Issuu

CURIOSX

no.7

IAN GERSON 10

SANDY WILLIAMS IV 30

COLIN KLOCKNER 48

FRANCHESKA ALCANTARA 68

JORDAN LOEPPKY-KOLESNIK 86

WYLEY DUFFEY 104

AGUSTINE ZEGERS 122

EVAN GALBICKA 140

RAUL DE LARA 156

NICOLE LEVAQUE 176

MCKEEVER DONOVAN 188

KATHRYN LIEN 202

CURIOSX is the seventh issue of a biennial publication produced by students in the Spring 2018 Graduate Seminar in the Department of Sculpture and Extended Media at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia. Begun in 2009, the project was originally conceived as a site to explore and give substance to the process of object-making, and articulate ways in which vital studio production is grounded in deep research. Certainly this mission continues, and yet given the nature of the current restless practices happening in the studios, Curiosx offers a glimpse into an active and ever-modulating articulation of art-making that challenges the very boundaries between research and production, folds disciplines one into another, and questions the very definition of what we mean when we use the word object. The result is a lively yet deeply serious inquiry that reflects the diversity of research modes and art-making processes embodied in the twelve artists who collectively form the VCU graduate sculpture community. As writing consultant and editor Lee Relvas brought to the task engaged, insightful, and witty guidance in working with students to explore the written (and at times spoken) word within each individual practice. Lee also contributed the beautiful introductory essay for the book. Siemon Allen, who has been my collaborator for Curious since our first issue almost a decade ago, again brought immense patience and boundless generosity in overseeing design and production. This publication, which would not have happened without the encouragement of Sculpture Department Chair Matt King, was made possible by the generous support from The Dean’s Office of the VCU School of the Arts and The Department of Sculpture and Extended Media. After thirty years of teaching, I find myself humbled by the certainty that I learn more than I teach, and more and more mindful of the preciousness of the fellowship for which the roles of teacher and student make space. At the end of the day, we keep each other company on what is a rich but circuitous journey, and it has been my great pleasure to walk for a time alongside each of these twelve artists on their exploratory creative path.

Kendall Buster Seminar Leader Spring 2018

FOUNTAINS: AN INTRODUCTION Lee Relvas On the first hot day of the season, I went into a park and discovered the true utility of a public fountain. Not a drinking fountain, an object with a clear usage whose distribution, points of access, and level of dis/repair correlates pretty precisely to the fluctuating notion of who and what constitutes the common good. This was a decorative fountain, with a less apparent function, towards which the common wealth had been directed. Its jet of water caught my eye from the park’s perimeter, partly because of its height; scaled to the coeval century-old townhouses that ring the park, it now seemed petite, almost miniature, in comparison to the skyscrapers surrounding that charmed circle. It stood in place and beckoned me near. The beginning of a new season dismantles the weariness of the previous one, over the course of a single day reversing that seasonal grind in which all thrills become cheap, and on this particular day I was as enthusiastically susceptible to the novelty of summer as a tingly adolescent, as though this was only my twelfth or or thirteenth summer instead of my thirty-seventh or thirty-eighth. I approached the fountain with the same intuitive surety a person on acid decides to inspect a leaf, alive to the possibility it may turn into a tiny purring creature in her palm; it was a day on which ordinary things might reveal hidden dimensions if I came loose-limbed and slack-jawed. The fact is that some things that are bad for the environment (waste of water) are good-looking, and I admired the fountain’s never-tiring, panting-pulsed puppy-lick of the sky. I don’t remember how close I was when I paused, since fountains are one of those few objects that don’t seem to have a singular ideal viewing point, but I know why I did: a slight breeze swept through the park, scattering drops of water from the fountain onto my skin. Its diffuse coolness contrasted with the toastiness of my shoulders and arms, and I was grateful to be made to notice both sensations after a year of dormancy. The fountain wasn’t there just to be looked at; its aesthetic was a beacon to guide you in close enough to make you feel. Epiphanies that strike under the dreamy sensuality of warm weather cannot always be trusted—or at least, tend to be less convincing in the aftermath. But this one has stuck around, this idea of a visuality that gains another layer of utility once you enter a certain invisible perimeter. So, when thinking about what question to pose to myself in order to write this introduction, I thought (in that half-lordly, half-tentative tone I use when bullying myself into writing): doesn’t an art book work in a similar way? I flip through art books in the same casual way I wandered toward that fountain: la la la, look at these beautiful images. There’s something about a book that is more images than text that primes me for delight. Especially upon first glance, I feel a supermarket-sweep of anticipation that might have its origin in impatience but clarifies into voracity; I can eat images faster than text, and sometimes delight is recognized by feeling equal to abundance. And then a turn of phrase will catch my eye, or a caption will reference some intriguing detail for 8

which I want to find the context—and I’m inside the words, and the words are doing their work inside me, and the feedback loop of reading and feeling has begun. And the images are the slide that has delivered me there. At least two different kinds of intimacy co-exist in the art book. There is the pining devotion to the art, in which the photographed artwork acts as a postcard from a place we may never travel to, but have spent much time wandering around in our minds nonetheless. The design of this particular book, and the visual contribution each artist chose, is even more generous with its intimacy; we sense that many of the images here reference no work but itself, imaginary islands to be found only within in this volume. And then we have the intimacy of the ongoing conversation with the text. As someone who’s spent far more time reading than “living”, it’s only now that I’m realizing, slowly, that reading isn’t there to prepare you for experience; that’s not its function. And is certainly no substitute for experience, which is why great risks can be taken there. Writing is there to be conversed, jammed, argued with and riffed on, but mostly, it’s there to be lived alongside, an intimacy whose convenience is testament only to the perfection of its technology that simply and perpetually allows us access to other consciousnesses and ghosts. Usually applied to fiction, this distinction from experience feels especially important to remember in the reading of artists’ writings, for there is this omnipresent idea that artists’ texts should be understood through necessity, as the key to the map of their artworks, or through excess, as the by-product of their primary artistic creation. This leads to a mediated reading of artists’ writings, as though they are instruction manuals for a step-by-step assembly of the more important artworks. But inside this volume is a polyphonic collection of artworks made up of words, as well as images. Some of these texts may be artifacts from the process of creating the included images, and some may fashion a lens which brings the included images into sharper focus. For some artists, that clarity may be the genesis of the writing and its desired function. But what is collected here—twelve consciousnesses in conversation with each other, themselves, and the world—has more than one function. And the reader need not concern herself with origin stories; she need not obediently follow the path of creation or intention. She can wander into the text equally, interestedly, unpredictably, and from all angles. The fountain can be approached on foot and the water can be experienced. So welcome to Curiosx, wherever you’re coming from. The dazzle of the visuals—and in Curiosx we are reminded that dazzle exists in so many different tones, textures, frequencies, and vibrations—draws the visitor invitingly close, and the writing effects its magic on a pore-tingling level. Each spray varies in intensity and pattern of droplet, but each one activates, refreshes, and renews the visitor. Welcome to the new season.

IAN GERSON

SANDY WILLIAMS IV

On Time We were all outside like normal Smoking like normal Tossing our butts like normal It wasn't until we noticed the smoke that I ran back outside Saw them burning in the bush All of the things with purpose Nothing with sense balal I hope it hits me like lightning I don't think I want to suffer It is hard for me to explain that for a long time I’ve thought I might die soon I’ve seen it written on walls Doctors tell me I’m fine but I don’t believe them I believe in curses I no longer trust fantastic Everyone keeps wishing me well but I want to be happy I keep telling myself, “I am a unique entity” But what kind of a universe would create a creature such as me? Everyday I work with vibrations Everyday I fight with gravity Everything pushing Without an outside we move in

A space between my ears A solid pit that won't fill The clicking of my bag now sounds like footsteps far behind me The body of a roach moving headlessly to lay its eggs Osmosis running across my skin so vibrant-thin and transparent The bloodsuckers already live inside me So now how are the boundaries? My body tried to quit so now I can’t trust it I objectified the moon and now she don’t talk to me A stranger broke my heart How do you get close to something that moves so slowly then quickly? How can you escape someone in orbit? If you steal my soul I want you to know it’s useless without me You won't learn anything about anyone else from me I can only tell you about me I had a dream about Candice that I’m still trying to understand. They told me Chris fell from his car and now he’s in the ocean. I still have nail polish on my big toe from our trip to Aaron’s funeral. When I cried my grandma told me god was probably saving him from something much worse but I know she’s not religious.

god is a metaphor atheism is a religion a rose by any other name i remember jumping off of that swing and flying way into the air seeing the roofs and the pink/blue sky red-orange-yellow sun far beyond my father’s reach when I landed safely my father said, “Thank God!” this past weekend when the eagles forced that fumble my father said, “Thank God!” god is a metaphor

title: 40 ACRES AND A MULE

hire a skywriter to trace the dimensions of a forty-acre plot in the sky ,

a square roughly ¼ of a mile on each side .

ask the pilot to write “40 ACRES AND A MULE” within said square .

document this event from various distances .

COLIN KLOCKNER

2031 Surrounded on all sides by an ethereal pink glow, Lucy stood before a crowd of about a hundred and fifty. A dozen aisles of hydroponic-grown produce led towards the distant, opposite wall and stacked several stories high. She paused, collecting herself, and heard the far-off sounds of agri-drones maintaining, testing, and harvesting vegetables. She fidgeted and heard the rustling of the crowd. She had brought everyone to this growhouse after calling for a strike, but she wasn’t sure what was supposed to happen next, or how long she was supposed to wait. K-Y territory is where most of this technology had been developed. Before

1. K-Y by Colin Klockner, estimated read time: 24 minutes

the development of the crowd-model state, the K-Y company was just the producer of an Easy To Clean, water-based, intimate lubrication. Students in the still relatively young K-Y schools were taught its history, repeatedly cycling through the same portions of local history with incrementally increasing complexity. Founded in 1904, K-Y had been an asset of the Johnson & Johnson company for most of the 20th century -- but it wasn’t until the early part of the 21st century that it began to shapeshift into something much larger. 2014

<?> Quantitative Easing (QE) is a governmental economic tactic in which a central bank injects new currency into an economy by purchasing government bonds. Or, as libertarians label it: printing money. The tactic was first introduced to the USA when, in 1933, the gold standard was abandoned in effort to stimulate the economy. <?> The first block of the shared transaction ledger (the "blockchain") includes the text “The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks” <?> The “proof-of-work” validation concept

Nicole Downing worked marketing at K-Y’s office in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Her small department consisted of eleven employees in a fluorescent-lit room with gray, tight-looped carpeting that made vacuuming easy. As a hobby, she was an armchair cryptocurrency enthusiast. Downing had invested a little money in Bitcoin, a platform that developed Nick Szabo’s 1998 proto-cryptocurrency, Bitgold, into a functioning model. While the mindset that drove early adoptions of cryptocurrency was based in Libertarian gold fetishization and in backlash at quantitative easing tactics that centralized banks had used during and after the Great Recession of 2008, Downing was a tentative ideologue. For her, crypto was primarily a ground floor opportunity in a new tech investment, an important development in an efficient, decentralized future. She was an optimistic consumer: she ordered home goods from Amazon to find the best prices, she would comment on her friends’ new baby photos on Facebook, she followed the decisions of tech icons like Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos and Peter Thiel so she could tell her family about the way the world was changing. Cryptocurrency was just the next stage of a networked society. That’s not to say that she had much to invest; she lived comfortably but was frugal with day-to-day purchases. With the little money she could safely set aside, she wouldn’t make significant gains even if cryptocurrency exchange rates exploded. Part of her wanted access to real capital just to see if her bets would pay off. She started to daydream about making a boardroom presentation to the right people in the company, someone who could make a big decision like how research funds were invested. The idea she lingered on solved the problem of her lack of access to capital. K-Y’s research budget could be rerouted from chemical development towards the development of its own digital transaction platform. It seemed that for the last three Spring seasons, the chemists' lab had introduced the same “Warming Jelly” product; reconfiguring the budget would soon be on the agenda. Downing reworked various versions of slideshows over and over, always returning to the same line: Why should we be limited to friction-free intimacy when K-Y could be lubing up the free market as well? The presentation outlined an idea that was a bit of a stretch, given her lack of tech background. She was a marketer, not a developer, after all. She proposed the development of K-Y’s own crypto53

currency, but with a novel approach for processing transactions. The majority of the ledger-verification landscape at this time consisted of large, well-branded cryptomining farms. A smattering of networked “mining pools,” which allowed casual users to contribute resources for aggregated mining, made up a fraction of verifications. The concept of pooling personal computing power was a useful push towards decentralization, but the not-uncommon presence of security flaws and the bad risk-to-reward factor posed problems for its adoption. The potential for networking the world’s summed computing power was great, though, if there was incentive for users to connect their home computers to a trustworthy peer-to-peer network. This is where Downing’s proposal resolved a problem that her marketing perspective could solve. K-Y would develop a pornographic camsite that would broadcast work-from-home webcam sex workers to the computers of masturbators from around the world, simultaneously harnessing the computing power from each masturbator in order to network the largest mining pool ever organized. Collectively, visitors to the site that consented to pay with computing power could reliably push forward the blockchain mining process with desire as the sole incentive. The models were paid in crypto, as they received 50% of the mined coin, while K-Y received the other 50% for hosting the platform. There was something incredibly romantic about it. Masturbators of all backgrounds would connect to video streams of exhibitionists and be virtually transported into the intimate setting of that sex worker’s bedroom. While the visitor furiously churned away towards climax, the computer’s fans would kick on as they similarly churned away, working, whirring, overheating, spinning, calculating, processing, computing, until: Oh! Mmmmmmmph ah oo mmmmm hhh oo hhhh, a K-Y coin… Every viewer that perused the index of pornographic feeds became a participant in what would become the largest mining pool of all time. A beautiful moment that was impossible to observe: not every time but certainly inevitably, at least a few participants in the pool would come on themselves at the exact same moment that the next block in the chain was successfully mined.

that Szabo outlined in ‘98 and that Satoshi Nakomoto implemented in Bitcoin in 2009 is the foundation for ensuring security in the shared ledger/ blockchain, and relies on “miners” and “users.” A miner dedicates computing power towards solving a computational puzzle for a number that is difficult for the computer to guess, but easy for the program to verify. For users that have engaged in a transaction, the amount of the transaction is recorded into the blockchain when the solution to the puzzle is found by the first miner to do so. This process cycles about every 10 minutes. <?> Cryptomining: investing computing power towards blockchain generated algorithmic puzzles in exchange for a coin reward (that is generated with each solved puzzle). <?> Initial coin offering (ICO) is the un-

---The release of K-Y’s website, cryptobate.com, and its underlying currency, K-Y coin, in 2017 was defined by dramatic gains and losses. This was expected for any new cryptocurrency with a high ICO. What it had that others didn’t was a mining base that appeared almost instantaneously. The use of computing power in place of cash offered visitors anonymity in consumption of sex. The payment of crypto, rather than taxable fiat currency, offered performers anonymity and tax incentive. Ultimately, the foundation was strong; cammers labored and miners came. Existing cam sites such as chaturbate.com and myfreecams. com functioned by reflecting the centralized banking model. Tokens were purchased by site visitors at a set rate: 1 token to $0.10. Cammers received 50 cents on the dollar, and since each respective to54

regulated allegory to the stock world’s initial public offering (IPO). It is the first coin valuation for buyers and is based on funds raised, market capitalization, total circulating coins, and mining algorithm used in verifications. <?> Membership at the president’s

ken of Chaturbate and MyFreeCams was inherently tethered to the US dollar, the income was reported, taxed, and subject to the same inflationary and deflationary tactics imposed by the Federal Reserve. Cammers on these sites were treated as freelancers, received 1099s on income received over $600, and ultimately found that the fiat currency they were forced to receive was built to depreciate. The K-Y mining pool model was conspicuous, and news platforms widely reported on the novelty of such a comical link between sex and capital. Copywriters oscillated between the punchlines Sex Sells and Lubricated Transactions For All. The flood of visibility increased mining power and investment, which increased visibility which increased mining power and investment --- (and so on). Investors seemed to be made up of a combination of those who had faith in K-Y coin as a currency and those who just wanted to time the market, but the day trading that was beginning to plague every other coin seemed to make up only a fraction of K-Y’s market cap. Transaction fees stayed low because the incentive for new miners was the pornographic process of mining itself. 2019 In two years of operating the currency, K-Y made billions in exchange gains and purchased itself out from under Johnson & Johnson. Downing’s improbable rise in the company restructured its hierarchy from the ground up, despite a brief episode in which a few executives claimed ownership for K-Y’s dramatic shift towards tech. This effort seemed to quickly deflate when it became clear that none of them could actually explain the convoluted method through which the currency functioned. Downing’s position gave her autonomy to propose further shifts in K-Y’s trajectory. Primarily, this led to an expansion in its retail capabilities when it rebranded its core company as a general online marketplace. All over the revamped k-y.com, the user experience was summed up in the slogan: Truly Frictionless. Downing’s vision grew to be all-encompassing, a gesamtkunstwerk of corporate synergy. Around this time, the sitting United States president was in political turmoil; he battled accusations that he was being blackmailed and manipulated by a sovereign foreign power, which led to a series of dramatic gestures towards impermeable national borders and corporate incentivization. This specific window of such explicit corruption in the U.S. government was new only in that it was seemingly visible to even the most moderate U.S. and world citizen, but it also functioned to open an opportunity for Downing, who continued to expand her scope for K-Y.

The United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) was founded in 1966. It began by promoting

the model of contained “free zones,” primarily in the form of Export Processing Zones—small, regulation-free, tariff-limited territories which were intended to act as temporary catalysts for stimulating economic growth. The logic, according to UNIDO, was that the model would stimulate growth that could ultimately be subsumed back into local economies once the zone had attracted foundational investment, gradually dissolving the “zone” and benefitting the local economy. The model disseminated quickly, and Export Processing Zones around the world quickly grew in scale far beyond what was originally proposed by UNIDO. The result was the proliferation of increasingly large zones, labeled Special Economic Zones (SEZ). The SEZ applied this idea of regulation-limited, tax-free space to territories as large as cities and often functioned as mirror images of existing metropolitan centers. The most famous example, Shenzhen in mainland China, was established as an SEZ in 1980 and in the course of 30 years, Shenzhen grew from a small fishing town adjacent to Hong Kong with a population of 30,000 to a global tech capital with a population of 10.3 million. For Downing, accessing and explaining to the President in language that would catch his ear was easy. Repeating his own appropriated campaign slogans back to him, Downing explained that establishing a metropolis-sized Special Economic Zone on the federal land opposite to Salt Lake City in Utah would allow K-Y to choose America First and, in turn, Make America Great Again. Downing flipped

through images of major special economic zones both in existence and in development—New Songdo City in South Korea, King Abdullah Economic City in Saudi Arabia, Dubai Internet City in Dubai, Cyberjaya in Malaysia, Shenzhen—and played a video that cycled through diagrammatic overlays and dramatic, unified skylines shot from a thousand feet up. The president was hypnotized by this echoed rhetoric that America was falling behind. Sixty-six percent of Utah’s land was federally owned, and outlining a massive plot West of the Great Salt Lake posed few problems. K-Y agreed that it would create a new job center in exchange for exclusive access to the West Utah SEZ. 2023 Much of K-Y’s marketing, development, and distribution 56

membership-only resort in South Carolina increased to $200,000 when he won the election, arguably a great value for gaining direct access to the executive branch of the United States, given the fact that he vacationed there each week. <?> James Berardinelli, Reelviews <?> A conversion which would

mine

branches had been filled by tech workers in their 20s during the shake-up, and the corporate culture of K-Y slowly began to embody my liquidity the faux-startup. New “fast-growth” ideas permeated the campus design: an internal scooter-share that conveniently kept scooter-docks by each elevator and aided employees as they traveled to the restrooms which, for some reason, seemed to be incredibly far from every main workspace; mandatory participation in K-Y’s social media platform; a “snack bar”; and other spaces that made your “work space” an alternative to “relaxation space” (still within the office). The whole thing was a nightmare, the older and vestigial employees agreed, but it seemed to keep the young people from burning out. Most everyone had heard that there was a nearby, spiral-shaped piece of art on the other side of the Great Salt Lake that could be visited, but it kind of just sounded like a boring park, so people went to the salt flats to smoke weed instead. Company growth continued. Since its use was streamlined into the online marketplace, the K-Y coin easily functioned as a currency rather than as a virtual asset. The system was something of a closed circuit: the K-Y marketplace provided goods, those goods were purchased with the K-Y coin, the K-Y coin transaction was verified by the computers of masturbators, the masturbators were incentivized by the performance of sex workers, the sex workers were paid with the K-Y coin, that currency was used to purchase goods from the marketplace. ---One evening in her Utah loft, Downing found herself watching the Turner Classic channel on K-Y’s video service as it programmed a marathon titled “Future Classics.” She sat with a plate of ravioli and a glass of merlot when the twenty-year-old film, Paycheck, (2003, dir. John Woo) turned on. The movie had elsewhere been described as "a bad film, complete with lackluster acting, brainless writing, and uninspired direction," but TCM was making a case. She remembered the title from a long time ago but didn’t remember its plot line, or didn’t until Ben Mankiewicz, in his Turner Classic preamble, glossed over the film and offered context: 59

"The 2003 film is an adaptation of Phillip K. Dick’s classic short story of the same name which was published in the June 1953 issue of Imagination, but veers quite a bit from the original storyline. In Dick’s story, “Jennings” is an engineer in a near-future society which, for high sensitivity and classified work, has replaced non-disclosure agreements with memory wipes. Jennings emerges from a job with The Rethrick Construction Company without memory of his work and returns to the outside world with a small bag of trinkets, only to find that the country has become an authoritarian police state that wants to uncover Rethrick’s secrets. Jennings learns that he secretly developed a socalled future-sight/scoop device, a tool which he tested on his own life to reveal the life-threatening pursuit that the government subjects him to after leaving the company. His bag of trinkets becomes a path to safety when he blackmails his way into Rethrick to escape the government. The story happily ends when he coerces his way into the corporation and learns that the company is developing military force to overthrow the government." Mankiewicz continued his lengthy preamble with metered, deliberate hand gestures. Woo's film adaptation (starring Ben Affleck and Uma Thurman), he explained, shifts this story arc: instead of the typical description of a fascist police state, Jennings emerges from memory wipe into the standard democratic-republic/capitalist America. The FBI jumps him and reveals that Rethrick has implicated him in a treasonous/murderous black market acquisition of government patents. Pursued, Jennings learns of the ripple effect caused by the device: nuclear strikes, financial panic, etc. The film ends with the destruction of the machine along with the corporation, unofficial amnesty from the government, and the happy-ever-after of Jennings in an idyllic scene: sharing a kiss with his lover, working in a greenhouse nursery, and having used future-sight to acquire a $90 million dollar lottery ticket. As the Utah horizon shifted colors from deep gradients into an overwhelming blue, Downing aimlessly scrolled through the Wikipedia listing for Dick’s Paycheck and compared it to Woo's Paycheck. In the film, Jennings finds himself hunted by both the company and the government, the former to undo his sabotage of the machine for profit, the latter to punish suspected murder/treason. The FBI, in this depiction, is made up of bumbling government workers—paperwork functions as truth, etc—yet, the audience witnesses an agency that is semi-effective and works under the impetus of (some bureaucratic vision of) justice. For Rethrick, however, the free-market acts as the only equivalent of this higher truth. Downing poured another glass of merlot and paused to check her K-Y coin value against USD. She understood this narrative shift a bit: at the time of Dick’s published version, the idea of the be60

need to be dated and timestamped in order to

nevolent state was stained. Bookended by the authoritarian regimes of the mid-twentieth century and coming out of WWII and the Korean War, the subject matter of an honest, homegrown company (i.e. a band of individuals) could be earnestly looked towards in Dick’s text. The Affleck depiction transitions from this Dick libertarian vision of freedom towards a liberal, reformist approach; the government is simultaneously bumbling and able to potentially prevent global catastrophe by imposing modest regulations, maybe one that said “no future-sight.” Downing had chewed on this question before. What could K-Y do for the world with its own currency and its own marketplace? Her mouth opened the slightest bit, a bubble forming between each lip before disappearing without a sound. She was having a realization. The government had already offered its own absence with access to the Utah land (regardless of how rabidly the CentristLeft government lobbied against the SEZ since regaining two branches of government in 2020). She was leading a company in an unregulated territory whose currency was self-regulating, whose business provided good work, whose market provided goods for fair prices, and in a place that had started with virtually zero infrastructure prior to K-Y’s investment in it. Was this not an image of a successful state? What more did her employees and shareholders need? Food? Defense? That was the easy part. They already produced food in hydroponic grow warehouses and the rest could be purchased. ----When K-Y’s online market announced that it would no longer accept the US dollar as payment, a series of events unfolded. The K-Y coin dropped in value against the US dollar briefly, and the conversations that US Congress members held in private in offices and hallways came to a consensus that these coins were not going to be reconverted back into US currency. This was a consensus which led to a deficit panic: K-Y employed more than 700,000 people who would no longer be paying income tax if they only operated in K-Y coins. U.S. tax laws regarding cryptocurrency still treated it as any non-liquid, valuable object; crypto was an “asset,” so gains were taxable only when owners exchanged back into USD for profit. After K-Y removed USD payments, Congress scrambled to make a change in the way this taxation functioned. For the first time in three decades, they could agree on something: cryptocurrency would be treated under the guidelines that the IRS had set for “foreign currency” rather than the ones it had set for “assets.” Based on IRS laws already surrounding foreign currency, this applied the mandate that income received in foreign currency be tax-reported as a US dollar equivalent. This created a problem. By recognizing K-Y coin as a foreign currency, the United States inadvertently pushed K-Y towards recognition as its own sovereign state. The most widely recognized criteria for statehood was drafted in Uruguay in 1934 through the Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States. It contained four basic tenets, that a state has (a) a permanent population; (b) a defined territory; (c) government; and (d) capacity to enter into relations with the 62

verify the validity of the conversion value. <?>

Despite this optimism, however,

these state-cryptos functioned to simply emulate the state in a new method of technology, so they ended up not so different than the states from which they emerged. Centralized, non-anonymous, and tax-oriented, they didn’t offer what was alluring to many about crypto. <?> Also off the table was a cyber attack aimed at undermining trust in the currency, since cryptobate.com had recently adopted a decentralized server model that diminished effectiveness of a direct denial of service (DDOS) attack. <?> "Neo-reactionary" as a term was coined by Arnold Kling to describe the works of Curtis Yarvin

other states. In some form or another, each of these aspects was fulfilled by K-Y’s setting in the West Utah SEZ. The employees lived on campus, the Special Economic Zone had a clearly defined territory, the shareholders voted intermittently on integral issues to the company, and the marketing team could manage diplomatic concerns. By attempting to solve a long-term problem (the decentralization of economies), with a short-term solution (a quick tax fix), the United States pushed K-Y into statehood and slowly realized there was little authority it had besides direct attack. Many countries had for years recognized the threat that cryptocurrency posed to the very structure of the nation model, even if not grasping the full scope of abstraction that an intersection with SEZs might usher in. Any magnetism away from fiat currency was lost tax dollars, lost local trade, lost power. Several nations had come to understand that there were two options available: decimate trust in the very notion of cryptocurrency, or develop your own. If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em, or something like this. Dubai had been the first country to release its own cryptocurrency, emCash, in 2017. Estonia had pressed for a more abstract model of residency, coining the term “e-residency” mostly as a means for cashing in on foreign tax income by offering international businesses a legal home, and established its own state-sponsored cryptocurrency, Estcoin, as well. For the U.S., this was no longer an option. Liberals vaguely advocated for regulation of K-Y’s operations inside the country. Proposals for efforts to reign in the secession stuck on tactics similar to those employed by the CIA in the 20th century to finance and incentivize internal rebellion. The far left and the far right recoiled from these proposals of attack for opposite reasons: the left because of the imperialist implications of an attack, the right because of the anti-business implications of an attack. The country wound tightly against itself as K-Y organized. 2030 Lucy posed in her bedroom, arching her back and adjusting her shirt. A small LED next to her computer’s camera glowed and she watched herself inside the video frame of her browser’s cryptobate. com. Two hundred miners were tuned into her cam channel, but she would wait for fifty more before it was worth removing her clothes. She found that the snowball effect functioned here. If she started taking her clothes off too early, her peak numbers and her generated computing power stayed lower than when she held off, so she continued to tease. Presenting herself to the camera, she adjusted her body so it stayed inside the frame. There were certain ways of holding self that attracted viewers faster. That wasn’t a new discovery, but rather a reversal of tactics she had learned in middle school to reduce instances of men commenting on her body. At that time, it was a guide for reducing visibility; on Cryptobate, she rarely dropped the performance. Her head remained tilted to a slight angle almost all the 63

time. When her chin stayed low, close to her clavicle, she touched her tongue just behind her front teeth and dropped her lower lip. She put one hand over the other near her knees to push her chest together. If she lifted her chin, she would pout her lips and reach back with one hand. Sometimes she would break this alternation by opening her mouth wider, as if she was saying, Oh? She watched as the viewer count rolled over to 252 and rubbed at her eye, which was bothering her. She had autonomy in her chat room. She could ban anyone being mean, demanding, abusive—whoever she thought deserved it. Earlier on, when she had first started camming, it hadn’t been a problem. Her broadcast was a place where she worked and where her viewers kept her company, but lately a group had been spamming her room with demands that made the space feel gross. She tried to keep up and kick them out but at a certain point, exhaustion took over and she tried to ignore it. There was an IRC channel named #Cryptocammers where she and other cammers kept in touch. Lucy logged on after she finished her broadcast, which had been plagued by this new annoyance. One user named lillybell221 wrote, “u haven’t heard about NRx bros?” Lucy refreshed her mail and then typed, “whos that?” lillybell221: “o it’s all these boys that are like combination tech bro + philosophy bro that are spamming cryptob now. i accidentally tinder dated one and it was s o awful. i think they’re just rich and hate the government” Lucy had seen “NRx” in the handle of some of her chat room commenters but thought it was just some trending handle decoration, like five years earlier when everyone had corporation names as usernames in order to almost disappear. She looked up “NRx” and a slew of pages came up describing “The Neoreactionary Movement,” or “Dark Enlightenment.” They were dense; she skimmed them. It seemed to be some sort of philosophy movement from the 2000s that had a bunch of trickled down political movements sourced from its core, centered around an antidemocracy/anti-egalitarian ideology. It seemed to be mostly men, and the linked groups idolized Lee Kuan Yew’s privatization of Singapore in the 20th century, believed in disempowering women, fantasized about ethnostates. Lucy wondered if this was like the boy she had dated last year who seemed to try to explain Žižek every time they ate together (always with a tone that seemed to ooze proclaimed genius, as if he was the first person to explain the postmodern subject to her), but he had been pretty harmless even if he was an ass and broke all the time. 2028 a.k.a. Mencius Moldbug and Nick Land, who first used the heading "Dark Enlightenment" to describe the type of ideology being outlined as an opponent to elightenment thinking.

Along with K-Y's independence from the US had come a sudden visibility of employee-citizens who identified as Neoreactionary. There must have been an undercurrent of these men in the massive growth the company had gone through in the previous five years, not only in software development but certainly weighted towards this 65

field.

Downing explained to the board, "The problem is that their interests in independence align with ours, but that that means something very different for them. Because of that, it is a real problem." The board muttered and nodded, but seemed less troubled. The group was vocal and quick to disseminate its vision of corporation as platform for autocratic rule. They galvanized behind a mid-level manager in software development named Brett Erickson, demanding his replacement of Downing as CEO/president of K-Y Territory. The element of internal politics was not new to Downing in the dramatic decade of growth that K-Y had gone through, but the introduction of internal political parties was very new. The decision to isolate the company from the US had been made with some amount of curiosity as fuel. What would happen if this company could provide everything? Is that even possible? The notion that the experiment might function as a country had crossed her mind as a complication that she might not be able to handle; still, the idea of “running a country like a business” seemed to encourage the notion that an approach to governing via business (rather than attempts to inject business into government) might be a more direct route to an efficient, virtuous state. In some ways, she imagined K-Y as a centralized government with emphasis on the worker-citizen; in others, she imagined it as a business with a strong benefit package for each of its employees. The NRx population aggressively pushed Erickson into visibility, and his public demand for increased profits gained traction as a sound bite, even amongst those who didn’t understand what implications an NRx political platform carried with it. K-Ys transition to political statehood had made it a perfect vacuum for a persona like Erickson to rise in power. The transition hadn’t involved writing a constitution, it had relied on its existing company policy book as general guidelines for acceptable employee behavior, and rested on existing US and Utah laws for covering the remaining legislature. There was a fair amount of interpretation to be made regarding term-length. In the middle of March 2029, Downing found herself in a room being offered by the board of trustees the opportunity of resigning rather than being forcefully ousted. With Erickson as the new CEO of K-Y Territory, shifts in public space were dramatic. Cryptobate.com shifted its monetization policy and the prices on K-Y marketplace went up. A social atmosphere took hold that somehow simultaneously mimicked the rigidity of Taylorist business tactics and the flexibility of startup companies, while still projecting an otherwise playful atmosphere that touted Joyful Consumption as ideology. Cammers for Cryptobate were increasingly isolated following public discourse that Erickson led about social order. Part of K-Y’s infrastructure began to make space for isolated cam rooms. Cryptobate became justified as a space for isolating young women’s sexual energy. Erickson’s rhetoric here rested on the notion of protecting young girls from themselves until they were mature enough to manage a household and raise a family. The SEZ grew, consuming large 66

tracts of Utah land, with each expansion adopting increasingly strict borders. Downing watched the shift of K-Y happen over the next three years. The exchange of rhetoric increasingly adopted the notion that these changes were “realist,” protecting K-Y’s constituents from the floating non-reality that egalitarian, democratic approaches to government put forth. She attempted to exert influence with her remaining contacts in management but her efforts were fruitless. She transitioned into a calm life against the backdrop of the K-Y salt flats. She watched the news and saw that SEZ’s around the world had come to function as sovereign corporate spaces, mimicking K-Ys trajectory in a compressed timeline of autocratic growth. --On May 1, 2031, her phone let out an alert. Sliding her thumb across its screen, her crypto app emerged in a soft glow. On the screen, a graph showed a sharp drop in K-Y coin value that was triggered just one minute prior, plunging from 1KY = $15,217USD to 1KY = $4.24 USD in just 10 minutes. All of Downing’s fortune was worth nothing in a moments notice. Her heart pounded. Though KY’s coin value had stopped returning massive gains since she had stepped down, such a significant drop was nearly impossible. She pulled out her laptop and navigated to cryptobate.com to check in on transaction verification. What was normally an endless grid of thumbnails with people posing and fucking themselves in small bedrooms was, instead, replaced by a single thumbnail from user LucyLucy07 of scrawled black lettering on white that spelled out CAMMERS ON STRIKE = CURRENCY ON STRIKE.

FRANCHESKA ALCANTARA

Black Unicorn On plastic covered sofa Eating mangos While Shells are washed to the shore Orange coveralls With a video camera Taking a selfie Moisturizing with coconut oil Red Cayenne Hard as concrete granite Ants carrying teal cotton candy Around adults Checkered pink dress Reading the last drop of coffee Harvesting honey In a robe

JORDAN LOEPPKY-KOLESNIK

i’m a filthy pig wallowing in yr scent, gulpinghelplessly.fucked,thruandthru, arushoftheinevitabledowntoyourfeet. crying as you fuck me. i’m hiding it. i’m healing.tearsstreamingdown,keeping me hydrated i need all these fluids after allthissweating.i’mcompletelydrunk.i move without thinking. my hand on my face like i can’t believe it. i slap myself hard can’t feel a thing. i’m tonguetied, speechless, confined to thinking all this. making myself heard through sweat and movement only. i end my sentencesbycollapsing.leadingtheway somewhere in front of me. here on the floor, dead skin and dead hair molting, washing off with cool water raining down on me, i’m just a surface to hold.

pleine de tendresse pleine des questions pleine un manque de soins d’action vas-y on y pense aléatoirement oui je pose la question mais non je suis pas permis c’est-à-dire une partiea de chaque moment contient une trace de celte pensée pour l’instant je veux simplement poser la question je supplie la moment de me laisser tout seul, laisse-moi penser pour quelques instants avant de concrétiser ces idées câlisse je parle trop des moments je devrais parler plutôt de l’avenir ou des rêves peut-être

tous ces mots sont rien que d’évasion

a gush comes thru and i’m weak, my knees give out completely, fold in half, kneecaps pop off. they’re floating forward, leading the way somewhere in front of me.

allow access to the pores even after the burning sensation starts taste freshly each time reassure based on taste the tongue’s instinct for death is more trustworthy than your hands or eyes or skin even nose

don’t

neglect

your

asshole

allow your nose to run, snot to bleed just drip

don’t be afraid of pungency

become friends with lactic acid. get to know exhaustion one efficient way to do this is swimming upstream

salt water heals all wounds

ask me to go swimming on a moonlit night

i was burning the candle down to the stub three ghosts walk in and you don’t feel the door close your robe was just touching the floor. i wonder how many mosquito bites on my arm? whatdoesthishavetodowithmegettingu? ithaseverythingtodowithdesireandfilth. a run-on sentence - then oblivion when we were there at the pond. it has to a lot to do with reptiles, the filth of amphibians. and sticky skin. like you’re a ghost, getting less and less and letting light thru your palms it’s like when you don’t quite remember what you were thinking. that moment you’re confused. there’s that moment, and then the pond. like an afterimage caught on your eyelids i don’t really know. but how could i? and should i really know what you lived? is there really any point to me knowing?

like an afterimage caught on your eyelids there’s this pond. and then what?

bawling, emitting light that light i use to see in the dark at night.

like xanax; a substance that causes desaturation your veins ice cold when you have a feeling of dread

ghostly vibes all tendons out today they feel like winter, freezing til they crack lying there for hours discussing circadian rhythms.

inner eyelids helping you filter

water, dirt, dust, filth, insects, aliens, ufos

38 days and it starts to get better. 45 days and i’m a new being. 101 days and i’m somewhere else.

“do nothing” I said to them. the best alien motto. don't be seen, don’t be heard. blend in. fruitless earlobes distilled exposure by half details still fuzzy

my name yesterday was lost my name today is what it was yesterday

refresh, wait we wait being human

you hold it til you sweat. they dare you to keep holding. you give in and keep going. they dare you to keep going. you just want to prove them wrong and prove it to yourself. you keep holding, your arms shaking, veins popping, your hair wet with sweat. sweaty palms slipping on the smooth surface, you keep holding, the effort almost breaks you, you keep holding don’t let it crack, don’t lose your focus. they yell at you - fuck you! - you won’t lose it - fuck them! the sweat keeps coming, it’s a stream. the sweat is a babbling brook, your habitat. an amphibiousness comes over you all you can do is stare through the current up at the ceiling covered in sweat.

13 days i’ve been waiting and it’s getting painful. 18 days i’ve been waiting and it’s getting unbearable. 21 days i’ve been waiting and it’s starting to set in that i’ll be waiting here until _______________________________.

that light that comes out from the ends of your fingers, when tongues are touching, the light from the simmering spit, while it’s vapourizing. that light that i use to see in the dark at night, that converts everything to its stickiness. bits of everythingoneverythingelseinthis noxious night-light, flowing from eyeballs coating everything.

104

WYLEY DUFFEY

WEEK AT A GLANCE Monday It gives me some pleasure to hear my roommate scurrying around, trying frantically to gather everything she needs for the day before I wake up. I knew she was in the apartment before I heard her tiptoeing because Louie went from snoozing contently in a ball under my ass to darting under the sofa. I open one eye and see a flash of bleach blonde hair, black tights, and neon shoes dancing the desperately quiet and lonely tap of avoidance. I could play amateur therapist. Help her confront the inevitable. Exposure therapy. I will be sitting on her sofa in my undies (hoping the oils and sweat from my groin would have built up enough to absorb into the fibers of the sofa forever) with Louie grooming in my lap, waiting for the delicious registration of shock and embarrassment in her eyes before i say,

The injection was relatively painless last night. I pierce mother once a week. Feeling bratty and spiteful and very horny, I have turned back time and will never grow up at this point. I think about that one mannequin leg in my studio and still haven’t unpacked. There's such a familial comfort in excessive clutter. I don’t want to be bound by the same neuroses. I want to have everything I hold dear on my person… knotted to or in a lover, their scent locked in the whiskers of my hairy asshole, dumb cartoons that make me laugh inked on every inch of my skin. (Yes!) I don’t flatter myself to say I’m an exquisite corpse, more like an experimental corpse, a kind of becoming. Or not. I am dying in mother’s eyes. I’ve been “dying” for a while. bzzz.

“please look at me and tell me you didn’t fuck me over.” You’re not as nice as you think you are. And I never was. I can be a petty, spiteful brat. Most 20- somethings are garbage anyway. I’m a product of my own discontentment. I play with the spike of a single black hair that has been growing from a mole on my face since who knows. Last night some guy online commented on how hairy my asshole is. I guess he didn’t understand what he was getting into. Exposure therapy. Fuck ‘em if they can’t take a joke is a mantra I allow to circulate in my psyche, a childish declaration that still makes me laugh. I guess that makes me the clown. I pick at the angry red boil on my nose that keeps regenerating because can’t keep my dirty little paws off it. My mother said it makes her sad that my voice has gotten deeper. That I do not sound like myself. I roll around in my own bodily juices that had secreted throughout the night in the nest I had scooped together before my slumber. I slept in today. I feel a pang of guilt but also self-satisfaction. I bzzz to myself quietly, thinking about how i am going to start my day. I groom in rumination, offering the blood on my fingers to my Louie who laps it up. I swear i feed him. I don’t tell mama about him, it would give her false hope. I had a dream i was humping a man as a man atop of her collection of children’s books she’s been gathering in hopes of co-raising grandchildren since i was about 14. I didn’t expect curves and breasts. I didn’t expect the utilities to go in my name.

Tuesday I awoke from a dream that was startling because I wasn’t very startled by it. I had given birth to a human child and after some time it transformed into a plastic baby doll. This was much to my relief since it looked like my brother. This isn’t the first time I’ve had an incestuous dream. It only happens when I fuck men. He reminds me of my brother. I didn’t see it until we were stoned out of our minds together. It’s horrifying How fake and far away everything feels in the middle of it. To suddenly look outward and see the dump I’ve created for myself. It hurts to think who can see it first. This coffee tastes terrible. The inside of my mouth tastes terrible. The taste is unbearable when its mirrored in another mouth. Forcing its way into mine. Sloppy, wet, unwelcomed. I find myself in the company of people I have to be very drunk to Enjoy.

Wednesday Puberty. Molting tarantulas. I avoid calls from home and wonder why I’m still waiting for him to go to his meetings. Having the apartment to myself for now isn’t so bad, so I ignore my roommate’s texts. My pimply shoulders distract me from hating my nipples, disappointing colleagues, and being indecisive. I can’t commit. I watched a man eat his own excrement while I played with Louie. I wish I had wifi so I could watch more movies. I want to be alone but not really. I want to die but not really. I turn up the music to drown out my neighbor’s whiny screeches. Posing. Posturing. I don’t feel in control. I eat until it hurts. I leave the mess to go wash dishes and wait around some more. Self preservation Self destruction Vice versa It’s a fucking tomato. Everything is stupid and boring. Community service I can’t help you.

Thursday New roommate young professional. creative. artist. writer. full of shit. that’s more like it. Nice to meet you too.

Friday I wait outside for my money while the bar managers inside snort lines with the dollar bills that should be in my pocket. I walk painfully to my car parked somewhere, a t-u-f-f poser on the sidewalk. Scowling behind my frames, I roll my shoulder back when a pack of boys pretending to be men wobble past, squawking at each other like stupid birds all at once about nothing and not listening because boys pretending to be men dont know how to listen

Saturday I am scared of being stuck In a place Where i have to wait on drunk men. Where i’m counting down the hours Hoping i get enough sleep Its never enough. Where i’m bored numb. and i can’t look at people in the eyes Because it hurts to hate. Where i have to compromise. Where puddles of piss soak into my soles Where i am patronized by women Who don't believe me when i say i am old enough to work Because i am aging backwards But i can't say that. I’ve ruminated to the filter Time to go clean.

Sunday My body aches and my mind is in a pissed-off tangle. My emotions narrow down to horny, sleepy, enraged. My little nub of a penis tingles against my tight-fitting pants. Most of my pants are tight fitting at this point. I hate pretty and polite work. There's no hiding behind Wide-eyes and smiles stretched for approval No laughter after every word I belch out. bzzzzzzzz. I gnaw on his hair ever so gently and he doesn’t realize it's slowly disappearing. It's thrilling to feel the hair pass through me, Bristling the soft, slick linings of my digestive organs. Acidic bubbling sometimes escapes my lips as a weak burp as my juices try to break down the hairs into a more easily digestible substance. But that's no fun. I wouldn’t feel the splinters as they penetrate my colon and fester. My digestive tract becomes a memory book, A curio cabinet of china and silverware that I’ll never bring out for special occasions because the idea of having guests over is laughable. We all keep secrets from the ones we love If we really opened up and shared what turns us on, we’d lose each other. Because we are that sick.

122

agustine zegers

un ruido ambiental generado por trazas, lecitinas de soja transgénica cultivadas masivamente en América, procesadas en China y revendidas a empresas de alimento para usar de relleno, emulsionando cadenas de suministro global metabolizadas por mi intestino.

an environmental noise generated by trace substances, GMO soy lecithins grown en masse in América, processed in China, re-sold to food companies to use as fillers, emulsifying global supply chains metabolized in my gut.

Emulsificante lecitina de soya Soja Salsa de soya (sal, proteína hidrolizada de soya, glutamato monosófico como potenciador de sabor) lecitina de soya fibra de soya Contiene soya. PUEDE CONTENER LECHE, SOYA Y ALMENDRAS Emulsionante (Lecitina de Soya) emulsificante (lecitina de soja) Contiene Trigo, Gluten, Cebada y Soja. emulsionante: lecitina de soja (INS 322). Proteína vegetal de soya texturizada Contiene soya. Poroto de soya orgánico (26%) Elaborado en líneas que también procesan Sésamo, Soya y Sulfitos Proteína de soya Poroto de soya Proteína de soya (25%) EMULSIONANTE: LECITINA (SOYA)

SOYBEANS BLACK SOYBEAN CONCENTRATE SOYBEAN LECITHIN CONTAINS SOYBEAN red miso powder (cultured soybeans and rice, salt) Vegetable oils (contains one or more of soy bean oil, sunflower oil, canola oil, palm oil). Soy flour Contains wheat and soy. soy crisps (soy protein isolate, rice starch, calcium carbonate, [mixed tocopherols vitamin E] for freshness) soy protein isolate CONTAINS SOY AND ALMOND INGREDIENTS. May contain traces of peanuts/tree nuts/milk/soybean. MAY CONTAIN: PEANUTS, OTHER TREE NUTS, MILK, SOY, WHEAT AND EGGS. SOYBEAN OIL SOY FLOUR CONTAINS: WHEAT, SOY. Manufactured in a facility that processes peanuts, tree nuts, soy, wheat, milk, eggs, sulfites and sesame products. MAY CONTAIN SOYBEAN AND WHEAT. SOY GRITS SOY LECITHIN Organic Soybeans Contains Soybeans. ORGANIC SOYBEANS CONTAINS: SOY. Soy Lecithin (an emulsifier) Emulsifier (322 from Soy) MAY CONTAIN TRACES OF SOY SOYA flour (11%)

Encuentro descanso en las comidas que imitan el movimiento de mi cuerpx mediante la importación, idasvueltas internacionales en container, barco, avión. Mi cuerpo recién entendió que llegó aquí con 5 meses de atraso, traduciéndose en partes.

Movidas vacuas, coreografías de importe/exporte mandadas por legislación de transgénicos y clima inclemente. Saltarse temporadas. Capital perenne.

I find comfort in foods that mimic the movement of my body via importation, shipped back/forth through the globe in vessels. 2-day shipping, standard, boat, plane. My body only learned that I moved here 5 months after arriving, translating itself in parts.

Futile movements, choreographies of import/export mandated by GM legislation and inclement weather conditions. Seasonal time leap. Perennial capital.

100 mL Soy Dream Soymilk, Vanilla Enriched (botella 946 mL). Manufacturadx para distribución por: The Hain Celestial Group, NY, USA. Comprar en Kroger, VA, USA. $2.49 USD

150 mL leche de soya orgánica caserx, sin sabor. Usando Laura soybeans, 5 lbs bag. IA, USA. Comprar en USA, despachar por Amazon. $16.99 USD

150 mL leche de soya orgánica caserx, sin sabor. Usando Poroto de Soya Orgánico El Manzano, 1000 grs. BioBío, CL. Compar en CL, despachar por cambiatunutricion.cl. Importar a USA en maleta. $3,987 CLP

100 mL Pacific Select Soy, Original (botella 946 mL). Producidx in USA, distribuidx por Pacific Foods of Oregon, OR, USA. Importadx a CL por Jumbo (Cencosud). Comprar en CL, importar por correo de CL. $2,959 CLP

150 mL homemade organic soybean milk, unflavored. Using Laura soybeans, 5 lbs bag. IA, USA. Purchase in USA, ship through Amazon. $16.99 USD

100 mL Soy Dream Soymilk, Vanilla Enriched (946 mL bottle). Manufactured for distribution by: The Hain Celestial Group, NY, USA. Purchase in Kroger, VA, USA. $2.49 USD 150 mL homemade organic soybean milk, unflavored. Using Poroto de Soya Orgánico El Manzano, 1000 grs. BioBío, CL. Purchase in CL, ship through cambiatunutricion.cl. Import to USA via suitcase. $3,987 CLP

100 mL Pacific Select Soy, Original (946 mL bottle). Produced in USA, distributed by Pacific Foods of Oregon, OR, USA. Imported to CL by Jumbo (Cencosud). Purchase in CL, import via postage from CL. $2,959 CLP

Una planta perdiendo su forma, mantenida generacionalmente en líquido, salsa fermentada, contribuyente fitoestrogénico. Monocultivada, procesada industrialmente, hecha traza o agente aglutinante, hecha polvo en barra proteínica, comida de perro, salchicha vegana, pan procesado.

Capas interespeciadas, leche de vaca con dieta de soja, productora de consumo humano. Huevito de gallina, trazas diluidas a través de cuerpos mamíferos, acuíferos. Capital emulsionante, líquido, penetrante, agenciado.

A plant losing its form, maintained generationally as a liquid, fermented sauce, phytoestrogenic contributor. Monocropped, industrially processed into dust or congealing agent, becoming protein bar residue, dog food, vegan sausage, processed bread.

Interspecies layers milked from a cow on a soy diet metabolizing for human consumption. Chicken’s egg, traces diluted throughout mammal and amphibian bodies. Capital as emulsifier, liquid, penetrating, agential.

140

EVAN GALBICKA

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156

RAUL DE LARA

As an immigrant who didn’t speak English back when I was a professional BMX rider, I mainly remember the way my bicycle, wooden ramps, and I communicated. By blending my body with my bicycle, I conversed with skate parks through mute actions. I became attuned to silent dialogues, actively translating the foreign language each new ramp’s inner life possessed. Letting our presence linger with one another broke language barriers, a synchronized dance. One too many injuries denied me the pleasure of continuing BMX, but soon the field of sculpture was where I found an analogous mode of communication and self-expression. In sculpture, tools become extensions of the body, materials transform in space as they travel, and spoken words are unnecessary for communication. It was in this muteness that I found fertile grounds for developing my own language. How do our bodies perceive reciprocal care from the built world, and how are our preferences articulated in the objects that surround us? I am talking about the direction your favorite plant grows, the speed in which a sandcastle crumbles at your feet, the way furniture needs your body. I have a peculiar feeling that objects feel sad due to their neglected potential as emotive brokers. I think we should process their willingness to communicate not only through our limbs or taste buds, but also through our humor, our culture, our class difference. The world would be a much better place if we got to know our neighboring objects more intimately. I would like to let my sculpture take you out to dinner: collective memory as the appetizer, mutual desire as the entrée, discoverable pleasure for dessert.

How to Deal with a Carpenter's Ghost

So you’ve decided to accept this new job as a furniture maker. The shop is in an old red brick textile factory located at the heart of Chicago’s neighborhood of Pilsen – now a 25-yearstrong furniture factory. Rick, the owner, your semi-alcoholic boss who likes to overshare emotions, sees something in you. Like he has found an untapped virgin well. He sees financial and emotional potential. The kind of unworn soul that youth can bring to the table. During the first week at the job, a series of mysterious life-threatening events take place. Monday: It is 6:14am. On the way to your first day at the new job, you crash your Vespa. After you get your shit together and stand back up, the car that cut you off is nowhere to be found. The crash does not stop you from going to your first day at the job. You walk in and pretend nothing happened. The ripped clothes are your style. Tuesday: you have to skip work because you wake up with your neck completely locked from the accident. Your visit to the hospital leaves you with a gorgeous neck brace that resembles a fat, white goose feather pillow swallowing the entirety of your neck. Wednesday: you are not a fan of the neck brace. It makes you feel clumsy, like you can’t maneuver the way you need to, and the job is hard enough as it is. Still, you insist you are totally fine working this way to Rick. The secret embarrassment of the crash kinda keeps you hustling low-key. As you are drilling a dowel hole into a thick piece of wood, the wood crumbles and the 1/4” drill bit penetrates your hand from front to back. Thursday: with your neck brace in place, hole in hand, pit in your stomach, you work. You feel that hole in your hand ripping open with every movement of the day. Rick asks crassly: why are you making it so hard for yourself to work here? Friday: for the first time, you stay after-hours to work on your art. You are all alone at the shop. You spend a respectable amount of time preparing all your measurements and cuts. The moment is here! You are finally getting to slide your fingers across these Ferraris of power tools. The first cut on the table saw gives you kickback, and a large chunk of walnut flies towards your face at 200mph, missing you by half-an-inch. You are frozen by fear, and mesmerized by having a piece of wood disappear in front of your eyes. You hear a huge BOOM behind you. The flying piece of wood has exploded a 4’X4’ window. You drop to the ground. Panic attack. You chain smoke 6 cigarettes. “Fuck calling Rick right now, fuck this job and fuck this place”, your mind says. Should you actually be responsible and give Rick a call, or simply get out of there while you can and never come back? You decide to call your sweet mother first. She calms you down immediately and strongly suggests that you call your boss and let him know what happened. She reminds you that “accidents happen”, but you know this mess isn’t just an accident. You call Rick. Rick chokes on his own tongue when you announce the window situation, hangs up immediately, and leaves you with nothing but silence. You spend the weekend talking with roommates on whether you should even show up to work on Monday. Everyone believes that you are now officially jobless.

Monday comes around, and you decide to show your face at the furniture shop. The first thing you see walking in is that damn hole where the window once was - a big eye looking back at you saying “YES, you did this and everybody knows”. Then you meet Rick’s eyes. He points at you and beckons you over. There’s an odd feeling in your stomach that you are about to fist-fight this guy. “What happened?”, Rick says. You have nothing to say except that it was an accident and you have no idea why it happened. To your surprise he forgives you, gives you a high five, and tells you to get to work. Glad that he only has to deal with youth’s mediocrity and not a dead body, he suggests that you watch YouTube videos of people dying from table saw accidents. That day, Orejas (whose name translates to Ears), the only friend you have at this place, tells you about Pepe. He was one of the original founders of the business. Pepe was the kind of wood virtuoso who loved to ridicule anyone who fucked up at the job. Orejas tells you that Pepe was all business during work hours, and during the weekend he loved to blow his entire paycheck on delicious cocaine and Tequila. The abuse of substances made Pepe look older than he really was, yet he was unstoppable monday through friday. One day, Pepe came into work feeling very ill and two weeks later died. The cause of his sudden death was never announced, leaving an eerie vacancy at his workstation. Orejas tells you that the ghost of Pepe has been haunting anyone who gets hired ever since. The last two people either got hurt or inexplicably quit on Day One. You are his third victim this month. Desperate for answers on how to stop Pepe, you search the deep web, and text all your pseudopsychic and/or astrologically-inclined friends for advice. Your only certainty is that you are willing to risk the skin off your back for this job, but maybe not any major organs. After navigating your way through a ridiculous digital rabbit-hole, you are left with enough helpful info to piece together the following ritual to guide you and anyone else being haunted by a carpenter ghost: • If you survive that week, save a piece of glass from that window you broke. • Make a wooden horseshoe and screw it onto your work table. Two drywall screws will do. • Once that first week is over, wait for the next full moon of the month. (steps 4-11 should all be done during this full moon). • Pick up a pack of yellow American spirits and a medium-sized bottle of Patrón tequila. • Get on the rooftop of the building. • Be alone. • With your left hand, hold the shard of glass you saved from the incident at 1.5ft from your face. • Reflect the moonlight onto your face. To keep the portal open, you must have the moonlight reflecting onto your face for the entirety of the process.

• Crack open the tequila bottle. As you sip, introduce yourself to the ghost, and talk about the reasons why he should accept you as his successor. Show respect and appreciation for his lifelong commitment to this particular craft. • Once you are halfway through the bottle, close the portal by saying goodbye and throwing the bottle and shard of glass off the edge of the building into the parking lot. Don’t aim for anything, just don’t fall off. • This should change the way things go at your new job. Good luck. In the problem of ghosts which bend and flex lies the whole difference between the two world philosophies – I. Flexible essence. II. Built up stuff. – T. E. Hulme, Cinders.

Well all the Apostles—they're sitting in swings Saying "I'd sell off my Savior for a set of new rings, And some sandals with the style of straps that cling best to the era" So all of the businessers in their unlimited Hell where they buy and they sell and they sell all their Trash to each other but they're sick of it all And they're bankrupt on selling And all of the angel They'd sell off your soul for a set of new wings and anything gold They remember The people they loved their old friends And I've seen through 'em all seen through 'em all and seen through most everything All the people you knew were the actors All the people you knew were the actors Well, I'll go to college and I'll learn some big words And I'll talk real loud Goddamn right I'll be heard You'll remember all the guys that said all those big words he must've Learned in college And it took a long time I came clean with myself I come clean out of love with my lover I still love her Loved her more when she used to be sober and I was kinder

– M.M. 1997

Self-portrait at the Guggenheim with Maurizio Cattelan's golden toilet, 2017

She was running. Heartbeat. Heartbeat. Heartbeat. At this point, they were so deep in the desert that going back would take just as long as the road left to cover. The night was so dark that no one could differentiate between the north star and a sweat drop meeting the moon light. She was about 5’2”, pregnant, not the best dental work, no Prada. Heartbeat. Heartbeat. Heartbeat. The night shadow cast by cacti resembled who they were running from: Border Patrol hounding. The only Coyote to trust was at the very front of the line. He had been doing this for years now yet didn’t trust himself enough. The kind of confidence one gets from practice does not apply to someone crossing people from one country to another. Heartbeat. Heartbeat. Heartbeat. Only a fool would carry a ton of weight on him. Having to carry the weight of a baby on her chest reminded her of the kind of comfort her feet felt after a wild night of dancing then having to walk those stilettos miles back home in the rain. Under this pressure, fluids from a carcass would have tasted as good as those bottled waters from Fiji. Heartbeat. Heartbeat. Heartbeat. Felix had saved for this moment. He worked his ass off at a cheap sushi restaurant serving tables, secretly developing an encyclopedia of scents from people who were regulars at the place. Some would bathe themselves in perfume and high heels while others simply reeked the stale scent of someone looking for a place to fuck some sushi up on the cheap. Heartbeat Heartbeat Heartbeat. In order to keep all these bodies undetectable through the desert, the Coyote had taught everyone a hand gestures language, the only safe way of communicating. With illiteracy as their first language, words would again show themselves inadequate once they got to the other side. Heartbeat. Heartbeat. Heartbeat. A scream pierced the air. She was giving birth to their first child. Son of the desert, the predicament. Heartbeat. Heartbeat. Heartbeat. The Coyote kept the pack moving. They knew what they had signed up for, and no one in the pack was going to let their guards down. Felix found himself on his knees, crying not the kind of wondrous tears he imagined from a delivery room. Crying because he would have to decide between continuing to the Promised Land alone, or stay and experience with his own eyes the death of his newborn and wife. Heartbeat. Heartbeat. Heartbeat. I met him at a Mexican restaurant in Texas.

You know who is writing the next book? Not the person waiting to read it. Each is a truth insofar as it satisfies the reader Let it be Of the nature of pleasure, The pleasure to devour To be a fountain in someone’s thirst Naïve to the nature of clou ds Never seen the same storm twice.

176

NICOLE LEVAQUE

LOOKING FOR LEASE 1. Are there junk drawers in model homes? I’d say so. They are filled with unanswered questions. Off-gassing carpets. Paint chips of nail polish and cotton swabs of fiberglass insulation. The pink kind, full of glass shards that hardly count as shards they are so small. Dust that stings like poison ivy reduced to the diameter of a pore. The stained-glass panels are made of polymers, the lights carved from foam. They give off the heat of the door you touch to check if the flames have spread. They cheat too many too quickly. A lease on life, on love. Remember the drills? You’re told to crawl through a gutted bus, its insides are carpeted, reminds you of a motel you stayed in late summer at a beach town you’ll never go back to. This inland town relied on a freshwater lake to pretend it was the ocean. Its shorelines came in and out with the storms instead of the tide. The undertow moved faster than flames caught on curtains. Days became defined by the strength of the pull that would bring your legs so quickly out from under you. Your body would be best to submit, since fighting would only tire you faster and bring you no closer to the surface. This submission laid the brickwork of your body today. In the bus the carpets release that sticky scent of plastics, a too heavy sweetness. You note to be careful not to let the pile under your knees and palms give you a burn as you crawl towards the door. On your knees, burns come from friction not flame. Reach out to the closed metal door before you, the one scaled down half its height. Use your palm still red from the carpet and find it warm to the

touch. Forgetting the drill, you feel the weight of ten quilts on top of you. Your body’s temperature rises to the point where you would have woken from a dream with sweat between your legs. The bus becomes the trailer. Removed of its mobility with a cinder block foundation. You can now understand the path the fire took. From the ceiling hangs lavender in dusty bunches, a wreath of baby’s breath, roses in shades of dry blood and carnations that should have been a corsage. The flames will eat these drying flowers. Some steam while the lavender catches and turns to ash. The burns come from friction not flame.

through the comment section. Time is spent, bought, wasted, given, lost. Makeup tutorials. Painting composition. Nail art.Nail biting. The smell of the store it is bought in.The smell of the travel and labour that has made it. Customer reviews. Consumer platforms. Groupon deals. Sales. Clearance. Overstock. Forums. Ratings. The collections of strangers. Buy rate repeat buy rate repeat buy rate repeat—I like trying to find beauty through faking it. I’d rather suffer from imposter syndrome than amateurism. What’s the difference between the handmade and the mass produced? Does it matter if custom weavings are bought through a mobile app? Remember, the smaller the screen the fewer the tricks. It’s all because hoarding is passed down through genes. Already storage is held in four cities and there can’t be a fifth.

THE BETTER THE FOCUS, THE BETTER THE FINAL POST 2.

The hawks try to convince us that screens can stand in for reflective pools, blue light has the same effect as dunking under the surface of a pool and looking at the sun through the water above you. Scrolling mimics throwing change in a pond and making a wish. All the powerpoints and presentations elude me. My hand-held documentation isn’t a misrepresentation.

I like the contradiction of images and words it’s probably because language escapes me. See I knew French. As a child I could understand the commands given to me, I would listen and know what to do, what to say, but then something happened. I can’t remember what, but I think if I could I would understand why I can’t speak French now. It’s my mother tongue, but one I don’t speak, one I don’t understand, known and forgotten so early. Do you know your mother tongue if all you can speak of is food? My father was born with it, and my mother learned it; my mother and I both lack our mother tongue. Unknowing meant secrets, so it’s ok.

Scrolling as a platform for units of time. Learning from free tutorials, non-experts, laypeople. Consulting sped-up footage that only gives half the answers but the whole of a narrative of another’s life and space. Community is found

CHOOSE A SIMPLE BACKGROUND

A: No, they are thinking of email bankruptcy. Relationship bankruptcy. The fear of finding out their lifestyle causes these types of bankruptcy. New job, new city, new country, new language, new people, new lovers, new clothes, new pets, new number, new email, new hair, new skin issues, new plants, new dead plants, new address, newhome, new sheets, new commute, new debt, new tan, new scar, new habit, old habit, new diet, new weight new loss, new trend, new failure, new money, new accounts,new stories retold, new path,new stores, new laws, new fears.

4. I make lists of working titles. I make lists of activities I want to name but don’t. I look for beauty in the bombardment of selling something. I think of commuters as victims to the corridors that link them. Workdays are spent window shopping this economy of ugliness. Collections of still lives are brought out to buy, backed by a two-way mirror that sets the stage for a show that never happens but is defined by chance, giving value to the luck of picking up this rather than that.

Q: Can hoarding be passed down through genes?

THAT>THIS THAT<THIS THIS>THAT THIS>THAT I have staged this corridor of commuting before setting foot in it. I have given slow gazes to the miniature monuments lining these halls. They stand in for moments of grief. I resent “less is more” for seducing me with a minimalism I can never embrace.

Choose a simple background. Describe in detail your ideal still life, of compulsions and collecting. Stained glass made from crucibles of plastic that is found on every inch of sand. Sand turning into glass turning into plastic beads and recycled bottles of dealcoholized beer. Bottles turning into glass into sand into those soft plastic pebbles underfoot. I beachcomb an ocean of sponsorship. I have a mistrust of this beauty. Imagine a red sky at night sailors delight sky. Rocks larger than two torsos together form a stage. They sit before a lake whose shores change with the seasons not tides. Open water that stands still like glass or rages in whitecaps. Red sky in morning, sailor’s warning. Within limits there is truth in this saying.

5. Q: When a commuter passes through a lobby do they think of the flower arrangements that have passed before?

A: I hear family anecdotes of hoarding and see this trait in myself. I hear family anecdotes of moving over oceans putting value in material and visual impressions. I hear my own anecdotes disregarding these thoughts, devaluing my processions. Q: I love objects. A: But I treat things badly.

6. When I pass through the lobby I think of the large stain on the table. It’s the size of my fist and forearm. The stain is actually a deletion, a spot where the original stain was stripped away. Bleached not quite white. It’s almost exactly like the stain on his calf. The spot where that chemical was spilled and the pigment from his skin permanently erased. Erased in the shape of a splash and a run. The same size, my fist and forearm resting on his calf, where the calf meets the shin. The hairs that grow in this patch are translucent, not white, but clear as cooked rice noodles. And I remember his hair caught in my teeth, the dark hair and the almost red hair of his face caught in my mouth. The stain grows into two torsos, becoming an unfinished diary entry made up of only one list.

7. The junk drawer stands in for a drunk life, a junk life. Together we’ll engage in an illogical system of arrangement and renovation that I alone have begun.

188

MCKEEVER DONOVAN

y eyes open to the glow of red numbers on my bedside table: 6:48. The creaking floorboards have jarred me awake an hour ahead of schedule. My neighbor’s foot flexes around the shape of my skull, each toe pressing the wood, squeaking into the corners of my half-conscious brain. I roll onto my back and stare up at my lofted ceiling—stretched like the belly of a drum, amplifying all the percussive steps and knocks of these shelved occupants. Another pair of feet has joined, and their collective weight hovers directly over the tip of my nose; the muddled conversation tickle the back of my molars. I close my eyes as they tread off, past my outstretched left arm and towards the kitchen. Somewhere up and to the right of me I hear the sound of water rushing through the network of pipes; likely the tenant two floors above me, whose waterline also runs through my unit. I shower each night before bed, but from what I can hear most of my neighbors have a morning habit. I take comfort in knowing my sheets are always clean, but reconsider my approach as I make a foggy descent into my day. I pause to listen longer: this time, the sloshing suggests something more active than the tub pooling up. Perhaps they’ve had a washing machine installed. Above me, the stove clicks on, pots clang and skirt across the metal countertop. I often see the couple’s bowls strewn about the porch after they’ve rushed out the door for work in the morning: spoons half pressed with the palette of a final bite, cemented raisins and scraped mush swelling and baking in the afternoon sun. I can hear the spoon stirring, clinking against the pot, softer and duller with each turn. The slow thickening of the water and oats amalgamating into glutenous mush.

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My pants swish past the stocks of my legs, planted and lifting one by one, as I head to the axis immediately above theirs and decide to make a kind of solidarity meal. I stir my own concoction; the steam collects and ascends in a widening column warming my face as it’s sucked up in the ventilation hood where my forehead rests. I stir again and the two ingredients slouch into one. I sweeten mine with syrup and sliced apples and sit on the back porch, listening to the radio and checking my email. I momentarily confuse the ring of another neighbor’s alarm with the starlings that chirp outside my window. The phone’s digitally translated bird calls are soon joined by a slowly building vibration, that crescendos in a violent buzz from their bedside table. This bedroom sits below my living room, laid out in a duplicate floor plan. The buzzing reverberates in harmony with the hum of my refrigerator and the song of the real starlings roosting in the crevices of the brick facade. This species was brought here by a pharmaceutical manufacturer in the 1890s who desired to introduce every species of bird mentioned in Shakespeare to the US. These birds can warble, whistle, chatter, make smooth liquid sounds and harsh trills and rattles. Over the months these two invasive species begin to blend into one, the starling soon learning the repeated chirp and squawk of the iPhone’s looped alarm call.

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The air is warm in this orchestral hum and my coffee has now passed through me into the drain just east, partially filtered through my kidneys’ tubes down into the hole in the floor. All of the building occupant's coffee pisses through this strata inside a stretched network of metal pipes and plastic fittings. Once, I had to pull up a floorboard to fix the plumbing, and came to understand that an eight inch horizontal expanse exists underneath the floorboards. People aren’t meant for this space. It’s a space meant for tubes and wires. The only other species that I know to exist here have slipped through the filtered slats of my floorboard: dimes, corn chip fragments, pennies stuck with hair, seeds and bits of paper. Everything else too drenched in this level's essence or exceeds my view to describe it here. We learn much later that there are more places like this slivered space in this building as well as openings that widen into cavernous rooms down below. In these spaces, the pipes and wires don’t duct efficiently, but instead bleed out. The wooden beams and plaster drink up these lost energies like leeches and slowly release a steady drip of fluid to the lower levels. Down here the factory has been acting as a layered sponge ending down below like a weighted diaper that fills and hangs at its final bottom. The cocktail made from this building’s collective drainage and residual heat pools down here. The shower that drips as well as the residue from the countless bowls of oatmeal all eventually find their way down to this secret swamp. Newly aligned microbes and foreign gases build and ferment over time. They are eventually broken down into their constituent parts and stored in large drums ready to be pumped out for the harvest.

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KATHRYN LIEN

Tasting in October Winter Layout Linens Vendor list June 20

Napkins Vanilla Swiss almond Pack toiletries Pretzels crate stuff Pretzels food Lime tree Muffin Snacks Bedding Pillows Pack Make cracker jack Install bag Gym 330 Performance 4-430 De-install as much Work 530-9 De-install rest Hire someone Jam Sausage 1/2c stone ground cornmeal Milk Trash bags Eggs Watermelon Onion Garlic Peanuts Pepper Matzo Queso fresco Banana Banana chips 455 have tote bags in bathroom for clothes 505 hide bags with clothes in back of space 555 have bags for clothes in bathroom 605 hide bags 650 signal Michelle to leave, bring her clothes to bathroom 750 Signal Joy to leave, bring clothes to bathroom 850 signal Natasha and Kari to leave Right side pole ½” from top Ends 2” down Ends 4.5” from wall Radiator 25 ⅛” tall Left pipe 3 ¼” from floor 4” from wall at center Leftmost: 1 5 8 10 11 13 15 17 19 21 24 25 28 Next: 1 3 6 8 10 12 14 16 19 21 24 27 Next: 2 4 7 9 11 13 15 18 Next: 1 4 9 13 17 20 Rightmost: 1 5 6 9 12 15 18 20 22 24 26 28 29 Cork Scissors Notepad Pencil 4 7/16” Charger for drill 3 sheets OSC 9 2x Paper towel Punts

Matzo TP Queso Coconut milk White thread Black thread Foam Fusible interfacing Long zipper Needles for machine T shirts Wall to window outside 30” Window inside 38 ¾” Wall to window 52 ⅝” Floor to sill 33 ¼” Wall to door 4” Door 37 ½” Door to wall 80 ¼” Joann Two-sided interfacing Very long zipper Cushion foam Yeast Butter Sugar Whole milk 3c heavy cream Lemon Veggies Frozen pizza Coffee Bananas Snacks Veggies Freezer bags Vilano beach Last roofing aisle Baling wire 4 yd. duck canvas 2 yd. interfacing 4 yd. 3 in elastic White thread Olfa blades Arugula Cucumber Garbanzo beans Bell pepper Bread Raspberry preserves Whole milk Cheese Corn Fix resume Dogwood Peas Pasta Tomato Peanuts Chips Strawberries Raisins Apples Navel orange

Cumin seeds Milk Candy store Cat litter Coconut oil Veggies Sugar Vanilla extract Plastic wrap Class handout Sew Lecture Half and half Peanuts Canola oil Eggs Almond paste Parchment paper Cilantro Parsley Red onion Onions Eggs Sweet potato Gym Daniel Print out Pages Clean studio Black pepper Cashews Creamer Dried fruit Garlic Potatoes Tomatoes Peppers Eggs Bleach Eggs Pumpkin seeds Chipotle Tomato Pepper 500g flour 1 Tbsp. baking powder 220g sugar 300g butter, at room temperature 2 eggs, at room temperature, beaten Good homemade jam from berries of your choice Preheat oven 400F Knead dry ingredients together with butter Add eggs Work until smooth Shape into 25g balls Indent with pointer finger Fill fingerprint with jam Bake 15 minutes Eat when cool Faviken, Magnus Nilsson Chips Paint white thing Jessica paint table

Gym class Daniel vet Laundry Bananas Peanuts Blue Tape Short screws Sparkle Sparkle knife Sand block and paper Virtual window 5.5 sides x 62” Pages Readings Ask about steamer Plaster Get bleach First Carrots Coconut milk Cashews Butter Bleach 6 1x4 7 2x4 Needles Bleach Dehydrated onion Tuna 2nd smallest Onion Lettuce Cucumber Black pepper Lollis Sm Half n half Butter Milk Job Medicine Feed other cats Food Butter Sugar Eggs Veggies Schedule car inspection Windex Booze Meclizine Freezer present Drawer present Pack Presents Clothes Shoes Toiletries Cookies Pretzels Crate Coat

Toys Treats Latke fest Pumpkin pie Final review Book signing 3 eggs 1.5 tsp cinnamon 12 oz. heavy whipping cream White sugar 16 oz. pumpkin puree Half and half Krispies Mini marshmallows Butter Chex Kale Sugar cooks Coconut oil 3.5 oz. Eggs Heavy cream Whole foods New grand mart Mama noodle Spoons Sriracha Speculoos Toast sugar Potatoes Apple sauce Sour cream 2.5-pound butternut squash Carrots Pretzel nuggets Cheese cloth Shut pc down Red button Side ride switch Close drawers to seem locked Cover pc Z zero Plate and spindle clip Cut part Vaccine on Spindle on Dust collector Open file Start AP flour Pasta Rudee tour Dec-Feb 15 Butter 8 oz. cheese 1 can evaporated milk AP flour Butter Marshmallow 10oz Krispies Tomato can Pretzels Reese’s Laser level

Pastry brush Speed square Pistachio Common sense Locations Universe Wildcard Handmade Edible Physical Wildcard $75 Pretzels crate Food Food bowl Treats Water bowl Covering blanket Jacket Leash Harness Our stuff Soda Shoe bag Jessica’s clothes Contacts Glasses Deodorant Water bottle Aleve Razor Toothbrush Soap Tooth past Pillows Comforter Baby’s makeup Baby’s mirror Garment Furniture Email w draft Ceramic burnout P7 area c 12ft Toothbrush Toothpaste White IDs Laptop and charger Phone charger and butt Headphones Contacts glasses Deodorant Blade runner 630pm Friday Sub Rosa morning? Soda Pasta Tomato salad Card Eggs Half and half Sleepy tea Half and half

Carrots Eggs Dry beans and popcorn and making popcorn BladeRunner American practical navigation Bookstore Hominy Fire roasted tomatoes AP flour Fudge pop IB proven Aleve Milk Eggs Syrup Brush 6oz jumbo shells 15oz whole milk ricotta ¾ c parmesan Basil Parsley Litter Salt Crackers Pretzels Bittersweet choc Soda & chips Sewart Eggs 1c heavy cream (9oz) 11oz whole milk Fantastic bleach Toilet paper AFO policies Speculoos cookies 20 min 13-39-13 Pink drama Egg Peanuts Fudgesicles Crackers and cheese Get scans from comp Kiln Tiny drawing box Shorts and pants 3 days for four days 2.5 for two days 2 for two days Organizing underneath bathroom cabinet Dusting dish towel Murphy’s The arbitrariness of the linguistic sign banana banana Buns Parchment 1200 e Marshall 3rd floor gateway building No eat or drink after 7pm August 8 7am P5 b Observation 17 cardiovascular procedure and care Sugar Flour

Plastic freezer bags American kingpin 47 reserved Loans - July 30 Peanut sauce Preserved limes Butter Cheese Toast Tomato Fudgesicles Can you paint carpets? Shellac bb foods Room drawing Popcorn pants HROP book Displaying it all Light fixture Random things Japanese potato salad Dust of pepper dust 1c peanuts Veg oil Parmesan Butter Whole milk Eggs Onions Bacon Salt fat acid head 26 x 30 15 x 26 Salt Cod Oyster 255 x 182 x 10ft 88.5 Desert Bool slides blank shoes 13 ½ 8½ Tracts Chicken wings Parsley Eggs Dill 95 x 57 Cabbage 36” tall 27” wide F11 s40 Frisee Lardon Spinach Beets Black beans Us vs 95 barrels alleged apple cider vinegar Y1.5 tbsp. yeast (4.5tsp) 6.5c flour 3c warm water 2.25tsp yeast 3.25c flour 1.5c warm water 1 1/8 tsp yeast 1.5c plus 2tbsp flour

Half and half Cilantro Ground pork/beef/etc. Lime Queso fresco Pasta Bread flour Whole wheat flour Serrano Collard green gratin Harissa maple carrots Brussel sprouts Pumpkin pie Apple pie Parker house rolls Ginger cookies Sticky buns Decaf half sugar extra cream medium Oil TP Garbanzo Ern Malley’s poems How do you remove all of the oxygen but none of the mass from a pear? 1015am 253.88 Due Oct 25 Xfinity 4c flour 1 ½ tsp salt 13 fl. oz. water Baguettes Nov 11 10am 11958 W Broad St. 23233 4th floor Utilities J shirt 3 ½” shorter Joanne’s Zipper Shampoo Conditioner Lowes 600 paper 2 bolts 2 clasps Rope for handles Fresh ground coriander and cumin seeds Powdered turmeric and paprika Red pepper flakes Uncle Dave’s tobasco chili flakes Salt & pepper Honey Stuffed dates w gorgonzola in speck w dried plum puree Just under 2.25 5150 230 MPS Light blue thread White thread Hoodie string 40 in Half and half Veggies Maybe tofu

Eggs Gumbo and grits and collard greens Cinnamon rolls in morning Fruits Roses Cute heart things Clean everything The once and future king Emily donor rice Drill Bits Charger Sewing machine All of the thread Fish sauce Sugar Veggies Carrots radish cucumber Vinegar Rice vinegar Oilers Cloves Cardamom pods Fennel seeds Dried chilis Ginger Turmeric Chill powder Coriander Coffee Eggs Bananas This Or #2 #3 #1 #4 #5 #6 #8 #9 #10 #13 #12 #11 7472 Scott jelly tweets Sixteen at four feet 168000 MPS In Trinidad, KFC delivers Split Fried chickpeas Toasted coffee Corn chips I’ll deal with this latwr Body wash Coffee Prescription vitamin D Shrank 9:30 pm House shoes

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Tasting in October Winter Layout Linens Vendor list June 20 Tasting

CURIOUS SIX

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CURIOSX is the seventh issue of a biennial publication produced by students participating in the Spring 2018 Graduate Seminar in the Department of Sculpture + Extended Media at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia. Seminar leader: Kendall Buster, professor. Artist designs: Francheska Alcantara, Raul De Lara, McKeever Donovan, Wyley Duffey, Evan Galbicka, Ian Gerson, Colin Klockner, Nicole Levaque, Kathryn Lien, Jordan Loeppky-Kolesnik, Sandy Williams IV, agustine zegers. Cover design: Colin Klockner. Editors: Kendall Buster, Siemon Allen Text editor: Lee Relvas. Design consultant: Nicole Killian. Layout and production: Siemon Allen, Flatinternational. Published by the Department of Sculpture + Extended Media Virginia Commonwealth University 1000 West Broad Street, Richmond, Virginia, 23284, USA P.O. BOX 843005 804.828.1511 www.arts.vcu.edu/sculpture © 2018 Department of Sculpture + Extended Media Virginia Commonwealth University. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without prior permission of the copyright holder. Fair users are of course free to do their thing. ISBN 978-0-9845865-4-7 Printed and bound in China by Permanent Typesetting & Printing Co. Ltd.

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