Featuring:
Robin Friend
Max Creasy
Superflux
Gold Panda
Laura Lewis
James Clarke
Celestial Trax
A changing world, as we understand it, often involves the collision of nature and people – the non-human and the human. We naturally view things from an anthropocentric perspective. Maybe this is why many of us can more viscerally connect with the effects of COVID-19 than climate change.
Much of the images, themes and conversations in Issue D explore the relationship between the human and the non-human world. These worlds often exist in juxtaposition and are fraught with conflict. One is usually taking something from the other. In Robin Friend's images from his book Bastard Countryside, we see the relationship played out dramatically and almost poetically. It is hard to believe they are real. On one hand, they serve as artefacts, and from another perspective, they serve as metaphors for the interplay of human and non-human worlds that exist in both literal and abstract ways.
"The world as we conceived it doesn't exist anymore" is a quote from our conversation with Superflux. We discuss the implications of changes to systems and cultures that shift us away from what we have long believed to be objective truths. In this respect, the relationship between the human and the non-human is a conflict that occurs within the individual and collective narratives of every person. We are forced now, more than ever, to question who we are. If it is true that many of our artificially constructed ideas about the world will be left behind, how will we live without fundamental truths?
In the conversation with artist and photographer, Max Creasy, we discuss how the commodification of daily life manifests in the way we document, understand and communicate in the visual realm. With an increasingly large aspect of lives existing online, through images and social media platforms, the human and the non-human are polarised – ourselves and the image of ourselves. It is a duality that exists in both the physical world; how we present to others, and the inner world; the way we define ourselves.
With all these aspects of life in a state of flux and the world in a state of pause, perhaps we are offered time and space to think about these things. To consider ourselves in relation to; the communal, the other, our principle narratives, and the image we project both inwardly and outwardly. One thing is certain - there is one thing we can take solace in; that the world as we conceived it doesn’t exist anymore.
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52 pgs, 29.7 × 21 cm, Softcover, 2020,
