The Living Dead

Local street artists located in Paris and Berlin have created graffiti with a difference.
These images are made from discarded animal pelts and fur coats. Scattered across the cities, they form the shapes they once held in life, acting as a reminder of the lives that have been taken.



These lambs adorn a slaughterhouse. Numbered for effect they eternally wait for their death. Although wool is considered an okay pelt to be seen in, it is the way the animals are killed that anger protestors and organisations such as PETA.



Wolves run the streets along with animals such as bulls, deer, cats and bears. Amongst the concrete buildings a moose watches over commuters as a leopard creeps along some railings. Although all silenced, they are far from hidden.
To see the full gallery of these living dead visit: http://www.neozoon.org/pictures.html



If the 2D life forms were not enough, the creators have also come up with something quite chilling. These animated creations are robots, covered in the discarded pelts. Although the movements are far from active, it effectively hammers home that these animals should be doing so much more. They have been killed, skinned and then re animated in such a way that you tend to forget these faceless creations were killed so someone else could wear their fur.

Designers for the Disabled

Models have walked the runways in leaps and bounds in recent years. The controversially anorexic have grown curves, gained breasts, and now, they're taking another step.
For the first time ever, a fashion show used disabled models for two shows in London. Showcasing clothes from the likes of Ann Summers and ASOS, the fashion shows had support from Eastenders and Hollyoaks stars, as well as gaining critical success.
Proceeds from the shows went towards supporting HAFAD (Hammersmith and Fulham Action on Disability) who hosted the first show on the 22 Oct. The second show on the 25th was hosted by London fashion show "Disabled and Sexy" who featured their show for spinal muscular atrophy awareness.
The models featured in the show stated that, for their own personal reasons, the shows helped prove that even people with disabilities could look and feel sexy.

The fashion shows coincided with the search for contestants for a new BBC3 programme. "Britains Missing Top Model" which will have the same premise as "Britains Next Top Model", except this time around eight disabled woman will compete for the prize; a high-fashion photo shoot and a cover on a glossy magazine.

Is this really fashion with a heart? Or is this just this seasons trend? I highly doubt whether next years collections will showcase disabled models (rumour has it that a couple of high profile designers refused to collaborate with the HAFAD shows), but for now, the shallow walls are crumbling on superficiality.

The Intellectuals and the Masses

The French Revolution was not just a shock for the people living in Versailles. When it occurred it essentially sent shock waves through most of the elite as the peasants made it more than clear. If they massed together, not even the monarchy was safe.

John Carey is a professor of English at Oxford University and the author of The Intellectuals and the Masses. He in no way condones the views set by the elite but showcases their values in his book.

The elite had always sat high and dry, safe in the knowledge that the people beneath them in the hierarchy were too stupid to realize that they could be doing better with their lives than building carts and doing other physical labor. However, times were changing, and social developments meant that crowds of people were now learning to read and growing in power. People like Lord Northcliffe jumped on this new cultural change and created newspapers pandering to their needs. The newly invented tabloid embraced the lives of everyday people. It specialized in being picture heavy, so that it was even easier to read than before. This led to the belief that the common newspaper bypassed the intellectual. On top of that they were enabling woman to become clever, something unheard of.

A rift was created between England, a rift brought about by fear as the elite desperately tried to cling on to their status in the social order. They knew that once everyone else became educated, there would be nothing setting them apart from the rest of England. So they created modern art. Modern art being something so unintelligible and so unlike the art that had come before it, only they could understand it. Modern art was apparently the "superior art", it belonged to them and if you didn't understand it, you were not `elite`.

These extreme views were epitomized in a few individuals in particular.

• Gissing-Apparently the earliest English writer to formulate the intellectuals, he only slept with woman who were inferior to him and would regularly boast about beating them up. He believed woman's education was to blame for the cultural change. Upon writing his book "In the year of the jubilee" he states that aspects such as fashion illustrate the folly and greed of woman and everything to do with their attire. When he travelled to Italy in later life he was greatly moved by the sight of a peasant. Although he couldn't care less about the person as a human being, he is moved by the notion that somewhere in the world, certain people are still in their place and are still working the land with no inclination to be educated.
• H.G Wells- Another one who holds woman's education responsible. "Woman's craving for material things has ruined mankind". He also believed in sterilization and elimination of certain members of the human race. Those suffering from genetic illnesses or those who are not mentally stable should be killed or sterilized. "The way of Nature in this process is to kill the weaker". He dreamed of a modern Utopia in which we would all live in a Big Brother-esque world, where we'd all be recorded according to fingerprints and numbers. Everyone is kept control of. The fact that this would be so appealing is no surprise, since this is what the elitist were most afraid of, losing their power over the masses.
• Wyndham Lewis-A huge supporter of Hitler, he greatly appreciated the idea of eliminating certain races and certain human beings. He thought that the world had become just one big melting pot, where races and culture were no longer distinguishable. Pedigree and class were incredibly important to the intellectuals during this century, and the fact that Englishmen essentially came from the same stock as Shakespeare would have been a great source of pride. Therefore other cultures were thought less of. The idea that racial purity generated strength, meant that health of the race was paramount.

The mass was seen to be spreading in an unhealthy way. Suburbs which were built to accommodate the ever growing population were condemned for ruining the countryside and were said to be worse than slums. When they were eventually built, they were thought of to be breeding grounds for, not only more masses, but diseases and further education opportunities. Everything the elite detested.

Freud described these masses as a primal horde/pack. The idea of it plays to animal instincts. Those who are apart from the mass have successfully managed to suppress their unconscious desires and instincts. They have successful Ego's and Superego's and are therefore better humans than those giving way to their need to huddle together.

Characters such as Bloom in James Joyce's Ulysses is also mass. Yet through the book, we get to know him extremely well. His fears, his fantasies, his desires etc. Joyce individualizes someone from within a crowd and shows that they are all human, not just one body of people. Yet the idea that education should be a privilege still held. Nothing so fine should ever be so common. Only higher forms of life actually live, the rest should merely survive.

Things like the cinema and movies and even newspapers were seen as cheap forms of entertainment, tacky and not intelligent. Even the newly invented crematorium was seen as a "conveyor belt" into death. The crowds had even over crowded the cemeteries. This all eventually culminated in the holocaust during Hitlers reign in the Second World War. Whether the situations Carey pinpoints in his book is to blame is debatable. Though it is clear the intellectuals mentioned were great supporters and would not have protested the thought of it happening. As D.H Lewis made clear, the mass murder of millions of people would be no more terrible than the fall of leaves in the autumn.

The masses were to blame for everything over the coming years; woman's rights, marriage problems, disbelief in God and the grand principle of female independence. The elite tried their best to make education as inaccessible as possible to the inferior masses and to some extent this is still continuing today.

James Joyce: Ulysses

James Joyce was born February 1882 in Dublin. Chapter 15 of his book Ulysses is one characters stream of consciousness, repressed fears and wish fulfillment as he spends one night in a brothel.
Bloom hallucinates continually about sex and fantasies as his sub-conscious gets the better of him.
The whole chapter is like one big dream in terms of the way Bloom even changes clothes according to the situations he finds himself in. He may lose himself in a fantasy for an hour but find that little to no time has passed in the real world.

Towards the beginning of the chapter, Bloom hallucinates his mother and father are with him and reprimanding him on the state of his clothes. Although he is muddy because he almost got run over, he becomes ashamed and tells his father that it's because he has been playing with the other children. On top of this, we become aware that his outfit has changed to that of a young boy's. This feeling of fear and unworthiness in front of a father figure has echoes of Sigmund Freud's belief in the Oedipus complex. Bloom feels like a child, and this is reflected in his outwardly behavior. Throughout the chapter, Bloom is also looking to become a father figure to the other character of Stephen. This is due to the fact Bloom recently lost his real son and has the instinct to feel like a father again. Therefore their is a common theme of father and son through the chapter.

Woman in the chapter are all either prostitutes, whores, ugly, mean or crazy. The woman's attire is described like "vicelike corsets" or "restrained in net tight frocks"; language associated with traps and limited means of escape. When Bloom is visited by his grandfather (yet another dream sequence), Virag lectures on womans clothing and how it is highly deceiving. Aspects of a dress such as the rouched bits which hide the fat, and the padded bits for enhancement, so that when you strip it down, it's nothing like what you anticipated. Woman are temptresses who entice you in. "The vice of her painted eyes".
On top of that, one female character; Zoe, also appears to dabble in witchcraft. She reads Blooms palm, while a chalked circle appears on the floor. Two signs that back in the early century were sure signs of evil and witchcraft.
The woman Bloom meets within his hallucinations all treat him like dirt. They beat him either mentally or physically and he even turns into a camel when faced with his wife.

Bloom also gets visited by a nymph at one point within the brothel. A nymph that saw Bloom having sex many years ago within the forest. She (another woman who is not normal) is annoyed that Bloom had disrespected the forest in such a hideous way. She claims that he took the forests innocence. Since the trees and the animals that were witness to Blooms crime, did not consent (I'm assuming) to having their innocence removed, the implication is clear that Bloom essentially raped the forest of it's purity. However, Bloom reminds her that sex is a "natural phenomenon" and that sex and nature are linked. At the beginning of the novel two characters discuss the fact that "even the all wisest Stagyrite was bitted, bridled and mounted by a light of love". Stating that even the greats like Shakespeare turn into animals when it comes to sex. Eventually, the nymph has to agree and disappears, albeit in a worse mood than when she arrived.


The whole chapter allows the reader to see Bloom's worst fears, deep seated worries and his fantasies. He turns from a sheepish child in front of his father, to a burdened camel in front of his wife, and still yet to a power hungry and selfish ruler during another fantasy. We see every side of his personality and the argument remains whether James Joyce revealed himself through the character of Bloom, or whether the book is merely a work of fiction. But as the chapter itself states: "Sleep reveals the worst part of everyone".

Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud was a German psychologist born 6 May 1856. Born into a matriarchal society, his theories tended to blame a lot of psychological problems on the mother and demean woman overall.

People's problems in adult life could be always be linked back to childhood and the restrictions that had been placed on them during this time. His Psychosexual analysis of childhood incorporates five stages. If a person was not allowed to complete one of these stages succesfully, they would become fixated in later life and therefore could be attributed to certain dysfunctions. These stages were as follows.
The Oral Stage: Children have a need, during the weaning process, to put things in their mouth. At this age it's how they explore the world and understand new things. If a child is prevented from doing this, it's believed that in his adult life, he will often have addictions like smoking, drinking, or even habits such as nail biting or chewing pens.
The next stage is the Anal Phase. Toilet training and learning to control yourself is obviously a vital element of growing up. Positive feedback potentially means a well adjusted adult, if the child recieves negative feedback, he runs the risk of being anal retentive; in which the child becomes overly tidy or organised, or anal expulsive; when the child becomes destructive or disgustingly messy.
Next is the phallic stage. This is where the child begins to differentiate between males and females, as well as being focused on the genitals. This ties in which the Oedipus complex where the male child wants to own and have a relationship with the mother; while holding a deep resentment towards the father. This jelousy eventually turns to a fear that the father will discover his sons intentions and castrate him. After this realisation, the son instead sides with the father and rejects the mother. He learns from the father and creates his male identity.
On the other hand, girls suffer from penis envy. She will also resent the mother for not giving her a penis and will try and identify with the father. In time, she will come to replace her penis envy with the acceptance of having a womb. However; since she has already identified with the father, she creates two seperate identities, both male and female. This, according to Freud means woman are sexually weaker and genetically all bisexual.
Next was the Latency stage. This stage was a period of calm, before puberty the child represses his sexual desires and does not think about them. But then finally there is the genital stage in which the desire for relationships kicks in. If all has already gone well in previous stages than the teenager in this stage has a far better chance of gaining a normal and steady relationship.

Freud also focused on the Id, the Ego and the Superego. Three aspects of a persons subconscious which controlled how you acted in social situations. The Id was your pleasure principle. It works off of instincts and it's main concern is you and your wants. Regardless of other people. The Ego is there to control the Id, the Ego deals with common sense and rationale. Okay you may be hungry enough to eat everything you see in the supermarket (your Id), but you know that that would be wrong thanks to your Ego. Lastly, the Superego will actively punish you for misbehavior with features such as guilt. Your Superego is more like your conscience, and acts as a moral guide as opposed to just common sense and instinct.

Freud linked everything he could back to parenthood and theories such as Oedipus. Even though he only ever based his theories upon one person and therefore just one case study. In the case of phobias, he studied a boy called Little Hans who had a fear of horses. Even though Freud discovered Hans had; when he was younger, seen a horse collapse and die of exhaustion one day in the street, Freud decided that Hans' phobia was due to his father. He managed to theorize that at one point during Hans' childhood, his father had, like so many do, got down on all fours and carried Hans around like an animal. As Hans would have been young enough at this point to be going through Freuds' Oedipus complex, Hans of course associated a fear of his father, into a fear of horses and therefore just displaced his phobia. Of course to Freud this proved two of his theories beyond belief.

Freud truly believed that everybody had repressed feelings of anxiety or desire and that this showed itself in your everyday life through various means. His theory was that your mind was like an iceberg. Only the tip of it was showing above the water, but beneath, remaining unseen, was an incredible amount of hidden material which he believed he could get to, if you just agreed to lie on his couch.

WINOL WINOL WINOL

Sat in the newsroom on the morning of a bulletin, which is what I'm doing now. There is an element of panic. Although everything always ends up running smoothly in the end, and our viewers see the calm veneer of what we produce; we let ourselves fall victim to the frenzy of a Wednesday morning.

This comes about by factors such as not enough news packages. One Wednesday saw WINOL have a total of only two news packages, as three pm rolled around, we had a total of three. On the verge of calling off the bulletin we eventually pulled it together and scrounged a news show out of what we had. Practice makes perfect and we have certainly had enough practice running around like headless chickens.

As fresh little second years, being added to the news team is almost like being chucked into the deep end-I wouldn't say it's filled with sharks because the third years have been more than helpful in helping us get started but there is always an element of learning on the job. Learning by mistakes and taking on constructive criticism.

Debriefs every Wednesday afternoon after the bulletin has aired show mistakes that, as the year progresses, we learn to spot and avoid ourselves. Mistakes such as where to place interviewees for appropriate backgrounds and audio. I'm not a news reporter myself, my role is Sub Editor, but watching the points made about the reporters news packages is still helpful for taking on board what not to do in a real job.

As Sub Editor my role is to take the reporters news, sports and fashion pieces and check them. Check them for spelling mistakes or even legal problems which could potentially create a law suit against the university. No pressure then! To say our WINOL roles strain friendships could be argued as very true, as people chase each other up and get increasingly stressed as we all depend on one another to keep the programme running. The director needs the script, the script writer needs information from the reporters, the reporters need the computers to keep working! My extra job is also to run around on bulletin day and get times from the news reporters, cut the time by three seconds and put it on the script so the director knows when to cue the presenters during the show. As much as it runs like clockwork, it's all we can do to not bite each others head off as we all try and focus on our own role in the bigger picture.

But we manage to keep each other sweet and it's still not enough to keep us meeting up in the pub later (or even holding impromptu dance parties on a Tuesday evening). Small problems that we encounter can be fixed with the smallest thing, for instance better communication between the hierarchy. Audio problems and green screen problems will be found anywhere and instances such as that set us up for the real world, and a real job.

We do often sit down and wonder what it would be like to do a normal uni course, just merely have lectures and classes to attend rather than a nine to five job. Yet the feeling after the bulletin goes out and Cooper has had his post WINOL Galaxy Ripple, you realise how worth it it all is.