Category Archives: Zeitgeist Movement

Young women are feeling empowered to raise awareness of sexual harassment since the unfolding of the #MeToo movement. While this has resulted in a greater willingness to partake in political conversations, for some, their voices and experiences remain unheard.

The #MeToo movement first originated in 2006, when Tarana Burke began using the phrase to tell all women who had experienced sexual violence that they were not alone. Five years ago, actress Alyssa Milano made a long-lasting impact on women who have been sexually abused by replying Me too to someone elses tweet. This created a ripple effect of several women sharing their personal stories of sexual harassment, which led to a viral international phenomenon. Since #MeToo began, it has left some women feeling heard, hopeful, and optimistic about justice. But it left others feeling vulnerable, embarrassed, and ashamed that society now deemed them to be victims. This demonstrates that social media can be a great tool for raising awareness, but there can be a viciousness to it. To mitigate this, we need to recognise that sexual harassment is not a problem faced only by individuals, but a global problem, one that will require a diverse cultural force and innovative solutions.

Equal Opportunity to Create Impact

Social media does have immense potential for achieving positive social change. Think of the Human Rights Investigation Center Lab, launched in 2016 at the University of Californias Berkeley Law department, which investigates human rights infringement and war crimes by sifting through social media content. Since this revelation, human rights and feminists advocates have used social media as a platform to increase the visibility of womens issues and share stories to create a global impact and enact social change. However, are we ignoring the fact that many people have limited access to technology, and are therefore excluded from this global social media conversation?

According to OECD research, the ability for women to collectively participate in social media activism is limiting to those who have these disadvantages, and are potentially the ones who have more personal stories that need to be brought to the forefront of the political conversation. Despite social media circulating these necessary discussions, the reality is that this form of activism can be limiting.

The revolution of #MeToo is about more than raising awareness of sexual violence: its about providing support for women who have raised their voice, and in turn, doing something about it. However, the same power structures that enable sexual violence also present barriers for women to engage with political systems. And women know that the only way to do this is to be actively engaged in political matters around this issue. This creates potential risk for algorithmic bias, which is particularly devastating to Women of Colour, and the increasing instability of some platforms, such as Elon Musk buying Twitter to turn it into a libertarian carousel.

The movement raises more concerns than we thought were apparent. Why should young women have to share their traumatic stories of abuse on social media for everyone to see without participating in political decision-making and leadership? While Twitter has amplified the impact of the #MeToo movement, how do we ensure these 2.3 million tweets from women around the world are recognised, and not just relegated to the cultural zeitgeist of 2017? The #MeToo movement does stand a risk of being seen as a slogan related to a very certain time period living in the cultural consciousness with little relevance to other eras, if momentum isnt maintained.

What are Young Australians Doing About it?

As Co-Chair of the Australian Youth Affairs Coalition (AYAC), the national voice for young people, I know that young people are growing more and more uncertain over how the next government is going to provide solutions to youth matters, such as cost of living, climate change, and mental health, and are hungry for the opportunity to participate in creating change for their futures. A vital element in AYACs ability to make this happen is empowering young people to lead and influence national policy and increase the representation of young people in public debate.

The Australian government needs to remain committed to tackling this issue now and for generations to come by committing to represent and advocate for young women. This is just one step to ensuring the issue of sexual abuse and womens rights brought to the forefront of social media through the #MeToo movement can create meaningful change.

The Outcome of Political Consciousness in Young Women

The continuing impact of womens increased political participation can ultimately lead to young women having an increased level of political consciousness, and belief in justice and systematic change. Furthermore, these conversations on womens rights and gender equality should be a reoccurring discussion at the decision-making table at local, state, and federal levels to develop democratic transparency across the country and the world. And more to the point, the decisions will inevitably positively shape the future for young women by having their concerns addressed.

Sarah Ramantanis is Co-Chair of the Australian Youth Affairs Coalition. She is currently a Marketing Officer at Philanthropy Australia, an Advisory Board Member for the Centre of Youth Policy and Education at Monash University, and completing a Master of Communications at Monash University.

This article is published under a Creative Commons Licence and may be republished with attribution.

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Outrage From Young Women Sparks Ambition to Become More Involved in Politics - Australian Institute of International Affairs - Australian Institute of...

Hamilton uplifted the trajectory of storytelling on Broadway and then the pandemic has changed so much about how we interact with each other and the arts. Broadway and other arts closed its doors for a time. Now, doors to the arts have reopened and the run of Hamilton via PNC Broadway in Louisville at Kentucky Performing Arts has been a welcome event especially for Arts Angle Vantage and the young critics here who saw the June 8 performance.

At this juncture, Arts Angle Vantage places more value on helping elevate youth voices and the arts. These reviews from youth around the region are just one of our actions to fulfill that value.

Some had seen the film on Disney+. Others saw it on tour here in 2019 or during its long run in Chicago. One of our reviewers had seen productions here, in Chicago, in New York, and in Puerto Rico.

Time and again, Arts Angle Vantage and the participants are grateful to PNC Broadway in Louisville and to LEO Weekly Arts & Entertainment Editor Erica Rucker and Editor Scott Recker, who practice the values of collaborative journalism and bring the community these young critics work.

Melissa Chipman and Elizabeth Kramer

By DonTia Almon | Art Angle Vantage Reporter

Iroquois High School, Class of 2023

For all history buffs and music enthusiasts, PNC Broadway in Louisvilles Hamilton last Wednesday left this viewer wanting to be in the room where it happens. Despite its many nods to contemporary culture such as twerking or even the color-conscious casting that the founding fathers wouldnt recognize Hamilton adds up to fun. It also does this while extolling history, even for those dragged to the theatre against their will.

Something very interesting is how the cast and ensemble portrayed the bad blood between Hamilton (Pierre Jean Gonzalez) and Burr (Jared Dixon). Different lighting was used to show emotion, one could even hear the tones of the actors change during the face-off in Your Obedient Servant. Gonzalez and Dixons voices matched each other perfectly and brought such great depth to the characters.

Many parents are left suspicious by todays trends, especially when it keeps kids from their studies. Rap music and suggestive dance moves are usually frowned upon. If music and dance are merged to encourage academia, perhaps parents would be more lenient.

Within Hamilton, students can learn about the founding fathers of the nation, America. The audience is introduced to the concept of building a slow burn of a democracy, persuasion, and corruption.

In History Has Its Eyes on You, George Washington (Marcus Choi) confides that he led his men into a massacre at a young age. This is a nod to the French and Indian War where Washington caught the attention of future generations from there on until he died. In the second act, he mentions history having its eyes on him and anyone important as he steps down from being president. In One Last Time, Washington (Choi) talks about setting precedents in letting go of the power of the presidency which he also did in history.

Throughout the show, Choi gave an extremely heart-wrenching performance. During his solos, the power in his voice reached out and essentially won sympathy for his character. Some might even cry during One Last Time, as Chois portrayal expanded on the lyrics, illustrating the generals feelings as he stepped down from his presidency.

Another huge point in history was the infamous affair between Hamilton (Gonazalez) and Maria Reynolds (Paige Smallwood). In the history books, James Reynolds, her husband, asked for two large loans and many smaller loans until Alexander and Maria ended their affair. Hamilton did in fact write about his adventures with the married woman to the public as he did in The Reynolds Pamphlet, also the subject and title of a song Gonzalez, Dixon, and other cast members sing.

The show is also full of comedy. It has changed a bit from the filmed production on Disney+ which is probably for the best. In the reprise of The Story of Tonight, the choreography to the line To the newly not poor of us! changes from suggestive hip swings to the infamous Beyonce Single Ladies hand flip. This could be seen as a reach to the younger generations to connect and draw them in.

Not only can the production be an acceptable way to get an intake of Americas history but can be flexible and shaped into a way for the family to have a nice night out.

This specific production even goes to show that despite one mistake, with a good cast, you can move on and have fun. In the beginning, there was a bit of a false start with what seemed to be a miscue after the curtain. (The audience can only assume that there was a problem with the tech or Dixon as Burr just missed his start.) But the cast restarted and made up for it with their amazing vocals and choreography.

Hamilton has something for the parents that arent interested in the music or even the historical aspect. Moms have the romance between Alexander (Gonzalez), Angelica (TaRea Campbell), Eliza (Stephanie Jae Park), and Maria (Smallwood). Dads have war and action that occurs during the revolutionary period of the musical. Overall, Hamilton is a wonderful experience for everyone no matter age or interests, audiences should be truly satisfied with the show.

DonTia Almon, a junior at Iroquois High School, leads the Harry Potter Club and has classes including cinematography, guitar, and A2C English. They founded a school-based group where lowerclassmen can get academic assistance and process their feelings and fears. They also participated in Arts Angle Vantage to review Mean Girls.

By Phoebe Haverstick | Art Angle Vantage Reporter

duPont Manual, Class of 2023

History has its eyes on you is a lyric so influential most people know whether or not theyve had the opportunity to see the hit Broadway musical Hamilton. The musical reflects this as it grows its audience and has changed the status quo of what an American musical is and what a musical has the ability to be.

Last Wednesday at Kentucky Performing Arts Whitney Hall just after curtain, a quickly darkening theater held the promise of something incredible. Whether or not Hamilton would live up to its large reputation was yet to be seen. The stage was set, the music began, and excitement filled the theater. A simple Lights up started one of the most influential musicals ever to grace Broadway. But Hamilton is anything but simple.

What stands out in Hamilton are the relationships. Director Thomas Kail focuses intently on creating the environment of the play through the relationships between characters. From the largest roles to the smallest ensemble characters, every movement and word is methodical but feels genuine. John Laurens (Nick Sanchez) and Hercules Mulligan (Desmond Sean Ellington) have a distinct relationship with each other that isnt particularly necessary to the historic storytelling, but crucial to the shows environment. This personal relationship forces the audience to relate to the characters as they struggle throughout different events in their lives. For instance, the boyish jokes create humor during the bachelor party scenes to make relatable characters while also continuing the timeline of the story. Similarly, the captivating relationship between Hamilton (Pierre Jean Gonzalez) and his wife Eliza (Stephanie Jae Park) feels real and authentic. Specifically, when Eliza and Hamilton become astray after his affair, Eliza comes to terms with betrayal and grief. These aspects make it easy to see the attention to detail Kail paid to even the smallest of scenes, making Hamilton such an influential show.

The detail extends to applying music to storytelling and history. Here, hip hop creates a space where history and humor can thrive together. Although some critics have voiced doubts about the ability of rap to act as a historical mouthpiece, here it just works. The different rap styles in Hamilton take liberties with the tempos and rhythms and make way for easily discussing more complex and difficult topics. During the rap battle in the song Cabinet Battle #1. George Washington (Marcus Choi) acts as a referee of the contest between Jefferson (Warren Egypt Franklin) and Hamilton during the continental congresss meeting. Washingtons announcement, are you ready for a cabinet meeting, huh? solicits a reaction of roaring screams and claps from the audience. The hip-hop song with its perfect mix of humor and history showcases Jeffersons conservative fear of big government and Hamiltons more liberal approach to finances as the two battle it out by throwing out humorous sarcasm laced with clever insults.

In each song, Hamilton exemplifies topics such as early colonial politics, grief, the effect of striving to leave a legacy, and even lust as it shows its characters struggling with all of these. Throughout, politics is the underlying theme, directing every characters course of action and even deciding the fate of some. John Laurens fought to end slavery. Because of his politics and voice, Hamilton, Mulligan, and Lafayette ended up mourning his death halfway through the musical.

Fatherhood is also a large theme as it drives Hamilton to be something bigger than what his father was and create a legacy through his son. The song Dear Theodosia, widely considered to be Hamiltons tear-jerker, was beautifully executed by the cast. The song had a palpable effect as tension among the audience grew with a sense that an interruption was coming to this lullaby. Dear Theodosia is intimate, personal and a lovely tribute that allows the audience to see a different side of the founders personalities. Here actors Gonzalez and Jared Dixon as Aaron Burr expertly enthrall. Watching the drama of Hamiltons scandal, you find yourself on the edge of your seat watching Hamilton betray not only Eliza but his entire family.

The casting of Hamilton works to make sure Broadway knows that this revolution, as a lyric from Hamilton implies, is not a moment, but a movement. The emotions represented by all of the characters are authentic, and real, and force reactions from everyone in the audience to the point that each viewer feels like they themself, are a part of this amazing story. The musicals imprint on Broadway musicals as a whole is impossible to ignore as it has revolutionized casting to include all people no matter their race, gender, or sexuality.

Through authenticity and a unique environment, Hamilton creates a different approach to Broadway and a legacy of its own. I ended Wednesday thinking about the zeitgeist of Hamilton bringing a more diverse cast to the stage and a diverse audience to the seats. Hamilton is the start of something magnificent. While history has its eyes on Hamilton, I wonder will what follows, live up to Hamilton. Will this musical truly be, as one of its lyrics state, not a moment, but a movement?

Phoebe Haverstick is a rising senior at duPont Manual/Youth Performing Arts School and a student in the creative writing cohort of the 2022 Kentucky Governors School for the Arts. As a theater technician, they have stage-managed multiple high school productions including an entirely student-produced New Works 2022.

By Abigail Knoop | Arts Angle Vantage Reporter

New Albany High School, Class of 2022

Sitting in the Room Where It Happens during last Wednesdays touring production of Hamilton in the Kentucky Performing Arts Whitney Hall, I could clearly see how the musical reflects America.

Hamilton, which premiered on Broadway in 2015, is now running here through June 19.

Im no stranger to Hamilton, having seen various productions since 2017. Im a huge fan. Before previous performances, I did research on the cast and at times became absolutely obsessed with one cast member in particular. This time, I decided to go into it with a non-biased outlook and it made the experience worthwhile.

The ensemble is what makes a musical as a whole not one star or one character. They more than proved it time and time again.

And the inclusivity of this ensemble reflects the ideals of America, in an odd way. How the ensemble (us, the American public) and its many main characters (the government) sort of revolve around each other and need each other to keep moving. Without the ensemble, this show would be awkward. Without the main characters, the show wouldnt make sense at all.

The ensemble is almost omnipresent on stage in nearly every scene either dancing, singing, or acting as a metaphorical bullet. That bullet isnt specified in the cast list but is played by an ensemble member who appears throughout the show each time death is mentioned surrounding Hamilton. Performers close-by interestingly transform into named characters that arent in every scene. They identify their new selves simply by switching jackets or putting on a hat. A good example of this was ensemble member Marcus John who played Philip Schuyler, James Reynolds, and a doctor. All came into being just with a change of costume.

With the music sung by specific characters, I became awash in 90s R&B nostalgia, reminding me of Lin-Manuel Mirandas confession that most songs were based on that eras stars. I know that sounds crazy in a play written about a man from the 1700s. But the influence was absolutely there.

During the opening number, I was hyper-focused on Jared Dixon and his new and fresh take on Aaron Burr compared to the other performances Ive seen. Through the first act, he delivers quick moves and witty lines. I was constantly reminded of Usher, with his smooth vocals. (Its no surprise that Usher sang for Burr on the 2016 Hamilton Mixtape.) Dixons Burr also displayed how annoyed he was from the very beginning with Hamiltons actions, giving the whole play a different outlook in the best possible way. It was nice to see a little change to such a familiar show.

Thomas Jefferson, played by Warren Egypt Franklin, had the entire audience in a fit of laughter me included. The 90s came flooding back with his few references to The Notorious B.I.G. (If you dont know now you know, Mr. President) and his hilarious dance moves.

What was missing was the chemistry between several actors throughout the performance. It pains me to say, but I wasnt convinced Alexander Hamilton (Pierre Jean Gonzalez) and Eliza Hamilton (Stephanie Jae Park) even liked each other based on their interactions. Specifically, during their wedding, the chemistry between the two was a little awkward. Almost all of his scenes with Eliza felt like filler. On the other hand, his scenes with Burr seemed heartfelt, angry, and meaningful.

Individually, however, Gonzalez and Park gave impressive performances. Gonzalez brought a fresh take (and a way deeper voice) to Hamiltons character as well as charm. Parks portrayal of Eliza was beautiful.

Chemistry did take the cake when Lafayette (Warren Egypt Franklin), Mulligan (Desmond Sean Ellington), and Laurens (Nick Sanchez) came on stage. As they were all prancing around smacking each others behinds and laughing during The Story of Tonight Reprise, I was in shambles and laughing so hard.

This production proved to me that there is no character too small or no choice too bold when it comes to Broadway. Ive seen four other casts in other cities and new casts continue to add new charisma to the familiar numbers all the while telling the same story Lin-Manuel so desperately wanted to share.

Abigail Knoop, a 2022 graduate of New Albany High School, was section editor for that schools newspaper, The Blotter, and in numerous productions through NAHS Theatre Arts. She is planning to study Elementary Education and Journalism at Indiana University Southeast in the fall.

By Halle Shoaf | Art Angle Vantage Reporter

duPont Manual High School, Class of 2023

As cast members from Hamilton glide in an effortlessly coordinated waltz on stage, pendant lights hanging above flicker and glow, creating an atmosphere of warmth. High, vibrant vocals resonate strikingly conveying pain. Here, Angelica Schuyler (TaRea Campbell) sings about her profound sacrifice trading love with a good man in exchange for the happiness of her sister, Eliza, his bride. While seemingly inconsequential to the plot of Hamilton, the song Satisfied offers a window into an individuals story. Without it, we could not know the lengths that people went to and the influences they had on the trajectory of Alexander Hamiltons life. At this moment, I lean over and whisper to my father, Im glad we got to see this again.

The story that playwright, lyricist, and composer Lin-Manuel Miranda weaves is a complex one. It is full of laughter and light, of grief, old and new of human triumph. Hamilton is jam-packed with the themes of love, death, and memory. It evokes feelings similar to those upon observing Salvador Dals landscape of melting clocks in The Persistence of Memory: Mirandas Founding Fathers observed a world in need of change, much like Dals desolate scenery. Seeing such great ambition on stage cant help but affect the audience. After the musicals smashing Broadway success, national tours were booked and a touring cast of Hamilton first visited Louisville in the summer of 2019. I was lucky enough to attend. Then the pandemic brought everything to a screeching halt.

And attending a second time is worth it. Hamilton is a star that doesnt lose its luster. Instead, the musical has a new tone. The lyrics may be the same, but they connote different meanings. Themes of a new democracy in Yorktown (The World Turned Upside Down) and History Has Its Eyes On You applies to the civil action in the wake of the deaths of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd. As George Washington (Marcus Choi) warns Hamilton (Pierre Jean Gonzalez), You have no control who lives, who dies, who tells your story, the similarities strike me: the life expectancy for people of color during the time period of the musical and today is connected to the abuse of authoritative power.

Even the staging of Hamilton remains memorable. Echoing booms of cannons in battle scenes and meticulous lighting put the audience front and center. Color theory subtly works into the new performances; Hamiltons character is awash in hues of blue and purple in Hurricane, visually translating the analogy of a coming storm. A giant spotlight shines on King George III (Neil Haskell), contributing to the characters self-importance.

Human experiences come alive on stage good, bad, and ugly. Pierre Jean Gonzalezs portrayal of Hamiltons shift from confidence to hubris parallels Aaron Burrs (Jared Dixon) shift from longing to jealousy. Both character arcs serve as warnings not to lose sight of the bigger picture. In Burn, Eliza Hamilton sings, [I] have married an Icarus, he has flown too close to the sun. And yet, you cant help root for the men. Gonzalezs magnetic energy in My Shot coupled with Dixons electrifying vocals in The Room Where It Happens speak for themselves.

These words greatly influence Alexander Hamilton in the musical and inspire him to take to life with great fervor. Both his wife Eliza (Stephanie Jae Park) and political foe Aaron Burr ask him: Why do you always write like youre running out of time? One can interpret Hamiltons actions as an attempt to live his life fully, but I take from them a desperate desire to be remembered.

Humans naturally fear the unknown, oblivion. We fear memories die with our loved ones, washing away our legacies like sidewalk chalk in heavy rain. We fear we will be lost in societys and times grinding gears if we dont accomplish anything meaningful. We fear accomplishing too little, too late and our lives melting away like Dals clocks. The COVID-19 pandemic turned our world upside down. It irrevocably altered the way we conduct business and make decisions. It also caused so much grief on a massive scale. Burrs words put the lyrics put it simply in Wait For It. Death doesnt discriminate between the sinners and saints. It takes, and it takes, and it takes.

This lyric evokes the New York Times article Those Weve Lost, a digital database of obituaries of people who died due to COVID-19. It puts names and faces to the numbers. Every now and then, I check the site and scroll, attempting to remember when the deads loved ones are gone, too. But I have hope. The very existence of musicals such as Hamilton serve as a legacy for the famous but also the unnamed heroes who set the course for our history.

Halle Shoaf, a rising senior at duPont Manual High School, serves on the board of the TEDxManual club, an organization that provides a platform for young public speakers impassioned in bettering society. Her play, Little Birds, addressing LGBTQ+ perspectives in pre-WWII Germany, was selected by regional professionals and performed in the Youth Performing Arts Schools New Works Festival. Halle looks forward to new writing opportunities in the future.

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4 Young Critics Put New Eyes and Fresh Perspectives On 'Hamilton' - Louisville Eccentric Observer (LEO Weekly)

Ive been meaning to write a column on the growing threat and reality of violence to Americas LGBTQ community posed by right-wing rhetoric and politics, but its proved a difficult piece to write. Not because the culture wars around sexuality and gender are complicated they can be, although the notion of loving all people for who they are is pretty simple but because new, outrageous incidents keep topping the ones I planned to write about.

Literally as I hit the send button on a note to my editors about this column, it was reported that police in Baltimore are investigating multiple fires on a city street as a possible hate crime which sent three people to the hospital in which a Pride flag celebrating LGBTQ rights was reportedly set ablaze.

Officials there had good reason to be alarmed, after this weekends widely reported incident in which 31 members of the white nationalist Patriot Front the weird khaki-wearing extremists who marched through Philadelphia last July 4 were arrested in Coeur dAlene, Idaho, after piling into a rented U-Haul truck armed with riot gear, apparently with the goal of violently disrupting the annual Pride event underway there.

This occurred right after several members of another well-known, violent extremist group, the Proud Boys some of them wearing T-shirts with images of AK-47s showed up at the San Lorenzo, Calif., public library to disrupt and shut down a drag queen story time childrens book event, shouting homophobic slurs. As the author and transgender advocate Parker Molloy wrote in a recent newsletter, both the Idaho and California events had been targeted by a social media feed called Libs of TikTok that has developed a huge following on the right with some 1.2 million Twitter followers and attracted much controversy.

Wrote Molloy: Things are getting really bad for LGBTQ people out there, and I just dont see how itll get any better, especially in the short term. Republicans and their allies in right-wing media are going on the attack. Their goal is to create reasonable-sounding arguments (No, you see, I just really care about fairness in womens sports!), and then use that to wipe out LGBTQ people.

I dont think Molloy is unduly alarmist. To the contrary, its only getting worse by the day. We are now seeing a dangerous loop in which the most extreme voices on the far right led, ironically, by so-called pastors are making genocidal comments about our brothers and sisters in the LBGTQ community. In Americas statehouses, Republican lawmakers who claim to be worried about real-life problems like inflation are instead spending all of their time translating hate speech into proposed laws that would make societal pariahs out of transgender kids. In chat rooms and militia training sessions, the soldiers of extremism are on the brink of taking all of this to the next blood-drenched level.

The increasingly dangerous, violent rhetoric has been amplified to 11 by the likes of Mark Burns, a prominent South Carolina televangelist and Donald Trump enthusiast who just ran for Congress (and lost, thankfully) and who said this month that LGBTQ-friendly schoolteachers are a national security threat guilty of treason, which should be punishable by execution. In Idaho, where that Pride parade violence was narrowly averted, Pastor Joe Jones of Shield of Faith Baptist Church in Boise kicked things up a notch by declaring in a video that subsequently went viral: God told the nation that he ruled: Put them to death. Put all queers to death.

In a healthy democracy truly committed to liberty and human rights, our elected leaders would be condemning these shocking calls for violence. Instead, Republican lawmakers are working overtime to figure out how to channel this alarming new far-right zeitgeist into the fake respectability of law and not just in the blood-red states of the old Confederacy. It was jarring to see Pennsylvanias GOP-led legislature immediately after the mass shooting in Uvalde, the all-too-real national security threat to our kids squelch any meaningful debate on gun control while the state Senate was instead passing a blanket ban on transgender youth in school sports.

We are in a day when good is called evil and evil is called good, claimed one of the bills cosponsors, State Sen. Doug Mastriano, who happens to be the current Republican nominee for governor. If he wins and a major new poll has Mastriano within the margin of error (such a fitting phrase) of defeating Democrat Josh Shapiro he would surely sign this legislation into law in 2023. As Ive written previously in this space, homophobia especially against Pennsylvanias transgender community is a driving force of Mastrianos movement and, increasingly, the Republican Party writ large. And its a matter of time before this gets someone killed.

READ MORE: Homophobia is Mastrianos driving force | Will Bunch Newsletter

This story is understandably shocking to many Americans. When the Supreme Court made same-sex marriage the law of the land with its 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges ruling, it felt to many like the final chapter in an American feel-good story of increasing tolerance that would only get better with the ascension of open-minded new generations. Instead, the epilogue has been a violent wrenching backward of the arc of a moral universe.

In focusing on laws like transgender sports bans which affect a handful of kids, in a matter that can and should be handled by sports regulatory bodies, and not the stuff of state legislation or Floridas notoriously and now-copied Dont Say Gay law, the Republican Party is sending a message that is both heartbreakingly cruel to the humans directly affected but also meant to intimidate all people it wants to keep on societys margin. We have a word for when this type of inhumane bullying becomes the governing philosophy, and its time to start using it.

That word is fascism.

This American version of an authoritarian dystopia wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross, as long predicted is numbingly similar to the worlds past versions of autocracy, with brutal anti-LGBTQ discrimination so often on the cutting edge for movements also cloaked in white supremacy, patriarchy, and other forms of repression.

The parallels between what happened in Germany in the 1920s when the short-lived Weimar Republic saw a period of liberalizing and openness around human sexuality and the 1930s, when the brutal repression of Adolf Hitlers Nazi Party took root, should be alarming to Americans in the 2020s. In May 1933, right after Hitler took power, students in clean white shirts (shades of todays Patriot Front) marched on Berlins Institute for Sexual Research a bastion of Weimar liberalism which was a prelude to its library being burned down and the arrest of its leader.

By the mid-1930s, Hitlers Gestapo had formed a unit to arrest gay men under a previously not-enforced law, netting some 8,500 prisoners. As Europe devolved into the horrors of World War II, its known that thousands of men accused of homosexuality perhaps as many as 15,000 did not survive the Nazi death camps. The pink triangle that the imprisoned were forced to wear would later be adopted as a symbol of resistance by the movement for gay rights, which should not minimize the horrors that occurred under this image. They were mechanically raped, castrated, favored for medical experiments and murdered for guards sadistic pleasure even when they were not sentenced for liquidation, Case Western Reserve University historian John Broich wrote for Newsweek.

It cant happen here? Its already starting to happen right now, and its happening in conjunction with so many other warning signs of creeping fascism: daily, stunning revelations of a failed putsch that occurred not inside a beer hall but at the U.S. Capitol, the rise of a political class wedded to a Big Lie that could end democratic elections, and the rise of a Christian nationalism that is converting The Handmaids Tale into a work of nonfiction. Every days headlines scream out for the truth, that this is Nazi-type stuff.

And its spiraling out of control in June, a month for remembering the courageous 1969 pioneers of Stonewall, but also the horrors of the backlash that erupted in a hail of gunfire at the Pulse nightclub in 2016. Some 53 years after Greenwich Village and just six years after Orlando, America is on the precipice. There is still barely time to grab the arc of the moral universe back from the men in crisp white shirts trying to break it.

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GOPs violent, expanding war on LBGTQ kids should make you think about 1930s Germany | Will Bunch - The Philadelphia Inquirer

By rights, Nova Twins technicolour 2020 debut, Who Are The Girls?, should have transformed them into modern-day rock superstars. With their exhilarating blend of Day-Glo punk, gnarly bass, metal and electronic euphoria, guitarist and vocalist Amy Love and bassist Georgia South seized the zeitgeist, smashing boundaries and preconceptions of what rock music should be.

Given the pandemic scuppered some of the momentum that record deserved, second album Supernova should be their moment, blowing everything that makes the duo so special up to widescreen proportions. Written almost entirely during lockdown, its laced with darkness and triumph, more a celebration of freedom than a pandemic record, rippling with stir-crazy, combustive energy. Musically, too, its a tech-heads dream, heavily indebted to the bone-shaking techno of The Prodigy. But without a single synth in the studio, the Twins manage to hotwire an array of electronic, buzzsaw effects from their bass and guitar. Any of these tracks could be a single. Thrilling opener Antagonist hits like a primordial punch to the gut, its garish riffs fizzing with life, K.M.B is a playful tongue-in-cheek gothic murder-rap, while Fire And Ice and Choose Your Fighter captures the raw energy of their incendiary shows.

Increasingly, fans are craving bands who have something to say, and Supernovas statements of revolution and empowerment loom large. Cleopatra, written at the height of the Black Lives Matter movement, rallies for unification, a call for POC to unapologetically claim their place within heavy music: When I was a kid they always called me a freak / And now them little bitches want to look like me. Later, Puzzles is an empowering metal take on an rnb boner jam that flips misogyny on its head. Inspirational, innovative and genuinely capable of moving the genre forward, Nova Twins are spearheading the move towards a more inclusive scene and a future thats very bright indeed.

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Nova Twins' Supernova is the album leading alt rock into a new future - Louder

Danish studio TABLEAU collaborated with therapeutic clinic Post Service in an exhibition that explores issues of "toxic masculinity, an inherently female zeitgeist, and the need for a critical examination of the nature of mental health services". Putting a spotlight on male mental health, the showcase hosted at the Alcova in Inganni district during Milan Design Week brings together creatives from the discipline of architecture, design, and art to interpret their own personal confessions in the form of an object. Speaking of the curatorial idea and the collaboration with Post Service, Julius Vrnes Iversen, Creative Director at TABLEAU shares, "We have asked 14 artists to produce a functional piece of art in shape of a confession in order to open up a discussion with the public on how we can shape our way of addressing the male mental health in a more open cause of action. [] We teamed up with Post Service since the owner and founder, Xanthippi de Vito, has a specialty with knowledge in mentality. She addresses our way of using therapy in a very modern direction by using art and design as a part of her practice." In this only male-exhibition, participating creatives channel their emotions into forms that reveal experimental materiality and sculptural compositions.

Here are a few works whose intriguing forms and narratives caught our eye.

1. A beating engine suffocated possibly by toxic masculinity... Nascar Realness by Jacob Egeberg

A mammoth silver painted chandelier hangs down from the ceiling of Alcova, a seemingly alien entity described by its creator - Copenhagen-based designer Jacob Mathias Egeberg - as "an elegant object of desire, a measure of success, or simply another car crush." For Jacob, the object represents a backseat confession of experiencing a long journey of false self-confidence and betting one's identity on car culture. Molded in 3D and milled with a CNC machine before application of Polyurea and a final layer of high gloss automotive paint, the chandelier features a moving pattern of illumination that gives it a unique edge.

2. "I started searching for a happy object. Maybe an object that actually tells you that you are doing well, and how good you are. That is why it eventually became a trophy I Didnt Do Enough by William van Hooff

In this piece of work, Dutch artist William van Hooff responded to the persistent nagging voice in his head which tells him that he is not good enough or doing enough. The outer surface of the ceramic vessel in the shape of a trophy has the words "I Didnt Do Enough" written on it. It expresses the artists acceptance of his own negative feelings and learning how to control them. "I am sure several people have experienced this little voice, its a little demon that tells you you're not good enough. He can tell me perfectly what I am not doing right, but he forgets to tell me when I am actually doing something good," William tells STIR. For the outer surface of this ceramic piece, he chose white high glossy glaze mixed with sand. The treatment of the letters, however, sees an additional two-layered glaze which according to William gives an effect like the letters have started to cry. "It's a way to express the dark feelings that I get when listening to these emotions," he adds.

3. Either if you are happy, insecure or sad :S is here to remind you that everything is going to be a-ok! :S by Lab Bla Bla

For childhood friends Axel Landstrm and Victor Isaksson of Swedish research-led practice LAB LA BLA, a memory from last summer became the springboard to conceptualise :S a shifting emotion frozen in a mirror expressing the duality of our lives. The artwork reminisces the time when Victor was diagnosed with a panic disorder that left him confused in understanding his own genuine feelings, especially when he was with people. :S is a confession and celebration to the many faces we dress up in to cover up our crooked senses of selves," Victor shared with STIR. Developed in collaboration with German art manufacturer Derix Glasstudios, the art piece was created using a centuries oldthree-layered technique comprising flashing, lacquer, and mirrorising a sheet of mouth blown glass, traditionally used as stained glass in churches and cathedrals. Victor adds, The movement, bubbles and ripples contained in :S are traces of the artisans' spontaneous gestures from working and blowing the hot glass. These handmade characteristics make the glass come to life in a way that cant be replicated by any machine driven processes.

4. "The transparency, the status, and the aesthetic between comfort and uncomfort is for me an ode to revelation, self-learning and relaxation. After, Vice cachby Arnaud Eubelen

A long seat and a cabinet are conceived as tools for a confession by German designer, Arnaud Eubelen. He created the After chair and Vice cach cabinet as objects of self-reflection where "everything is seen, everything is understood, and nothing is hidden behind a layer of paint". In the design of the chair, his aim was to evoke a sense of comfort through an unconventional materiality - he used a transparent PVC sheet for the seating surface in the hope to play with the mechanical structure that holds the body. "This reinterpretation of the symbolic psychiatric long seat is actually more of a tool forconfessionrather than aconfessionin itself," he tells STIR. Speaking of the little Vice cach shelf, the piece is made to hide thingsin a semi closed spaceand protect it from our desire of taking it. Featuring pieces of colourful broken glass on the shelfs door made of aluminium rods, the work according to Arnaud, is expressive of protection, hurting, hiding, and a longing to seek the truth.

5. "The narrative is my confession to how I am not being there for myself and how it makes me feel like a failure."Enter the Dungeon by Esben Kaldahl

Copenhagen-based artist Esben Kaldahl created artefacts that reflected different aspects of his own tendency to take escape in fantasies and fairylands when life gets tough. For this exhibition, Esben presented a sword, a mirror, and an armour sculpted in aluminium castings and hand glazed ceramic. The artefacts, he tells STIR, are general reminders to the escapist in all of us to be vulnerable with oneself, to enter the dungeon so to speak and face our own darkness not with sharpened blades and polished armour, but with an openness to whatever resides in the depths." He concludes, The ambiguity of materials is a big part of my practice and I believe that the most interesting objects are the ones that can hold several meanings.

STIR takes you on a Milanese sojourn! Experience Salone del Mobile and all the design districts - 5vie, Brera, Fuorisalone, Isola, Zona Tortona, and Durini - with us. STIRs coverage of Milan Design Week 2022, Meanwhile in Milan showcases the best exhibits, moods, studios, events, and folks to look out for. We are also excited to announce our very own STIR press booth at Salone del Mobile - Hall 5/7 S.14, Fiera Milano RHO.

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TABLEAU's 'Confessions' addresses the silent crisis in male mental health - STIRworld

Former first lady Michelle Obama delivered an impassioned speech on Monday during the inaugural Culture of Democracy Summit, hosted by her nonprofit organization When We All Vote.

Mrs. Obama, a national figure known for her ability to inspire, did not hold back on her assessment of the state of the country and the need for Americans to respond in kind with their commitment to vote in this years upcoming elections and in the years to come.

I would love it if I could stand up here and simply make this a celebration of the work so many of you have done, said The New York Times bestselling author of Becoming, referring to the record voter turnout in the 2020 election.

Id love to be able to tell you that everything is as it should be, and we have nothing to be afraid of. To stand up here, clear my throat, and say the state of our democracy is strong.

She declared, I cant say that right now.

Mrs. Obamas keynote address was delivered before attendees of the Culture of Democracy Summit, held in Los Angeles at the Banc of California Stadium. The summit was attended by cultural influencers, including grassroots volunteers, musicians, athletes, academics and industry leaders across various sectors.

Obama acknowledged a host of political and social crises in the United States, including the recent mass shootings in Uvalde, Texas, where 19 students and two teachers were fatally shot inside of an elementary school, as well as in Buffalo, New York, where 10 African Americans were murdered by an alleged white supremacist gunman.

My heart still aches for all those families, said the former first lady, who expressed that she was encouraged by the recent bipartisan talks on Capitol Hill between Democrats and Republicans to pass gun reform legislation.

But Obama cautioned that urgent social issues like gun violence, climate change, and even more politically fraught issues, like censoring certain books in schools and the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol building, illustrate how much Americas democracyoften hailed by U.S. citizens as the greatest in the worldis in need of repair.

Were seeing a deep discrepancy between what we tell ourselves about this country and what we can see with our own eyes, she said. Obama went on to denounce laws in states like Georgia and Texas that restrict access to the ballot, including limiting early voting, mail-in voting, and requiring certain forms of ID cards. In Georgia, lawmakers went so far as to ban the distribution of water and food to voters waiting in lines outside voting centers.

We see states working to change the way elections are administered [and] putting partisan actors in charge of voting procedures and certification, Obama lamented.

The Chicago native acknowledged that the doom and gloom realities of the United States are scary to think about and leaves us all feeling helpless.

Lord knows we all need to do some self-preservation just to get through the day, Obama admitted. Sometimes its just easier to look away, to type in a hashtag, feel like weve done something and go about our business.

Returning to her call to action, Mrs. Obama added, Just because its easier, doesnt mean its right.

She warned that the aforementioned crises could easily become anyones reality, and theres no guarantee that things wont soon get worse. The only way to improve the state of U.S. democracy, said Mrs. Obama, was for Americans to stay informed on the issues and consistently exercise their right to vote.

No one has the luxury to sit out or stay at home just because youre not feeling excited enough, she warned. If you dont vote, other people will.

While nothing happens overnight, she acknowledged, she reminded: Big changes happen over decades [and] over generations.

Obama also sent a strong message to the U.S. Congress for failing to act on passing legislation that would protect the right to vote. Weve got to take a long hard look at how we can make Congress itself better. That means changing the filibuster if thats what it takes to save our democracy, said Obama, referring to the U.S. Senate rule used by Republicans that has been a roadblock to several key legislative items, including voting reform, police reform and President Joe Bidens Build Back Better Act.

Mrs. Obama also affirmed her support for D.C. and Puerto Ricos statehood, which would give its residents full voting power on the federal level, equal to the current 50 U.S. states that have representation in both the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate.

In another call to action, Obama urged attendees of the Culture of Democracy Summit to activate their networks and encourage everyone they know to do their part in spreading the word about the importance of voting. She also asked that attendees register with When We All Vote to become volunteers and help the organization in its mission to register voters, educate voters and encourage voters to participate in elections.

Stephanie L. Young, executive director of When We All Vote, told theGrio that Mrs. Obamas keynote address was intentionally designed to activate the Culture of Democracy Summits attendees who would hopefully be fired up and take action.

The beauty of this organization is that those who are inspired by her, then go back and inspire others, said Young.

That person thats fired up and taking action is going back into their community, and the people who admire them the mostbecause we are influenced by the people in our livesthey have the opportunity to move those people to action.

Young described it as a chain of inspiration to get people excited about participating in our democracy.

When We All Vote, which is nonpartisan, is the brainchild of Michelle Obama, who founded the national organization in 2018. Its mission, said Young, is to change the culture around voting and to increase participation in every election.

Much like Mrs. Obama herself, the organization has been intentional about its voting campaigns. Even then the name of the summitDemocracy of Culturewas a deliberate decision.

It is so important that voting is seen as a part of the cultural zeitgeist, said Young, who expressed the importance of voting no longer being seen as something one does only when things are bad.

We are really trying to change the way people look at voting in this country [and] really are trying to change the way people look at civic engagement in this country, added Young, who also noted a statistic that only 8 percent of Gen Z consume traditional news.

Making voting or civic engagement a cultural movement is the most effective way to reach masses of people, she added.

Were trying to make it cool, but really were trying to make it relevant.

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Michelle Obama delivers impassioned speech on voting: If you dontothers will! - TheGrio

Prof Dr. Emeritus Rik Coolsaet, Thomas Renard9 Jun 2022

Keywords:Zeitgeist, right wing extremism, populism, violent extremism

In the United States and across Europe, there is a broad recognition that right-wing extremism has become either the main terrorist threat, or at the very least a seriously growing concern. The racially motivated attack by an 18-year-old in May 2022 in Buffalo (NY), deliberately targeting African Americans and killing ten people before being arrested, was but the latest in a long series of lethal right-wing plots and attacks in the West. In parallel, a relative decline of jihadi activities in Western countries has been noted, resulting in a new balance of (perceived) terrorist threats.

Although recognising the intellectual appeal of such discussions, the very concrete policy implications to it are actually more critical. Any attempt at anticipating the evolution of the threat drives the allocation of counter-terrorism resources in a certain direction. In the UK, for instance, a leaked document revealed an hesitation regarding the desired priority focus of the Prevent strategy. Predicting the future of terrorism has never been an easy task, however, and a simple observation of recent trends and numbers is an unreliable method to anticipate a deeper structural evolution. In order to address this point, this short article revisits the concepts of terrorism waves and the Zeitgeist, with a view to reflect on what terrorist threat landscape may lie on the horizon.

The evolution of the threat

The rise of right-wing extremism has been in the making for some years, and certainly monitored by Western intelligence services for over a decade. In 2009, for instance, the US Department of Homeland Security identified the economic downturn and the election of the first African American President as unique drivers for right-wing radicalization and recruitment. A few years later, European intelligence services in countries such as the UK, Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands similarly assessed the political turmoil accompanying the 2015 asylum crisis as a potential precipitant of right-wing extremism (and of left-wing extremism in response to it), and also observed an upsurge in anti-government sentiments.

The gradual rise of right-wing extremism occurred mostly in the shadow of the jihadi threat a threat that was particularly acute over the past decade. Arguably, a juncture point may have been reached. The jihadi threat in the West has significantly eroded since the peak of the Islamic State (IS) caliphate in 2014. The number of jihadi-inspired attacks or plots in the West has been declining for several years in a row. Most of these plots were relatively unsophisticated, prepared by lone actors with very limited skills and means. No rallying cause for jihadism seems at present able to mobilise large numbers of individuals worldwide.

Meanwhile, the number of attacks and plots linked to right-wing extremism in the West has increased according to many accounts, although methodological difficulties remain in measuring right-wing extremism and terrorism, leading to difficult interpretation of the data. Nonetheless, right-wing (violent) extremism is now receiving far greater attention than in the past. In most Western countries it is now a matter of real concern, although the sense of urgency varies from one country to another.

In the US, the Center for Strategic and International Studies concluded in 2020 that far-right terrorism has significantly outpaced terrorism from other types of ideologies, including far-left networks and individuals inspired by IS and al-Qaeda. In the UK, in 2021, the number of far-right referrals to the governments Prevent counter-terrorism programme exceeded those for Islamist radicalisation for the first time, while the number of far-right terrorism arrests has increased significantly. In France and Germany as well, the number of right-wing extremists monitored by the intelligence services and the number of plots have been increasing.

The threat of right-wing extremism certainly reached a peak during the 6 January attack on the US Capitol, triggering fears of insurrection or civil war in the country, but also in other parts of the world. More broadly, the Covid-19 pandemic has acted as a catalyst for right-wing and other anti-establishment movements who have instrumentalised the crisis to lure in broader audiences (notably among the anti-vax community and conspiracy-adepts), although the exact impact of the pandemic on violent extremism still requires more research.

As the jihadi threat is on the decline and the threat from right-wing extremism is on the rise, it opens discussions on the relative importance of these threats respectively. In some countries, notably the US, domestic terrorism (i.e. mostly right-wing) has been identified for some time already as the main terrorist threat. In Germany as well, right-wing extremism is considered the biggest extremist threat to our democracy. In many other European countries, intelligence services closely monitor right-wing extremism but still consider that the most likely and immediate threat of an attack would come from jihadi circles. Yet in other countries, the threats from jihadi terrorism and right-wing terrorism are considered equally likely. While things are clearly still in flux, a number of analysts are already predicting that right-wing extremism could become the dominant terrorist threat in the coming decade at least in Western countries.

On terrorism waves and the Zeitgeist

When confronted with terrorist campaigns, observers have at times overemphasised continuity and underestimated discontinuity. This has often led to overly dire predictions of terrorist activities or, at times, to the failure of noticing the emergence of an unexpected new wave of terrorism.

UCLA scholar David Rapoport made exactly this point concerning the new-left wave of the 1960s. Underestimating the cyclical nature of terrorism, scholars and officials alike ignored a burgeoning threat of rising political violence, that was to become a new terrorist wave. He popularised the notion of historical waves in modern history in a very insightful and influential article published in 2001.

Rapoport identifies four successive waves of global terrorism since the industrial era in a 2012 book chapter: the anarchist wave; the anti-colonial wave; the new-left wave; and the religious wave. Each wave, he argues, is driven by a common predominant energy that shapes the participating groups characteristics and mutual relationships and lasts about a generation each (at least for the first three waves). That is, according to him, a time frame closest in duration to that of a human life cycle, in which dreams inspiring parents lose their attractiveness for children (p.42).

An alternative, but relatively similar paradigm was already suggested by terrorism scholars in the 1970s and 1980s, according to which each global wave of terrorism can also be seen as reflecting the Zeitgeist, the defining mood of a particular epoch. As the late Walter Laqueur, one of the pioneers of modern terrorism studies, asserted in his book Terrorism (1977, p.181): Terrorism always assumes the protective colouring of certain features of the Zeitgeist, which was fascist in the 1920s and 1930s but took a different direction in the 1960s and 1970s.

His argument was largely shared by most leading scholars of the early years of Terrorism Studies, who considered that terrorism could not be studied in isolation from its political and social context. Social, political and economic conditions shape the lenses through which individuals perceive their environment. Since it is upon their perception of events that individuals act, it is often acknowledged that perception is often more important than facts and reality. This is where the notion of Zeitgeist becomes interesting, because it is meant to capture the essence of an epoch or at least how it is experienced. It contributes to framing the context, to articulate hopes and dissatisfactions, and to direct the various ways to act upon them including terrorism.

The Zeitgeist as a reflection of the major social transformations of an epoch may contribute to a better understanding of the emergence and demise of waves of global terrorism. Rapoports first wave, anarchist terrorism, emerged in the context of the industrial revolution and its social consequences. The American historian Barbara Tuchman named it as one of the symptoms of a society struggling with fever, caused by the most accelerated rate of change in mans history (p.xiv), in which the working class was looking for recognition and a place as equal participant in society, both politically and socially. Confronted with a social situation seemingly without any real perspective for change, a limited number of radicals thought no other solution existed to eradicate rampant injustice than a recourse to violence.

The anticolonial wave, as alleged by Rapoport, was moved by causes that were legitimate to many more parties than the causes articulated in the first wave. It grew out of the dissatisfaction with the continuing presence of imperial powers in overseas colonial territories, where they refused to grant self-determination due to particular political contexts, such as a significant presence of Europeans.

Whereas Rapoport suggests a relatively clear-cut delineation between this second wave and the third, or New-Left wave, with the agonizing Vietnam War in the 1960s as the defining marker, we would argue instead that, starting in the mid-1950s, a revolutionary Zeitgeist emerged, that would last until the beginning of the 1980s. A global left-wing political mood washed over domestic and international politics and linked together diverse developments such as decolonisation, the overthrowing of rightist governments in Europe and Latin America, the anti-Vietnam demonstrations and Palestinian liberation movements, liberation theology and euro-communism, and the birth of new social movements, reflecting youngsters dissatisfaction with post-war material growth (in this case, Rapoports reference to youngsters no longer sharing their parents dreams, fully applies). Revolution was in the air and Marxist-inspired revolutionary writings could be found in the most distant places. In this frenzied atmosphere, violent action was again suggested by some as the best way of advancing the cause of overthrowing capitalism and Western dominance, since it was accused of denying entire parts of the world (the so-called third world) their legitimate place in the hierarchy of nations.

Rapoports fourth wave, the religious (or jihadist) wave, once again intertwined global and local causes of dissatisfaction with the existing order. Global discontent with the Western-dominated post-Cold War order and the pervasive narrative of a clash of civilizations plugged into a diverse set of local situations of injustice, conflict and marginalisation, such as Palestine, the social and political malaise in the Arab world, separatisms and rebellions (such as in Afghanistan and Chechnya), and structural discrimination in Europe against migrants, considered as second-class citizens. Triggering events such as the wars in Afghanistan (2001) and in Iraq (2003) acted as catalysts and seemed to prove Islamist activists right that the West had declared war on Islam. Jihadism was a mobilising narrative, speaking to all those (Muslims) who considered themselves disenfranchised and the marginalised, offering a common perspective of revolt against the powers that be not unlike Marxism in earlier waves of terrorism.

A Zeitgeist conducive to right-wing extremism and terrorism?

Today, culture wars, or social and political polarisation around issues related to identity, form the essence of the new Zeitgeist. This has very much been the consequence of the major transformations the world has undergone since the late 1980s. The list is long the end of the Cold War and the rise of the so-called Rest (particularly China) signalled the return of great power rivalry, and replaced the familiar predictability of bipolar world politics by multipolar geopolitical uncertainty. Technological change has been impacting the daily lives of almost every individual in the world, at increasing speed, hence creating new gaps among countries and generations. Inequalities have proved to be enduring worldwide, particularly within societies, and were aggravated by successive economic and financial crises since the 1990s. Globalisation and regional instabilities have been increasing migration flows, creating successive waves of newcomers in many countries. Finally, the persistent threat of climate change has been exacerbating all other challenges, questioning deeply the global economic model of capitalism, creating an unsettling sense of existential threat among young generations, and directly threatening the lives of millions.

The accumulation and combination of these structural transformations (many of which are ongoing) have resulted in the current social malaise that has eroded peoples trust in the ability of governments to steer societies safely through uncertain times. It has also resulted in rising feelings of being lost or left behind, in particular among groups that already found it difficult to make ends meet something that could already be felt strongly with the yellow vests movement. Lack of trust in governments to respond effectively to ongoing challenges also created space for anti-government and conspiracy theories to grow. Similarly, the falling trust in the traditional media was accelerated by social media whose business-oriented algorithms pushed radical or alternative content, further nurturing general distrust and polarisation.

The Covid-19 crisis acted as the last push for many people the one crisis that fused all the others into one overarching narrative (with many variations, depending on who is preaching it). There is, in the Covid-19 crisis, a power of attraction or mobilisation that is not unlike the role that Afghanistan played for the jihadi wave in the 1980s, or Syria for ISIS more recently.

In times of crisis, scapegoating is never far off. Minorities, the elite, the European Union, migrants or more simply the Other are now the usual suspects for every wrong. Since the 2010s, rancorous populism has been on the rise, globally and in the West, with the mainstream of far-right narratives in normal political discourse. Narratives of a Great Replacement (or white genocide), white supremacy in the US, and analogous discourses in other places capitalise on the sense of bewilderment many feel in the face of rapid change. Such narratives combine the fear for an existential threat with nostalgia of an imagined past, when life was supposedly simpler and better.

Far-right populisms and extremisms have been on the rise. Yet, other forms of extremism can prosper in this Zeitgeist too, such as anarchism, or religious movements that offer easy answers to the complex problems of this world provided they can concoct an alluring narrative and credibly suggest that history is on their side. In fact, the pandemic seems to have coalesced several marginal forms of extremism under a single banner, with protests gathering members ranging from far-left to far-right marching in the same direction.

But a Zeitgeist by itself does not lead to terrorism. As Martha Crenshaw wrote in her 1981 landmark contribution on the causes of terrorism, terrorism is never an automatic reaction to conditions. For a wave of terrorism to emerge and to sustain itself, a conducive environment and a mobilising narrative are not sufficient. Mobilisation hubs and catalyst events are needed, that bring individuals and groups together around the belief that violence is the only credible solution to change existing conditions. For this to succeed, there is also an intangible factor at play: the feeling that now is the right time to act, lest an unique opportunity will be lost. This is where some polls and intelligence warnings become worrisome: in the US, 40 percent of Republicans now agree that if elected leaders will not protect America, the people must do it themselves, even if it requires violent actions; in Europe, intelligence services have been warning for new activist groups, but also fluid contacts and ad-hoc coalitions, showing a trend to arm themselves and increasingly developing international contacts.

The current Zeitgeist, exacerbated by the Covid-19 crisis and the mainstreaming of extremist narratives, has the potential to lead to violence through individual actors feeling empowered and encouraged to take action, but also through a malicious instrumentalisation of this context by pre-existing and new violent groups, believing that the time for action has come. However, this Zeitgeist seems potentially conducive to several types of violent extremism acts, not necessarily limited to the far-right. As said above, jihadi terrorism is still a serious threat that could again be revived, provided a new mobilizing opportunity emerges. Left-wing, environmental or anti-technological extremisms could rise as well. Overall, all these forms of extremism could reinforce one another, in a form of reciprocal radicalisation and in a context of broader societal polarisation.

Conclusion

Terrorism can never be considered outside its social and political context, and outside the broader Zeitgeist. Looking at these different contexts suggests that indeed a new wave of terrorism is possible conceivably dominated by right-wing groups, but maybe more of a melting pot of extremisms. The importance of the Covid-19 pandemic in accelerating the emergence of this potential wave is undeniable. What is less clear is whether this wave could sustain itself without a catalyst such as the Covid-19 pandemic. As in past waves of terrorism, attention must be given to the complex interplay of all the causes of violent extremism. Extremism particularly when prone to violence is not simply a security issue, but also a broader societal issue. Failing to recognise this would be recipe for counter-terrorism failure.

Prof Dr. (em) Rik Coolsaet is Professor Emeritus of International Relations at Ghent University (Belgium) and Senior Associate Fellow at the Egmont Institute in Brussels. In the 1980s and 1990s, he served as deputy chief of the Cabinet of the Belgian Minister of Defence and of the Minister of Foreign Affairs. He was appointed a member of the original European Commissions Expert Group on Violent Radicalisation (established 2006) and the subsequent European Network of Experts on Radicalisation (ENER). His latest research dealt with the origins and shortcomings of the concept of radicalisation and includes When do individuals radicalise? (In: Diego Muro, Tim Wilson (Eds), Contemporary Terrorism Studies. Oxford University Press, 2022.

Dr. Thomas Renard is Director of ICCT. His research focuses on (counter-)terrorism and (counter-)radicalisation in Europe. His recent research has focused on the evolution of counter-terrorism policy in liberal democracies since 2001, on (returning) foreign fighters, on radicalization in prison and on terrorist recidivism. His latest book is The Evolution of Counter-Terrorism since 9/11(Routledge, September 2021), whereas his research has been published in many journals and think tanks, including:International Affairs, Perspectives on Terrorism, CTC Sentinel, Cambridge Review of International Affairs, ICCTorRUSI.

Related Readings:

Baumann, Z.Bidens National Security Strategy: Domestic Threats Take Centre Stage. Perspective, The International Centre for Counter-Terrorism, 8 April 2021

Van Dongen, T.Assessing the Threat of Covid 19-related Extremism in the West.Perspective, The International Centre for Counter-Terrorism, 5 August 2021

Van Dongen, T. and Leidig, E.Whose side are they on? The diversity of far-right responses to Covid-19.Perspective, The International Centre for Counter-Terrorism, 18 August 2021

Van Dongen, T., Wentworth, M., Rigault Arkhis, H.Terrorist Threat Assessment 2019- 2021. Threat Assessment, The International Centre for Counter-Terrorism, 03 February 2022

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What the Zeitgeist can Tell us About the Future of Terrorism - ICCT - International Centre for Counter-Terrorism - The Hague

NEW YORK -- Hamilton opened the door for more musical history lessons. Now Six, the Musical is taking full advantage.

Staged like a rock concert, it presents the six wives of Henry VIII as divas (The Real Housewives of the Renaissance) who want to know who had it the worst. In something of a sing-off, they tell their stories in song and dance like Destinys Child, never missing a moment to make like Beyonce.

Just looking at the Broadway cast, its easy to see who might play the roles in a big-screen venture. There are places for Lizzo, Ariana Grande, Rihanna and Bey. But this is such a forgiving show it could be populated by anyone and still be a crowd pleaser.

Created by Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss, it grabs with a Chicago-like opening number, then lets the queens sass and sashay their ways into the hearts of theatergoers. Thanks to stadium-like lighting and a sound system that would make Adele drool, Six pulls you into the story of those who were divorced, beheaded, died; divorced beheaded, survived. Theres more than a little contemporary spin on the circumstances, but this is hardly a Masterpiece entry on PBS.

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Purists, in fact, may be put off by Marlow and Moss storytelling. Teens will love it.

Largely, thats because the songs are so good. If you havent heard at least one of them by now, you havent been in the cultural zeitgeist. All You Wanna Do has been a favorite since it first came out. And why not? It moves, it tells a story and it lets Samantha Pauly dis and dish with the best of them. Shes Katherine Howard (in case youre keeping score), the pink wife (yup, theyre color-coded) who sings the number like its the big seller a rock group would do just before the encore.

So much, in fact, has been massaged into place, youll marvel at how slick Moss and co-director Jamie Armitage manage to make the show. This is timed and toned to within an inch of its life and yet theres still an opportunity to play with the audience. Under these conditions, Six likely could run forever.

As good as the six are (theyre backed by an all-female band), they could be swapped out without notice and nothing would suffer. (On the night I saw it, Keirsten Nicole Hodgens was Anne of Cleves and she had the moves to pull off the rap, Get Down.)

Abby Mueller (as Jane Seymour) gets the big power ballad; Adrianna Hicks (as Catherine of Aragon) sets the shows tone and Joy Woods (as Catherine Parr) has the duty to pull it all together.

Andrea Macasaet (as Anne Boleyn) gets to be the funny one with Dont Lose Ur Head. When the others share their boo-hoo moments, she always pulls it back to her plight. The show is so clever you almost want to see how Moss and Marlow turned a doodle during a poetry class at Cambridge University into this.

While Six wont be everyones cup of tea, it should please the TikTok crowds sense of pace. It never lights too long on a subject and reaches a conclusion that, oddly, isnt far off from ones other reminiscent musicals (like A Chorus Line) have offered.

Six hits the #MeToo movement as well and best of all suggests you just might want to go back to those dusty history books and see how juicy the content was. This drips with drama and, as kids on American Bandstand used to say, has a good beat and you can dance to it.

Get the recommendations on what's streaming now, games you'll love, TV news and more with our weekly Home Entertainment newsletter!

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REVIEW: 'Six' brings out the rock star side of Henry VIII's wives - Sioux City Journal

This is part of the Biennial Artist Project, a series on the stars of the biennial circuit. You can also read our critics take on the list and a report on the economics of being a biennial star. The full list of biennial artists (and which galleries represent them) is available to Artnet News Pro members.

If you could somehow see every biennial or triennial in the last five years, what patterns would emerge? Which stars would shine brightest?

For this project, we analyzed the artist lists for 211 recurring international art events that have happened or been announced in the five years since the opening of Documenta 14 in April 2017. This is a somewhat arbitrary time period (the 2017 Venice Biennale is not included, since it opened in February 2017, while the 2017 Skulptur Projekte Mnster is, since it opened in June of that same year). However, with Documenta 15 about to open, it gives a convenient window to look at the figures who have defined the zeitgeist of this particular half decade in art.

The resulting list looks at figures in big events like the Venice Biennale and the So Paulo Biennial. But it also takes into account many new biennials that sprung up in this period (and that may or may not carry on), as well as hard-to-classify events like Bienalsur, which is technically based in Argentina but seeks to create a simultaneous art conversation about the Global South in far-flung venues, from Houston to Riyadh.

Chronologically, the final artist list included in our tally comes from the upcoming 2023 Sharjah Biennale, which was announced years ago; delayed by the pandemic, it is the final show organized by the late Okwui Enwezor. For the sake of providing some kind of limit to the selection, we didnt include architecture, design, or photo biennials, focusing on shows dedicated to art (admittedly a somewhat arbitrary disciplinary distinction).

While we are bound to have left out some events, the overall pattern is striking enough that it is not likely to change considerably. Overall, 1,599 artists emerged who had appeared in more than one of these big survey shows in this time period (the full list is available to Artnet News Pro subscribers); 591 appeared in three or more; 260 in four or more; and so on. The list, in other words, follows the classic superstar distribution, with attention becoming more concentrated the higher you go, and narrowing to focus on an elite with many times the exposure of the rest.

Below are this eras 17 biggest biennial stars, comprising all the artists we found who appeared in eight or more biennials in the past five years.

Korakrit Arunanondchai. Photo: Benjamin Bechet.

Born: 1986

Based in: Bangkok and Brooklyn

Appeared in: Athens Biennale 2018; Baltic Triennial 2018; Biennale de lImage en Mouvement 2018; October Salon/Belgrade Biennale 2018; Asian Art Biennial (Taiwan) 2019; Venice Biennale 2019; Whitney Biennial 2019; Istanbul Biennial 2019; Performa 2019; Singapore Biennale 2019; Yokohama Triennale 2020; Biennale Gherdina 2020; Gwangju Biennale 2021; Kathmandu Triennale 2022

Notable Works: No History in a Room Filled With Funny Names 5 (2018)

Arunanondchai is a globe-trotting contemporary-art polymath, working between painting, installation, film, and performance. Since graduating from Columbias MFA program in 2012, Arunanondchai has become best known for immersive video installations like No History in a Room Filled With Funny Names 5, shown at the Biennale de lImage en Mouvement in 2018 and then in Venice in 2019, weaving together personal narrative, current events, Thai folklore, queer club aesthetics, and more.

In Western white spaces, the work often sits in a neutral ground where a life lived doesnt really enterits like life contaminates the space of art, he told the White Review last year, explaining his method. And when life is allowed to enter, it suddenly dominateshow the work can be read. I wanted to find a type of storytelling where all my interests could come together, without these limitations.

Like many artists on this list, Arunanondchai is also a quintessential collaborator, creating works alongside a recurring cast of colleagues including performer boychild and director and installation designer Alex Gvojic. Ubiquitous on the global biennial scene in the past five years, Arunanondchai has also organized his very own biennial-type event: the Ghost Festival, which brought a cohort of other biennial stars to Thailand in 2018, including Ian Cheng and Samson Young.

Uriel Orlow, Cmo se llamaban las plantas antes de que tuvieran nombre (Guatemala) (2020-2021). Photo by Hugo Quinto, courtesy of Alexia Tala.

Born: 1973

Based in: London and Lisbon

Appeared in: Manifesta 2018; Moscow Biennale 2018; Yinchuan Biennale 2018; Taipei Biennial 2020; Coventry Biennial 2019; Lubumbashi Biennale 2019; Bienal de Arte Paiz 2021; Momentum Biennial 2021; Thailand Biennale 2021; Vienna Biennale for Change 2021; Berlin Biennale 2022; British Art Show 2022; Kathmandu Triennale 2022; Mardin Biennial 2022

Notable Works: Wishing Trees (2018), Learning from Artemisia (2019)

The Switzerland-born Orlow is known for honing in on specific locations and micro-histories, often using botanical knowledge to explore the notion of plants as political actors, and elsewhere the legacies of colonialism, spatial manifestations of memory, and blind spots of representation.

Spanning film, drawing, photography, and sound, his work is particularly well-suited to the biennial format because it speaks to both the local context and universal themes. It stresses long-term collaboration and often involves relationships that persist beyond the time-frame of the biennial, gallerist Arthur Gruson told Artnet News. Orlows anchoring of his projects in a particular place whilst addressing translocal issues and his commitment to finding meaningful image regimes and modes of representation result in artistic contributions that have a socio-political grounding and are valued by local as well as international audiences.

Lawrence Abu Hamdan poses for a portrait during the ceremonies for the Turner Prize 2019. (Photo by Stuart C. Wilson/Stuart Wilson/Getty Images for Turner Contemporary)

Born: 1985

Based in: Dubai

Appeared in: Asian Art Biennial (Taiwan) 2017; Biennale de lImage en Mouvement 2018; Art Encounters Biennial (Romania) 2019; Bienalsur 2019; Coventry Biennial 2019; Ljubljana Biennial of Graphic Arts 2019; Sharjah Biennial 2019; Venice Biennale 2019; Sydney Biennale 2020; Havana Biennial 2021; So Paulo Biennial 2021; Berlin Biennale 2022; Toronto Biennial 2022

Notable Works: Walled Unwalled (2018); After SFX (2018)

Lawrence Abu Hamdan famously styles himself a private ear (as opposed to a private eye). His artwork and research often involve careful investigations of sounds and voices as witnesses of violence and injustice. He works in video, audio documentaries, installations, and workshops to examine the thresholds of sound and voice, often leaning on sound as a vehicle for truth in the absence of visual information.

Recent subjects include the trial of Oscar Pistorius and the recollections of survivors of Saydnaya prison who were kept in darkness at all times. In 2019, Abu Hamdan jointly won the Turner Prize for his exhibition Earwitness Theatre and for his performance After SFX, which was also seen at the 2021 So Paulo Biennial.

Members of the Danish collective Superflex [left to right] Jakob Fenger, Rasmus Nielsen and Bjornstjerne Christiansen pose with their Turbine Hall installation at the Tate Modern. (Photo by Jack Taylor/Getty Images)

Based in: Copenhagen

Appeared in: ARoS Triennial 2017; Gwangju Biennale 2018; Qalandiya International 2018; Desert X 2019; Thessaloniki Biennale 2019; Vienna Biennale for Change 2019; Desert X AlUla 2020; Thailand Biennale 2021; Vienna Biennale for Change 2021; North Atlantic Triennial 2022; Riga Biennial 2022

Notable Works: Deep Sea Minding (201821); The Mammoth Rehearsal Sessions (2021)

The Danish art group Superflex has spent more than a quarter century creating their hard-to-categorize, sometimes humorous, always socially engaged art. The collectivewhose founding members are Bjornstjerne Christiansen, Jakob Fenger and Rasmus Nielsenworks collaboratively, both among themselves (no one member ever gets credit for an idea) and with bureaucratic institutions and larger research institutions of various kinds. We like to engage with systems by going inside to challenge them, Christiansen told the New York Times. When youre inside, you can stir things up much more.

Multiple works created between 2017 and 2022 spun off from their larger, three-year initiative Deep Sea Minding, an ambitious melding of science, art, and environmentalism that involved a series of voyages aimed at researching the possibilities of new types of marine habitats that respond to a warming world. Their climate-change drive-in movie installation, Dive-In, at the 2019 Desert X Biennial was made of the coral-pink material they have created for this purpose, in anticipation of a possible future desert flooded by rising seas. For The Mammoth Rehearsal Sessions at the Thailand Biennale in 2021, they set up a group hypnosis session where art lovers were prompted to imagine themselves as wooly mammoths being driven to extinction.

Chiharu Shiota, artist, working on a huge installation in the foyer of the Gropius Bau, June 2019. (Photo by Ralf Hirschberger/picture alliance via Getty Images)

Born: 1972

Based in: Berlin

Appeared in: Jakarta Biennale 2017; Oku-Noto Triennale 2017; OpenArt (Sweden) 2017; Socle du Monde Biennale 2017; October Salon/Belgrade Biennale 2018; Shenzhen Biennale 2018; Honolulu Biennial 2019; Manifesta 2022; Setouchi Triennale 2019; Bangkok Biennale 2022; Oku-Noto Triennale 2020

Notable Works: Becoming Painting (1994); The Key in the Hand (2015)

The Japanese-born artist is best known for creating immersive installations with interwoven skeins of thread. Her massive nets hold small personal objects like keys and spring from desks, boats, or bed frames. Born in 1972 in Osaka, Shiota studied painting at Kyoto Seika University before moving to Berlin to train with Marina Abramovic.

Her artistic breakthrough came in 1994, when she staged Becoming Painting, a performance in which she poured toxic red enamel paint over her body, burning her skin in the process. The work marked her break with painting and the beginning of her quest to place both the artist and the viewer inside her own creations. Perhaps her most famous installation, The Key in the Hand, was her contribution to the Japanese Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2015. She transformed the exhibition space into a web of red yarn; at the end of each thread was a key.

Portrait of Naeem Mohaiemen. Photo by Abeer Hoque, courtesy Turner Prize.

Born: 1969

Based in: New York

Appeared in: Bucharest Biennale 2018; Front Triennial 2018; Industrial Art Biennial (Croatia) 2018; Lahore Biennial 2018; Liverpool Biennial 2018; Art Encounters Biennial (Romania) 2019; Yokohama Triennale 2020; Kyiv Biennial 2021; OFF Biennale (Hungary) 2021; Front Triennial 2022

Notable Works: United Red Army (2011); Tripoli Cancelled (2017); Two Meetings and a Funeral (2017)

Now teaching at Columbia University, Mohaimen participated in the Visible Collective in the 2000s, an important group that agitated around the persecution of Arabs and Muslims at the height of the U.S. War on Terror. In the 2010s, he became celebrated for ambitious, expansive film installations like Two Meetings and a Funeral, premiered at Documenta in 2017, which concentrates on the Non-Aligned Movement of countries that tried to escape the bipolar order of the Cold War as the seed of a potential alternate political history, featuring Marxist historian Vijay Prashad.

I say what I do is a critique imbricated with love for this movement, he told Bidoun when he was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2018. But it is not naive. The story is tragic, but its more Shakespearean than Greek. Failure was not inevitable.

Taus Makhacheva. Courtesy of Sharjah Art Foundation.

Born: 1983

Based in: Moscow

Appeared in: Ural Industrial Biennial 2017; Liverpool Biennial 2018; Manifesta 2018; Riga Biennial 2018; Yinchuan Biennale 2018; Art Encounters Biennial (Romania) 2019; Lyon Biennale 2019; Bangkok Biennale 2020; Lahore Biennial 2020; Yokohama Triennale 2020

Notable Works: Tightrope (2015); Quantitative Innity of the Objective(2019)

The artist made a splash in the international art world with Tightrope (2015), a video that captured a tightrope walker carrying 61 copies of works from the collection of the Dagestan Museum of Fine Art across a Caucasus ravine. Like much of Makhachevas work, the videowhich was included in the 2017 Venice Biennaleexplores the factors that shape national identity and what happens when two cultures collide. (The artist grew up in Moscow but her roots are in Dagestan, which came under Russian control in the early 19th century.)

Since then, Makhacheva has moved away from work focused on specific geographies to explore physical and emotional transformation. At the 2018 Liverpool Biennale, she set up a fully functioning spa with custom beauty products and ASMR video backdrops. At the Yokohama Triennale, she presented Quantitative Innity of the Objective (also shortlisted for the Future Generation Art Prize), a room full of offbeat gym equipment that was activated by live gymnasts.

Artist Zheng Bo leads visitors in an Ecosensibility Exercise during his exhibition entitled Wanwu Council at Martin Gropius Bau in Berlin, Germany. (Photo by Adam Berry/Getty Images)

Born: 1974

Based in: Lantau Island, Hong Kong

Appeared in: Manifesta 2018; Taipei Biennial 2018; Thailand Biennale 2018; Yinchuan Biennale 2018; Yokohama Triennale 2020; Guangzhou Image Triennial 2021; Liverpool Biennial 2021; Hawaii Triennial 2022; Venice Biennale 2022; Sydney Biennale 2022

Notable works: Pteridophilia (2016); Le Sacre du printemps (Tandvrkstallen) (2021)

Born in Beijing, Zheng now resides on Hong Kongs largest outlying island of Lantau, one of the financial hubs last vestiges of nature. This choice of habitat is almost a mirror of his socially and ecologically engaged art practice.

Zhengs ongoing research, performance, and video art investigates human-plant coexistence, inviting us to rethink our positions and relationships with nature, ecology, and social aspects in our world, independent curator Angelika Li told Artnet News. The notion of interconnectedness among all living beings explored in Zhengs work resonates especially strongly in the wake of the pandemic, Li added: His projects create space for us to breathe and meditate, bringing us the awareness of the meditative and spiritual qualities from nature, the qualities that we once were not aware of.

Eyal Weizman, the director of Forensic Architecture. Courtesy of Forensic Architecture.

Established: 2010

Based in: London

Appeared in: Ural Industrial Biennial 2017; Manifesta 2018; Moscow Biennale 2018; Shanghai Biennale 2018; Art Encounters Biennial (Romania) 2019; Whitney Biennial 2019; Bienal de Arte Paiz 2021; Berlin Biennale 2022; Biennale Warszawa 2022

Notable Works: The Long Duration of a Split Second (201819); Triple Chaser (2019)

Formed in 2010 under the auspices of the art school Goldsmiths, Forensic Architecture has grown into a hybrid research center, watchdog organization, and art collective with powerful allies like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. The group of data analysts, architects, sound engineers, and even smell specialists use everything from cell-phone video to detailed reenactments in order to uncover lies, human rights violations, and crimes committed by some of the worlds most powerful.

One of the groups most impactful projects, The Long Duration of a Split Second, began as a means to clarify what exactly happened on the night hundreds of Israeli policemen raided a Bedouin village to demolish a few houses and two people ended up dead. Compiling footage and sound clips recorded by witnesses, as well as interviews, models, and press clippings, Forensic Architecture was able to prove that police had, indeed, opened fire first. Its video installations, which have been displayed at museums and biennials around the globe, stubbornly refuse to aestheticize these investigations, and instead lay out in clear-eyed, methodical fashion how the collective arrives at its conclusions.

Hito Steyerl, artist, in the art collection K21. (Photo by Rolf Vennenbernd/picture alliance via Getty Images)

Born: 1966

Based in: Berlin

Appeared in: Skulptur Projekte Mnster 2017; Bienalsur 2017; Jakarta Biennale 2017; Busan Biennale 2018; Ghost Festival 2018; Kyiv Biennial 2019; OpenArt (Sweden) 2019; Venice Biennale 2019; Art Encounters Biennial (Romania) 2021

Notable Works: Liquidity, Inc. (2014); Factory of the Sun (2015)

The Munich-born artist is known for videos and installations that explore financial systems, surveillance, migration, and militarization through a mix of barbed humor and dogged research. Shes not afraid to bite the hand that feeds her: she declined the German governments Federal Cross of Merit to protest its failure to support artists during lockdown, and created an augmented reality app for her show at the Serpentine that erased the Sackler familys name from the facade. (The gallery has since done the same IRL.) One of her contributions to the 2019 Venice Biennale was Leonardos Submarine, a video installation targeting the arms manufacturer Finmeccanica, which has supplied weapons used by the Turkish armed forces against civilians in Syria and sold war planes to Saudi Arabia.

Marwa Arsanios. Photo: Nada Zgank. Courtesy of the Onassis Foundation.

Born: 1978

Based: Berlin and Beirut

Appeared in: Gwangju Biennale 2018; Lule Biennial 2018; Qalandiya International 2018; Biennale Warszawa 2019; Sharjah Biennial 2019; Berlin Biennale 2020; Lahore Biennial 2020; Documenta 2022; Mardin Biennial 2022

Notable Works: Who is Afraid of Ideology (201721)

Architectural models, magazine back issues, topographic maps, first-person interviewsthese are the materials that fuel the work of Marwa Arsanios. Born in Washington, D.C. and educated at the Lebanese American University in Beirut and the University of the Arts, London, Arsanios creates films, installations, and even textiles that emerge from a rigorous research process.

Much of her work examines dynamics at the intersection of feminist politics, resistance movements, and struggles over land. Her ambitious film series Who is Afraid of Ideology (201721) knits together the experiences of Indigenous farmers and organizers in Colombia, Mexico, Syria, Iraq, and northern Lebanon, as well as activists from the Kurdish autonomous womens movement.

Monira al Qadiri, Orbital (2022). Photo by Ben Davis.

Born: 1983

Based in: Berlin

Appeared in: Asia Pacific Triennial 2018; Athens Biennale 2018; Lule Biennial 2018; Aichi Triennale 2019; Seoul Mediacity Biennale 2021; Venice Biennale 2022; Sharjah Biennial 2023; Asian Art Biennial (Taiwan) 2021; Guangzhou Image Triennial 2021

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The Biennial Stars: Meet the 17 (Perhaps Unexpected) Artists Who Have Defined Our Current Era of International Art Shows - artnet News

The problem is, how do you have some kind of emotional catharsis when you know youre too old for it? Nevada, Imogen Binnie

The Perks of Being a Wallflower was first published in 1999. I was five years old. At least one copy likely sat on a shelf at my local Barnes & Noble throughout my childhood and adolescence. The book is targeted at teens, so I could have picked it up at any point once my age entered double digits, which was when I began reading books targeted at teens and adults.

But I didnt.

I read The Perks of Being a Wallflower during my last semester of high school. A new friend who had gone to the same school as me for twelve years and had loved this book for many of them gave me her copy.

By the time I read Stephen Chboskys coming-of-age tale, I was old enough to be dismissive. I hadnt read anything considered YA in years, and I looked down upon a book I could finish in the time Id take with a more pretentious short story. And yet, despite my hesitance to give this book praise, it overwhelmed me with recognition. I knew that if Id read it four years earlier, my entire life would be different.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower is about Charlie, a 15-year-old who has spent the last year in a mental hospital dealing with clinical depression, the suicide of his best friend, and the death of his aunt. Hes starting high school a year late and is anxious about fitting in until he meets two seniors, the beautiful and troubled Sam, and her step brother, the gay and fabulous Patrick. Charlie falls madly in love with Sam and enters their world of drugs and drama and cool music like The Smiths.

I felt like Charlies story was my story. I was sensitive. I had clinical depression. I only had older friends. I had a sister who had bad experiences with boys. I felt drawn to gay people and community without being gay myself. I had a close relationship with one of my teachers. And I spent many nights in my feelings listening to The Smiths. The voice in my head that had prevented me from aligning too much with Holden Caulfield was silenced by the reveal that Charlie and I even had the same birthday Christmas Eve.

Three days before Charlie turns 16, he has the same first kiss I had at that age. Even more than our shared birthday, this was what unsettled me. After exchanging intimate holiday gifts, Sam kisses Charlie. She tells him she wants his first kiss to be with someone who loves him. It was the kind of kiss that I could never tell my friends about out loud, Charlie writes. It was the kind of kiss that made me know that I was never so happy in my whole life.

The specifics were different, but as I read this moment, I realized my close friend and older crush had done the same thing as Sam. They loved me for how I saw them, they loved me for my innocence, they loved me for who they thought I could someday be, but they couldnt love me how I wanted. Like Sam, they told me that. Like Sam, they warned me not to get too close. And like Sam, they still kissed me so my first could have the joy so few firsts are granted. Or at least that was my interpretation as I read about Charlie and Sam less than two years after I was given my own moment of tender evanescence.

When I finished the book, I wondered what choices I would have made had I read it earlier. I was certain I wouldnt have followed the book so closely had I known. Maybe I wouldve made different decisions about my friends or my teachers or my music taste or how I acted with my first love. As a desperate-to-be-cool 18-year-old, I imagined I wouldnt have let my life be modeled after a popular piece of young adult lit.

Now I see the fault in that analysis. My life would have been different had I read the book at 14, but only because I wouldve modeled my life after it more. I didnt drink or do drugs in high school. I think I might have. I took two years to make a move with my crush. I wouldve done it sooner. And, most importantly, I would have watched Rocky Horror Picture Show.

At 18, I didnt know about my biggest adolescent regret, but I know it now. Had I followed this book more closely, I mightve gone to a Rocky Horror Picture Show screening, I mightve been immersed in a more public queerness, I mightve realized what I was trying so hard to hide from everyone and myself.

Or maybe it would have done nothing. Who knows.

Of course, if youre a fan of sci-fi or comics or physics, multiverses have been in for some time. But now theyve entered the mainstream. Whether youre going to the latest Marvel movie, the pop-arthouse title of the year, or catching up on the new season of Russian Doll, it feels like everyone is imagining alternate timelines as we grapple with our untenable reality.

But before Dr. Strange, there was Gwyneth Paltrow. Before multiverses entered the zeitgeist, we had sliding doors. Ive never actually seen the movie that gave us that phrase, but I have seen Krzysztof Kielowskis original Blind Chance and Run Lola Run, another 1998 film inspired by the premise. For many years, I thought about the concept of sliding doors on a near-constant loop.

I didnt know I was trans until my early 20s. I also didnt know I had OCD. One of the ways my OCD manifested was in thought patterns around innocuous choices. Maybe inspired by Blind Chance and the cultural presence of Sliding Doors, this was especially acute with the subway. Every time I rode the train several times a day I felt consumed with what line I took and which car I entered. Sometimes the thoughts were concerned with my timeliness, but since I often left plenty of padding for my anxieties, they moved on to more unlikely outcomes.

Id stand in front of the train cars, convinced that the one to my right held my soulmate and the one to my left held my murderer. Or the other way around. Or the way around. Or the other way around. Or the other way.

This didnt prevent me from getting on the train what good would that do since the next train would have the same dilemma and also what if I missed my soulmate but I would spend the subway ride looking around at people awaiting my outcome. These impulses werent helped when my anxieties found validation. I never met my soulmate (I dont believe in them) and I was never murdered (Im writing this essay), but I did have less dramatic encounters. How could I quiet my obsessive thoughts after ending up in the same train car as a classmate and striking up a flirtation? How could I quiet my obsessive thoughts after a man put his penis on my shoulder and pissed down my back as he laughed?

The problem with my thought patterns wasnt their validity it was their use. The reason we find multiverses and sliding doors so compelling is because every small decision we make does have the potential to alter the course of our lives. Every time we leave the house, we may encounter our soulmate or our murderer or, more likely, someone we have mediocre sex with for a few months or a car that runs us over.

Its why fate is such an attractive notion. If we miss out on our destiny with one small choice, another small choice will come around soon to fix it.

Choice itself becomes an illusion.

I tweeted this on March 11, 2020 at 9:04pm. Id had my last electrolysis appointment and gone to the grocery store to buy three weeks worth of food. A brief quarantine was predicted and, since I worked from home, I figured I might as well start slowing the spread early. I couldnt yet comprehend the next two years, but even three weeks at home felt daunting. So fuck it. I started Glee.

The pilot of Glee aired on May 19, 2009 toward the end of my freshman year of high school. I did not watch it. I loved musicals, but my reluctance to embrace anything feminine, gay, and mainstream prevented me from checking out a buzzy TV show on Fox about showchoir.

Since I was in theatre, I mustve known people who were Glee fans Gleeks, if you will but I dont remember much beyond a resurgence of Journeys Dont Stop Believin. I wouldnt think about Glee again until I started writing for Autostraddle and all the queer TV nerds around me insisted I check out the first 2.5 seasons. One viral clip that revealed Jewish mommi icon Idina Menzel guest starred, and it got added to my ever-growing list of queer TV Id missed while hiding in my translucent closet.

My plan was to watch Glee until quarantine ended. I assumed this would get me through the first season, maybe the first two. Of course, quarantine didnt end, and I watched all six. It became the only thing I could get myself to do, a task both thoughtless and thoughtful as the world asked so much of us all.

I already said I loved musicals, and you know I am gay, but I cant articulate how much I wouldve loved Glee if I watched it as it aired. I was too desperate to be cool to have turned into a full Gleek, but privately it wouldve consumed me.

Like most queer shows Ive caught up on since coming out, Glee is full of contradictions. At its best, its a sharp musical about adolescent queerness and the suffocating culture of American suburbia. At its worst, its a white man rapping Bust a Move to his teenage students.

For better or worse, I wish Id watched Glee while it aired. If Perks showed me elements of the life I did live, Glee showed me the life I didnt. While I was having stolen kisses and confused angst, the Glee kids were having lady kisses and dramatic realizations. They went from bullied and closeted to a post-Prop 8 fantasy of liberal acceptance. They came out in song, declared their love in song, experienced heartbreak in song, got married in song. True to both its genres teen soap and musical everything that happened to the kids on Glee was as big as the feelings I stuffed deep inside.

Im not sure what effect watching Glee in high school wouldve had, but I have to imagine watching a show this gay about characters on the exact same high school timeline as me would have done something. And while the trans representation was bad, it was at least better than any other trans representation I saw. Its also yet another opportunity I might have had to become obsessed with Rocky Horror.

Watching the show as an adult, I felt affection for my queer self who attended suburban public school from 2009 to 2012. She experienced so much bullying and so much brainwashing. She fought so hard to escape and so hard to survive. I also felt affection for an alternate self who knew about that queerness. A version who could have experienced these fights with more clarity and a stronger sense of self.

Closeted me wouldve quietly loved Glee, but that girl? She wouldve been a Gleek.

By the time I moved to LA and stopped seeing her, Id been practicing these new habits for over four years. My brain wasnt perfect, but I felt like Id achieved what I could with those tools. And so, when my new therapist suggested we try EMDR, I said yes.

EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is a technique where you recreate the eye movements of REM sleep to retrain your mind and bodys relationship to trauma. The way an EMDR session worked for me is as follows: Wed start with the same painful memory, my eyes would follow my therapists finger back and forth as I thought of the memory, then I would say the new memory my brain jumped to, and so on and so on. It was a bit like writing a braided personal essay in real time so, of course, I loved it.

For me, EMDR functioned as a sort of physical time travel. If the (misguided) goal of every time travel story is to change the past, this process allowed the internal change without all the external side effects. I couldnt go back in time and stop the bullying I faced or grant myself an earlier self-awareness, but I could massage the pain of that timeline to change my future. Its nostalgia as action.

This is how it feels to come to art too late. Its no longer an experience of immediate connection, but one of processing, of rewriting. By imagining earlier exposure, we get to create that alternate timeline. Were watching the show, reading the book, as our present self and our past self. We may only get one timeline in our universe but it can feel like weve lived many lives. We experience these works of art as those different lives. We imagine the person we couldve become. We imagine the people we can now someday be.

They become a part of us. Inside our singular body exists a multiverse of madness and, within that madness, healing.

Okay, I had heard about Nevada. After all, I approached transitioning like a straight-A student with a self-made syllabus. Nevada was on the notes app list I brought to bookstores alongside Redefining Realness, Little Fish, and Shes Not There. But Ive always preferred reading actual books, and I held off on the titles I could only find online. By the time I gave up and read PDFs of Stone Butch Blues and Torrey Peters novellas, Id been to all those support groups, and Id lost interest in Nevada.

The same impulse in me that didnt want to watch Glee, didnt want to read the book my peers worshiped. After all, I barely considered most of them peers. They were consumed by their oppression, while I thought we were luckier than most. They seemed to romanticize their chaos, while I yearned for calm. They found new ways to hurt themselves, while I felt like the world hurt us enough. This condescension was misplaced while I wouldnt quite copy the aesthetic or swagger, I was just one breakup away from the chaos and self-destruction. And, of course, had I read Nevada, I wouldve known that feeling superior to other trans girls is the biggest clich of them all.

I finally read the book last year and, while I found echoes of that post-breakup self, what I really observed were those other girls I met early in transition. Oh this is why they acted that way. Oh this is why they said those things. I suddenly felt affection toward the qualities that annoyed and alienated me years ago. We were all just looking for reference points as we did this thing we had no idea how to do. This is what they found.

But thats not to say Nevada is wholly removed from my own early transition experience. After all, the book itself is concerned with the very things Ive been writing about.

Maria feels like she transitioned too late to be anything but fucked-up. She struggles with expressing emotion, fakes her way through sex, and cant even remember to take the hormone shot a past version of her coveted. She talks a lot about self-improvement, but her clearest actions are on behalf of others. While she often treats the people in her life with selfish cruelty, shes generous online with her blog. She writes about transness so others can connect with her experiences and find answers even though she has no answers for herself.

Enter James.

Part two of Nevada, shifts the third person limited omniscient narrator to another lost trans girl with many of the same issues as Maria. Except James is about ten years younger and about that much further behind in his transness. When Maria meets him at the small town Walmart where he works, she decides he is the reason for her reckless cross-country excursion. If shes too late to heal, maybe she can at least save another trans girl from the same fate.

Except, of course, shes not too late. Nor is she equipped to help this other person before he is ready to receive it. Maria loves to monologue with an air of self-awareness but as revealed when the novel slips into James perspective or briefly into Marias girlfriends perspective, Marias knowledge of herself and her defense mechanisms is limited.

Despite its reputation, Nevada is an accomplished work of fiction, not a wayward guide for lost trans girls. Maria is not a role model. And not even in the way Maria would tell you shes not a role model. Theres a reason the dedication says this is a sad book. The misery of Maria and James is understandable, but it is not inevitable. The versions of them we meet are not the only versions that can exist and hopefully are not the only versions that will exist.

When I think about the times I mightve read Nevada, I feel conflicted. If Id read it when it first came out, I might have come out, too. I think back to who I was my sophomore year of college and the impact it would have had on that confused girl. I like this narrative, because it gives me a few extra years.

But far more likely, I wouldve read it upon first coming out. I would have related to Marias dissociation, her feelings of being trapped in her theoretically good relationship, the ability to express emotions in writing she can never express in life. I wouldve embraced her draw toward chaos and understood the fact that coming out as trans was the first change she ever actually made to her own life that felt like it was leaving the map that was laid out for her at birth.

I wouldve related to these things, and I wouldve felt repulsed by other things. And maybe it would have caused me to lean into my chaos, and maybe it wouldve scared me away. But, ultimately, I dont think it wouldve changed much at all, because while I didnt read Nevada, two other people did.

Casey Pletts Little Fish and Torrey Peters Glamour Boutique were my Nevada. They were the portrayals of realistic, self-destructive trans women I latched onto with relief and pain. Both authors have mentioned Nevada as a pivotal moment in their own artistic development.

The only reason reading The Perks of Being a Wallflower in middle school wouldve changed my life is because nothing else I was reading presented alternate views of masculinity. The only reason watching Glee in high school wouldve changed my life is because nothing else I was watching showed contemporary adolescent queerness. The only reason reading Nevada in 2013 wouldve changed my life is because nothing else I was reading acknowledged trans people exist.

Art is meant to connect with us on levels far more complex than introductions to basic aspects of our identity. Its special when something is able to have that impact, but its more indicative of a failed society than successful art. In fact, its an unfair burden placed on artists who have loftier goals than representation.

In a world where every train car has your soulmate, it doesnt matter which one you choose. In a world where trans people are safe to live openly and trans literature is allowed to thrive, it doesnt matter when you pick a single book off a shelf. The best way to ensure that representation doesnt matter is to have a lot of representation.

Later, Marias friend echoes a similar sentiment: Hey stupid, did you ever stop to think that that pattern, that coping mechanism, was actually a brilliant strategy to keep yourself alive?

The first time I visited my family after coming out to myself, I stayed in the closet. I took off my nail polish, put my boy clothes back on, and let my mom make comments about how I needed a haircut. A week in my hometown reminded me of the suffocating suburban culture, and I returned to my girlfriend in New York with a revelation. If I had transitioned as a teenager, in my hometown, with my family, I wouldnt have survived.

It was a nice thought. Id spent months getting angrier at myself with every gender epiphany. How could it take me so long to figure out? Why didnt I realize sooner? Why didnt I start transitioning sooner? But now there was a new narrative. I almost didnt survive high school in the closet I certainly wouldnt have outside of it.

I wrapped myself in the warmth of this narrative for years. I took comfort in this morbid thought as I started hormones at 23, as I paid money I didnt have to remove a beard that shouldnt have grown, as I embraced my own delayed adolescent chaos. I believed it until the pandemic slowed me down. I believed it until I was once again visiting my parents, once again in that same suffocating suburb.

That first trip home, I had all the serious talks with my parents Id never had the courage to broach. Maybe it was because the pandemic had reminded me of our mortality. Or maybe it was just because I hadnt seen them in so long. Either way, there was no small talk that week.

One night while walking their dogs, I stated my oft-repeated narrative to my dad. I told him that if Id come out in high school, I dont think I wouldve made it. Really? he replied. Thats all it took.

No, not really. I was depressed in high school, but so much of that depression was due to my inner confusion. I was a feisty and political kid, and if Id had language to describe myself, I wouldve done so with fury. I fought so hard for gay acceptance at my school without even knowing where I fit into that. If I had known, not only would I have been happier, but I wouldve had a clearer sense of purpose. I see videos of kids giving eloquent speeches to their state legislatures and I think, That wouldve been me.

Maybe Maria did have to stay in the closet. Maybe, for her, that defense mechanism really was necessary. But its just as likely it had more to do with the misinformation she believed than her ability to withstand being an out trans teen. I know thats the truth for me.

What can we do with that knowledge? What can we do with the fact that we got on the wrong train car? Or, more accurately, that the right train car never arrived at our station?

I cant believe in fate. I cant believe I was meant to have those years taken from me. Instead, I can fight for a world where other people have it better. Marias impulse to help James wasnt wrong. She just needs to help herself first. Maria is not too late to live the life she deserves. I wasnt too late to live the life I deserve. Theres no such thing as too late. Theres just later than what shouldve occurred.

Each one of us has an infinite number of versions we couldve been. We can long for those other versions, we can hope the lives of others have more ease, but we have to accept the version that exists. Do whatever it takes. Read the books you shouldve read earlier, watch the shows you shouldve watched earlier, find a therapist who does EMDR, or just get out of your own head for five fucking seconds so you can take your estrogen shot and tell the people you love how youre feeling.

If every choice we make determines who well be in the future, we owe that acceptance to our future selves. We cant change the choices we made, we cant change the choices we were offered, but we can make new choices today.

Our future self is almost here. Go ahead. Pick a timeline. Who do you want them to be?

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"Nevada" and the Multiverse of Sadness - http://www.autostraddle.com