Martin J. Sabine // It's Magic!

I love magic or prestidigitation the way sleight of hand deceives the eye the speed and manipulation the distraction techniques employed to give the magician or artist an advantage, a kind of artform that's for sure. What we have here in this image is a similar thing, the impact of the foreground acts as the distraction the background then drawing the eye away from the action, a visual version of magical trickery and manipulation.

There are approximately 10 layers in this composite image all photographs taken at different times and places blended together with filters to create an atmospheric scenario. Taking time to study the finished piece one can see that the hands don't seem to be attached to anything the cards have an almost 3D appearance the light and shadows create a surreal ambiance, but isn't that the magic of the creation a visual feast for the eyes, some people will call it a deception, I call it art.....

© M.J. Sabine 2018

EDITOR’S NOTE

This marks a change for us at AB, as we convert this to be Martin Sabine’s column. It also sees the end of Editor’s Notes, with a shift in modus and possibly a thinning of categories. But more about that in the Main Fat at a later date.

Zaar Riisberg // Echo Chamber

My own naked self is something that worries me less and less. It started with being half naked in a short by Eskild Krogh - but I have known for a while that I do not give a shit. Exploring is always fun, until it gets boring, which I am sure this will too. Is it narcissistic? I kind of doubt it - I would have to think that I am something special, or indeed hot or good looking, or at least interesting to other people. I really do not care - you cannot afford to care when you are a loser. That shit would drive you nuts, as I am sure it does Melania.

Zaar Riisberg // Concrete Secretion

Aros...the art museum in Aarhus, where they keep 'art'. Why is modern art so void? Why are people so shameless when it comes to something that important? Funnily enough, all these modern artists - often musicians turned painters, sell their works for silly sums. It's funny to me, that all of them, including our Queen, all go for an abstract expression. That's telling. How come they can't do anything concrete? Then you have 'street art' (can it get more conservative?) which is often concrete, and not void of talent, but I would not call it art. People like Banksy are nothing more than capitalists - and they bore the holy fuckin shit out of me.

But being pissed about the utter shallowness of it all, is not a viable, creative emotion for yourself. Anger will only take you so far - just ask Eminem. From now on, I will keep writing and shooting, and I do not care if anyone is listening or watching.

Zaar Riisberg // You Live, You Learn - going back to Flickr and other concessions

I am not at all deterred when it comes to keep doing Artballistics.com - namely, because I think there is a need for this stuff. There is a need to oppose modern art for its shallowness, and there is a need to continually evoke the kid from The Emperor’s New Clothes and follow his example.

But ‘how’ is still something I debate with myself. Hard lining it, and saying that it has to be original work all the way, is not working. I understand, that I am at the center of this, but I am nearing the end of one of the worst journeys of my life. I know what I have to do here on AB, I know what I should do commercially and artistically AND personally. But I do not have a leg to stand on, a pot to piss in or a famous window to throw it out of - and I refuse to be boxed in. If the trip gets too comfortable, I am still the kind of person that will punch the self eject button during a calm flight - the storm is just more interesting, and turbulence makes for a fun ride. Yeah, the ground is hard when you crash into it. Fuck the ground. Leap.

I still want contributors and suggestions, but I should probably ‘tap’ people and ask for contributions from people that I find interesting, and I have been entertaining the idea of changing my IG to an account for AB, because it would make more sense for me to go back to Flickr, because what I need more than anything else, is an ‘organiser’, so customers can easily browse my stuff when given a non public link - until I get a hidden, digital catalog made.

I do want to brand AB, and we have ideas for weekly content. But me, and the people I count on, have heavy real life issues to deal with. For me, I should make the change that my personal website and AB is where I express my self and my views and nowhere else. It is a no brainer, really. But anyone that knows me for real (that would be my mother, basically), knows that I am exceedingly thorough, and though I do not shy away from conflict, I am always pre meditating in the shadows, before I leap at your throat, and I seldom, very seldom do anything in affect.

I wrote a piece on Facebook a while back, that I am posting here. I have a few other classic posts that I will move here, I invite the other contributors to do the same, and I will thin the categories and make the site more poignant going forward. Or wait, until you see that I really will follow through. I understand, if some people liken me with crying wolf on AB. All I can say, is that this project was born out of the storm of my life, and I will never fucking let it go, even if it is only me and a few others.

Zaar Riisberg // Critique Acidique (critique as a dick)

I had a run in with modern art on Instagram, and it illuminated to me how far gone culture and art is in the mainstream. Everyone lives on a deceitful surface called taste - and if you do not comply with the conformity of this crap, you are simply labelled a hater. This 'artist' was peddling his stuff in adds, and yes, he has no way of keeping them out of my stream. But he is going to have to bite a tough titty on that one, as I simply do not care. And the very worst thing about me is, that you cannot ignore me, if I do not want you to. You might break off from me, you might lambast me or indeed flog me and leave. But you will be back, as curiosity will have you turn stalker.

But I digress. The artwork itself is a mishmash of colors with a statement in white, and in big broad the letters: 'STOP TRYING TO FIT IN, WHEN YOU WERE BORN TO STAND OUT'. I decide to comment, and this is an add, mind you. I tell him that I would expect the artwork itself to be a tad more original when it carries a statement like that. I may have overstepped, when I wrote that I am no fan of 'everyday art', and find it exceedingly boring. 

I was bored, I admit that. The guy says 'thanks for the feedback', but he does not know what to do with it. He then tells me to order some antacid, as he has heard that works really well. The logic of these 'artists' seeks to preserve a status quo, in which we are just consumers. That is hardly the job of art. Regardless, this guy should be able to take it, if he really is an artist. But he is not, he is a shameless pretender - and there are morons enough to buy this shite. I know the type: hipster beard, tattoos all over and an empty ballsack. Only wankers buy everyday art.

Some of my friends, the very best ones too, have highlighted to me, that I might have scared people off with my staunch, sometimes acidic behaviour. I am well aware of that. But you are wrong - why does it scare you that I insist on substance, quality, decency, empathy, loyalty and moral? Have you stopped to think, what this looks like from my end of the world?

I am not an asshole or a poisonous individual, I rather insist that people treat each other like they themselves would like to be treated. This has, oddly enough, left me with very few friends and alienated a ton of photographers and others that seemed to dig what I did. People I have worried about, consoled or helped continue to turn their back on me. If I can scare you off, fear is to ripe in you.

Fortunately, I have the guts to stand by my convictions and call out pretenders and shitty art. Yet, everywhere I go, I am treated like a pariah or indeed a bad seed - even people I cared deeply about crippled my relation with them by insinuating that I was a tortured artist or was frustrated to be overlooked or they had no clue how absolutely horrible my life has been for the last 3 years. I will admit stuff like that has stung like a motherfucker on a personal level - it is never funny hearing people you value give such an assessment of you. You literally die a little. Luckily, I am as Phoenix as they come - and I WILL rise above it.

Graham O'Neill // Arbroath Harbor

Text by Zaar Riisberg

Do not stare at this too long - you might spot a seriously sound geo shot. I like compartmentalisation. Ron does it in a lot of his - this is why I admire him - but Graham is going places with it too. They both have a knack for working the mundane. So do I - the same goes for Martin. Art in a crevice. But we do it in different ways. I seek to look past the veil, and show you what I see. Martin creates art from his vicinity. We are all scavengers of light.

Maybe the shot could have benefitted from a crop on the right, but I'm not at all sure. It is nitpicking. Graham's a naturalist - could be interesting to see him do graphism or something akin to it.

Meanwhile, in other news, the world is on fire. 

The Age of Adversarialism I

"You know, I'm sure if my former colleagues who work with John, I'm sure there's people who said to you, not only now, but the last 10 years, 'Explain this guy to me,' right? 'Explain this guy to me.' Because, as they looked at him, in one sense they admired him. In one sense, the way things changed so much in America, they look at him as if John came from another age, lived by a different code, an ancient, antiquated code where honor, courage, integrity, duty, were alive. That was obvious, how John lived his life. The truth is, John's code was ageless, is ageless. When you talked earlier, Grant, you talked about values. It wasn't about politics with John. He could disagree on substance, but the underlying values that animated everything John did, everything he was, come to a different conclusion. He'd part company with you if you lacked the basic values of decency, respect, knowing this project is bigger than yourself."

- Joe Biden (McCain's Eulogy)

Ron Rubenstein // Waiting to Unfold

Text by Zaar Riisberg

I sit here with these images Ron sent me, and I think to myself, what's the common thing here? Waiting? Seems so. Then association sets in, and the title snaps into view before my eyes. It just dawned on me, that the vein of his work is just that, there is always an underlying theme of something waiting to unfold - it is not a calm before the storm, more like a constant current, which makes Rubenstein's work timeless.

'The geometry of waiting' could have been an apt title for the one just above. I will not touch on the one with the girl on the stairs, as it has a genius about it that speaks for itself - if you cannot see it or feel it, you are blind and numb, my friend. Then there is the choice of motif. Not many people would think to shoot like this. Most do not - I met a girl in Aarhus and she told me she was a photographer. Seconds later, she told me it was boring living in Aarhus, since there was nothing to shoot. I gasped and veered off of the conversation. Some people live in utter darkness, it seems.

Words do not come easy, but who cares, when you can shoot like this. The simple genius of RR, folks. Stuff like this is art, it is story and it is a reminder what humans are about. Fuck modern art - this is worth so much more. Fuck modern literature and fuck modernity - it's rubbish! These three show what is achievable if you are aware and in reality with your eyes wide open. Step out of your virtual mess and you hyper reality, and enjoy the inspiration it brings. Past and present are illusions. Use your now.

Martin Sabine // Saints or Sinners

The hardest penance of all.....
 

The sheer hypocrisy, the persons designated as the conduit to God and the absolver of sins are themselves the sinners, the utter irony of the situation is not lost on me or others it's no wonder we are “lapsed”. For years I have carried around a guilt imposed on me as a child by an institution which is nothing short of a cult, explore your natural curiosity on sexual matters, nudity, masturbation etc. It's a sin, take something doesn't belong to you, it's a sin, shout an obscenity, it's a sin, its behaviour such as this that places such a burden on the youngest and most vulnerable in society and in many cases at the behest of their parents, “you will go to mass on Sunday, you will study your Catechism you will be an Altar boy”..... At this point I want to make light of it “ I don't want to go mummy it makes my bum sore” but I shouldn't because it's such a serious betrayal of trust, I'm one of the lucky ones I was shielded from it by an older boy who warned me in graphic detail, I was seven years old for fucks sake. The guilt I carry and mentioned earlier is also for a younger peer who didn't get the warning and suffered because of it I still often wonder is there anything I could have done to save him from the depravity. I'm afraid because I didn't fully understand the implication, I did nothing, I was literally too busy saving my own ass, although at the time I didn't know it. The Church, the Catholic one in particular needs to look in on itself and purge the offenders and not offer them sanctuary or protection. The common question posed in the media on a regular basis is why are people turning their backs on religion, I think I've come close to answering that particular question....

Xenia Chantzi // Otherwise Grey

Text by Mads Zaar Riisberg

I love sifting through Xenia's work, it calms me down. But we have talked enough about the benefits of minimalism and serenity. You can breathe. Which is something people need more than ever. So having established that, let us talk about how hard this one is to pull off.

Backlight may seem easy to people that know FA. It is not. Nevermind, that you are shooting directly at light, but creating crisp 'blacks' is not that easy, and in photography black is only black if there is no light. Otherwise it is grey - in that respect, most BW work is not black & white, it is mostly white & grey.

Personally, I envy this, since I have never been able to do it. But that is the love of photography and indeed art - when you are much more into other people's stuff that you are your own. We all look for respite in these times. So why not sit and glance at this? The formation of the birds gives it a slight 'pop', and slides away in yummy curves.

Hibernation Over

Due to summer and my own situation (Zaar Riisberg) we took a 2 month hibernation. We are working on a small graphic novel type thing for the site, and I am working on getting more video art in. There will be a few new contributors as well as the usual suspix. It is all about art, social issues and making people think. What passes for art today is shaite: either to explanatory or too wrapped around its own arse. Focus, right? Maybe not - lots seem to be exploring the unfocused. IG still seems to be the place to post, although the majority of its users does not know art or light, and think having followers is all the rave. I have said it before, and I will state it again - it is the ultimate insult to an artist worth his salt, to visit his or hers pf, pretend that you gawk at the inspiration (of the latest up, not the whole pf), and then point to your own feeble shit - these 'active life style profiles' or indeed 'the bloggers'. Listen to me, moron, taking a picture of your food and writing one fetid line, is not blogging. These profiles have crisp photos with very little variation and sometimes 'amazing' vistas, that surely would take the untrained eye in. Remember, these guys shoot on phones and DSLR that does most of it for them. So what do they themselves bring to it? Well, my suggestion would be 'fuck all', or perhaps the more pc 'nothing'. 

We, on the other hand, invite the existential and the grave, but humor is appreciated,  and so is not being too far up your own poopshute as an artist. Which means we do not agree to disagree, and we do not leave each to his own. Arrogant people will be shown the door.

This is the first weekly editorial - a news post, if you will (or must). 

Martin J. Sabine // Who's Afraid

Fairytale Headlines:
Young girl stalked in woods, her bedridden grandmother has lupus;

Wizened old lady in sweet little house found dead in oven;

Prince discovers cure for narcolepsy;

Fair maiden forms little league Rugby Sevens team;

Giant beanstalk wins first prize;

Duckling takes honours in beauty pageant;

Pork loving property demolition expert blows it;

Oatmeal tester falls asleep on the job;

Pest exterminator told to pipe down;

Local scullery maid loses a slipper;

Princess says she’s “kissed a few frogs” in her time;

Emperor joins nudist colony;

Long haired beauty in tower hostage siege;

Elves sighting turns out to be a load of cobblers;

Sorcerers apprentice: You're Fired!.........

© M.J.Sabine 2018

EDITOR'S NOTE

This is dramatic. I can see at least one person drowning and science is also covered. Number two headline seems to be poetic justice. Hans is clearly subjected to a reverse #metoo moment in that 'story'. What a vile woman. Martin Sabine also open a new category for fantasy and film inspired work. The category is named after Franz Gsellmann and his colorful world machine.

Graham O'Neill // In Orbit

Text by Zaar Riisberg

    'Twist it, turn it' someone once said to me. Someone else said 'oh, yeah sure, you flip it around and all of a sudden it is art', the latter, obviously, not getting it at all. Perspective matters - in all walks of life, not only in art and photography. But it is another point I wish to make from Graham's display. Comments, I want to talk about comments - well, critique, and what can come from it.

I have three masters: comments, experimentation and failure. That is where I learn, provided that failure is not repeated. I want others to realise how much you learn from comments. It does not have to be critique, it can be just 'nice job on the highlights'. It may just be that the poster does not realise what he did. For example turning the lights down to make the portrait pop. I, myself, have learned tons of stuff from Martin Sabine, Ron Rubenstein, Chris Noellert, Nomi Khan and others when commenting on work. 

Here I could muse about the greyscale - different shades of grey, whites toning into grey, dirty white - and making the central spiral pop white alongside the sky, is not easy, trust me. But what intrigues me is all the things my eyes can grab on to, and follow a curvy line, or by all means slingshot myself around the geometry, throwing myself at the top bow, grabbing it and forcing the structure to bend.

A little too much? No. I just merely looked at the image more than the standard two seconds. I took it in, I dwelled on it. A towering metal worm with DNA strains laid bare.

EDITOR'S NOTE

Graham is a recreational shooter and does not believe in tampering much in editing which can be refreshing. Be sure to check his earlier entry here

David Garmark // OPAQUE:

     “What’s the matter?” she asked, her lips again feline. His gaze shifted to the waves. Mesmerizingly blurry. Her sigh like the calm surf outside. She knew. No point in telling her nothing. The ferry rocked them gently, calming. But still an inner unrest screamed at him. A growing anxiety squirmed inside, that even her presence couldn’t ease.

    “The windows are opaque,” he said, contemplating a more thorough explanation for his unprovoked silence. The banality of it. It seemed evident here in the cold confinement of the ferry.

    “So … nothing’s wrong?” Her hand on top of his. Cold, daring.

    “You see the veil, don’t you? How everything gets blown out of proportion through the drops of water?”

    “Yes.” Her voice was a near whisper. “But there’s a world out there. You can see it.”

    “It’s broken. Maybe that’s why it won’t let us see the true nature of it. Do you think that’s possible?”

    Pregnant clouds the color of dirty milk scattered the grey sky. A motoscafo passed them. Its captain a splotchy shadow. She turned in her plastic seat. Her gaze was like an insisting entity.

    “I’m scared,” she said tightening her grip. Yes. So was he. To death.

    “It’s happened before. Seducers, demagogues, charlatans. It’s always about money, power. It’s about eternal war.” He turned from the dismal scene outside and caught her darting eyes. “They all lie. We’re a blindfolded product of mass hysteria or some insane mass suggestion. Ask yourself who is biased, ask yourself who benefits from this ardent way of manipulation that is going on everywhere.” Treacherous tears found their way, altering the truth even more. He hated it. Not the lack of strength, but because he cared. Maybe everything would be easier, if …

    “But why?”

    “When you lose interest and take everything for granted, you become numb. You stop missing the texture of grass. You never stop to think about when the air was clean. The sea was calming.”

    “And you?”

    “Me? Nobody cares.”

    “That’s not true.”

    “Unless you do something you are of little concern, and you’ll never see past the veil. The lies. The biased information.”

    The lower crescent of the sun sank below the heavy clouds, bathing the lagoon, offering another pointless night, and maybe another fruitless daybreak.

    “I love the texture of grass,” she said closing her eyes. Her face was streaked with liquid gold in the shimmering and dying light.

    “Me too,” he said.

EDITOR'S NOTE

Published author in Denmark. But it is his marriage between words and visuals that we want. David is one of those rare beasts that can write and shoot - as you know, that is the kind of cats we collect here at AB. It is a debut here for him and us, and we are hoping to see more. A lot  more.

Xenia Chantzi // The Devils Hide in Pandora's Box

Text by Zaar Riisberg

We do it to ourselves. Systems, ideologies and religion. State terror in corporate souls. We have always been told in advance, but instead of heeding wisdom imparted to us, we make damn sure that doomsday becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. We were told that polluting the earth would bite us in the ass, and here we are. Same with 'fake news', social media and identity theft. Same with what the internet might also bring forth. We know everything is bought and sold on this planet - and I do mean everything. We were warned, we are warned and we continue to allow it.

Humans are beings of light with a supreme knack for being monsters. In the throes of ambivalence there is no let up, though, no safe corner - only fear and stress. As a group we are bile, but there are some outstanding individuals. People can be likeable, if they rise above humanity. Too often, alas, it is said monster that rears its ugly head.

Nuclear power is an ambivalent beast too. It is Pandora's Box sated with endless possibilities - however, it is humans handling the box, and not with care. Something that should have been a blessing for mankind (don't make me write 'personkind'), yet it continues to invoke horror in a lot of people, because safety is not really always a concern for people that want to make a buck.

We won't see the rest of Sol (the solar system we live in has a name, you know?) up close without it - so what do we do? How do we proceed? Does anyone fucking care?

Ron Rubenstein // Ad Hoc Randomness

Text by Zaar Riisberg

Ron is one of my favorite photographers. Forget Gump, but it is kind of a box of chocolates dealing with Ron. Combined with a raw style, not very often imbued by lots of editing - but bare, or naive, as Martin Sabine put it. Naive here, being a good thing, a conscious thing. So many people are semantically challenged, so I thought I would underscore that. The above one he sent me after I asked contributors for their version of 'the lone tree'. Not very lone, this one, but you get that trees might feel alone in the big city. Until a car rams into them and it is love at first sight.

He also has a keen eye for interesting stuff. Which is one of my modes myself, not seldom does something grab my attention, with my mind going 'hey, wtf was that, and what can I do with it' or 'fuckin hell, that looks different'. Click. Snap. Home. We did have a small voyeur discussion here on AB. I wonder - because this certainly evokes a stalker feeling. But the scene is probably nothing of the sorts. It is called 'conveying', for those of you wondering.

This is the kind of shot that I just love. It is how I see the world - it's a geometry of particles, compartmentalized, nothing ever touching and none of it really exists. No people or actors, yet the stage plays it out by itself, and proves you do not need action to tell a story, if you can rattle the brain of your audience. The last one was originally posted on IG.

1. of Mobile May

....to each is own, is a dumbass phrase I hear way too much. But here, it fits like a glove.

Ron watched birds

Martin ate porridge

Mads went to work at half past 7

Lasse Fischer // Shades of Armenian Grey IV

Day Four
You could hear rust grinding against rust, leaving a red trail behind the bus as we drove down the mountain. As the bus jumped we put our hands on the ceiling, supporting it, holding off the implosion that would inevitably lead to us to be crushed against the cliffs down at the foot of the rock. The collective thoughts of fatality fueled the engine. Houses sprang up sporadically in the landscape, all empty, hollow, with their innards spilled out in front of them. They gaped in the direction of the vibrating bus windows as they rushed by. The optimism of things left unfinished colored the landscape, penetrated my chest. Roaming the streets at home every building would look at you with stern eyes of glass, measuring your height and weight and the shape of your fingers, and filing the information in the invisible corridors of filing cabinets that stretches themselves behind the buildings. The people, who stumbled upon the slight materialization of the lower drawers of these systems in their yards and on the sidewalk, would know of their existence, they knew about the unseen world, as it reminded them that it wasn’t fictive with every email it sent from the other side. It seemed that the hills of Armenia had gone free of its reach. I calmly enjoyed a candied walnut in an improvise party tent next to a small hostel, and let the homemade rakia flow from my mouth and into my system. The blur set in. I saw old women throw bread on the side of the walls of a fire well, I laughed as I reached for the next glass, and my eyes shone in the light from the fire. Something real had snuck into the tent. It had been led there by the lights, the heat, the smell of homemade food, and the laughter from around the table. It crawled up my leg and sat itself on my lap and stared up towards my face as I kept on drinking. I hardly noticed it before I tucked at my t-shirt with its small, pudgy, and hairy hands. We made a deal that it could stay in my pocket on a temporary basis, so I let it crawl in there. It immediately tore through my pocket lining and merged with the flesh of my ties. This, however, unfolded completely unnoticed by the other people in the tent, and they gave me confused looks as I jumped up from the bench with a scream. I promptly calmed myself by proposing a toast slamming down even more rakia. The blur intensified. Whatever had transpired in that tent was soon to be forgotten.

Only the faces still remained, hovering free of their bodies in the dimly lit tent. And they too
disappear, as did the light. Nighttime blanketed us, and the world shrank with our ability to see.
just the burning sensation in my throat I knew that I would fall all the way from the village to my
kissed the matriarch of the hotel and her daughter on both their cheeks and climbed aboard the
Returning to the hotel we sang Queen in somewhat unison as we bumped our way through the
Armenian night. The sweet sickly smell of vomit crept up my nostrils. I turned my head and found Cream silently expanding a grocery bag. I laughed the rest of the way back to the mountain hotel while the backseat screamed for Galileo to show mercy.

Day five
Exhaustion had settled itself in my body and was now using me as a blanket to keep warm, so I skipped breakfast and reached for the white phone next to my bed and called room service, begging them for a pepperoni pizza, hoping they understood what I was saying. The voice from the other end answered ‘pepperoni, yes’. The exhaustion complained and dragged me fully back into the bed again, grapping hold of my flaps of skin as it rewrapped itself with me. I felt stretched out. I know my head had expanded, as I could feel it bulging, and growing slightly with every throb, but now even my hands and feet felt huge. They weighed me down, and I slowly sank down into the core of the madras, my descent fueled by the newfound weight. I fell into a comatose state among the springs until I heard the door knock. It was Cream who had wondered where I had been. She closed the door, another knock; it was the pizza. We ate it in silence looking at the white top of a mountain.

Day six
Fitting in a place where all the molds have been made you can easily experience a shoulder going over the edge of the form. You might experience your legs, being too big, bend and squash against the aluminum lid as they cover you with it. It’s no wonder people make a run for the hills hollering and laughing. It’s not so much the system itself that makes you feel like a foreign object in conjunction with your surroundings, it’s a vague sensation that is born within your chest the moment you encounter the expectations of what constitutes as being human within the system. It’s something, much like yourself, that lurks in the perimeter of the build. Once it sneaks up on you, you understand in an instant that something doesn’t fit.

And they laugh and cheer, your friends, your family, but you always find your mouth being ever so slightly askew when you try to mimic the noises they produce. It can be hard to be sincere. It can be tiresome to project yourself into the world, when the image always seem to clash with the canvas, looking like it wouldn’t belong. Once it gets a hold of you it digs in deep. Even in your most private of moments, when you’re hiding from the world, you can feel its claws. Do you ever wonder why people become afraid of living? You know why already. Look at it. Look at it. It frightens you as well. It’s sitting there in the corner of your room as I type these words, looking back at you. You catch its gaze and it smiles at you with a mouth filled with crooked pointy teeth; almost human.

I took a breath and looked up from the keyboard.

Being away, being out ‘there’, seemed to work like a balm on my skin. I drank it in, the whole ever expanding vastness of it all. The limitless potential of being in the world was ever present out ‘there’. I could taste it, and I breathed deeper than I had done in many years, letting it seep through every pore of my being. I placed my computer on my nightstand. I wondered why these monsters or figures always found their way into my reality.

I had a smoke on the balcony with Ovav, my roommate from Belarus, and we talked about his village and his family. He was and altogether good guy, with genuine concerns and genuine complexes. He would always lover his eyes when we talked, never looking upon my face. The burden of things unknown to me made him slouch. The world seemed so small in his company, and it seemed to me, that he didn’t need much to be happy. He was truly a person whom one could aspire to be.

There was a party being held in the evening, giving us a chance to say goodbye. I went with vodka, and danced until the taxies arrived 2.30 in the morning. In the cabin of the cab gazed at
that in the distance, which I was leaving behind. They would persevere in my absence. The
comforted me, and I leaned my head back on the seat.

Day Seven
Traveling home sort of happened unfolded to me in a vicarious manner. My body moved in and out of lines, I said ‘yes’ and ‘no’ at the right time, and chomped down on an airport sandwich, drank a juice. The shops and the people moved past me at the same speed. I blinked maybe one or two times when we landed in Poland for the three hours tr ansfer, and my eyes were dry when I reached the cabin of the plane bringing me home.

EDITOR'S NOTE

The conclusion to Lasse's week in an apparently shadow ridden Armenia. Be sure to read the whole story - you can find the first installment here

Eskild Krogh // The Weave that Binds the World & Nebula

Text by Zaar Riisberg

I have known Eskild for quite a few years now - his sense of light and being is extreme in one so young - and he has been that way ever since I met him. I have seen him furious, but also seen him never taking it out on people. He has a rare passion that you can fuel - Imagine throwing Kafka, Dostojevski and Nietzsche at someone, and see them eat it up and ask for another portion. Backing the truck up, it all started with me showing him Albert Camus' The Stranger and telling him I wanted to do a film on it. Like me, he soon fell for Mersault.

Eskild is a filmmaker and storyteller with a talent for mixing new impulses with old school storytelling. His portrait of a young kid's sense of what a mother should be in Noumenon - tackles a hard theme in a low budget film with amazing cinematography - that is basically Eskild Krogh at the core: water from a rock.

These two videos confirm that postulate. If Nebula does not have you by the balls, you are either female or blind. It is one of those rarest of things, where you do not know what the fuck you are looking at, but you do not care, because it takes your mind on a journey across the universe to a place where time does not exist, a place that tenderly taunts you by dangling all the answers in front of you -everything you possibly could want to know- but packaged in such a way that only your heart and soul can know what they cannot formulate. Your frontal lopes left in the dark.

Martin J. Sabine // Is Online Privacy a Reality or just a Pipedream?

Our nation is controlled by opaque, amoral artificial intelligences -- and so are we. A lot of
people worldwide feel trapped by Facebook, the big-data platforms use AI’s to analyse, taunt
and manipulate us. Facebook is the worst of them, because most AIs are really only interested
in selling you stuff, Facebook is really only interested in keeping you engaged with Facebook,
and conversely, that often means filling you with anger and fear. Facebook has shown that a big
data AI can control our opinions and manipulate our emotions. But it's far from the only AI of its
kind, and this is just the beginning. The big data AI cat is out of the bag, and it knows everything
about you. Facebook is particularly powerful because it has convinced people to maintain an online presence and to log the contents of their lives within its structure. Most big data systems need several different data sources, collected from different sets of online activities, to create their profile of you: where and when you log onto the web, the locations tracked through your phone, who your friends are.

Facebook uses buttons and cookies embedded in web pages to build a profile on you even if
you don't hold an account with them and are just a visitor. But even if you have enabled an ad
blocker and don't ever click "Like," there's enough data out there for Facebook to trawl and to
find out plenty about you. It could track what your friends say about you, and use data collected
from other sources. If you have a whole network of friends who are local to you, there's a good
chance you live locally; if you shop at a number of stores or supermarkets in a local area, and
those supermarkets and stores share your loyalty card data with data brokers and then those
data brokers share it with Facebook, Facebook would be able to figure out where you live and
shop. Because there are so many data sources, opting out of Facebook data-sharing won't opt you out of the manipulations and predations of big data. If we're going to get a handle on these AIs, we need solutions that target the whole online ecosystem, not just one particularly obnoxious site. The conversation can't just be about Facebook.

One of the biggest AI growth areas is in accurate facial recognition solutions ... This AI
technology can scan 1 billion photos and recognize/identify photos in just one second."
According to the industry insiders, it's ready to deploy in banks, offices and hospitals. It won’t
matter if you don't have a Facebook account: Your bank card and loyalty card usage will be tied
to your face, and your bank will share that information with data brokers and credit reference
agencies such as Experian. You can't opt out of banks and stores. It will mean that every time
you step within reach of a camera, the AIs will collect data on you. Every time you use a card.
Every time you get tagged by a friend in a photo. Even trying to shut it down by denying
permissions and other close out methods won’t work the system is too big and intrusive, without
opting out of society entirely we are not going to get the privacy or protection we desire.
The other growth area and possibly the most frightening with regard to data collection and
spying is the move to so called “smart” products in the home. Products that you interact with
such as Amazon's Alexa and Google's Siri and a plethora of others with a benign presence in
the background such as lighting and fridge freezers and even toothbrushes that log how many times you miss brushing your teeth. All these items are in your own personal environment and
with regard to Alexa and Siri in touch with their respective manufacturers and managers every
minute of everyday, your viewing and browsing habits at the mercy of the conglomerates and
also the potential for smart TV's to actually being able to “see” you going about your daily life.
All companies that collect such personal information should be forced to request specific
permission for each destination they want to share data with -- blanket permissions wouldn't be
accepted. That would make large-scale data harvesting relatively inefficient, this in itself would
not fix the primary problem with Facebook. It knows enough about you, through your
interactions solely on Facebook to make you sell your soul for clicks and likes. Facebook needs
to grow a conscience and stop feeding off negative emotions. Blocking data-sharing would be a
little annoying. You might have to come up with different logins for different websites again. But
the only way we're going to free ourselves from a world run by AIs to break big data back down
into little data again.

As we know from recent coverage in the media Facebook at present, others will follow, are
being publically charged with selling and passing on privileged data to third parties and also
allowing their platform to be manipulated by “dark forces” to interfere with sovereign politics and
to proliferate “Fake News” which can destabilise governments and allow the threat of terrorism
to spread. I personally believe the time has come for a cold hard look at the way these platforms
operate or because of the amount of money generated by these huge corporations is this just a
“Pipe Dream”....