VAINE MAGAZINE ISSUE 4.0: DIGITAL LIFE

Would you like us to spy on you and in so doing feed the propaganda machines behind all the world’s evil?

Yes, absolutely!

Erm, hang on...

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Welcome to Digital Life, the fourth issue of VAINE, where you can get lost in a rabbit-hole of new poetry, fiction, features and art content from emerging artists content-creators.

Here you will find a veritable echo-chamber of ideas reflecting like a blank phone screen onto the digital world in which we now find ourselves living.

With content on the new era of online sex work, catfishing, Zoom funerals, gaming, social media and the odd dystopian vision, you’ll find something even the best algorithm probably couldn’t recommend you.

We sincerely hope you enjoy it, or at the very least, feel a little unsettled by it....

There is something eerily uncanny about the lives we currently live, where half of the time we live in a very real physical world (on a 4.5 billion year old planet) where we go around acting and living much like people have for hundreds of years.

Dominic Thomas - Editor Siria Ferrer Sainz-Pardo - Graphic Designer

VAINE EDITORIAL TEAM

While at the same time, spend the other half of our lives strapped into an ever-changing information speedway, hurtling us at breakneck speeds toward ever-increasing advances in design, utility, efficiency…

It’s a strange sort of duality which we’ve all become accustomed to quite rapidly. As a result it seems very difficult for the average person to discern what kind of impact technology is having on us, in terms of our lifestyles, health, or even our rights.

That said, look at the amazing potential of digital life.

Of being able to be in touch with virtually anyone, anywhere at any time. To collaborate with others instantaneously, to be able to find and communicate with complete strangers at the click of a button.

To find any information ever publicly recorded in the spinning of a blue wheel.

Look at the amazing advances in technology which now allow more people than ever before to access new learning materials, and the improved accessibility of them.

Or the ability to watch anything you could desire in a fraction of a second’s search, to buy practically any item you could want, and have it in your hands in a matter of days, without even having to leave your house. The list goes on and on...

There is a great deal of good to digital life. It makes life easier, and people more connected and informed, but on the other hand of course there are many downsides.

In this issue we hope that by bringing together these new voices, it can help shed some blue light on the issues of the age that we’re currently living through, and also have a bit of fun in doing so!

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‘On Identity. I exist as a sum of inmaterial effigies’, by Andra Smileanschi

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Andra Smileanschi is a 21-year-old Romanian artist currently residing in Oxford.

Her art speaks about her own experiences as a person that never stays in the same space for too long. She paints, draws, makes digital art and writes poems. In her visual art she enjoys making unexpected colour combinations and in poetry focuses on snippets of life seen through the lens of emotions and persistent nostalgia.

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I exist as a sum of immaterial effigies. I reconstruct myself to mould to whatever is most desirable this tuesday and burn my past figure as it is no more relevant. who am I then? I mould my representation in the eyes of others by archiving posts and bringing others back to suit my false tastes of today. I seek satisfaction from looking at the latest styles of the latest garments of the latest website because time and space are now so shortened, I exist through nothing. when my day of searching is over, I go back to the warmth of never-ending content that soothes my apathy like honey on a fresh burn. and I am left still wondering how I can be unsure of what makes up my consciousness after years of searching through empty corridors of holograms. who I am is irrelevant in a world of who are we – how should I expect self-knowledge when cruising through re-writes of re-edits of reiterations of the last drop left of new? and what even is there to do in this maze of mirrors other than putting on a good face?

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‘Digital Life’, by Siria Ferrer

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WRITTEN BY GEORGIA HERRIOTT The recent announcement that OnlyFans was to ban sexual content from October was one met with a wide-scale public backlash, ultimately leading to an eventual U-turn.

Many people came out to defend the rights of the (mostly female) sex workers whose livelihoods were being taken away and forced into more precarious places by the decision of entrepreneurs and bankers, who had exploited their content to grow the brand into a billion-dollar business, before cutting them off.

The site had seen a huge rise in usage over the last year, with many struggling to make ends meet during the pandemic, and online sex work through its platform becoming a more accessible and safer option than ever. This mainstream popularity in turn seemed to be giving a new legitimacy to sex work and also a new dawn in the sexual liberation of women.

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Georgia Herriott is a literature graduate from the University of Edinburgh who ventured into the world of journalism in order to ensure women from a workingclass background like herself have a voice in society and media. She has a keen interest in wildlife journalism, feminist discourse and LGBTQ+ rights.

The ability for women to be their own boss while in control of their bodies has been a hugely popular reason behind the site’s success. However, it’s something that’s often forgotten when we think about who the site is benefiting, as it’s easy to think of it as just a new wave porn site providing content primarily for men’s sexual pleasure.

In doing so however, we forget - as OnlyFans (and many others who mocked the women set to lose out by the rule change) did - about the t*ts behind the camera.

***

LEFT PAGE: ‘T*TS’, BY SIRIA FERRER

As a young woman I have spent my whole life being exposed to sexually explicit behaviour and comments from men. Like most women, experiences such as wolf whistles have been a regular occurrence for me on walks home from clubs, work or even from school.

I can’t begin to count the number of strangers on the internet I have blocked because of online abuse, sexually explicit comments and unsolicited dick-pics.

Although I feel that feminism has done so much to improve the negative aspects of being a woman, the behaviour of men at times seems to lag way way behind this movement.

Through OnlyFans however, women were able to exploit the sexual objectification they face on their own terms, ushering in an era which the New York Times claimed had “changed sex work forever”.

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The platform, launched in 2016, first appeared on my radar through a mutual follower on Twitter, who began to post links to his content.

The more I explored, the more aware I became of the amount of women using it.

I saw women I followed on social media, and even some I knew as a teenager, all posting links to their sites, which made me curious about the feminist perspective on sex work.

“I realised that I cannot truly call myself a feminist without understanding the nuances and complexities which surround sex work”

I took a deep dive into the feminist theory surrounding it and during my research read ‘Revolting Prostitutes’ by Juno Mac and Molly Smith. I found myself inspired by these women and those who I followed on social media, who I now knew to be sex workers.

As I became closer to these women (some of whom are now friends) I realised that I cannot truly call myself a feminist without understanding the nuances and complexities which surround sex work.

I believe that we must open up the conversation about sex work much more widely, so that we can provide safety for the women involved and allow it to become a more female-orientated and controlled industry.

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Sex work has always historically worked against the women involved, whether they are denied correct safety measures, outright exploited, slammed on social media, or berated as sluts in wider society.

Despite the demand for explicit material and porn coming directly from the consumer (mainly men), the double-standards of patriarchal society dictate that it’s the women engaged in sex work that are shamed for it.

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However, through platforms like OnlyFans, online sex work has become a much more acceptable and better understood profession, which is allowing women to take the objectification we experience from men into their own hands.

One major bonus that platforms such as OnlyFans offers to sex workers is that of safety.

Knowing and speaking to friends who engage in online sex work, it’s clear to see the safety which a camera and a screen provides them as they don’t have to physically interact with their clients, and are also in complete control of their own content without adhering to the directions of someone else.

The platform also allows creators to report abuse and block or restrict users at their discretion. As an active social media user, I can’t begin to count the amount of strangers on the internet I have blocked because of online abuse, sexually explicit comments and unsolicited dick-pics.

Women engaging in sex work experience this tenfold so the ability to remove abusive ‘fans’ is a great help and a massive step in the industries movement towards a safer environment.

Online sex work also creates a safety net for women, as the legality surrounding in-person sex work also puts women at a large risk of laws on what is actually a criminal act when it comes to paying for sex and providing sexual activity for profit.

This leaves them vulnerable to abuse, both verbal and physical.

Add to that a culture of victim-blaming where many women who are not even working in the industry of sex work already fear coming forward about rape, sexual assault, and verbal abuse, and it’s obvious why online sex work is far safer.

Creators on OnlyFans are also encouraged to watermark their content to help eliminate the distribution of any content without the creator’s permission. This saves women embarrassment and protects them from the criminal offence known as ‘revenge porn’, i.e. the distribution of sexually explicit images without the consent of the person. The stigma of sexual promiscuity surrounding sex workers often results in them becoming victims of the offence.

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Revenge porn is still a problem with the rise of online sex work, as even though OnlyFans and similar sites strive for safety more so than traditional sex work,

there is very little which can be removed from the internet once uploaded.

This digital footprint also leaves online sex workers open other pitfalls, such as ‘e-whoring’, where collections of photos and videos originally from a subscription service are sold on to a third party for profit without permission, or catfishing, where a person impersonates someone else online by using their photos.

*** Sex work is easily glamourized, especially in the social media age of fast money and instant gratification, but like everything it also has its downsides. The parts nobody wants to talk about are the parts which exploit women and put them in danger. With the words ‘sex work’ comes human trafficking and abuse, and the pain and suffering does not end there.

The women involved in commercial sex work of any form are always at risk of being pushed beyond their limits and becoming purely sexual objects in the eyes of their clients, which causes the feminist viewpoint on sex work to become blurred.

The offer of more money for more sexually explicit material is always going to be there, and unfortunately the less women are educated on the matter the more likely they are to fall into traps set by pimps and abusive clients.

The values of sex work need to change and the emergence of sites like OnlyFans seemed to be heralding this. Women should be at the forefront of the porn and sex work industry as they are the primary employees and through the site this is possible.

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‘BEAUTY FILTER’, BY SIRIA FERRER

“The women involved in commercial sex work of any form are always at risk of being pushed beyond their limits and becoming purely sexual objects in the eyes of their clients, which causes the feminist viewpoint on sex work to become blurred.”

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*** Whatever your view on it, an undeniable transformation of sex work and pornography has taken place because of our digital lives, and it’s clear to see that the women who create content online are expressions of feminist values.

They take the objectification that women experience every day and use the demand from men for porn in order to generate their own income and break the glass ceiling.

The demand for ‘ethical porn’ has seen a rise in recent years, and with OnlyFans being entirely creator-orientated, it is much easier for women to dip their toe into the pool of sex work rather than throwing themselves into the sea of the porn and adult film industry, which is helping breaking down the cultural taboos around sex work.

The body positivity within OnlyFans creators is also hugely inspiring, as the variety of women is vast and they are all loving and expressing their bodies in a way which is comfortable for them, in a world where

we constantly see women belittled in the media for not being feminine enough, or skinny enough, or gay or straight enough.

The freedom of exposure within the OnlyFans sphere allows for many niches to be explored which allow women to expose less of themselves and still make a sustainable income.

The ability to withhold personal information and generate extra income on OnlyFans also increases its appeal, as it allows women to also hold conventional job positions without the fear of repercussions.

***

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“They take the objectification that women experience every day and use the demand from men for porn in order to generate their own income and break the glass ceiling.”

The digital age in general is also opening the wider conversation in society that women are deserving of the same sexual pleasure and wants as their male counterparts.

Being on social media sites has opened my eyes to more parts of my own sexual pleasure and liberation than ever before.

As women we are taught so little about the basic biology of our bodies during traditional sex education that we are open to unpleasurable sex and exploitation.

Social media itself is directly enabling sexual liberation, by allowing women to connect more readily than ever with each other to share and spread information which they were denied at school.

‘Big sister sites’ such as Glamour Magazine, gal-dem and podcasts such as Come Curious allowed me to learn that being vocal about my sexual wants and needs was in fact normal and better for all involved.

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The acceptance of the idea that we are sexual beings outside of the male gaze is evident online and further legitimises the occupation of sex work and the women who engage in it.

For example, female influencers I follow have finally begun to direct their sexually-orientated content towards feminine education rather than just in order to please their male consumers.

Female masturbation is much more commonly talked about which in turn allows women to be more open about their intimate health and sexual safety.

This is hugely down to the rise in popularity of sex work and mainstream ‘ethical porn’ sites such as OnlyFans.

*** Although the recent developments with OnlyFans have threatened the sustainability of online sex work as we know it, the impact of OnlyFans and fact that there is a growing and viable market for a more ‘ethical’ kind of porn led by women, is surely a big step forward.

The ability for women to be their own boss, open up conversations surrounding sexual health and pleasure, and to do so safely from the comfort of their own homes without being exploited are huge cultural changes that have taken place thanks to the new digital era.

Despite its faults, the digital era is providing women engaged in sex work with the ability to control their own career and to express themselves openly. The tits behind the camera well and truly are at the forefront of the sexual liberation movement and we should all keep them in mind when we log onto social media.

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Emel Karakozak was born in Mut, Turkey in 1975. Her adventure in photography started in high school and later was matured by participating in many group exhibitions, receiving awards in various national and international competitions and also by being a jury member in photography competitions. She has worked on numerous art exhibitions around the world, including around Europe, USA and Turkey.

‘CHAOSMOS 11’, by Emel Karakozak

PLEASE HOLD POEM BY SIMONE ERINGFELD

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Simone Eringfeld is a scholar, educationist, poet and spoken word artist from the Netherlands. Most recently, she has been combining her academic with her poetic interests by writing ‘data poems’ (poems which consist of data fragments taken from research interviews).

In April 2021, she released her first spoken word EP ‘Please Hold’.

‘CHAOSMOS 2’ by Emel Karakozak

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Oftentimes, working together on a screen just feels like another

DISTRACTION

I already have a thousand tabs open of things I’m supposed to read and emails stacking up.

To have a Zoom screen in the corner adding to more screen time and dissonance, I just find that to be slightly ~ unpleasant ~ Education becomes just another video to watch like the YouTube and Netflix we already consume Or maybe it’s the fact that I’m just sitting in a room, Alone.

Even though we are talking in real time, there’s nobody here.

Sometimes my Zoom disconnects so that all of a sudden, I go off (line) And then that’s that Or when other people just disconnect: Turning off their camera when they want, turning off their microphone when they want, it feels much less ~ authentic ~ In person, you can’t just Log out

Switch off

Disappear It’s weird, because I am in my home, where I grew up University used to be detached from this space But now, my home space feels strangely ~ visible ~

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Like a kind of invasion into people’s personal spaces that feels somewhat ~ dehumanizing ~ I feel very visible myself, it makes me shy…

I don’t know where to look anymore when we can no longer look into each other’s eyes Our bodies and our brains are frea! king! out!

Unable to make sense of what they’re looking at It makes me a little ~ uncomfortable ~ It’s difficult to describe the kinds of subtleties that occur when you’re with friends, constructing dialog, building on each other.

It’s just easier to do that in person than over the dis///

> connect <

and the slight

Oops! Looks like something went wrong…

Due to poor connection, this story has been paused.

Please hold, as we try to get you back into the poem.

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delay that is voice call

With video, I’m also constantly looking at myself: There is a HYPER-awareness of your own self It reminds me of when I was a kid, there was this television character ‘Max Headroom’, a talking head in a television box.

It’d just talk nonsense and sit there…

It had a digital lag in it, so it would say his name, and go:

M M Ma M Ma H

H

Max He He He

He He He Head

Max x x x

Headr

Hea! Headrrrrr

rrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

The other day, I taught on Zoom for eight hours.

By the end of the day I saw the image of myself in Zoom,

Headroom

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and I thought: That’s MM M M M E

That’s ME!

EEEEEE

For a moment, I felt so dis/embodied I felt myself breaking out in sweat ~ It was terrifying ~

‘CHAOSMOS 3’ by Emel Karakozak

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‘IAmNotARobot’ by Lauren Clark

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‘Filtered Memories’,

by Lauren Clark

“PICKING UP THE PIECES” ILLUSTRATION

BY LINDSAY TEMPEST

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Digital Chicken Gravy JACK STACEY

I reopened a forgotten thought from my computer; only place left to hide.

Best not talk about private stuff with ink or pencil, or sporadic voice fossilised forever on a tree.

Yes, I opened the computer, read the holy grail of crap from my brain, the recycled unhappiness from said date and time, sitting there like the old castle ruin people pay to visit.

What does it say you ask?

If I told you this before you’d probably not care.

I tell my digital therapist instead.

She has a digital name and tons of digital wisdom.

She tells me there’s lots to live for.

I told her my thought: There are fewer butterflies around.

She said some things only exist when you’re a child.

What happens when enough of us snuff it?

All those digital graveyards, those names and faces and photos.

There’ll be no more room in digital hell.

Zombie group chats will walk the empty streets.

That’ll be the best horror that ever lived.

Jack is a writer and poet born 1985, Salisbury, Wiltshire.

He has a BA and an MA in Creative Writing. During his time at university, he won a poetry award and directed a play for the Theatre Royal in Winchester. Most notably, he likes tea and converting tiny life particles into poems.

Jack uses his vast knowledge of film and television for quizzes. At the moment, he’s co-writing a television script and dabbling in acting

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Diving in the Depths of my Virtual Identity BELLA PELSTER

​​ a sea of squares I stared up at myself, In And her pale face looked downwards towards me.

Our features sculpted into miniatures Drifting with the tide.

As if by magic, my sight became her touch, And I underwent her talons, sliced through the screen Swiftly, jaggedly — lacerated my head Alabaster claws.

She reached through me. Through fractured grey matter.

If — and when — I turned, site spanning the surface, I would watch my bones drag themselves away, Hand in hand with her.

Billions of eyes and mouths and noses A kaleidoscope of pixels and pores Strewn about and reflected in shattered glass Watched me as I sunk.

Bella Pelster views writing as a way to create something out of chaotic, pure emotion, no matter how strange and unseemly that something is. As we increasingly spend more of our lives online, there’s a tendency to filter out the ugly - and this is something that Bella tries to avoid in her writing. If we honour what’s undesirable, we may take inspiration from it. When she’s not scurrying to and from part-time jobs or doing university work, Bella loves visiting charity shops and watching stop-motion films.

‘Life Through a Digital Filter’, by Lauren Clark

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Lauren Clark is a contemporary fine artist based in North Somerset. The foundation for her work is drawing and the many forms it can take. She experiments by drawing in relation to other mediums, such as digital media, photography and painting. She is inspired and motivated by her personal experiences of place and time. This work questions how our personal memories are distorted through digital filters.

Concerned with how technological advances will continue to change the context of her work, she is progressively interested in what it means to bring the virtual to life with handmade, traditional techniques.

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‘After The Image’, Oil Painting series by Abbie Schug

Abbie Schug Abbie is a Visual Artist based in Suffolk whose research considers visual simulations of the human body and the transmission of data across traditional and digital media. Using images sourced online, Schug [re]photographs visual data into a state of natural mutation - suspended between presence and absence - before finally translating the intangible digital image into an oil on canvas artefact. This practice establishes a discourse around the quasi-being of visual data; the threshold between reality and simulation and the relationship between artist and image. Her current project sees the translation of a ComputerGenerated quasi-human model.

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ThisPersonDoesNotExist WRITTEN BY SERGEY GUSEV

First I go to thispersondoesnotexist.com and refresh the page ‘til I find a suitable face with no neuro horror in the background. The neural generator creates faces based on random pictures of random people. It’s creepy at first – seeing a person and knowing it has just appeared because of one click, and will disappear because of another. The eyes, the smile, the camera flash on the face – it all seems real but it isn’t.

I noticed that most of the generated faces smile, because the majority of photos have smiles. People force a smile for a photo, upload it and make others believe that’s how they really are: eternally happy with a beautiful wide smile on their face – an image as fake as their smiles. As fake as the accounts I keep making.

I log on to Facebook and create another fake account for another fake person. I will them into existence, give them a name and a story. This is Greg, a forty year old engineer from LA. This is his wife Linda, a cashier at a local groceries shop. This is John, their elder son, he has just graduated from Harvard, and his parents are very proud of him. This is Alice, she and John have just married and she is expecting. Just one of the families I have created. Greg always reposts baseball and patriotic content, Linda comments on gardening groups, John likes IT and Alice always posts pictures of her growing belly. Sometimes I find a decent couple picture and photoshop their faces together on a beach, in a park, in the living room. Sometimes I photoshop other people: friends and relatives of Alice and John. Fake people with fake smiles and fake lives.

They only exist so far as I allow it. I have killed people before. Fake people, of course. There was such a man as Thomas Brown and he was a total douchebag. He was abusing drugs and left his wife for a younger girl and took all of their lives’ savings. Thomas wanted to take his girl to Las Vegas, but I gave him a heart attack while he was snorting cocaine.

His wife Jennifer was devastated nonetheless and wrote posts about her sadness. Luckily, she found Bob, a loving Christian, and eventually married him and had two more kids and a hundred more posts about caring for her new babies. I’m happy for them. However, I’m thinking of giving Jennifer a miscarriage followed by sad posts on her page so that her story wouldn’t be too happy after all.

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When I get bored with making up stories about fake accounts, I reach out to real people through them. Linda has a bunch of friends her age that share her passion for gardening, each of them convinced she is real. Some Indian guy tried to hit on Alice even though it was clear she is married to John, who is by the way sexting on the side with random teenage girls. Alice must not know that, or their marriage will collapse.

I don’t know why I’m doing this. I guess it is a substitute for a life I don’t have.

No girlfriend to take silly selfies with, no friends to like and comment on my own page. It’s like playing with toys, but for everyone else to see. Modern social networks allow us to be faker than ever, and we love that. Your avatar is a mask, your page is your super-ego, the better you, the one you would like to be but ultimately cannot. The difference between me and the others is that I enjoy this fakeness in a different way.

In the early 20th century Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa was famous for having a number of fake personalities, each of whom wrote in a totally different way – one was an avant-garde poet, another was a thorough traditionalist, the third wrote prose and so on. It was not enough for him to come up with pseudonyms, he had to create a background for a name, and by the end of his life he had around eighty different characters just for himself. Late Soviet writer Sergey Dovlatov said: “Unselfish lying is not lying – it’s poetry”.

He was not referring to Pessoa, but I think Pessoa is the ultimate proof of Dovlatov’s words. I guess I am a weird kind of poet as well.

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Maybe I’m unwillingly trying to prove something. I see all this drama online, all this pointless attention seeking, and through the super-egos of social network accounts I see the id crawl out of the darkest corners of people’s psyche. The only ones trying to create a perfect picture of themselves are those morally handicapped, unable to accept themselves for who they are. I can’t blame them. The social network always pushes you to be younger, richer, smarter, more righteous and more beautiful. To capture the perfect angle of yourself. I don’t think this lie is deceptive, because anyone can see through it. It looks more like a desperate lie of people devastated by the riches of successful entrepreneurs and looks of Hollywood stars – all of it just a few clicks or taps away from their own pages.

John cheated on Alice with an underage girl and got arrested on the charges of pedophilia. Alice is divorcing him eight months into her pregnancy. Linda and Greg are trying to get John a proper lawyer and deny all charges, unable to believe their son could do something like that. Jennifer had a miscarriage, developed major depressive disorder and plunged into alcoholism. Bob is thinking of leaving her and taking full custody of the kids. Bob posts that he no longer believes in God. Linda stopped chatting with her gardening buddies and rarely appears online – she is too busy with the upcoming trial.

I think I’m just trying to fight the lies of other people by creating lies of my own, the lies which are nonetheless truer than anything they post. I am a poet of truth in the network of deception. I do not seek the truth. I only wish to avenge it.

Born in a provincial town in Russia in 1999, Sergey is currently studying in Gorky Institute of World Literature in Moscow and trying to make it as a writer.

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ThisPersonDoesNotExist The person that you´re searching for may The person that you´re searching for may not exist. not exist.

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How did you start making art?

When I was younger, I remember helping my mother design and create jewellery pieces.

Even though these designs were definitely not professional, my mother treated them as such and gave me confidence in my abilities even at a young age. During my teenage years I was able to hone in on the fundamental skills of observation and depiction as I grew my artistic practice into what it is today. I was mainly focused on the traditional mediums in art, such as painting and sculpting, however within recent years I have become increasingly more interested in digital art and the idea of merging the two art forms.

"I BECAME FASCINATED

BY THE REOCCURRING PATTERNS AND COLOURS THAT COME FROM THESE LAYERS OF BROKEN INFORMATION"

Can you tell us about your creative process? What inspires you? What does your day to day work consist of?

Essentially my work revolves around the everyday and the question, “how does something become mundane or banal?” Starting with a documentational photograph, illustration or text that I consider mundane, I would then manipulate this ‘document’ through various analogue and digital processes, to create a digital piece. The notion of recreating the visual of a ‘glitch’ came to mind when experiencing an error in one of these processes, thus leading me to question what is a ‘glitch’ and is it becoming a normality?

What interested you about the idea of ‘the glitch’?

Initially I was intrigued by how something that has been considered unordinary and shocking has turned into something mundane. Through the constant introduction of new technologies, we as a society have gotten accustomed to errors and are able to fix them without any hesitation. It was this shift in perception that I wanted to explore and understand. After delving deeper into ‘glitch’ art, I became fascinated by the re-occurring patterns and colours that come from these layers of broken information.

How did you go about visually representing the glitch?

I found that using techniques such as layering and collaging allowed me to achieve the visual patterns of the ‘glitch.’

Piece #1 – ‘Earth’

GIORGIA BOLLER INTERVIEW Giorgia Boller is a Swiss multidisciplinary artist based in London, England who recently graduated from Central St. Martins with a Bachelors and is pursuing a Masters degree in Printmaking.

Her work is situated in collage (both digital and physical), photography and Photoshop. She is currently developing her practice to include illustration, image transfer and repetitive printing as a means of re-creating, documenting and archiving the visual of a “glitch” through an analogue process. Often perceived as something going wrong, her work explores what happens when we frame these ‘errors’ through a fine art lens.

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How do you choose the colour palettes in your work?

Piece #2 – ‘Wind’

The colour palettes are completely unplanned, they are created through the digital and physical manipulations that the original photograph or illustration goes through.

Are there any other areas of digital life that you have explored/or hope to explore in your work?

Recently I have been interested in projection and moving image, I am hoping to create interactive works where the viewer can be fully immersed in the pattern of the ‘glitch.’ As well as this, I would like to explore digital sculpting through the use of a CAD software. Having seen this software being used in jewellery design, I want to explore the reaches of this process to see how a ‘glitch’ can be visualized through a three dimensional medium, thinking about taking something solely digital (the ‘glitch’) and turning it into something tangible.

How do you feel about the digital world that we’re currently living in?

I have mixed feelings. The digital world has opened up opportunities that people would have never thought possible. It has broadened our communication through social media, it has been tremendously beneficial in health care practices and it has allowed for businesses to grow and thrive. I do, however, also believe that social media has distorted our perceptions about ourselves and others.

What do you think are the positives and negatives of ‘digital life’ outside of art?

I think that the positives lie in the idea that you are connected to everyone at any given point.

This opens possibilities for collaboration and work as well as exposing us to outside events and news that we would not necessarily hear about in our close circles. As for the negatives, I believe that we have grown accustomed to new fast-paced entertainment. We are unable to slow down and fully appreciate our immediate surroundings.

Your work involves both digital and physical processes, how do you find they interact when trying to make a work of art?

I find that the analogue and digital processes depend on each other. I would alter or completely change the digital process to highlight or hide faults traced and produced by the previous analogue process and vice versa.

Piece #3 – ‘Water’

Do you think the digital world has harmed the traditional arts such as painting or sculpture, or has otherwise been an improvement?

I do not think it has harmed the traditional arts as a method of creating art, however it has altered our perception and the value we give to these art forms. I believe we have become disconnected to the necessity of fundamentals. Without my traditional background, the pieces that I create currently wouldn’t exist.

How do you think the digital world and new technologies affect the art world? What advantages do you think these new mediums provide to an artist?

With these new technologies and spaces, we as artists are able to reach a wider audience and have a larger sphere of influence. We are able to collaborate with other likeminded artists without having to be in the same space as them physically and have our works be shown in publications, galleries or public collections.

It is also a great business tool, for marketing, exposure and networking.

How do you imagine the future in art?

I believe that the future in art will be rooted in the digital mediums and methods that are new to us now. I believe that understanding how to navigate artistic software tools will become a fundamental tool that will be taught to young artists. Alongside this, there will be more emphasis on digital platforms for art such as online galleries and virtual auction houses. I think that the market for digital art will continue to grow and expand into different fields of art such as sculpture, performance art or textile weaving and fashion. With all of this being said, I hope that the continuing digitalisation of the art world will not eliminate value of traditional artistic skills.

Piece #4 – ‘Fire’

"I think that the market for digital art will continue to grow and expand into different fields of art such as sculpture, performance art or textile weaving and fashion. With all of this being said, I hope that the continuing digitalisation of the art world would not eliminate value of traditional artistic skills."

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‘Social Affair’, by Amandine Mondion

Amandine Mondion was born in France. She comes from a scientific family but has always been passionate about art. She left France at 18 to study design at Central Saint Martins. She enjoys exploring multiple fields, such as painting, digital art or sculpture, as well as different materials such as wood, resin and clay.

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Lovers of the new age KATERINA PANARETAKI words slipping out of our fingers lost meaning between cheeky winks and purple devils easy access to the thought, where did our feelings go? a whisper a scream a cry shall not be heard i pour a cup of coffee, stare at the blue sea hold my hands, the distance is now shortened, broken in half soon words will be born again.

Katerina is a visual artist from Crete, Greece, currently living in the U.K. Her passion revolves around various crafts such as photography, painting and creative writing. Her work has a poetic essence and is highly symbolic, diving into the world of Surrealism whenever she feels the need to express her inner, subconscious voice. She has a BA in Photography and is currently developing her personal work. In her spare time she is a film and cooking/ baking enthusiast and is fascinated by myths, folklore stories and mysticism.

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‘Bedtime Screentime Funtime’, Iphone Photograph by Katie Fiszman

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emoji of a sigh CAITLAN DOCHERTY

was it transactional?

—lunch & life updates, mostly cold salad crunch & simple syrup sweetness. you said nothing worthy of a retweet— mentioned facebook a time or two; just to be unclear, are you as tired of this winding epistolary poem -trail as i am of you? & are these breadcrumbs too passive a currency or should i like, start tagging you?

Katie Fiszman is a 43 year old mother of three based in mid-Wales. She is an emerging artist and currently uses photography to help develop her work as a painter. When not making art, she is doing laundry, cooking, giving someone a lift somewhere, bingewatching hospital documentaries or talking on the phone! When at a museum or gallery, she likes to look at everything because each artwork has someone’s life story behind it.

She is moved by the mere fact that people make art.

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satchels of gold & jars contain things CAITLAN DOCHERTY

Caitlan Docherty is an anxious millennial living in a beige thousand square foot space across from a small prairie. Her hobbies include unravelling into a crude translation of her inner chaos & cheugily obsessing over avocado toast. Some of her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Train River Poetry’s summer 2021 anthology & blood moon poetry’s July issue.

found a gently used scrunchy on the sidewalk —thought tiktok, felt tiny trio of sparkles emoji because neon pink reminds me small happiness sometimes exists outside of internet memes, but then brain-scroll gut-punched me with unwashed hair & week old sweatpants during lockdown also basic black scrunchy always warming my small-cold wrist & longing to feel all yoga girl emoji plus namaste hands emoji, but licking pretzel salt off my fingers instead & binge watching #RHONY, which ultimately brought me back to small happiness like season three Kelly repeating “satchels of gold, satchels of gold” & Bethenny telling Jason that “jars contain things”

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Internet gives me a feel CAITLAN DOCHERTY

the way i press & hold for a reaction; life is glib these blue-hot days. my spilt milk eyeball reservoir dries up. screen time hack (little known fact): eight hours plus maximum brightness yields red vein-bloom across sclera— hushed asterism, lesser constellation fringing iris’s gold-flecked boundary. fire is more than an emoji, it’s #awholemood. i aspire to be instantaneously famous one day without cheugily hashtagging my way to #millennialgirlboss status. update: i actually…heart cheugism & the cheugy hashtags that oft drip from the thumbs of the self-aware plebeians i fw. fr tho, scrolling thru several miles of internet gives me a feel like prolonged exposure to nail polish fumes.

‘Digital Lockdown’,

by Siria Ferrer

WRITTEN BY EARL GUEVARRA

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ILLUSTRATION BY MIK

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A Life of Games as a Refuge It was seven in the morning, and I opened my window to take a quick peek outside.

The sky was crystal blue, with little wisps of white clouds here and there. It was the peak of the dry season here in the Philippines; the wind was hot, like a steel furnace.

From time to time, I could see the little brown birds flying around while chirping noisily, in the same way that two ladies in a neighborhood gossip about their other neighbors for hours over cups of instant coffee and rolls of pan de sal.

For many Filipinos, it was a time to enjoy the sun, to flock to the beaches, and to pose in new places for the gram. It was also the time when children play outside with their neighbors and friends, usually under the shade of a mango or star apple tree.

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Instead, as I looked down Wilson Street in the heart of Manila, I saw nothing but an empty gray road staring back at me. Only the occasional passing of a lone vehicle or the blaring sirens of an ambulance broke the monotony of my life in the time of COVID-19.

I never knew that we would have the world’s longest lockdown – 487 days and counting as the time of writing. There were no celebrations or weddings; everyone has been locked up inside their respective homes since the start of it all.

Even funerals were prohibited. There’s no greater pain than the experience of not being able to accompany one’s loved ones in their final moments as they go into the grave or the columbarium. Things are better now, but I will never forget those days.

I slowly fixed my bed; I knew very well that this was going to be my routine for a long time to come. Afterwards, I prepared my breakfast, which was composed of freshly steamed rice and canned tuna.

Once I’m done filling my stomach, the first thing I do is to unlock my phone and look at my notifications and messages. There are a dozen of them, mostly coming from gaming chat groups. Furthermore, there are messages from family and friends, which are always a welcome break from this exercise in the drudgery that they called social distancing.

“Quetal ya tu? (How are you?)”

“Ok ka lang? Tara, mag Zoom chat tayo mamaya!

(Are you okay? Let’s chat on Zoom later!)”

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“Bro, hoping you are fine; let’s play later on mobile, the new patch is lit - asdkakdkdsakassk!”

They were a great reminder that I was alive; that I was part of something bigger than the state of isolation that I’m in.

Then, I switched on my laptop, which I bought for P55,000 – over $1000 - back in 2015. I logged into Steam, which is a video game digital distribution platform that allows me to play my games with millions of other users worldwide.

Finally, a message popped out on my chat screen.

“Tara, laro tayo!”

Come, let’s play.

Three simple words, yet meaning a lot during these times when people are distant from each other.

I consider video games to be my sanctuary; a place where I can be anyone I want to be. When I play a game online, I do not need to wear the mantle of a teacher, social worker, or politician – I can be myself, unhindered by the numerous and often burdensome expectations that society has placed on me. I can act like a caveman.

I can be a practical joker. I can be anyone I wanted to be.

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* * * The rules of online gaming etiquette are quite simple, and can be counted with the number of fingers found on one’s hand: be responsible for your actions, don’t use cheats to gain an unfair competitive advantage, be a good sport, and most importantly, make sure that games remain a safe and open space for everyone.

Whenever I play games with my friends, I feel like I’m in a world where everything is warm and fuzzy.

I recall the days that I spent with them outside; we tease and make fun of each other, talk about the old times, and just have a great time together, away from the stress and troubles of the real world.

When one considers the isolation and loneliness that happens during “enhanced community quarantine”, it is easy to see why people gravitate towards video games in general: it is a quick and guaranteed mode of escape; heck, it was a refuge from the uncertainties and horrors of the global pandemic.

Everyone owns smartphones, phablets, and tablet computers nowadays. Thus, it is easy to find a game for everyone.

From renowned electronic sports titles such as Dota 2 and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive to “chill” casual games such as Among Us, Animal Crossing, and Fun Run, people play a huge variety of games in this pandemic.

"I consider video games to be my sanctuary; a place where I can be anyone I want to be"

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Mik is an illustrator from Valencia (Spain). “Relaxed life, nostalgia and good vibes. 4201312”

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Gaming always reminds me that people are still alive and that they endure, even though they are unable to meet each other physically.

For me, it turns out that gaming is one of the best ways to maintain one’s physical and mental health intact.

It is also one of the best ways to keep people at home and stop them from getting physically sick. Fewer people being sick means there is less stress on public health systems worldwide that are already being tested by the tens of thousands of COVID-19 cases that they have to deal with.

Ironically, WHO has officially supported the gaming industry’s “#PlayApartTogether” initiative, just a year after the organization placed ‘gaming disorder’ on its list of addictive behaviors. This shows that people at the highest levels of public health policy have finally realized the potential of gaming to reach wide-ranging audiences to help stop the spread of the novel coronavirus.

* * *

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Times have indeed changed, for people used to say that gaming was just a waste of time and didn’t contribute anything positive to a person’s life. It is common nowadays to hear people talking about the latest games, or about the latest scandal caused by a gaming personality, even on national news.

Moreover, times have changed when it comes to the acceptance of people who play video games. Upon looking at a typical Facebook feed, I can see that gaming has become a widespread phenomenon that goes beyond the screaming crowds, the jam-packed stadiums, the grandiose production and the jaw-dropping prize pools.

I watch my gamer friends stream a game and notice that there’s going to be at least five to ten people watching that same stream; those who do it for a living get tens of thousands of viewers in a single day; to put it into perspective, it’s akin to filling up an entire stadium full of fans.

Just a decade ago, people would have thought of this as an oddity at best. The amount of interaction between the streamers and their respective audiences does rival those of real-world shows – reality shows are now starting to be a relic amongst Generation Z.

* * *

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As far as I remember, my parents allowed me to play video games back in the day, as long as I did my housework and my school work properly.

My big brother played 1945 and Mortal Kombat with me in the local arcade machine, where we paid one peso for every three minutes played. Later on, my parents bought a bootleg DVD player from China, which also happened to have the capability to play games with its “1000 in 1” disc function. I could imagine commanding an armada of airplanes from the skies, going through endless waves of flak and enemy planes, blasting them with precise waves of machine guns and cannons, and fly my way to victory whenever I played 1945.

For the most part though, “Wala kang mapapala diyan (You’ll gain nothing from it),” “Sayang lang oras mo (It’s just a waste of time),” and “Kikita ka ba sa kakakompyuter mo (Will you ever earn by playing games)” were the usual tag lines uttered by parents and other elders back when I was a child. Many gamers had to deal with the negative stigma associated with playing games until just recently when the concept of gaming became widely accepted as a part of mainstream life.

Online games allow for a moment in time in which strangers come together and cooperate towards the completion of a common goal. Also, when people play online games, they’re making their own stories. It is a story that is complete with pacing, tension, characters, catharsis, and even character development, both literally and figuratively. As for offline games, it allows the players to immerse themselves in diverse worlds while creating their exclusive narrative inside the game.

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In the course of writing their stories inside these video games, the players’ journey to their respective destinations may turn out different than expected. The best players fail; a newbie executes a lucky, yet impactful move in the game, and a ton of different twists happen along the way.

Some may call it escapism. I call it taking a break from the endless examples of incompetence and never-ending issues that plague the Philippines and the rest of the world - and gathering the strength to face them head-on.

At the end of the day, it makes me happy when I can play together with my friends, because I know that there’s always someone with whom I can interact, despite the sobering realities of the isolation that the enhanced community quarantine brings.

Earl Carlo Guevarra, 27, is an English teacher at a school in the heart of Manila, and a proud Zamboangueño.

When he’s not teaching children, he travels. He is addicted to fruit tea and shakes.

Besides, gaming is one of the best ways to spend time in these uncertain times; not only does it allow people to stay at home, but it also provides another outlet of entertainment for everyone out there.

So, if there’s anyone out there who’s looking out for a game, I’ll be more than willing to type these words:

Tara, 1g tayo.

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PLAY ME

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Film photographer and poetry enthusiast Amy Jasek is based in Texas. When she isn’t photographing or writing, she can also be found making cyanotypes, playing the piano, or busily being a mother. She also enjoys growing herbs and plants that attract butterflies. She does not consider herself an advocate of the “digital age”.

Konstantinos Patrinos is an aspiring writer based in Berlin, Germany. His work has appeared in The Elevation Review and is forthcoming in Open Minds Quarterly and SORTES Magazine. When he's not writing poetry, he enjoys getting punched in the face during kickboxing classes. He teaches philosophy and political science at a high school, and dreams of the day his class doesn't fall asleep.

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‘Opiate | Suppression’, by Amy Jasek

Death Online KONSTANTINOS PATRINOS

following mazed paths / in low-poly multiverses / combing through 8-bit deserts / excavate happiness no water oases glitch on the horizon / like dying bulbs / vector suns removed from transparent backgrounds pasted and magnified at the corners of / sky-blue templates heat is cooking me like a sinner neck-deep in hell’s pot / my mouth a dry madhouse abandoned in ruins / feet melting like clocks on surreal paintings / shuffling on dunes saturated with a / burning butter-yellow / cramped fingers sending confounded-face / emoticons to trivial invisible friends over my head a GIF of drooling vultures / hovering / as they await / all the memes to become dull / patiently staring my pixel heart symbols / vanishing one by one / with no pain nor distress / until there are no more / respawns left for me to restart in new uteri / only a feast without the / funeral

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‘Crossing the Channel’, Acrylic on canvas, by Ameana Alessandri

Ameana Alessandri is a self-taught British artist of Kashmiri descent. After the loss of her father, She has used painting as a form of escapism. Art has allowed her to feel a sense of inner peace and comfort. Furthermore, she has used the power of art as a form of mediation, providing her with a sense of healing from the painful experience of losing a loved one. The paintbrush and canvas have acted as a diary that narrate her feelings and emotions and allow her to feel a sense of freedom from the everyday stresses of life. Art has allowed her to feel a sense of satisfaction and a way of expression without words.

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‘Always On’, by Akissi Nzambi

Akissi Nzambi is a Spain-based artist. A repository of personal interests and obsessions, her cut paper illustrations and digital pieces often act as a vehicle for social commentary and self-affirmation. Using a simple, direct approach, she creates visual metaphors that explore issues of identity, inclusivity, disability, culture and race and encourage discussion.

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A DULL AFTERNOON

WRITTEN BY DAVIDE LEPORE Davide Lepore is an Anglo-Italian biologist living in London with a great passion for writing. He has worked as a journalist for several Italian online newspapers. He recently started experimenting with works of literature, writing both in Italian and English and covering a variety of themes.

‘The System’, by Siria Ferrer

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It was a dull afternoon. A grey, flat light had cancelled all shadows from the room, making it impossible to guess what time it was. Even the outside world appeared as if all colours had been drained out of it. A desaturated image of life, with no idea of space or time.

He sipped from the glass in his hand. Whiskey and cola, straight from a can. He used to know how to perfectly balance the two to turn the blandest of cocktails into a pleasurable experience; a trick he learned from a barwoman he used to date. That, of course, was long before you could get your experiences packed and delivered right to your front door.

Yeah, this did mean you could not always get your perfect mix of ingredients, but it was a good approximation and, hey, no longer any need to spend the whole night at the bar chatting up the barwoman. It was worth it.

And think of the effort saved in dating itself! No more breaking the ice, no more trying to impress, no more chat up lines. System™ would take care of everything. Your personality, or lack of, would no longer be an issue. An algorithm would carefully analyse your entire history and find a perfect match for you. A mathematically perfect association of souls.

The latest model of the algorithm would even analyse a sample of your urine (daily) and your blood (weekly), extrapolating information on your current physical status to make the dating match even more accurate. He had not yet upgraded to that model, so for the moment his samples went only in his health chart, as per usual.

Maybe that is why at the moment System didn’t think he needed a partner and was simply concentrating on the perfect choice of ambient music for that day. This, of course, was calculated taking into account the external temperature, the internal temperature, the quality of natural light, and an additional 123 environmental characteristics known to influence the human mood. Of course, the total number of parameters considered could be increased to over a million, but that would slow down the calculations, potentially delaying the choice of music by a whole minute. No time for that. This was a good enough approximation.

‘The Crow’ by Siria Ferrer Next Page: ‘La Maison, Les Divinités / Analyzer-Polarizer / No Leaving’ by Jena Schmitt

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Outside the window a blackbird was singing on the top branches of the tall birch in the neighbour’s garden. He knew nothing of trees, of course. The name had come up on his System Glasses. The algorithm brought up all necessary information about whatever he looked at for over five seconds. If that became too overwhelming, no problem; the Glasses would know if the information was being read or not and automatically calculate the level of interest, determining if the application needed to be turned off or could keep running. He could not remember the last time the Glasses turned it off.

The blackbird kept singing; the sound muffled by the thick windows. His grandfather used to have a few blackbirds around the house. He used to love their song, imprinted in his memory together with the smell of spring in the countryside, the heat of the sun on his young skin, and the feeling of absolute freedom he always felt at his grandparents’ place.

He would have loved to hear it better, to let the room be filled by it and let all those memories flow free; but he kept sipping from his glass, staring at the beautiful bird. No point trying to open the windows. No handles, it was all centralised. And with the external temperature decreasing with the coming autumn, System had decided it was a lot more sensible to keep them shut.

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He started when the blackbird suddenly stopped singing and stared at him. Their eyes met for a moment. Then the bird jumped from the branch and flew away, a perfect black and yellow smudge on that canvas of monotonous grey. It made a sharp turn left and disappeared behind some buildings.

He was getting hungry now. It was a Thursday, so Thai day; but System knew this already. It also knew, based on the calculated average of the times of the day at which his organism started showing signs of hunger, that it was nearly dinner time.

So, his favourite Thai place had already received the pre-recorded order and the delivery was on its way. No need to worry about it.

He took another sip from the glass.

Outside the black and yellow smudge darted again in the opposite direction. The blackbird must have changed its mind and chosen a different spot to keep singing for the rest of the day.

The bell rang. The delivery.

He gazed at the intercom on the other side of the room. The light was still flat and grey, it felt like time had stopped passing. He kept staring at the little black answering button on the intercom. The bell rang again. It was such a dull afternoon.

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Playing Pokémon LEWIS DAVIES

Lewis is an aspiring poet who primarily writes about mental health issues and workingclass life, both as a form of therapy and to raise greater awareness. He has been featured on BBC Upload and has cocreated an illustrated poetry series on YouTube about his upbringing in Shropshire.

If my life is a pocket monster, then God gave me Bulbasaur He made all my moves ineffective against strangers during my developing stages. Dad was A . W . O . L and Mum stayed home as I walked the streets alone, gargling on fresh green grass that grew taller with each new leaf turned. Every person identifies as only one type in this world: Hiker, Biker, Marxist, Writer, Vegetarian When I walk into a supermarket, I recognise Robbie Williams playing, even in 8-bit sound. Hospitals are always free ( as one would expect ) and no other place is ever mentioned to me beyond the islands we inhabit.

I only hear stories about gyms. . . and elites. They repeat : keep calm and carry on catching them all.

But you need extension cables that haven’t been chewed up. Even then, it’s impossible for a boy born in a pallet town to win unless he glitches the system.

‘My VR Garden’,

by Jena Schmitt

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‘Self-Portrait with Broken Screen’, by Jena Schmitt

Jena Schmitt writes poetry, short fiction and essays. Part of her body of work is drawing or ‘image poems’ that reflect the ideas she works through and against in her writing, in an intergeneric dialogic exchange that verbalizes the visual and visualizes the verbal. A line of a poem might make its way into a sentence in a story into an image in a drawing – they chatter about motherhood, isolation, disintegration, fragmentation, screens and reflections, delineated spaces, forced separations, the importance of art in uncertain times.

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POEM BY AL CROW

The Zoom funeral at the end of the world Is this how we’ll watch the end of days 13:45 on a Friday and dialled in the camera tilted down at chocked back tears and a slide show we can’t really see What a Wonderful World howled from a speaker that’s been left a little too near the microphone while we tap out yet another work email on the other screen WhatsApp-ing at the same time about Adam’s diet coke and the dress code?

Is this how the world will end, not a bang nor a whimper, but at 14:15 the camera still rolling as the family shuffle to their feet masked and distanced the coffin still there the curtain open as if someone forgot to press the button for the conveyor belt and the flames – a moment when the whole thing finally catches our attention the great fucking enormity of it all and we are absolutely paralysed in loss captured in fragility and despair and aware briefly aware of everything as we are spat out into the virtual lobby of souls?

Al Crow is a made up person that dabbles in truths and who can fly.

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4TH EDITION, AUGUST 2021 vainemagazine.com vainemag@gmail.com Social Media : @vainemagazine EDITOR Dominic Thomas ART DIRECTOR & GRAPHIC DESIGNER Siria Ferrer Sainz-Pardo COVER ART Siria Ferrer Sainz-Pardo

All rights reserved ©

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ISSUE 02 ‘THE ENVIRONMENT’

ISSUE 01 ‘COVID 19 EDITION’

ISSUE 03 ‘MENTAL HEALTH’