Month: December 2022

By Thea Opperman.

Reaching the end of term is a great excuse to sit back and reflect on what this year has brought us so far within the creative scene of Durham. There’s been DH1 signing more and more bands, collaborating with the likes of SNAFU for their infamous gigs at the Angel; there was Fight Night, where some insanely brave students took each other on in the ring; and now we have been lucky to have the latest incredible student plays popping up once again from the drama scene. 

It’s been a great term, but one aspect of the social calendar has been there every week, through thick and thin – and I, of course, am meaning Rotate Wednesdays, run by the incomparable team of Brett, Agnes, Alex, Harry, Georgia, and Bea. These 6 are the ones responsible for many a hangover from a night in Loft; and, since working for the brand, they have elevated Rotate to new heights, as they create a community of not just followers, but of mates.

Where did Rotate come from? Well, it’s no secret that Durham is known as ‘Dullham’ for a reason. With a sparse number of clubs, a few decent college bars, and some nice pubs, the city is hardly pushing boundaries in terms of entertainment for students. As a remedy for this Durham boredom five years ago, four guys started to throw ‘underground’ house parties above a flower shop on North Road. Unsurprisingly, they were hugely successful, and some months later they were able to upsize to Allington House, before taking the more established residence at Fab’s – the birthplace of ‘Rotate Wednesdays’.

Building ‘Rotate Wednesdays’ to be what they are today took a lot of work, as Brett, Rotate’s captain told Wayzgoose; “it took a long time for people to show up at Fab’s”. Word of mouth was key, but they had confidence that what they were offering – an alternative night out to the would-be Abba-filled night at Jimmie Allen’s, or even sports night at Babylon – would eventually sell itself.

One year on, they find themselves residing at Loft, a relatively new club on North Road, that seems to fit their alternative aesthetic far more naturally than Fab’s. As the team were explaining, Loft is great for a number of reasons: “more space”, Agnes told us, “we have gone from a 200 capacity to 600” which, she admitted “does come with its own set of difficulties”. Handling the super-long funnel queue, for example, is not as easy as you might think. But more importantly, however, the bigger space has allowed them to “grow a community”. Creating this vibe was one of their key aims setting out, as Georgia explained – “We want it to feel like a family, with more and more students returning each week, we want them to feel at home.”

But the predominant goal of Rotate is to provide a platform for new, up-and-coming DJs, giving them an opportunity to perform to a crowd with legitimacy and support. Alex, one of their resident DJs, told us that offering emerging artists this break is a “really important one”, as it “materialises a passion, externalising it into something real.” Georgia and Harry, the other two resident DJs, agreed; Rotate had been their first proper gig too and as such, they told me “we want others to have that same opportunity.”

One key way in which they have adapted to the new space in order to create this feeling of authenticity is their decision to move the actual DJ decks forward, into the dance floor, allowing the crowd to dance behind whoever is performing. When asked, all 6 of the Rotate team told us unanimously that it had been “one of the most successful changes” they have made all year. “It creates intimacy, like you are at someone’s house” – again, adding to that family feel they are so wanting to create. 

When drawing the interview to a close, I asked them how they feel about Durham’s growing creative scene, and whether they think it might be becoming an oversaturated market. But they all answered, “for sure it’s growing”, without a doubt, “but that’s what we want.” Brett explained “we are all working together – no one is stealing punters and we do our events on different nights” whilst Harry added “it’s nice the market is filled, it’s like we are shouting into a void that others are shouting into too.” The camaraderie and growth of the creative hub in Durham is palpable, but, when student life may be feeling a little dull, at least we know there’s a guaranteed, alternative, new and exciting Wednesday night at Loft, supplied by none other than the Rotate team.

By Leo Dagianti.

When I listen to The Doors, I feel like I am transported to a desert with a half-drunk bottle of whisky. Everything is hazy. There is a feeling of frenetic nothingness backed by cynicism. It evokes the thinking man’s detachedness – I am here and I am alone and there are answers to be found at the bottom of this bottle. Their work contains a distinctly masculine air, rooted far deeper than the simple fact that Morrison is a man. Considering the central role that activism played in the creation of The Doors’ music, as well as their personas as proto-punk contrarians, there seems to be a disconnect between the essence of the masculinity and how that is portrayed throughout their lyrics. 

The American Man of the time was a bread winner; white collar starched and stiff, duty was seated as his central concern. This duty extended to a variety of realms, from duty to family through to duty to country. It is important to note that at the time of The Doors recording their self-titled album, the Vietnam War had been raging for 11 years. There was anger brewing amongst the American youth, and it was no longer targeted solely at the military. The anger began to strike against the generation before, who were seen as having stood idly, watching the war rage. The sentiments of the Beat Generation were still alive and well: rampant drug use, freed sexuality, uprooting of gender roles. The subversion of masculine duty was total masculine liberation. On the Road by Jack Kerouac distils this ideology into its purest form – the story of a man who leaves his familial responsibilities behind to venture, uninhibited, into western America. The story involves a cocktail of mind-expanding drugs, poetry, close male relationships, and promiscuity. Every page of it feels like it is sticking its tongue out at the generation before. 

That isn’t to say that the new man forgot those who came before him. The spaghetti western narrative of the great frontier, of exploring something new and creating a vision of life from scratch, was central to the allure of the Beat generation. They still echoed the themes of dominance that their predecessors held dear, preferring dominance over the constraints of the human mind rather than over nature. This was intoxicating to the counter-culture youth of 60’s America, who came to idolise these artists and in turn a masculinity that lauded the ideal of freedom from the lethargy of suburbia. The freed man was one who took charge not of the family but of himself, who manifested his own destiny. 

In William S. Burroughs’ book, Queer, we are given a glimpse of Beat life in New Mexico City in the 50s – one that carried many of the typical tropes of hedonism and detachedness. Burroughs himself was a vision of a Beat man: he was on and off of heroin for a number of year and wandered between cities with his wife, who he accidentally shot and killed in 1951 while drunk. The protagonist of the book, Lee, seeks peyote after receiving word that it holds the potential for mind control. Much like Burroughs, Lee is rarely sober and regularly detached from reality. The book, initially set in a small quarter of Mexico City, rarely makes reference to any part of Mexico. Lee eats at an American diner, watches French films and talks about Rome. There is an isolation even from the place where he has chosen to isolate himself. That isn’t even to mention the cynicism with which he regards everyone in his life, and how this only serves to tear him apart from reality further. To a modern audience, the book reads as an indictment of the freedom seeking Beat generation more than a praise of it. 

To label the Beat authors as purely hedonistic is to ignore the anti-establishment roots to their ideology, but their methodology often held a selfishness highlighted by the way ideas of masculinity that emerged in their writing. Masculinity to the Beat generation became reactionary: a boy’s club of men dedicated to rebelling against what their dads tell them is right. 

Here, we can distinguish between Morrison’s work within The Doors and the somewhat misguided sentiment of the Beat Generation. Whilst a disciple of the Beat authors, Morrison’s masculinity holds political action at the centre of its ethos. The son of a Navy admiral, Morrison’s own paternal rebellion was always characterised by anti-military sentiment. After telling his father of his plans to go into music, his dad told him that he should do something worthwhile to society. This dismissal grossly underestimated the political impact that The Doors’ work would have. Their music incited vicious anger at the paternalistic forces of the Johnson administration, who held power during the peak of The Doors’ popularity. 

Their music, whilst speaking of an isolation and depression so deeply reminiscent of that espoused by the Beat generation, became a call to arms in a way that the Beats failed to bring to fruition. It is this, to me, that makes the Doors such an incredible band. The perfect balance of detachedness and despondency matched with real political change. The lyrics are far from defeatist, far from fatalistic. Morrison comes off as an inebriated messiah of sorts, leading people towards a world that is truly different, truly better.

By Elizabeth Marney.

Leonora Carrington, most famous for her ground breaking additions to surrealist painting and literature, steadfastly maintained that she was never born, she was made. On an otherwise ordinary day in 1917, in the Lancashire mill town of Chorley, Carrington’s mother, left bloated and uncomfortable by overindulging in decadent foods, lay herself upon a machine. This particular machine had been designed to extract hundreds of gallons of semen from all the animals you could possibly imagine and, from this joining of human, animal, and machine, Leonora was created. This playful, disturbing anecdote encapsulates Carrington’s work and personality. Through her life’s work we see consistent subversion and parody of gender, posthumanism, and madness – all presented in the most brilliantly jarring way. 

Whilst a patriarchal society may have brought us a breadth of insight from Carrington, it has left her often dismissed as a muse to the mainly male surrealist posse of the 20^th century. Her time spent as Max Ernst’s companion or as ex-debutante is never far from conversation when an art aficionado is around. Carrington’s work was undeniably influenced by these things. Her most famous short story, The Debutante, contains an obvious nudge towards her past and her hunger to escape high society. A child debutante befriends a hyena and asks it to take her place at the ball. The hyena tears the face of the child’s maid, donning it as costume whilst the narrator remains willingly encaged in her room. After a snide remark is made at the ball towards their smell, the hyena rips off its fleshy mask and escapes through the window. Humanity is no more than a pageant of manners and materials. One need only decorate oneself and behave “like a human” in order to be accepted as a human. Whilst the turbulent emotions that she experienced in early adulthood greatly informed her work, it seems slightly absurd that a woman who escaped from involuntary incarceration in a sanatorium on a submarine is best known anecdotally for being on the footnotes of an ex-lover’s life. 

What is the use of surrealism if not to point out the madness in normality? Carrington dissolves the distinction between human, animal, and machine with diligence and decadence. There is a great merging of everything: mysticism, class consciousness, plants and animals, humans, chimeras, rotting meat. There is no hierarchy among living things; in fact, humans are frequently the butt of the joke. Carrington’s posthumanism undermines anthropocentrism by various means. By relentlessly highlighting that violence is inherent in all life, Carrington undercuts humanism’s false benevolence. In exposing the self-deception and charlatanry inherent to science and religion, Carrington articulates logic and reason as little more than misplaced coping mechanisms.

There seems to be little qualm throughout Carrington’s work that humanity is a harbinger of death and violence. Sometimes, such as in The Debutante, they see the brutal murder of the lower classes as an acceptable remedy to mild inconveniences. In other works, such as The Hearing Trumpet, this death and destruction is on a global level, materialising in the form of the atomic bomb. One may expect a sense of sadness or catastrophe to be attached to the notion of global destruction. Instead, Carrington leans into optimistic nihilism and posthumanism. There is an unknowingness to death that need not be so painful. She envisions a world populated by cats, werewolves, bees and goats – ‘We all fervently hope that this will be an improvement on reality’.

Carrington’s painting, Cabbage, is a personal favourite. Relative to the rest of her oeuvre, this painting is straightforward. It does not emerge from any bizarre context, nor does it rest in a richly detailed background. It is stark and spare, growing from a dark background and rendered in vivid shades of red and purple that echo a blooming rose. In her short story, Uncle Sam Carrington, the narrator stumbles upon two cabbages in a terrible fight, tearing leaves from each other one by one until nothing remains. It is almost as if there is no limit to the introversion of the cabbage – by peeling a leaf away one simply reveals a smaller cabbage. It appears to lose none of its essence by this extraction.  The anthropomorphising of a non-human object is a tempting analogy. Carrington asks us to resist this temptation. Metaphor itself is a metaphor for the inadequacy of language to capture essence. There is something unknowable of a cabbage and yet upon seeing her painting we attempt to know it. We may see a gloomy, rose-like, cabbage and project an emotional state onto it, we may cover it with lashings of butter and pepper and eat it for dinner, but we know nothing of being a cabbage. Likewise, as tempting as a reliance on predictability may feel, we cannot demand conformity and essence from human’s and non-human creatures. It is impossible to reconcile a reality experienced within power structures as a vindication of projections; it results in an unavoidable feeling of dissonance or misplacement, almost as if everybody in the world is saying quietly to themselves ‘nobody understands me, nobody ever will.’ One cannot truly conform to hegemonic norms; one can only appear to conform.

Part of the allure of Carrington’s work is that it does not demand to be understood. These creations are at their core playful, dreamlike, representations of life. Carrington loathed the notion of absolute truth. There is a spiritual element in the works, a darkness matched with hope, a recognisability that leans more on feeling than it does on logic. Whilst we may never understand Carrington, nor should we attempt to, she provides us with a springboard for introspection, playfulness, and an alternative understanding of the world around us. She embodies surrealism at its core.

By Maddy Harlow.

For most people reading this, the 1^st of December is just another day, perhaps an exciting one as advent calendars are opened and Christmas songs are considered socially acceptable to play. But for many across the world, the 1^st of December is a day of reflection, of raising awareness and of hope for the future. World Aids Day is an opportunity not only for the 38.4 million people living with HIV worldwide, but for everyone to spend at least a few minutes thinking about, talking about, or learning about HIV. 

HIV is a virus that damages the cells in a person’s immune system, weakening their ability to fight infections and disease. It is sometimes conflated with AIDS, the name used to describe a number of potentially life-threatening infections and illnesses that occur when an immune system has been severely damaged by the HIV virus. With an early diagnosis and effective treatment, most carriers of the HIV virus will not go on to develop AIDS and are able to live a healthy life.

According to the World Aids Day website over 105,000 people in the UK are living with HIV, yet 63% of the public do not remember seeing or hearing about HIV in the past six months. HIV can affect any one of any race, ethnicity or sexuality, and the assumption that it only affects a ‘certain group’ is a deeply damaging narrative, facilitating needless transmission. 

In the UK, antiretroviral therapy (ART) medication is accessible. Access to ART reduces a person with HIV’s viral load to the point that it is both undetectable and untransmissible. Globally, thousands of people still do not have access to this life changing medication. Despite the monumental advances in HIV treatment since the beginning of its pandemic in 1984, stigma, shame and ignorance still dominate discourse surrounding HIV. Gareth Thomas, former Rugby Union star opened up about his positive status and was spat at on the street due to the inaccurate perceptions which people hold about HIV. 

It is crucial that those of us who are not HIV positive participate in conversations surrounding HIV. Whilst looking for resources, I stumbled across ‘Through Positive Eyes’, a collaborative photo-storytelling project by over 140 people living with HIV across the world. ‘The project chronicles a very particular moment in the epidemic, when effective treatment is available to some, not all, and when the enduring stigma associated with HIV and AIDS has become entrenched: a major roadblock to both prevention and treatment’. The collection of photos taken by those living with HIV around the world illustrates the diversity of the population of people who are HIV positive, reminding us that we still have a long way to go if we are to end AIDS globally. The virtual gallery is strikingly powerful and each photograph is a bold and courageous act of artistry, reflecting the emotions and lived experiences of those who are HIV positive globally. Through Positive Eyes is one of many projects aiming to end the stigma of HIV once and for all it feels like a privilege to be able to see intimate snapshots of the highs and lows of living with HIV. 

Having a look at the Through Positive Eyes website is just one way to start to think about HIV this world AIDS day. Films and TV shows such as ‘It’s a Sin’ and ‘How to survive a plague’ are two examples of poignant representations of the history of the AIDS pandemic – but a vast amount of footage and documentaries can also be found online. The HIV unmuted podcast contains valuable knowledge and insight on the subject, or you can take a look at the World AIDS day 2022 website to learn a bit more about HIV and what you can do to help make a change. 

Perhaps one of the most important things you can do this world AIDS day is get tested. Take a festive trip to the STI clinic or do it from the comfort of your own home. One blood test could make all the difference in reducing the transmission of HIV. 

Talk to your friends and family about HIV, raise awareness and end the stigma around the topic. David, who lives with HIV, told the national HIV trust:
‘What I’m learning, and have learned, is that it is fightable, it is worth getting out of bed and it is worth the pain to fight to be able to see a day when possibly millions can be free from this epidemic. We just have to keep fighting’. 

HIV is far from being a thing of the past. Whilst the UN has stated that it wants to end HIV as a public health threat by 2030, we still have a very long way to go. To end the shame and the stigma we need to talk, we need to educate ourselves and we need to test ourselves. Across the world people are still dying from AIDS. This world AIDS day be the person who starts the conversation. Nobody should have to die due to ignorance. 

Some resources to access: 

https://www.worldaidsday.org

https://throughpositiveeyes.org

https://survivors.unaids.org

https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/sexual-health/visiting-an-sti-clinic/

https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/sexual-health/visiting-an-sti-clinic/

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/hiv-unmuted/id1565625594