NEW EDGE # 08 / NEW EDGE / SPRING/SUMMER 2017 Making of the '50% chance of rain' editorial. PHOTO Ina Klansek #07 - NEWEDGE 2 NEW EDGE #08 # 08 / NEW EDGE / SPRING/SUMMER 2017 EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Anja Korošec FASHION DIRECTOR Anže Ermenc E info@newedgemagazine.com WEB www.newedgemagazine.com COvER PHOTO Edwin Carl Capalla LAYOUT DESIGN Anja Korošec LECTOR Maja Podojsteršek 3 #07 - NEWEDGE NEW EDGE GLITCH Glitch is an error or short lived mistake in a structured system. But is it an error in the system, or all the mistakes making it fuller? Umberto Eco once said: 'Beauty is boring because it is predictable.' So what makes things beautiful are mistakes - or maybe that is the real beauty, because there's nothing interesting in perfection. As far as I know, mistakes make things interesting; they separate things from other things, and are usually more visible because of a small glitch. Without glitches there would be no more creativity, no more innovations, because it is the glitches and the unknown which force us to find a creative solution in certain situations. There is a fear that in the future we will lost that kind of perception because of Superintelligence, where we will no longer need to think and computers will have all the answers immediately ... does that mean that the future is something we need to worry about? Welcome to the eighth, Spring/Summer issue of New Edge magazine. This is a free magazine that promotes and draws attention to all the good and valuable things in our life and environment. New Edge Magazine presents and introduces people with remarkable interests and innovative views of the world. In the social context, the magazine points out that things have more sides, than what we see at first glance, and that it is often necessary to look at life from another perspective. Thank you for staying with us. ™ Anja Korošec #08 - NEWEDGE 4 CONTENT CONTENTS SPIRNG/SUMMER 2017 PROMISING ■ DOWN RABBIT HOLES WITH NAICHE LIZZETTE PARKER ■ LARA PAUKOVIČ ■ VALA: NATURE, LOVE AND TECHNOLOGY ■ ŽIGA RAUTNER ■ NEA LIKAR VISION ■ PURE HUMAN BY TINA GORJANC FASHION ■ 50% CHANCE OF RAIN ■ CONCRETE JUNGLE ■ MADE IN SLOVENIA ALTERNATIVE ■ Anja Kotar / SO WHEN THAT DOOR CLOSES, JUST WHAT DO YOU DO? ■ COLOURSTORY ■ Vanja Zizic / PICTURE NOT PERFECT ■ Maja Podojstersek / WHAT'S YOUR NUMBER? ■ Denis Pucelj / ERRORS TAKEN WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING ■ Tajda Hlacar / WHY DO WE DRESS OURSELVES CULTURE ■ EDWIN CARL CAPALLA ■ E V Y N ■ HANDMADE BY GLORIA ■ A NICHE IN LJUBLJANA ■ Illustration -MICHAEL LETTO 20-29 jjj ^^ ijf > F JV^ j 14^ ^ H Ja IÜ 50 i V ■ * " sit 60 i i.i i i j '^nM 66 #08 - NEWEDGE 5 PROMISING WRITING DOWN RABBIT HOLES WITH NAICHE LIZZETTE PARKER I first stumbled upon Naiche on Tumblr, through a friend of mine who had told me that the girl writes really well - which was probably the understatement of the year. She had a game going with her followers -they would send her their names and she would write a few sentences about what they reminded her of. When she did mine upon request (after she had already ended the whole thing), I was completely taken by her words and now, a couple of years later, her writing still amazes me. Naiche is one of those few but precious people who possess the rare gift of being able to take something completely mundane and, with their words, transform it into something magical. She once recommended a song to me, telling me I have to listen to it because (and I quote) 'it's currently playing in her bones'. In a sea of teenagers and young adults that have the ability romanticise just about anything in ordinary ways, Naiche, 22, does that extraordinarily. So it comes as no surprise that she already has two self-published works out in the world. She hadn't always dreamed of being a writer, she tells me. "When I was younger, I bounced around the most bizarre career dreams: ballerina, doctor, summer camp director... But writing was always the common thread. I was more interested in blocking the stage and writing the story than being a dancer; more interested in my clipboard and medical histories of my imaginary patients than studying science; and way more interested in writing up camp day itineraries and having faux phone conversations with "parents" about my "campers" than actually...running a summer camp. It was always about the story, and that's something I hold with me still. It's always about the story." Her work hadn't always been public; she'd kept diaries over the years, jotting down ideas, prose and poems until one day she decided to create a Tumblr account where she'd post her poetry. That account has since been left in the past, but she still remembers the surprise of one of her poems becoming popular on the page. "Writing is such an incredible tool because it allows an escape from reality, but it also makes that reality more bearable. When you're young and just starting out, it's as simple as a magic carpet ride to a fantasy world when your parents are fighting or the bullies are inching in. There, the bullies are ogres and your words are a sword, and in at least one corner of your life, you get to win. Writing saved my life that way. As you gain a readership, you become this train conductor to these other worlds and you're responsible for the trip you're taking your readers on, aiding in their escape and grasp on reality, too. With a single stanza or entire saga, you can battle an entire presidential administration, explain heartbreak, or just try and get through the day." And it was an anonymous follower on her current Tumblr account that had encouraged her to self-publish - that provided that little push she had needed to put out Paper and Bones, her first book of poetry, clad in white with the cover depicting a silhouette of a girl, framed by leaves and flowers representing the forests that she loves to escape to whenever she gets the chance. Her most recent work, Rabbit Holes is a complete contrast to it, with its pitch 6 #08 - NEWEDGE PROMISING black covers and white motives. Paper and Bones, she tells me, embodies the escapism of girlhood in a way that is Naiche's own - whereas Rabbit Holes is womanhood made ink on paper, falling into life itself. "It is the notion that everything must break before blossoming," as reads the back cover of the book. The Latina who grew up in the Bronx now roams the streets of Brooklyn and always sees the world through writer's glasses. "Over the years, it's become less about the challenge of seeking out inspiring things and more of finding inspiration in everything I come across. I don't believe that there's a single thing you can't transform into writing material if you try hard enough. They say to write what you know, but for me, it's about exercising the brain and widening the imagination enough to write what I don't. Political turmoil, the man snoring on the bus wearing an antique watch, the way that building catches the light, the brave thing your younger brother once said...there's something in everything. You just have to see the potential in everything." Her motivation to write comes from the people who have told her that she can. "I have a great family who for the most part encourages my writing as a real career. I've built a beautiful and supportive online community of readers and friends over the years, who don't need to show me the love that they do but do it anyway on their own time. It always stuns me. I have this dream that keeps me going...I want to write a novel that's at least one person's favourite. I want to write a book that keeps one person up under their covers at night. I just know that this is what I'm supposed to do." And her motto? "You are always exactly where you need to be. When I began to think that way, nothing ever felt like failure - just an unexpected pit stop that probably saved you from a worse storm." You can find Naiche on Instagram and Twitter (@ naichelizzette), Tumblr (crooked-queen.tumblr.com) and her webpage coming soon (naichelizzette.com) and her books at https://www.createspace.com/6153223, https://www.createspace.com/7096071 . ~ RABBIT J-IOLIiS fin so?ty for% rhings j ^ wA the moon hjjj its fiiiun v , and then never see again. ' * fhe Wood |idJ] warn, rht hul*t « itill running; ^e arc words for I]lls I know- rtent i could not be the si your dreams. gassa®^ nil? SDaftj-.li..-.. ' sparrows wtn)'j s Sln£- so srrdii^e #08 - NEWEDGE 7 PROMISING WRITING LARA PAUKOYIC #08 - NEWEDGE 8 PROMISING It's almost every bookworm's dream when growing up, to one day walk into your local bookshop and see your very own book sitting on the shelf, nestled between the works of some of your favourite authors. For Lara Paukovič that dream became a reality when her debut novel, Poletje v gostilni, was published by one of Slovenia's leading publishing agencies Beletrina and is now being read by young and old alike all over the country. For the twenty-four year old, who's currently working on her master's degree in anglistics and comparative literature, the dream of having her own book had been alive since she was a little girl and she never gave up on it. She laughs when she remembers her first writing endeavours, a big historical fiction novel she'd started in primary school. "It was terribly cheesy and I'd gotten all the facts wrong of course! I'd even sent it to a publishing agency but never heard from them." She kept writing throughout high school and even finished two novels as a teenager, which had never been fated to become actual books. "Poletje v gostilni is the first novel of mine that I'd really thought out and took more seriously. I was determined to finish it and get it published. Looking back on all my previous writing endeavours and comparing them to it, I have to say I've progressed immensely as far as my writing's concerned." Her first big step into the field of Slovenian literature happened when she'd joined the team of Koridor -križišča umetnosti, a cultural platform where she's been the literature editor for the past three years. "As an editor I had to - and I still have to - be in a constant contact with different publishing agencies; I attended a lot of different cultural events with the team and met many and more writers of all generations. And I'm very grateful for all that this work has given me." The inspiration for her first novel came from working in a Serbian restaurant herself - that was where she'd picked up the setting from, but the novel's not autobiographical in any way. "Most ofthe characters and events that happen in the book are completely fictional. " When asked about the challenges and obstacles she'd faced while writing the book, her answer is time to write. "It's something I struggle with to this day. One of the struggles was also picking out relevant advice from the people who had been reading the book while it was being written, realizing what applied and what would help the book evolve. There'd also been obstacles in the form of a writer's block, when I'd go for weeks without writing anything coherent and I had no idea how and where to lead the story from a certain point on; or underwhelming comments from different people. Until your work is published, people are always a bit reserved and sceptical towards writing. 'Are you sure you want to do this, I mean the novel has potential, but...' - I've heard it all. But if you're focused and have a goal in mind, these obstacles become completely irrelevant." Publishing a novel, especially a debut one, comes with attention - not just from those that surround you on a daily basis, but from the media as well. And if there's one thing that Lara's learned from the whole experience, it's who's genuine in showing their support and who isn't. "Some people just respond badly to the attention you're given when you become a published author." As far as her book and writing experience are concerned, she wouldn't change a single thing. "I'd perfected the book to the point where I was certain that I couldn't add or take away anything anymore, I released it into the world and the rest is out of my control," she laughs. As far as the future's concerned, she plans to start working on her second work of literature this summer and will be finishing up her master's degree in her upcoming final year at college. "I want to primarily dedicate my life to literature and see where the road takes me." And does she have a motto? "It would have to be the saying that I've got tattooed on my arm - panta rhei, 'all flows'. The way I interpret it is that everything flows, everything changes and everything passes. So there's really no use in stressing out about the things that we aren't in control of." LARA PAUKOVIC POLETJE V GOSTILNI 'Ifitnna V #08 - NEWEDGE 9 PROMISING VIDEO INSTALLATION VALA: NATURE, LOVE AND TECHNOLOGY -THE REVOLUTION OF THE MIND Interview with Agnes Momirski by Dunja Kukovec Your artworks seem to embody the present from a futuristic perspective. Due to your in-depth interest in the subject and subjectivity, your research of technology relates to communication, information and social interfaces. In the quantum world of mind preceding matter and by entering the virtually real space time matrix your art work seems capable of socio-political affirmation and critique, simultaneously. How do you see all that in relation to the irreversibility and change-potential of technology? It became rather impossible to detach oneself from technology - therefore the simultaneously affirmative and critical position is inevitable. Tech opens up so many cultural, ethical, social and other questions. I am interested in how our perceptual experience changes through the fractured nature of one's subjectivity (online), and the modalities and multiplicities of formats within which we communicate - especially the different layers and variables of interactions through which new forms of subjectivities are constructed. Historically, with every new technology introduced to society the human consciousness or psychology shifted or changed. These mental shifts have been affecting our existential ecosystem and social organism, as well as our creative production, and I find the emerging states of consciousness quite fascinating. They compared your work with Maya Deren's movies; I find elements of Matthew Barney's and Mariko Mori's art. However, in your art work all the technological hardware is reduced to phenomena of the screens. Even though your woman image resembles a gender less character, s/he is still a woman. What kind of the mindset represents the context of your work? The screen is a reflective surface, serving purposes of dissemination, connectivity, and transcendence. In my work, the use of video renders the duration of transformation processes, and is essentially a medium 10 #08 - NEWEDGE PROMISING which allows the exploration of the mental, inner, spiritual life. I employ the combination of video and screen-based technologies and cinematic techniques to depict these ephemeral phenomena of disembodied and virtual existence. It's capturing the elusive modalities of being, defragmented and disembodied subjectivities and above all, the process of unfolding the mental self along a certain time axis. Usually, the unfolding of self in my works is represented through the language and is text based - be it in a dialogue, lyrics, or poetry. For a long while, I've been interested in the voice as an indicator of presence and absence and its shapeshifting through tech. VALA, the video installation, refers to a demon in Vedic scriptures, female shaman in Nordic mythology, and finally to Vala in William Blake's mythological system. Inspired by the "flood" of digital/ virtual assistants and instructional contents/interfaces, I am addressing the notion of a (historic) female role as a consultant, a guide and an entertainer. The project stages the intertwining of the digital, entertaining and consoling female voice, out of which emerges a new hybrid voice that travels through various embodiments - a poetic voice tagging glitches, clicks and shifts of consciousness during the wandering and scrolling online. In the epic poem Vala, William Blake creates a new law, a new antonym. Instead of the love hate phrase, now we can firmly live within the love nature paradigm, as love and nature present two flips of the same coin. To see how all this falls into the world of of techno abundance, VALA video installation opened at Kino Šiška on 12th of June, 2017. SHORT BIO: Agnes Momirski is an interdisciplinary artist, living and working in The Netherlands and Slovenia, with MA in sculpture from Royal college of Art (London, 2014), and BA in Fine arts from Willem de Kooning Academie (Rotterdam, 2012). She works at the intersection of art, design and film, revisiting the relationships between body, technology and self. In 2016 she was awarded the Young talent award by Mondriaan Fonds, and Squeeze online award by Trieste Contemporanea in Italy. ~ #08 - NEWEDGE 11 PROMISING DESING / ILLUSTRATION ZIGA RAUTNER Tell us a little bit about yourself: who are you, and what is it that you do? My name is Žiga and I'm a designer and illustrator from Kranj, Slovenia. Most of my time consists of doing anything that is connected with creativity. My day starts with a good cup of coffee and a drive to Ljubljana where I work in a company as a 3D jewelry designer designing new unique products per request. Besides working as a 3D designer I freelance in graphic design and illustration from my studio in Kranj. When I'm not working I try to skateboard as much as I can and spend time with my pet dog named Miško. How did you start with design / illustration? I kind of knew from the beginning that I would eventually do something that was connected to drawing. I was always better at explaining what was on my mind through drawings and visual representation rather than using words. The day I started Middle school for design and photography in Ljubljana, was the day I was introduced to design. So over the years of going to school and meeting new people and gaining new friendships I started to shape my idea of what design and illustration mean to me and what I want to do with the knowledge that I have gained. 12 #08 - NEWEDGE PROMISING What separates you from other artists? Every artist has their own unique style and expression for presenting their creations, so in a way we are all different from one another, however we are all looking for that small spark of inspiration to produce something mind blowing. That spark of inspiration for me is the environment that I'm surrounded by. All the people, events, places, emotions, noises and all other small things that don't seem important - I have the ability to soak everything in like a sponge. Your character develops on how you behave and act from the environment and society you live in and if you are aware of your surroundings, you are constantly getting new information that you can filter and process to produce something that comes from inside of you and shows you as you are, so every time I'm in some place I try to focus and feel the energy, vibe and events that are transpiring around me at that moment and soak them in. You are a skateboarder - how does street culture affect your creativity? I think that spending time in the streets doing anything, not just skateboarding, opens your mind to different vibes that flow around the city. It had a very big impact on my way of how I present my art. Skateboarding by itself is a creative lifestyle mixed with different culture, music, characters. You have so many different people, places, emotions to observe. It really is one big place to get some fresh new ideas from. It gave me the power to always keep moving forward, no matter what and it taught me that if you try hard enough and if you put the energy into it you will eventually succeed. It helped my mind and body to balance physically and mentally on where my limits are and how I can overcome them and if you add the creativity to it - which skateboarding has a lot to offer - it is, to me, just the perfect combination for spending free time and hanging out with my crew and friends. It helps me relax and clear my mind of irrelevant things. What do you want to become in future, what is your biggest dream? I really don't have an ultimate goal or a dream. To me having an ultimate goal sounds like you are limiting yourself to just one achievement and when you accomplish that your path stops. So I kind of see my own path as some sort of journey from one lighthouse to another, if you will; always being on the move, always finding something new, trying different things that put you out of your comfort zone, because that's when you really begin to know yourself, see yourself as what you are and realize what can you do. (My biggest dream is) to do what I love and what makes me happy. Do you have a motto? Success is meaningless if you lose yourself in the process of achieving it.~ #08 - NEWEDGE 13 PROMISING ART / ILLUSTRATION NEA LIKAR Who are you and what is it that you do? My name is Nea Likar and I'm an illustrator, graphic designer and make-up artist. I'm currently wrapping up my master's degree in illustration at ALUO in Ljubljana. I'm active in all of the fields I've mentioned, but illustration is the one that's leading me through all three of them and the one I love the most. It's my strongest and favourite tool of expressing myself. At the moment I'm designing my own bags brand under the name Sketch, which will soon be released. I'm also working on a lot of different design projects, illustration and graphics and I'm incredibly happy that I'm able to express myself on other's faces as a make-up artist as well. How did you get into illustration? Ever since I can remember I've been drawing. I've always been very receptive to colour and even as a little girl I was able to notice small details that I wanted to draw. Even back then books and other types of print excited me greatly and in high school I discovered a great love for the illustrations I saw in these books, so the decision to study illustration was somehow a logical path for me. It was through my studies and through being part of an exchange in Portugal that I came to discover what kind of illustration I feel close to and what kind of style and segment of it I'd like to follow. I keep educating myself, visiting different courses, reading more on the topic and learning the technique I want to be proficient in. I love supporting the people I look up to and buying their products. I find it's important that you keep developing your own style depending on the needs of the project you're working on and that you don't push your own thoughts and ideas to the side but rather challenge them constantly. What separates you from other illustrators? I'm mostly creating with a technique where I combine hand-made (analog) and digital illustration. My preferred technique is pencil, which I then combine with digital elements. What I get as a final product is a collage and that helps me to incorporate different messages into my illustrations. I prefer illustrations through which I can communicate as much as possible. I feel like it's 14 #08 - NEWEDGE PROMISING The first bag in the story "Sketch" (technique: pencil, colors, watercolor and digital illustration) Series "365 Illustrations in 2017" (Technique: Pencil, Paint, Watercolor & Digital Illustration) that technique combined with a seemingly adorable illustration with a lot of surrealism and messages that makes my style recognisable. What do you want to become in future, your biggest dream? In the future I see myself surfing the creative waves in my career as well as life, which is greatly tied with illustration and drawings. My biggest dream is to be able to do this every day and live from it, that my work is needed and appreciated. I'd love to work more on prints on textiles, illustrating books, especially 'silent books' (books without text), which I've become obsessed with, and working with creative people. To wrap this year up I'd love to successfully finish the 365 project (posting illustrations every day on my Facebook page: Nea Likar and my Instagram profile: nealikar) and complete my master's degree which is one of my most creative and refined ones (two silent books). Do you have a motto? Nobody is you and that is your power. // I can. I will. ~ #08 - NEWEDGE 15 VISION a 5 6 PURE HUMAN BY TINA GORJANC http://www.tinagorjanc.com/ How did the idea of creating leather products from skin come about? The project was always designed as a critical design project that on one side aims to showcase a possible future application of biotechnological processes in the field of the luxury industry and therefore advocate a more ethically acceptable alternative to our current leather goods. And on the other, it aims to expose loopholes that are present in our legislation that allow the exploitation of human genetic material in the commercial market. The luxury industry has shown quite a big interest in biotechnology in the past few decades. That, combined with the fact that the majority of the population can relate and identify with the context of luxury goods much faster than any other products within our society has resulted in the luxury industry being the perfect platform to showcase the problematic that the project is trying to expose. The purpose of the speculative collection, of which the surface of the material is designed to mimic the characteristics of human skin, is to expose the identity of the source used as a raw material. As similar types of genetic exploitation usually happen in the medical and pharmaceutical field on a molecular level, those materials are usually dehumanised because of their scale. The Pure Human collection aims to humanise back the product by showcasing a scenario of exploitation that already occurred several times in the medical field in the past and translate it into our commercial market of luxury goods, making it more relatable and understandable to a wider audience. 16 #08 - NEWEDGE VISION Why DNA from Alexander McQueen? To set the record straight, this is not an Alexander McQueen project - although it was advertised as that in the media. McQueen was presented as one of the possible examples of genetic exploitation that could happen in the future as the legislation protecting our genetic material is failing to keep up the pace with the advantages of our technology. I can understand the confusion regarding the project as commonly the facts that were stated in the articles were quite ambiguous. I believe that this misinterpretation of the project was partly played out intentionally by the media - the shock factor probably generated a vaster amount of click baits. However, a really big portion of the blame can also be attributed to the misunderstanding of the design direction of the project due to its novelty, as well as the complexity of the presented design scenario. With that said, I still believe McQueen is a really good example of how the exploitation of genetic material can occur, which is exactly what the project is advocating against. What does the process look like and did you run into any problems, were there any complications? The process to develop the leather-like material would include a combination of procedures found in the field of synthetic biology, tissue engineering technologies and standard leather tanning techniques. All of those processes already exist in our commercial market on a large scale; however, they are commonly used for different #08 - NEWEDGE 17 VISION purposes around the globe. The biggest problems that such a technology is still facing are that it is still not developed to the point where it would be a financially viable substitute to our current production techniques. It still requires a greater deal of research that would allow its implementation in the market. At the same time, I believe that one of the biggest challenges that such material is facing (if it is developed) is the acceptance of the public in terms of a shift of mentality regarding the human body and its materiality. How difficult was it to implement the project? The project is a speculative design project and therefore the material itself was not developed beyond experiments proving a possible path forward. However, I did apply for a patent application that if granted would protect a material that was developed from human genetic information as a source. Contrary to the common belief though, the purpose of the patent application is to showcase that even though the project is set in a speculative scenario, the context of its products is still very much applicable to our commercial market and that the fictional luxury brand Pure Human can be easily developed within our current legal framework. What are your next projects and plans for the future? I was quite lucky to be approached by different companies and stakeholders from various fields that have very different interests in the project. That allows me to shape my work into several really different paths - producing more critical and speculative design projects, work on the implementation of a version of the presented products for a more sustainable option for a commercial application, working within the academic field as well as being an advocate with talks and exhibitions for the new emerging design field that I really believe has a viable application in our current society - critical, speculative and contestable design. Do you have a motto? There is nothing that people must do; there is no way that people must be. — VISION 50% chance of rain creative direction and styling Anze Ermenc photography Jürgen Kramberger MUA Gox Miljic Agnes Krown models Teo Valeska Raiven Teo wears shirt Tjaša Zalar, trousers Deni Pregelj / Valeska wears top Deni Pregelj, trousers Timotej Bistan, shoes models own Raiven (right) wears top Timotej Bistan, trousers and belt Deni Pregelj and shoes M.Fiction Jaka wears suit and shoes Deni Pregelj, accessories stylists own / Julian wears shirt Deni Pregelj and top (worn backwards) Nika Batista ••»»Ml i ri::. ÎÎ.IIIÛÎi »umih • M'