Politics Issue

POLITICS ISSUE

Uncategorized

Instead of republishing a source text in the beginning of this issue, as we usually do, we republished some links to interviews, news, images and articles that reflect the political becoming of our times.

Contributors found their words-links in an Angela Davis interview, the discussion between Bjarke Skærlund Risager and David Harvey on the political nature of neoliberalism, the articles Political Vernaculars: Freedom and Love by Keguro Macharia, Sisters Uncut ‘Reclaim’ Empty Council Home And Transform It Into Community Centre and The art of war: Deleuze, Guattari, Debord and the Israeli defence force by Eyal Weizman which was added to the list by Joey Frances, and the video Refugee crisis: Sea Cemetery which pays tribute to the Syrians who drowned trying to reach Europe. The following image found on Twitter was also a source of inspiration:

The Politics Issue features works by the poets, and artists Maria Andreou, Vahni Capildeo, Anargyros Drolapas, Joey Frances, Antonis Katsouris, Iordanis Papadopoulos, Tom Snarsky.

MARIA ANDREOU

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Opportunities

words-links: “dominant political vernaculars,” “announce a conversation about politics,” “the plan was to saturate as many spaces as possible with that vernacular” from “Political Vernaculars: Freedom and Love.” & “I’ve always treated neoliberalism as a political project carried out by the corporate capitalist class as they felt intensely threatened,” “counterrevolutionary project” from “Neoliberalism is a political project.”

I was born in Limassol, Cyprus in 1989. I moved to Paris in 2007 where I studied Design and Applied Arts and then to London in 2010 to focus on a BA (Hons) in Fine Arts. My practice is of a multidisciplinary nature that evolved with the use of drawing, performance, print, time based media and language. www.mariaandreou.com, www.twitter.com/conceptualsens

Vahni Capildeo

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SINCERE

From Etymology for British Voters

lit up with it:
sincere: sin wax
hot strips applied
rip out: without
wax or harvest:
sincere: counting
prived of zeroes:
since when since year
zero: limits
drip and take form:
face it: sincere:
pareidolia
scalding water-
fall: as if sinc-
is compounding
saxon before
this time rings break
for giving out:
he who gives out
must be in charge:
sincere: not these
romance roots: clean
unlike a lung

A NATIONAL LITERATURE

Poltergeist in the flat of the page,
s/he may be laughing & crying
as they write this.
You have no means of knowing.
Their oily fingers
burn like wicks; what they wear is white;
cloud conditions
appear sewn & sown; grey aircraft
could be stitching
your sampler house to the sky
you have no means
of knowing.
You have been sticking
postage stamps to trees;
would that go somewhere if you could
wait – your cult is
the messenger as message; you
hope to interest
the forest in a system of rebuke,
as they write this
in rooms where corners resemble
handbells; emulsion
came out of tins like mid-air milk,
staying hanging
till you notice between the lines
someone weeping,
weeping & being beaten;
there is always,
even between the lines that speak
of breaks & brakes,
always someone
else who was present in writing –
when you thought you
knew – who you thought you were reading –
no means – in the garden singing

word-link: “in” from Sisters Uncut.

Vahni Capildeo is a Trinidadian-British writer whose five books and two pamphlets include Measures of Expatriation (Carcanet, 2016) (shortlisted for the Forward Prizes Best Collection), Simple Complex Shapes (Shearsman, 2015) and Utter (Peepal Tree, 2013). She holds a DPhil in Old Norse and is interested in multilingualism, creative reworkings, and the boundaries between the human and the natural. Her collaborative work on performance and installation includes responses to Euripides’ Bacchae, ‘Radical Shakespeare’, and Martin Carter’s revolutionary writings from Guyana. The Harper-Wood Studentship (St John’s College, Cambridge) supported her travel for research during 2015-16.

Anargyros Drolapas

Uncategorized

Quantum tunneling | Κβαντοσηράγγωση

words-links:”From now on we all walk through walls!” from “The art of war: Deleuze, Guattari, Debord and the Israeli defence force” by Eyal Weizman.

Anargyros Drolapas was born in Athens, Greece. He studied Physics and IT. He has steadily pursued photography since 2010. His images have been published in online magazines, he had two solo exhibitions and has participated in various group exhibitions. adrolapas.com

Joey Frances

Uncategorized

smooth space

           in verse geo metry       on nablus
		
                                      ~          tri
angul ate   directional   fo rce
w regard             to control          again st 
trails o  f missiles launched 
to seek	   ffreedom for	      who & to what
                                      power flows    interpretation
                         also is                                    fire mountain
force    a reorgan isation
of the ur   ban syntax
                                      masks latent
arithmetic explosives	         not so
latent 	not so 	           arithmetic   now
but                         you have to           adm
         it          was a powerful argument
GO SMOOTH OUT YOUR OWN SPACE 	  colony
              no wait,
                          your out own go     space
                                                                    smoothly
as humans inter mingle with worms
and your quaint honour turn to dust
                                                               can order
disrupt itself in its favour?
         when refusal to obey           is
operative as command          ruthless critique
in service       of coercion
all manoeuvres are fascist poetry
“this building 	   is under occupation”
                                                  we yelled it
penetrating new boundaries    in people's homes
not inherently	          not   not divisive
             fall into    traps          not
to be  abstract   violence          but concretely
abstract ion of the living world
         is
violence already          travel through crumbling
walls of bodies only tenderly   with your theories

words-links: “reorganisation of the urban syntax” from “The art of war: Deleuze, Guattari, Debord and the Israeli defence force” by Eyal Weizman.

Joey Frances is based in Manchester. He is a member of Generic Greeting, a multi-disciplinary arts collective with whom he has collaborated on zines, posters, exhibitions and other events. He also co-organises the reading series Peter Barlow’s Cigarette. His first full collection, a l’instar de, was published this year with Knives Fork and Spoons Press. He will shortly begin a PhD on contemporary innovative poetry and ideological resistance. Find him at bubblethesedatasets.tumblr.com // genericgreeting.co.uk // twitter @JoeyFrances

ANTONIS KATSOURIS

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PAINLESS POINTILLISM

At the suburbs of Thebes, I met my Conceptual Father.
.
Clandestine practices and other room rituals of an Agoraphobic-in-Revolt.
.
Try the Proletarian Desire with your clothes on.
.
As the sun rises over Obediencia…
.
From a distance, Vila Violence was perfectly visible.
.
Your Lyrical Laceration, your charms, your air…
.
Systemic Splendour: a rather melodramatic synonym for success.
.
Grow your own Ennui Noir.
.
The contemporary aesthetics of Atelier Abuse.
.
Capitalist Fairy’s favorite motto: We can pay for the coffee so we have the dawn.
.
In my Digital Dreams all doors are closed.
.
The Arrogance Academy is shining under the spring light, freshly painted ego-white.
.
Someone strongly circles the words Coded Conflict.
.
Guiltless magic, with the essence of Enforced Normality.
.
Meet me at the Lower Eden.
.
Dear reader, we are trained to not confuse art with the Bourgeois Nightmare.
.
Avoid eye-contact with the Scattered Signified.
.
Driving to model houses on the hills of Privileged Porn.
.
Provide a separate place for petting Nervosa Negativa.
.
Autobody loves to cancel pathos.
.
From this state of paradox the Punishment Plethora has bloomed.

Welcoming the New Nothing.
.
Resistance Reverie: a glamorous and especially virtuous activity…
.
Systole and diastole of Patriarchy Parody.
.
Advanced Roleplaying is not everyone’s cup of herbal tea.
.
Banality Bureau’s comforting message: Repeat after me, repeat after me.
.
Hatewave brings yellow weather and some aura from Hell.
.
She loved the menu at Decadence Deja-Vu.
.
Survival Set sample.
.
In this Identity Parade, where everyone is performing a prayer… “Please tell me, how do I look?”
.
Did I mention the Throne Room at the Hotel Humiliation?
.
Exit Text. There is a book with this title, too…
.
Are weekends becoming too expensive at Safety Simulator?
.
Rejection Letter: the smart way to move through the world.
.
The Twilight Trauma and the new theory of colour.
.
Readymade Revolution. Available in S, M, L and XL.
.
The Official Forcefeeder promised me more forbidden food.
.
Dear Dead Muse,
.
The Nausea Narration has something for every taste.
.
It’s screen-time again and my Shark-Eyes can’t hide their hunger…
.
Various Dooms updated.
.
“In an era of Political Maximalism, politics invades all phenomena.”*
.
As the sun sets over Ruinette…
.
Never underestimate the obsession of the Hyper-Rich for funereal flowers.

*from “The Neutral” by Roland Barthes

words-links: “patriarchy” from the poster or graffiti “Death to Capitalism/Death to patriarchy.”

Antonis Katsouris is a writer, and the editor of the reading series “The Closet.”

Iordanis Papadopoulos

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On the march

words-links: “the art of war” from “The art of war: Deleuze, Guattari, Debord and the Israeli defence force” by Eyal Weizman

On the March is based on Sun Tzu’s Art of War, an ancient Chinese military treatise dating from the 5th century BC.

Iordanis Papadopoulos’ (b.1976, Greece) recent poems can be found in the following online and printed literary magazines and books: Futures: Poetry of the Greek crisis (Penned in the margins ed., 2015, UK), FRMK (iss.2, GR), Boscombe Revolution (iss.1, UK), POIITIKI (iss.10, GR), aglimpseof (iss.11,12, GR), Literaturen Vestnik (BG), M58 (UK). Bras de Fer (2015, Gutenberg ed., Athens) is his second book of poetry. He is a member of the live art group “KangarooCourt”.

Tom Snarsky

crisis, radical change, refugees

Song for an Unmerited Windmill

Total blank america
Mild hum america

Hand-rolled hand-
Rolled cigarette america

Already unhappy
& insufficient

Clothed in a white
Rosewater dilemma

Approaching
From the back

Of human history
With a razor

Hidden in god’s
Rotten jaw

words-links: “Young people are searching for forums through which they can express an urgent need for radical change.”- Angela Davis

On the Way to Biscuit City

All along the road the Professional
Jumpstarters are licking their chops,
Ready to help whomever needs
A helping that falls within their particular
Domain of expertise. Last week
The PJA had a big meeting and they
All agreed to double down on the
Party line that immorality is in the eye
Of the beholder vis à vis draining
Car batteries at local watering holes;
The rationale of course being that
It’s only an unfair advantage if some-
One fails to take advantage of the
Agreement, which was unanimous.

words-links: “The turn to neoliberal politics occurred in the midst of a crisis…and the whole system has been a series of crises ever since. And of course crises produce the conditions of future crises.”-David Harvey

ONCE THE EYE IS SHARED IT CAN NO LONGER BE MODIFIED

I’ve measured every window but I still can’t hear it burn
From here. The family has ossified & in its place
The State Garden is springing up & out of control; funds
Are being redirected as we speak to deal with this
Insolent problem, but the greens & their purples will not
Heed any monetary call unless they end up dead
Or otherwise manipulable. Right now they’re too wet
For flame, but this is just a temporary circumstance,
Liable to change within an election cycle or
Two. Give it time. Give it too your collective hope for love
& mutual understanding between people of good
Will; it’ll work backwards through the smoke-
Stacks to give you the right odds for spectacular failure.
Or: look out on the scattered vines & judge it for yourself.

words-links: “I used to dream of watching the sea. I hate it now.” from the video in the article about the water cemetery for Syrian refugees”

Tom Snarsky teaches mathematics at Malden High School in Malden, Massachusetts, USA.

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