance their work. Starling will help move both their writing and career forward. Selected writers will instantly see their writing network grow—being placed alongside other emerging talent, but also established practitioners. And of course, publication looks great on your writing CV. There is a strong emphasis on high schools being involved— what has driven that for you?

A big priority for me is making sure we get the word out about Starling, but also that news of this opportunity reaches a wide range of writers, including ones not necessarily at university or in main centres. So high schools are a great place to do that, because at that stage a lot of people are still in one place! And teachers are also looking for opportunities to help their students, so they may be able to pass along the message for us.

I think there’s a lot of amazing talent out there, so by operating a journal where these writers only have to compete for publication space against people within a fairly close age range, the chance to see some of this great work in a public forum increases.

How did you decide the cut off should be 25?

Thinking of my own personal experience, 25 seemed to be the age where I became aware of what my voice was consistently sounding like. I know it’s different for everyone, and you can be an emerging writer at any age for sure, but I think in your early 20s you have so many other things going on at the same time to deal with, you might need a little extra support and direction. Australia has a similar print

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publication—Voiceworks—with the same age restriction, and they’ve just published their 100th issue!

How has Starling been funded?

So far, entirely out of my own pocket! This journal has been something I’ve wanted to do for a while, but just have never had the time to dedicate to establishing it. This year I am on the Robert Burns Fellowship, and creating Starling was actually part of my proposal. I knew the website would be fairly affordable to create and maintain, and I want to get people’s attention by publishing really modern, vibrant work. If we can build that reputation through the issues we produce, I think we’ll be in a position to approach supporters for funding for future endeavours—we have all sorts of ideas: print editions, workshops, competitions. But for now, I have to have blinkers on and make the journal something incredible to start with.

We want to ensure longevity and we’ll do that by building a great foundation.

What sort of things will you be looking for as “best” or “good”? What speaks loudest?

I define “best” and “good” as something I really want to keep reading!

We’ll be looking for things that surprise and excite us—that can involve engaging content, a unique perspective, innovative style, an unmistakeable voice—it’s up to you! We’re open to any genre—short fiction, poetry, personal essays, creative non-fiction, plays... The key is to show us something fresh; something we haven’t seen before.

How will diversity be accommodated and fostered in this magazine?

As I say, the reason it’s so important to us to spread the word is because we want submissions from a really diverse set of contributors—to showcase quality work, but also the immense range of writing voices in New Zealand. Each issue opens with new writing from a wellestablished New Zealand writer, and will close with an interview with someone of note from our literary industry (authors, editors, booksellers, scriptwriters…). These guest spots will also help ensure that we are able to include a range of viewpoints outside our own— we definitely want every reader to hear at least one voice they can connect to. There’s also the opportunity to look at arranging guest editors further down the track.

Submissions for the first issue close on 20 October. For more on how to submit, check out Starling’s website at www.starlingmag.com and follow them on Facebook and Twitter for updates.

Thanks to Vic Books for providing a copy to review

editor@salient.org.nz

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Film

salient

A Most Violent Year The Wolfpack

Directed by J.C Chandor

Directed by Crystal Moselle Sarah Dillon

Kari Schmidt In 2010, director Crystal Moselle was walking down First Avenue, Manhattan, when a young boy with long black hair ran past her, followed by his five, near identical brothers. In what she claims to be a moment of pure instinct, Moselle ran after them, subsequently discovering their remarkable tale. The brothers had grown up cloistered in their New York family apartment, schooled at home and controlled by an authoritarian father. Some years they would go outside, maybe, nine times. One year they weren’t allowed outside at all. Their coping mechanism for this sheltered existence was movies— watching and re-creating them.

I am a big fan of people creating art in a low-fi, DIY kind of way.

Zines, tumblr, Instagram—these are all very democratic mediums reflecting 20th-century artist Joseph Beuy’s assertion that “everyone is an artist”. Similarly, the boys’ attraction to movies as a means of accessing alternate realities is very relatable. Given this, one of the best parts of The Wolfpack was being able to see scenes of the boys re-creating films like Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs and The Dark Knight, all of which were genuinely funny and/or scary, and certainly impressive. But the effect of movies on their lives was ultimately much more pervasive than this. As they emerge into the outside world, their method of dealing with this is through experiencing reality as a movie. Their style and mannerisms echo that of the films they’ve seen. They are constantly quoting and referencing films, and the way they speak to the camera is to some extent affected, as though they are acting—so conscious are they of the fact of being filmed and the implications of that gaze.

And yet, much of the film leaves you feeling strangely untouched and distant from the reality of their life and the abuse their father inflicted upon them—even where they are discussing the fact that they could never forgive him, even when they are close to tears. Perhaps this is because of the filmic way in which they approach the interviews, or the fact that the film does not explain how it came into being. But either way, this aspect of The Wolfpack is ultimately its weakest point.

Their experience somehow doesn’t feel real, Moselle assuming our empathy, rather than facilitating it through her craft. www.salient.org.nz

Amidst the glut of contemporary Hollywood films employing excess and stylishness to produce spectacle—and, all importantly, box office dollars—lies J.C. Chandor’s A Most Violent Year, a thoughtful return to simple storytelling and minimalist aesthetic. It’s slick and stylised, with a muted colour palette and precise clean cinematography, and comes off as a carefully considered piece that could be construed as a revisionist noir. The film places protagonists Abel and Anna Morales (Oscar Isaac, Jessica Chastain) within 1981, the eponymous most violent year in New York City’s history, and also within a city whose underbelly is much more liminal and sparse than our usual on-screen NYC. This strangely other-worldly city setting is, in some ways, the key to the film’s tone. There is little sense of historicity or the outside world, aside from a few lines of dialogue—the film is very much absorbed in its own characters and the complex power love and money plays circulating within their universe. It’s an absorption that pays off, as viewers learn to co-exist within this sphere; it’s also a nice change from films like American Hustle or Inherent Vice that flaunt their historicity or overtly plasticise their worlds.

There is a languorous flow to this film, as if the director wants to pace it particularly eloquently. He overplays his hand slightly in parts, and there are some lapses in the narrative, requiring the viewer to actively agree with the film on its slow pace. A Most Violent Year never really lays itself or its characters bare, but this renders the small moments of revelation along the way as welcome as the forgotten coins at the bottom of one’s handbag. Chandor sees the film as one about “escalation”—he captures this superbly, and somehow manages to effectively balance it with the film’s trademark restraint.

Oscar Isaac plays on this slow revelation of character well to produce a compelling Abel. Chandor was perhaps more concerned with Anna, expressing a hope that “she’s not a caricature”: he need not have worried, with Jessica Chastain (who is perfection at the worst of times) giving perhaps her strongest performance yet. This is a film less about creating a narrative than about letting the characters, setting and tone shine through. Still undated for New Zealand release (which, viewer beware, could mean anything from not-coming-atall to see-you-in-six-weeks), it was a welcome addition to this year’s New Zealand International Film Festival programme.

issue 22

41

Film

Banksy does New York

Southpaw

Directed by Chris Moukarbel

Directed by Antoine Fuqua

½ Ellen O-Dwyer Cunliffe

James Keane

In October 2013, the renowned street artist Banksy began a month long residency in New York, where he created graffiti, installations and performance artworks in the city. Chris Moukarbel’s HBO documentary charts the interaction between the artist’s residency and the immense public reaction it garnered. Each day, Banksy would post a photo of a finished work online, without listing the location.

This led New Yorkers on a fevered hunt, it became a triumph to successfully find a work untouched, photograph it, and gloat your way across the internet. Banksy fanhood evolved into frenzy, as the rapidity of technological response heightened the ephemerality of the works. Regardless of their location, in unassuming doorways or vacant lots, they would soon be interfered with, the works inevitably painted over or removed.

This movie is serviceable, but it ends up feeling like a less satisfying version of Rocky. It charts the decline and eventual rise (again) of bruising boxing champion Billy Hope ( Jake Gyllenhaal), whose affinity for finishing every fight in an increasingly physically damaged state worries his wife (Rachel McAdams), who would be content with him retiring to their (his) rich lifestyle. However, personal tragedy and financial loss results in the loss of both Hope’s daughter (to social services) and his wealth, leaving him with the option of working in a rundown gym and changing his previously blunt, violent outlook on life in general.

In some ways, the spectacle becomes more important than the art itself, and this is central to Moukarbel’s documentary. In the film, most fans rarely look at the art; instead they capture a shot, and wait for the next chase. In one ironic spectacle, Banksy creates a diorama in a truck of a lush garden, claiming it will bring calm to the city. Once found, the installation is swarming with people crammed up against it, arms outstretched with iPhones. Director Moukarbel utilises a vast array of sources for the film, much of it user-generated footage of “Banksy hunters” themselves. In traditional documentary style, he intersperses this with commentary from art and culture critics.

The varied response of the city dwellers interests Moukarbel—some are enthralled by Banksy, others see it as an opportunity for profit.

Building owners promptly remove their doorways and walls with Banksy’s art in order to sell it, making considerable money in the process. The arbitrariness of “artistic value” is everywhere. In one bizarre scene, Banksy’s sphinx sculpture made of foam and cement blocks is removed from a deserted lot and transported to the elite Keszler Gallery, where it is valued at $350,000. Meanwhile, iconic sites of graffiti and street art are disappearing across the city due to the development of sleek high rises. Public art is privatised, or demolished.

Because the documentary charts each day of the residency, it is a little repetitive in its concentration on the Banksy hype—the frenzy has a crushing nausea to it. But the film is interesting at its edges, when it explores the vibrant, sometimes fraught, tensions between artistic expression and the city.

Gyllenhaal and particularly Forest Whitaker as his new trainer provide good performances, but the movie feels clichéd and very familiar with its execution. It is particularly frustrating to see a movie showing the separation of family members by court appointment, as it has to manufacture emotional investment for the audience. The movie also doesn’t really know if it has a stance on the nature of sport and the media, as the cold professionalism of 50 Cent’s character as Hope’s-once manager is brought up, but never really addressed again. The film doesn’t know whether to embrace the excess of advertising and deals in the professional boxing circle, or slam it for the pragmatism of higher-level individuals because of where the largest dollar bill is currently attached.

On the other hand, the main fights in the film, for what little screen time they occupy, are visually appealing. The choreography is at least comprehensible, but the occasional cuts to POV shots feel a bit out of place in the sequence and, with a few sound effect changes and removal of blood, may just resemble something out of Wii Sports instead. This movie isn’t about left-handed people either; listening closely to Gyllenhaal’s mumbling proved that.

Thanks to Reading Cinemas Courtnay for providing double tickets this week editor@salient.org.nz

42

Music

salient

Personal computer

WILD

Silicon

Troye Sivan

Josh Ellery

Harold Coutts

Silicon is the brainchild of Kody Nielson, and is a world away from his previous musical endeavors under the Opossom pseudonym and as the eclectic lead singer of The Mint Chicks—who double as my all-time favourite New Zealand group. Personal Computer is not a world away, however, from the recent work of Unknown Mortal Orchestra, the project of Kody’s brother and former Mint Chicks guitarist Ruban Neilson, whose album Multi-Love has been one of the standout releases of the year to date.

Troye Sivan is a gay internet personality and actor from Australia who has recently been making his mark in the pop music scene. He is the type of person who calls flowers “flowies” and freaks out when pop sensations Lorde and Taylor Swift interact with him on Twitter.

His first major label EP TRXYE was released last year, with lead single “Happy Little Pill” being critically acclaimed.

Like Multi-Love, Personal Computer follows a simple theme and devoutly references synth-pop and disco influences, which seem like a total 180 from the post-punk the Nielson’s produced in their Mint Chicks days. Personal Computer’s central theme revolves around technology engrossing society and becoming an overbearing presence in everyone’s life. The title track, which opens the album, begins with a computer-generated spoken-word segment—“Never be lonely. Personal computer… someone that’s listening…” The funky instrumental follows and the lyric appropriately supports the computer-based theme.

The more immediate tracks, coincidentally the two singles, are the undisputed highlights of the album. “God Emoji” is a quirky upbeat synth-pop track, which like the aforementioned title track is based around a computer/technological theme. This track is also superbly catchy and makes clever use of dynamics towards the end of a line or a verse, making for a captivating pop song.

My favourite track on Personal Computer, “Burning Sugar”, is funky as hell. This track features a sharp and angular guitar riff coupled with gentle falsetto and a pulsing bassline, before the angularity recedes in favour of a smooth, synthesised chorus. “Burning Sugar” could very easily be an Unknown Mortal Orchestra song, such is the similarities in style—cleverly employed synths, catchy hooks, and even the way the drums sound and where they are in the mix.

Personal Computer is a promising start for Silicon, and, as a debut record, it manages to fit right into the niche falsetto synth-pop market that appears to be the popular sound in the independent world at this point. Going forward, it will be interesting to see how Silicon develops and branches out from this style (like Tame Impala did on Currents), and to see if they have the diversity in their sound to stamp their mark on the indie music world—both in New Zealand and abroad. www.salient.org.nz

After months upon months of hinting about working on new music in studios via social media, Sivan is back. His new mini-album WILD acts as an introduction to his first full-length album, rumoured to be released later this year (yes, “mini-album” is what he’s calling it).

WILD sees Troye hone his skills as a vocalist, lyricist, and visionary.

It’s a burst of dream pop accompanied by deeply melancholy lyrics.

The title track opens the mini-album, welcoming listeners to the music experience with a backing choir and floaty synths over danceable percussion. Cutesy lyrics about a crush cement the song with a feel good flair. Upon first listen it gives a promising open to the album and is a song that’s easily listened to on repeat during a twenty-minute bus ride.

WILD features two collaborations, some of Troye’s first (his collaboration “Papercut” with Russian-German producer Zedd from earlier in the year is a worthwhile listen). The first is with Broods, a sibling duo from Nelson, on the track “EASE”. Troye and Georgia’s vocals sync together oh-so-sweetly over loud percussion laced with lighter synth. The sole production credits go to Caleb, the other half of Broods, creating a magical feel good vibe.

Tkay Maidza features on the second collaboration, “DKLA”, presumably standing for “don’t keep love anymore”, which Troye croons constantly throughout the song. Zimbabwean-born Tkay’s verse is the focal point of the song, adding a hint of speed and a dash of softness to a slow and blunt song. It’s a refreshing addition to a track that lurks in a world of harsh beauty.

WILD is consistent, with sombre, romantic lyrics, and building synth layered with captivating percussion. Troye’s musical style has undoubtedly matured from his previous release. Knowing that this is not his final release of the year is incredibly exciting. WILD is definitely the taste tester that convinces you to buy the end product.

I for one can easily say that I am very gay for Troye Sivan.

issue 22

43

Music

BADLANDS (DELUXE) Halsey

Kate Dowdle BADLANDS is the debut release from Halsey, and this better not be her only album because man oh man is it good. Her stage name is drawn from an anagram of her given name, Ashley—and if you consider the idea of changing something around so that you can experience it in a different way, this is exactly how BADLANDS delivers in terms of pop music.

“New Americana” is probably the stand out single on the album. It’s a sort of typical coming-of-age generation song, but minus the usual glamour and celebration. The song isn’t simple or straight-forward, and is purposefully cynical and dark. The pop overtones and catchy chorus will hook you, and the line “raised on Biggie and Nirvana” is an instant t-shirt.

It’s a big, bold, unapologetically pop album that doesn’t fit into the teeny bopper category. This is in part because of the lyrics, which indicate that Halsey is either a bloody good story teller, or her lyrics are powerfully drawn from real life experience. BADLANDS is supposedly structured around a fictional world, allowing her videos and songs to tell the stories of those places. This adds a nice gloss and theme to the album, but really the songs are so good in their own right that they transcend any need for a grander theme.

“Drive”, “Roman Holiday”, and “Haunting” are all worth a listen as well. All have their own unique tone and each present a pop song that tells a story and is engaging to listen to for the entire duration. “Colours” also delivers on the storytelling front, and it contains the hands down best lyric of the album—“I was red, and you were blue.

You touched me and suddenly I was a lilac sky, and you decided purple just wasn’t for you.”

“Castle” is the opening track, and whilst it is a solid song and intro, it is pretty basic in comparison to the rest of the album. “Hold Me Down”, “Gasoline”, and “Hurricane” are all a tonne better and give a good showcase of Halsey’s talents. They all feature honest lyrics that are open to interpretation, and they all confront the debate as to whether the version of yourself that society cannot seem to accept is okay, great, or awesome.

I would guess that if you are a closet T-Swift fan who is too proud to admit it, but you love that pop genius, then Halsey would be for you. BADLANDS is a great pop album with its own flavour provided by alternative and grunge overtones.

editor@salient.org.nz

44

Visual Arts

WHAT’S UP WITH THAT HORRIBLY BLUE COLUMN TOPPED WITH A GOLDEN TURD BEING STABBED BY FLAMING TORCHES? Sharon Lam

Of course, no one walking down Cuba Street knows that and at most one will ogle at the sparkly turd for a few seconds before returning to thoughts of reality television and overdue library books. For a peek into popular opinion I asked my four friends, three of them disliked it, with comments such as “even uglier than you” and “oh God I hate it”. My fourth friend has yet to reply.

Personally, the first time I saw the sculpture I loved it—but this was before it was painted that terrible, terrible blue. Blue is a great colour—the sky is blue, cute little penguins are blue, the best Weezer album is blue—but Philanthropist Stone blue seems to have been dredged from the seeping hot slime from the pools of Tacky Lake, Tacky Town, the Tacky States of Tackymerica.

By now you have probably seen the latest of Wellington’s public sculptures, in all its blue-column-gold-turd glory. Standing unashamedly on Lower Cuba Street, the sculpture is named The Philanthropist’s Stone and designed by the Dunedin-based Scott Eady, and has nothing at all to do with Harry Potter. Instead it is a homage to Thomas George Macarthy (1833–1912) who donated more than $61 million to local charities.

www.salient.org.nz

Perhaps what is most insane about the sculpture is how it seemed to appear from nowhere. As a general member of the public who walks up and down Cuba Street basically every day (and as Salient’s visual arts editor of course), you would think that I would be, at the very least, given prior warning to the landing of golden turds.

But maybe this is the beauty of modern art— anything goes. And tomorrow when you step outside, there may be shiny turds on top of all the lamp posts—let’s hope it costs less than $168,000 this time.

salient

ART ON CAMPUS: NEIL DAWSON’S ‘TOSS’ Field Skjellerup Neil Dawson’s large-scale work, Toss, can be seen suspended within the Hunter courtyard on Victoria’s Kelburn campus.

This aerial work forms the outline of a graduation cap through strong steel beams and linking cables. Toss can be seen as an overt symbol for academic progress and educational pursuit, but what is much less apparent are details surrounding its display. Many smaller works within the Victoria campus give detail through the likes of wall plaques, however Toss does not readily display this information. It would only be through previous knowledge and experience with Dawson’s perspective hangings that its origins would become clear. With those such as Echo (shown previously in the Christchurch Arts Centre) and Ripples (displayed at the Waikato Museum) exhibiting similar feature sets.

What is specifically interesting about this monolithic cap is how it becomes a passive object, possibly without need of further explanation. But it should not be overlooked for this. Toss does not simply provide a lift in the general campus’ ambience; it looks straight at its most apparent topic and celebrates its hardship.

This content is from Up and Adam, a blog in association with Wellington's Adam Art Gallery, on contemporary art in New Zealand.

Primarily contributed to

by Victoria University students and Adam Art Gallery volunteers.

We welcome all submissions at any level concerning local and contemporary art.

upandadamart. tumblr.com upandadamart. blogspot.com upandadamart@ gmail.com https:// instagram.com/ upandadamart

issue 22

Fushun

A FIELD GUIDE TO BRO ARCHETYPES Jess Scott

Spending my formative first year suffering vitamin D deficiency within the depths of the third floor “dungeon” of Te Puni not only enabled prime observation of White Sandal syndrome, but also resulted in mass exposure to Dudebro culture. Despite the subsequent emotional trauma, residual inability to drink at a remotely responsible pace in any social context whatsoever, and blatant refusal to ever live in Kelburn again*, this experience has refined my abilities to discern the subtle variations between various bro archetypes. As far as life skills go, this is one which proves to be largely inapplicable outside of Tinder, but if it prevents having to endure even a sole instance of some gym brah mansplaining his workout regime and/or budding DJ career at you, it almost compensates for the psychologically scarring immersive experience.

Subtype #1: The Standard “Fuccboi” Decked out in nothing but box logos, the fuccboi would undoubtedly have had a top knot when it was a thing (if you hadn’t gotten the memo, this is it). Bucket hats and Nike slides are heavily featured, I assume with the intention of irony, but unfortunately coming across more along the “tourist wearing velcro sandals with socks, a bumbag and sunglasses on a string” vibe.

45

2 for 1 Margherita

pizzas every friday from 3pm

Subtype #2: Ralph Lauren junkie A popular divergent species of the standard “I did law last trimester but didn’t like it (drank on weeknights and failed) so now I major in accounting” dudebro is the Ralph Lauren polo-wearer. Often paired with a cringingly matchy-matchy Ralph Lauren cap and boat shoes, the dress code is essentially “upper-middle class suburban dad whose weekends are spent playing tennis and attending brunch on the viaduct, where his obnoxiously large boat is moored.” Those shirts scream “mummy chose this for me.” Also “mummy paid for the hole I punched in the wall”, “haha send me a pic ;)” and “I drink Purple Goannas because Cindys are no longer in production.”

The Hunter Lounge

Subtype #3: I Love Ugly enthusiast Similarly clean-cut as the Ralph Lauren fanboys, the crucial point of difference is the ILU enthused further foray into the realms of lad culture. These are your shirtless gym-selfie-taking, five-panel sporting guys whose Tinder profile consists of five club photos of them and “the boys”, providing a quick oversight of every single print ILU has released this season, just in case you couldn’t be bothered flipping through the Lookbook.

The Hunter Lounge

Disclaimer: This isn’t intended as a critique, it is mere observation of my own social reality. *Every time you complain about scaling the hill up to Kelburn, I invite you to imagine doing so in six-inch heels. Welcome to my life. editor@salient.org.nz

Comics

46

salient

Ask the Exec: Ellen Humphries (Education Officer) Toby Cooper (Engagement Vice-President) What's your favourite vege?

Ellen: Broccoli!

Toby: Pumpkin is the tastiest, but also the hardest to slice.

Yarn with Zwaan Last week the Wellington City Council narrowly voted in favour of a trial for online voting in next year’s local body elections. Finally, the relatively logical step of embracing the new-fangled internet technology to make the process more accessible has been taken.

VUWSA took the step to allow electronic voting a number of years ago and our turnout increased dramatically. Gone are the days of having to hunt down a polling booth and tick a box on an archaic piece of paper, you can simply check your email and vote for next year’s Exec (by the way voting opens at 9am on Tuesday and runs till 5pm on Thursday—make sure you vote).

The frustrating bit about the City Council debate last week was that a number of people—including the more left leaning ones who you’d assume would be in favour of increasing accessibility of democracy— voted against it.

If you could have one celebrity's haircut, whose would it be?

Ellen: I literally just had to Google search celebrity haircuts because I don't know. It didn't help. I don't know.

Toby: Aside from a certain Academic Vice-President, I’ll pick Zac Efron.

Would you rather have fingers for legs or legs for fingers?

Ellen: Tricky question. Quite a few complications for both, but I think fingers for legs because then at least my hands would still be useful.

Toby: If everyone else was the same as me, legs for fingers. We’d travel so quickly—no need for cars! But I wouldn’t want to be the only one, because that’d be awks.

Win of the Week

Their rationale was that online voting presented a risk that the elections could be hijacked by hackers thus undermining the process.

While online voting systems have new and inherent vulnerabilities, they are in no way insurmountable or that different from the ones that currently exist. Sure, it’s not unfeasible that someone, who really wanted to, could hack the system and manipulate the results.

But they already can. Local body elections currently rely on a postal ballot, which means that you could either steal a number of voting papers out of letterboxes, or, more simply, just use the ten papers that end up in your flat’s letterbox from people who never updated their details after moving out. The computer systems that are used to count the physical ballot papers are equally susceptible to hacking just as an online system is.

We trust web security enough to do banking, store and email incredibly sensitive documents, and even request or renew passports, all of which present far more lucrative targets for hackers.

Online voting is only just part of the solution to increase engagement in our democratic processes. Ensuring council and councillors are relevant, reflective of the whole population and working effectively for the city is far more important in increasing participation.

But we should be doing all we can to making voting accessible.

Online voting is a no-brainer. Cheers to the councillors who voted in favour of doing the trial and help bring our voting systems into this century.

P.S. make sure you vote in the VUWSA Elections this week! www.salient.org.nz

The weekly VUWSA Vege Market launched last Wednesday. Bring your coins and your canvas bags to campus each Wednesday afternoon, and stock up on fruity goodness. The Vege Market will be running every Wednesday until the end of trimester, out in the Tim Beaglehole Courtyard on Kelburn Campus.

issue 22

47

Puzzles

Medium

‘Get Thee to a Nunnery!’

Across

Target goals: Pretty good—30, Solid—34, Great—40

Issue 21 Solutions:

1. 54-Across with 99 names, each for a different characteristic 6. Cmdr. Hadfield was on it 9. Zone that Minnesota and Wisconsin are in (abbr.)

12. It became the Democratic Republic of the Congo 13. Ideal 14. 23-Down actress Acker 15. ‘____ of Athens’ 16. Roosevelt or Rigby 18. *Series of quick shots of a Shakespearean lover?

20. Biblical couples’ cruise?

21. Accomplished 22. Planking, for one 25. The Jets or the Sharks 28. One who’s full of it 31. Quote from the play with 18- and 41-Across... or Puck’s explanation for what’s going on with the selected clues?

34. 2013 Katy Perry hit 35. Category for some emails 36. Trawling device 37. Mad Professor’s genre 39. Mitchell and Webb bit 41. *Medication for a Shakespearean lover?

47. J or K, for a wizardry author 48. ‘____ Labours Lost’ 50. Sixty billion nsecs 51. Piece-keeping organisation (abbr.)

52. Late film critic Roger 53. Consumed 54. See 1-Across 55. TV lawyer played by William

Down 1. Pioneering HIV drug 2. Home in ‘The Lion King’, perhaps 3. A nice, long ride?

4. Lure to a bakery 5. Free-range poultry product brand 6. One of “fifteen or less” (although it should be ‘fewer’) 7. ‘Nessun Dorma’, for one 8. Use up, as cash or time 9. Like ‘Let’s Go to the Mall’ (very, very much so) 10. Urban haze 11. ‘Pericles, Prince of ____’ 17. On an angle, poetically 19. Approvals 22. Usual species of American Christmas trees 23. ‘Much ___ About Nothing’ 24. Mine is in about three hours, as I type this 26. Gaspar who made a 3D film about sex this year (well, it’s called ‘Love’, but it’s mostly about sex) 27. ‘____ Din’ (Rudyard Kipling poem) 29. “There ___ two kinds...”

30. Letters in a post-Q queue 32. Target of ninjas, in a popular iPad game 33. Stuck on with a gun, maybe 38. In existence 40. Theatre burned down during a performance of ‘Henry VIII’ 41. Iwo ___ ( Japanese island) 42. Military group 43. Root at a hangi 44. Dressed 45. Like the numbers above and below this clue 46. Arctic bird 49. Place for Old Major and Napoleon, at first

editor@salient.org.nz

YOUR STUDENTS’

ASSOCIATION

EXECUTIVE

ELECTIONS 2015

POLLING OPEN a

kelburn

TUE 22 SEP > THE HUB > 10AM - 2PM

a

pipitea

WED 23 SEP > GROUND FLOOR RUTHERFORD HOUSE > 10AM - 2PM

a

te aro

THU 24 SEP > STUDENT COMMON ROOM > 12PM - 2PM

a

online

22 SEP 9AM - 24 SEP 5PM > HEAD TO VOTING.VUWSA.ORG.NZ