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SomethingDark - WebMagazine - SDk01 - Photography, art and writing with a distinctive edge.

2010-06-25T09:52:23Z

somethingdark exists to explore creativity at its darker boundaries – a space where culture and art converge with avant garde fashion, fetishism... and a touch of something more ambiguous.

If you are inclined towards shaded woodlands replete with nymphs and satyrs, an expanse that must be treated with respect lest an unmindful step finds you teetering on the edge of an unimagined place, then we are here. Or there's McDonald's.

What is SDk? - About SomethingDark WebMagazine

2010-06-25T09:52:19Z

What is somethingdark?

Beauty, they say, is in the eye of the beholder. We here at SomethingDark know what we like, and our appreciation of light and shadow is not what the corporate world and consumer society tell us we should like. If your taste in culture leads you to shaded woodlands replete with nymphs and satyrs, an expanse that must be treated with respect lest an unmindful step finds you teetering on the edge of an unimagined place, then we are here. Or there's McDonald's.

About us

SomethingDark is a collaborative project developed by website designer and photographer, Chris Cook, and writer and editor Daryl Champion. The two met in August 2007 when Chris began exploring fetishism as an extension of his interest in erotic photography; Daryl, features editor and writer for the London-based, international fetish magazine Skin Two (among others), was already familiar with that alternative world. A shared sense of aesthetics and dissatisfaction with contemporary webmagazines dealing with that unique space where fashion and fetish photography, art and poignant writing overlap, led to the founding of SomethingDark in mid-2008.

Our objectives

SomethingDark exists to explore creativity at its darker boundaries – a space where culture and art converge with avant garde fashion, fetishism... and a touch of something more ambiguous.

The magazine is a forum for established, rising and entirely new creative talent; our one obsessive constant is the quest for that sublime ground where vision and expertise intersect. And, in the spirit of transgressive art, we are, where appropriate, not afraid to illuminate the face of the ogre of reactionary conservatism we now observe rampaging through these allegedly civilised states of ours.

SomethingDark is employing cutting-edge website design to combine a traditional print-magazine format with the interactivity and resources of the internet, and, in so doing, is pushing current technologies to their limit. Our goal is to achieve greater value-added functionality and to present the visitor with the best that both the worlds of print and internet have to offer. The result will be an accessible magazine that is integrated and cohesive without compromising the dynamism of links both internally and to external sites. This innovative combination of form and function should prove attractive to readers and contributors alike.

More detailed information about SDk is contained in the “more What is SDk?” downloadable PDF document, below.

Download: more What is SDk?

Contributing to SDk

If you are considering contributing to SDk, then please visit our Want to Contribute? page.

SomethingDark - WebMagazine - SDk01 - Editorial

2010-06-25T09:52:16Z

Editorial

SomethingDark (SDk) is here, a webmagazine presenting some of the edgiest, most coherently assembled photography, art and writing on the internet. It’s been a long while in the making, but with eyes on the future, strong foundations have been laid. We hope you appreciate the difference between what is presented on the following pages and what is to be found elsewhere.

At first glance, tens of thousands of websites already purport to offer what we offer. Most, however, reflect the media frenzy unleashed by the information revolution: sites that ravenously chew through “content” in a vain attempt to satisfy the apparently insatiable appetite of an internet-trawling global population. All very fine, if a website does not offend the eye and its offerings are worth viewing, but, in the scramble to publish, both substance and quality of presentation too often fall by the wayside. Today, substance and quality are largely forgotten concepts, the ability to recognise them and produce them perhaps even lost skills.

We can broaden the perspective: the fast-food approach to mass-produced culture does its best to lull entire populations into a state of numbed acquiescence as it relieves them of the contents of their pockets. It is a state of mind cultivated by an international corporate world that cares only for endless profit growth at the expense of the psychological, emotional and even physical health of whole societies.

We here at SDk interpret this situation, collectively, as a diseased culture. An antidote is required.

Having gone beyond lament, SDk advances more than just substance and quality presen-
tation: it offers stability. Stability in the sense that we are not interested in a mind-dizzying, shabbily presented flow of that once-treasured resource but now-commodified consumer product, “information”, that assails the senses on a relentless daily basis and leaves one longing for the careful construction of a well-edited
and -designed newspaper or magazine.

When we speak of stability, we are referring not only to meticu-
lously planned cohesiveness of content and coherence of pres-
entation, but also to a slowing of the pace, because such sub-
stance and quality of finish take longer to create, and it deserves – indeed, demands – the breath-
ing space necessary to think about it, absorb it, appreciate it. And return to it even many weeks later to enjoy it again, knowing the experience will not result in the draining, orgiastic rite of ploughing through flippant enter-
tainment dressed up as “inform-
ation”, or in the blind panic of following link after link in search of a Holy Grail, only to discover yet more sites offering superficial news and opinion. Or, on those occasions when a site carries quality (that word, again) con-
tent, it is usually presented in a now-standard, uninspiring Web or even blog format that is immediately forgettable.

We must hasten to add, however, that our interpretation of stability comes from another world when compared with the “stability” offered by our supp-
osedly civilised states. As the apparatus of the contemporary

Western state provides a protective environment for –
and, as we have seen over the last two years or so, even under-
writes – an economic system in decline, it is at the same time toiling night and day to tighten the mechanisms of authoritarianism: all-pervasive systems of surveillance; increas-
ing censorship; new, increasingly repressive laws; and all manner of measures of population control introduced to “protect” us both from outside threats and from ourselves. All this, of course, in the name of stability.

Thus does SDk represent freedom and individuality, and
the cultural expression born of
a consciousness of these states of being. To the manufacturers and promoters of mass-produced culture, and to the would-be protectors of society’s collective, virginal-but-violated soul, the celebration of individuality and its uninhibited artistic expression is
a thing reprehensible and, all too often, something to be restrain-
ed. To the oblivious consumers of the manufactured mainstream, it is incomprehensible. To all of them, it will always be something dark.

SomethingDark - WebMagazine - SDk01 - News - UK: Economy and the arts

2010-06-25T09:51:27Z

News

UK: Economy and the arts

British government debt officially stood at £950.4 billion, repres-
enting a debt-to-GDP ratio of
68.1 percent, according to data released at the end of March by the UK Office for National Statistics (ONS). According to International Monetary Fund (IMF) data, this level of debt will rise to around 90 percent of GDP by 2014, which would significantly exceed that of many less-
developed and emerging econom-
ies, such as those of Argentina, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico and Russia.

In the immediate term, the UK government’s budget deficit for the calendar year 2009 was rep-
orted by the ONS to have come in at £159.2 billion. Interest pay-
ments on these debts are curr-
ently around £42 billion annually.

The dire state of UK public finances has driven the new Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition government – formed as a result of controversial elections in May – to impose extensive cost cutting in an emergency budget, delivered 22 June. The cuts will see government reduce spending

by an initial £6.2 billion across all departments, effective immed-
iately. A Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) in the autumn is expected to usher in far more radical austerity measures.

Total cuts to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) in the emergency budget amount to £88 million, represent-
ing a reduction of 3 percent for all bodies funded by the DCMS, except for Arts Council England (ACE) – the national development agency for the arts in England – which will have 4 percent cut from its budget. The council is being asked to fund the shortfall from its own reserves.

In a press release dated 24 May, ACE chair Dame Liz Forgan said: “We do not understand why we have received a higher per-
centage cut than other DCMS funded bodies. Making cuts within the financial year is very difficult… The Arts Council has already trimmed its own budgets by £4 million in 2010/11 so this takes our total reduction this year to £23 million”.

Forgan pointed out the imposs-
ibility of meeting such a cut from running costs, which consume a relatively economical 5 percent of

the ACE’s overall grant-in-aid budget and amounting to £23 million – exactly the sum being cut from its budget.

According to arts comment-
ators, this will only be the beginning of the ACE’s problems, with speculation the government

will slash up to a further twenty percent from funding later this year after the CSR.

And a crisis of direct funding is not the end of the ACE’s woes. Local authorities, which cont-
ribute significantly to grass roots arts organisations, are being

SomethingDark - WebMagazine - SDk01 - News - UK: Economy and the arts

2010-06-25T09:51:23Z

asked to rein in their spending to an even greater degree: the Department for Communities and Local Government (CLG) will be required to cut £780 million – 7.4 percent – from this year’s budget. In addition to this reduction in the department’s main budget, the Westminster government is planning to reduce other central spending on local government by a further £405 million for total cuts to the CLG in excess of £1 billion. Local authority support for the arts has been reported as “the big, largely underreported danger for British arts”.

Reductions in other govern-
ment departments’ budgets that are expected to have a knock-on effect for the arts are cuts of £670 million to the Education Department, and £836 million to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.

Other pressures will be brought to bear in the near future as the severity of government budget cuts runs the risk of tip-
ping the UK economy officially back into recession. The cuts have been criticised for being over-zealous and ideologically driven considering various other fiscal and economic policy options have not been considered.

The UK economy is one of the weakest in the developed world, leading British Prime Minister

David Cameron to prepare the country for the most draconian public spending cuts in a generat-
ion by announcing on 7 June that the UK’s debt was “staggering” and the nation’s “whole way of life” will be disrupted for years by the measures deemed necessary to avert financial disaster.

Half of the deterioration in the fiscal position of advanced econ-
omies is due to economic stimulus packages and financial sector support, according to the IMF.

A Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition government was announced a week after UK national elections on 6 May resulted in a hung parliament. The Conservative Party won the most seats with a 5 percent swing in its favour, away from the incumbent Labour Party, but was still short of a majority.

A national scandal surrounded the elections when resources proved insufficient in the face of a higher-than-expected voter turnout. Thousands of would-be voters throughout the country, unable to be processed, in some instances after waiting for hours, were turned away from polling stations when they closed. Other would-be voters were unable to cast a ballet when they found they were not on the correct reg-
ister, or when some polling stat-
ions ran out of ballet papers.

SomethingDark - WebMagazine - SDk01 - Photography - The dearth of originality by Artpunk

2010-06-25T09:51:18Z

Photography

The dearth of originality

by Artpunk

Our featured photographer for SDk01 is Artpunk, a leading exponent of dark glamour. In this opening article he laments what he sees as a disturbingly popular mindset among students, and lays a portion of the blame firmly at the feet of the UK education system. The pages that follow display a selection of the rich, but moody and eerily detached imagery for which he is known and respected. Then gain further insight into the photographer and his work in the interview that concludes our photography section.

When I first started out in photography I strived to produce work that was different from what I saw around me. I would spend a month on every shoot, editing to make each one different from the last. As my skills improved, my pictures needed less editing; now, I hardly edit them at all. I worked long hours refining my style.

I decided early on that I didn’t like studio locations, so I looked

to find alternatives and began to work in clubs and hotels. I found these to be more interesting and changed from place to place, giving a different look and feel to each shoot.

I would never dream of copying someone else’s work. I noticed a trend, though, while working with students who would blatantly copy the work of other photographers and makeup artists. When I asked them about this, they would say it was “the only way to learn”. I both disagree and object: you can be inspired by the work of others, but these folk were just ripping it off. What they should be doing instead is experimenting until they come up with something of their own they think is great.

The colleges should take some of the blame for this because they are not allowing their students to be more creative: they are teaching students there’s “a right way” and “a wrong way” of doing something – being too rigid and imposing restrictions and stifling creativity – when they should just teach them the basics and then let them get on with it. If this were the case, then maybe

students would produce more exciting work.

I work with many student makeup artists and they come to me and show me a picture and say “I want it like that!” If they want a picture “like that”, then pay the photographer that took it. If they come to me and ask for

me to take it then they will get a picture in my style. It’s infuriating. Why produce a second-rate copy of someone else’s work when you can produce something new and exciting?

Then there are the so-called “professional” photographers. With the rise of digital

SomethingDark - WebMagazine - SDk01 - Photography - The dearth of originality by Artpunk

2010-06-25T09:51:10Z

photography, anybody can pick up a camera and take a half-decent picture. These people think that means they can call themselves a professional and start charging money for their work. And there are models that think it’s a quick buck. But there’s more to modeling than standing

in front of a camera. Real skill and talent are involved. The number of girls that start out and think just because they have done a couple of shoots they are experienced and then start charging ridiculous rates, is shocking. In both cases – would-be photographers and models – they should be learning their craft before even thinking of charging fees.

I’m not saying I’m the most original photographer myself or the best at what I do, but I do work hard at my chosen profession. I’ve been taking pictures for more than twenty years, working with film, and digitally. Digital especially means you can experiment more as

there aren’t the same costs involved. People should be out there trying new ideas. There isn’t the same fear anymore of getting the film back from the developers and finding out you’ve fucked up. Photographers should be pushing the envelope and discovering new ways of working.

I think there are exciting times ahead. New technology is coming out every day, pushing what can be achieved. Cameras are performing better at high ISOs, which means greater possibilities for being more creative with lighting and low-light situations. Photo-editing software is becoming more powerful and coming with more functions – it means you can be more creative in post-production work. I’m looking forward to seeing what is produced after people fully embrace these new technologies.

Myself, I still work with a forty-year-old light, a Nikon D80 and one lens. Maybe that’s why I’m called Artpunk. Making do with what I’ve got around me.

SomethingDark - WebMagazine - SDk01 - Interview with Artpunk

2010-06-25T09:51:07Z

Artpunk

SDk looks at an accomplished exponent of dark glamour

SDk: What first interested you in photography, and how did you start?

Artpunk: When I first left school I did an art & design course and part of it was a module in photography. Originally the plan was to take photographs to paint later, and I then started to take photographs of friends. I found that I enjoyed taking photographs more than painting as the results were more immediate. It wasn’t until four years ago I started to do it seriously, booking models and working on my style.

From your name and what you reveal in your SDk profile, it sounds like the punk movement had a big influence on you. Can you elaborate on this influence, and any others, that have helped develop your photographic style?

I used to stay with a group of folk that were old punks and New Age travellers whose ideas rubbed off on me in making do with what you have. Which meant you didn’t have to have the best equipment to create something great. So when I started taking photographs I didn’t have the

money to use studios and had to find alternatives. I was looking to places that were colourful and interesting and thought of using clubs. I’m not one for setting up a perfect scene so there’s usually something to give an edge to the photographs.

A lot of your work conveys a sense of detached, dark moodiness while at the same time being very stylish and glamorous. Is this the effect you aim to achieve? What does it take to produce such a striking effect? And what are you “saying” to the viewer with these images?

I’m not really sure where the detached, dark moodiness comes from although I was badly scarred when I was young and have had a detached view of society as if I’m always on the outside looking in. I think maybe I manage to capture how I view the world around me. To me a photograph isn’t worth taking unless there’s some degree of beauty in it. I’ve actually never thought of the viewer – it’s always been about producing an image that makes me go “Wow, I did that”. I hope the viewer reads

into the images what they want; I’m always surprised how others view them.

Stiletto heels feature prominently in much of your work; what is it about stilettos that appeals to you? Is it personal taste, the way they alter a model’s stature, or are they simply an essential element in the stylish, very subtly fetishistic images you create?

It’s because trainers wouldn’t suit the dresses or clothes I’m shooting. The clothes mostly are vintage 1940s and ’50s, or inspired by that era, and high heels were the fashion then.

Also, high heels set off the legs more gracefully and give the model an accentuated feminine shape, and they emphasise the calf and foot. There’s nothing more beautiful than a woman dressed stylishly, and a pair of heels complements the overall look – they give the woman more style and she moves more gracefully, and this comes across when taking the photograph. It helps with the way the model poses and holds herself. It’s not

really something I’ve thought about; I’ve just known it goes with the look I’m trying to create.

In your article for SDk you express great optimism for the future of photography with the technological advances in cameras and editing software we are seeing. Do you also see any downside to these developments, perhaps the potential for technology to supplant intuition and to detract from the human creative process?

It hasn’t really happened with the switch from painting to film, or from film to digital. I think there’s always these fears when a new technology appears. I think for a truly creative person it opens up boundless opportunities. You still use your intuition when taking the photograph. You know what works and what doesn’t. I think it could change how you shoot though – as in shooting a certain way because you know it will help produce a better result later in the editing stage with the photo-editing software that’s now available. Certain software tools and techniques, such as green screen, will work best with

SomethingDark - WebMagazine - SDk01 - Interview with Artpunk

2010-06-25T09:51:02Z

photos that have been shot a certain way. I think people who fully embrace new technologies will expand the horizons of photography in the years to come.

Your main point in your article is what you see as the lamentable attitude of students who blatantly copy established artists’ work. Can you expand on what contemporary social or cultural factors you think might be shaping the attitudes and approach of these students?

Well, one of the worst statements I hear is “It’s all been done before”. That’s like giving up before you start. Can you imagine the Impressionists saying “Oh, hold on, there’s nothing more that can be done with paint – it’s already been done before.” It’s a load of rubbish.

I think it’s a flaw of modern society that everything needs to be immediate, when, in reality,

ideas and a personal style take years to develop. This industry is very faddy – a certain style is “of-the-minute”, and everyone copies it. If it continues like that, then it gets very boring.

What have been your greatest achievements and disappointments in your career thus far, and do you have a particular goal or ambition?

My greatest achievements have been working with certain models and being known and respected for what I create. Also working with the lovely folk from Club Noir and Anatomic Bomb!, who have always had faith in me.

I’ve got to say I’ve been very lucky and not had many disappointments.

My ambition is to be better known either in the United Kingdom or internationally, and to be booked up for the year.

SomethingDark - WebMagazine - SDk01 - Nonfiction Feature Article

2010-06-25T09:50:59Z

Feature

Twenty years later: Mapplethorpe, art and politics

by Daryl Champion

This year marks the twentieth anniversary of the first time in American history that an obscenity case was brought against an art museum and its director for the art displayed in its galleries. The museum was the Contemporary Arts Center (CAC) in Cincinnati, its director was Dennis Barrie, and the exhibition was Robert Mapplethorpe: The Perfect Moment.

The Perfect Moment was curated by Janet Kardon, director of the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) in Philadelphia, an insti-
tution of the University of Pennsylvania, and was “the first traveling exhibition and the largest exhibition to date of the works of one of the most important photographers of our time”.1 The exhibition was a major retrospective of Mapplethorpe’s 20-year career, and “feature[d] over 150 silver

prints, platinum prints on paper and canvas…color photographs, Polaroids, photo-collages that incorporate lush fabrics, and sculptural objects. Subject matter focuses on three traditional genres: still lifes, nudes, and portraits”.2 His still lifes notably featured flowers; his portraits notably featured arts, society and cultural figures; his nudes notably included homoerotic imagery; and, straddling the boundaries of portrait and nude were his photo-
graphs of sadomasochism and nude and semi-nude children, the work often described in the art world as “difficult images”, and in the world of reactionary moralism as “obscenity” and “child pornography”.3

Mapplethorpe died of AIDS-
related illness on 9 March 1989 at the age of 42, three months after The Perfect Moment’s opening at the ICA, and not quite two weeks into the exhibition’s showing at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, where it was being greeted with critical acclaim and would go on to “[draw] the highest attendance in the MCA’s history, without a whisper of controversy”.4

While the exhibition was a success in the galleries of the museums in Philadelphia and Chicago, an impassioned debate over federal funding for the arts through the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) was escalating in Washington DC. Political conservatives had always opposed federal arts funding since before the NEA was established in September 1965, and they had opposed the NEA
at every opportunity.5 By mid-1989, socioreligious conservatives – some of whom were also in federal politics, such as the Republican Senators Jesse Helms and Alfonse D’Amato – were adding their considerable lobbying power to those arguments on the grounds that public money should not in any way be used to support art they characterised as “deplorable, despicable display[s] of vulgarity”, as “trash” and “filth”,6 as “blasphemy” and as “dishonor[ing] our Lord” and “taunting the American people”,7 and as “shocking, abhorrent and completely undeserving of any recognition whatsoever”.8

The initial outrage on Capitol Hill was promoted by the American

Family Association (AFA) and its very active founder and chairman, the Reverend Donald E. Wildmon, over a photograph by New York artist Andres Serrano, Piss Christ, which was exhibited as part of an NEA-supported annual series mounted by the Southeastern

Center for Contemporary Art (SECCA), North Carolina.9 The SECCA’s “Awards in the Visual Arts” exhibition had travelled to ten cities without incident, and had closed by the end of January 1989 – three months before the AFA began its campaign against Serrano’s exhibit. Political, social and religious conservatives found common ground and forged a de facto alliance, and the campaign against controversial sociosexual art, and against the NEA, gathered momentum.

Senator D’Amato tore up the SECCA catalogue on the Senate floor on 18 May and announced he was “proud of the [other

SomethingDark - WebMagazine - SDk01 - Nonfiction Feature Article

2010-06-25T09:50:54Z

twenty-two] Members who in literally a matter of minutes… joined me in signing a strong letter of protest to the Endow-
ment”. The letter, addressed to the then-acting chair of the NEA, Hugh Southern, “express[ed]… outrage and… suggest[ed] in the strongest terms that the pro-
cedures used by the Endowment to award and support artists be reformed.”10 On 9 June, the tele-
vangelist Pat Robertson mounted a sustained attack on Serrano and the NEA on the television network he founded in 1960, the Christian Broadcasting Network. He denounced the offending Serrano photograph as a “blasphemy paid for by Govern-
ment” and implored viewers to demand that taxpayers’ dollars be “cut off entirely” from the NEA until the public arts body gave “absolute” assurances it would not support “pornography” or “material that is patently blasphemous.”11

SECCA director Ted Potter stated on 16 June that he’d “never seen anything like this before in my 25 years as an arts administrator”; and Livingston Biddle, author of a history of the NEA and the Endowment’s chairman during the Carter administration, commented that “[t]he religious element has never before come into play at the endowment… The danger is

not just that Congress will cut the budget, which would be bad enough, but that you could have censorship mandated into law”.12

The political and socioreligious reactionaries then trained their sights on Robert Mapplethorpe: The Perfect Moment, as the ICA, Philadelphia, had received a $30,000 NEA grant in 1988 to support its organisation of the travelling retrospective and the publication of the exhibition’s catalogue. Occurring almost concurrently with Serrano’s Piss Christ controversy, the Mapplethorpe show provided conservatives with further ammunition in their quest to purge allegedly obscene and blasphemous art from American society, and, if not to begin the process of abolishing the NEA, then at least to bring it to heel.13

This was the environment in which, mid-June 1989, the prestigious Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington DC, the third venue for The Perfect Moment tour, cancelled its showing of the exhibition less than three weeks before it was due to open on 1 July; in fact, so precipitous was the volte-face by the Corcoran, led by its director, Christina Orr-Cahall, that the invitations to the opening had already been mailed out.14 Orr-Cahall and the

Corcoran’s chairman, David Lloyd Kreeger, presented their decision as one designed to defuse a brewing crisis over arts funding,
a situation the conservatives appeared determined to make
a national scandal, and to shield both the NEA’s funding and other art museums and galleries from attack.15

As derision and protest were directed against the Corcoran from other quarters of the art world, a much smaller, lesser-
known Washington DC arts organisation, the Washington Project for the Arts (WPA), stepped in and relieved the Corcoran of its burden. It was an auspicious move on many levels, not least of which was the over-
whelming success of The Perfect Moment in the nation’s capital. Reportedly “accustomed to greeting about 40 visitors each weekend”, the WPA saw around four thousand people view the exhibition on its first weekend;16 during its short showing of less than a month, nearly fifty thousand people passed through the WPA’s doors.17 This reflected the exhibition’s success at the MCA in Chicago, and it was a pattern that would be repeated at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford, Connecticut at the end of 1989, and at the University Art

SomethingDark - WebMagazine - SDk01 - Nonfiction Feature Article

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Censoring Mapplethorpe
in the UK†

Robert Mapplethorpe (1946–89) is considered by many artists, critics and scholars to be among the most important American photographers of the latter half of the twentieth century. Thus, news spread quickly when Dr Peter Knight, vice-chancellor of the University of Central England (UCE), Birmingham, decided in early 1998 to fight for the right of his university’s library to hold Mapplethorpe, a substantial, 380-page book presenting a survey of the artist’s black-and-white photography: the book had been seized by local police several months earlier on the grounds of “obscenity”.

Mapplethorpe featured nudes, portraits, self-portraits and floral still lifes, and included the photographer’s best known and most controversial images. It also featured a critical essay by Columbia University’s distinguished professor emeritus of philosophy and influential art critic, Arthur C. Danto.1 The background to the year-long controversy that embroiled UCE, Dr Knight, the West Midlands Police and the British Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) was this:

† This interview article is an expanded version of “Principals are priceless” by Daryl Champion, first published in Skin Two Fetish Yearbook 2009 (London: Tim Woodward Publishing Ltd, 2009).

SomethingDark - WebMagazine - SDk01 - Nonfiction Critique - Lucifer and the light of passion

2010-06-25T09:50:46Z

Critique

Lucifer and the light of passion

Eugène Satyrisci

There is in the world of forward-thinking fashion publishing a magazine by the name of Tank. Tank’s motto is “elitism for all”. It is an approp-
riate motto, a good one, and having been privy to some of the machinations involved with the magazine over which you are casting your eyes at this moment (one of the advantages of having worked with the editor before), I can say it would be applicable here, too.

Such publications present culture as an appeal to rise above mediocrity; they issue a challenge to the reader that says, some-
times impertinently, sometimes even shockingly, “Please don’t ask me to compromise; if you perceive me to be ‘beyond’ you, then don’t hold it against me – instead, make the effort to join me in something educating, more meaningful and liberating”.

Yes, the process should be an educational one at some level,

and the result should be the learning or the discovery of some-
thing meaningful, including the discovery of pure joy in what has been offered. All of this can be liberating. But the key word in this appeal is the word effort: the reader is asked to engage with the content and to think about it. And who knows, at the end of the day one might even be equipped to form an opinion on one topic or another, or to modify a previously held opinion.

At this point I would like to take the topic of opinion forming and lead it to some interesting places.

Now, if I may boldly address myself directly to you, dear reader, the economic system and its scurrilous partner-in-crime, the political system – complete with politicians and senior public servants – dismiss your opinions as the unworthy baby-talk of the infantile population. And why shouldn’t they? The opinions of the great majority of the pop-
ulation have been manufactured by one industry or another and implanted in the popular mind by advertising agencies, public relations consultants, speech writers and professional smooth-

talkers, and the mass media. These bodies think for you. And the culture industry’s figure-
heads, celebrities, speak for you; in fact, they do more than that: they live your life for you, a virtual life, while you apply yourself to economic survival and amuse yourself with further mass-media and consumer-cultural offerings in your leisure time.

Allow me to focus on the relation-
ship between popular opinion and celebrity culture – and here I must presume you are not one of the anointed of the burgeoning culture industry. I must be frank: you are not a celebrity. Your opinion is not important. In fact, the opinion of most celebrities is not important. Celebrities are both product and propagator of consumer culture, a listless, indulgent substitute for institutionalised religion as a latter day “opiate of the people”. Patronising and increasingly cynically employed, they have for the most part – and like patriot-
ism – been fashioned as a substitute for individual
and group identity, the collective, de facto depositories of dreams and the cleansing mechanisms
of despair.

Here we have consumer culture as both sedative and fantasy, and this is, of course, where the allusion to “opiate” is relevant. Interestingly enough, while the oft-cited quote above comes from Marx – and no, I am not a Marxist – a similar allusion was made nearly fifty years earlier by none other than the Marquis de Sade in his novel Juliette. My copy is Austryn Wainhouse’s complete translation published in 1968 by Grove Press, and, for its poignancy, is worthy of substantial quotation (from pages 929–30, for those who are interested). Juliette is addressing King Ferdinand IV of Naples in this passage:

Though Nature lavishes much upon your people, their circum-
stances are strait. But this is not the effect of their laziness; this general paralysis has its source in your policy which, from maintain-
ing the people in dependence, shuts them out from wealth; their ills are thus rendered beyond remedy, and the political state is in a situation no less grave than the civil government, since it must seek its strength in its very weakness. Your apprehensive-
ness, Ferdinand, lest someone

SomethingDark - WebMagazine - SDk01 - Nonfiction Reflection - Beautiful failures: why I write fetish fiction

2010-06-25T09:50:42Z

Reflection

Beautiful failures: why I write fetish fiction

by Anne Tourney

This article is a companion to our interview with Anne Tourney (see page 76); together, they provide a rare glimpse into her motivations and inspirations. But, as valuable as these two pieces are, they do not convey the power of Anne’s fiction; her latest work of dark erotica, “Stepsister”, is, we shall say, quite something… It was written especially for SomethingDark, and heads our literature section on page 72.

Although I’ve never thought of myself primarily as a “fetish writer”, it’s significant that my first published story was a piece of fetish fiction. The fixation at the heart of this story was a black, cruelly sadistic corset the heroine wore under her clothes at her mundane office job. At the end of the story, she meets the designer of the corset and surrenders to her fixation with this form of hidden bondage, but the story of her obsession continues far beyond the “ending” of this short tale. How could this woman’s

desires ever be completely fulfilled, unless she were to sacrifice her job (manager of a data entry pool), her apartment, the dull textures of her daily reality and give herself over to the glorious, mad colours of her fantasy life?

Looking back at this early piece of work, I can see that I was drawn to the elements I still consider crucial to fetish writing: the obsession with a particular act, image, or object; the element of concealed longing; and the ultimate failure of the central character in the drama to fulfill her desire. For me, the beauty of fetish lies not in the obsession itself – although the obsession and the extremes to which the characters will go to consummate it are gorgeous in themselves – but in the failure of the hand to grasp its desired object. Deep in the psyche, a fetish begins with a loss, a reach that ends without a grasp, so that the inner hand is always left empty. Every now and then, the fingers touch the glist-
ening object, and the visceral jolt of that touch gives the erotic imagination enough fuel to pur-
sue its desire again and again.

That touch, though gut-

wrenching, is never enough. If that brief contact were enough, the play would end, the drama would be played out, and the stage would be darkened forever. It’s the tension of unfulfilled longing that draws me back to the fetish narrative after I’ve spent some time with other forms of fiction, writing stories with happily-ever-after endings and neatly tied conclusions. A fetish tale might end with physical gratification or emotional contentment, but it never ends with “ever after”. The desire and the object are perpetually separated. The tale isn’t linear; it’s shaped like a snake swallowing its own tail.

My favourite fetish stories are short, intense, and viscerally sensual. In the midst of a cloud of language, the central obsession takes shape with the vivid significance of an icon. Describing the object, and the hopeless desire of the person who craves it, is a plunge deep into the erotic imagination. At times, I’ve written about fetishes that I shared, but it interests me more to write about obsessions that are foreign to me. When I explore the nature of someone else’s fixation, I’m entering that person’s fantasies,

her psyche, her memory, her heart at a level that I rarely, if ever, reach.

That failure, in itself, has its own beauty: the beauty of trying to recreate a deeply personal erotic fantasy with the clumsy tools of

language. A fetish story has to be written and rewritten repeatedly because it’s never told in the way that soothes the fetishist’s feverish dream. Yet at the same time, the storyteller is powerless to write the story any other way, so strong is her attachment to her own obsessive narrative and the vocabulary that describes its doomed arc. The corset, the shoe, the rope or the whip she describes will never match the glimmering vision that fuels the fetishist’s imagination.

SomethingDark - WebMagazine - SDk01 - Art - Does Miss Erotica sleep with Mr Porn? by Amoxes

2010-06-25T09:50:37Z

Art

Does Miss Erotica sleep with Mr Porn?

by Amoxes

Québec-based Amoxes is our featured artist; he begins our art section with this poignant, passion-
ate consideration of the merits of the erotic genre. As he argues his case, he outlines the struggle he’s had to continue producing his art in a society that is still uncomfortable with the reality of sexuality.

What is the thin line between erotic art and porno-
graphy? I guess it’s the familiar chicken or the egg question that returns to us for consideration. Or is it more a question of religious opinion and disagreement, or a question of our historical time period? One thing is for sure: one must be careful not to answer too quickly, or he (or she) might become lost in a labyrinth of complexity. This article is not meant to start a debate, or to find “the right” answer; rather, it’s an assembling of questions and personal experience. So I will stay as grounded as possible while giving my opinion to avoid the reader becoming over-

whelmed with boredom.

Does Miss Erotica sleep in the same bed with Mr Porn? That is “la question”. It is a question that keeps coming back to me from time to time when I create erotic themes in my art. It is asked of me by many different people from different social and cultural back-
grounds. Let’s start from the beginning.

Strangely, earlier on when I began holding my first exhibitions back in the early ’90s, it never occurred to me that nudity was a topic of such strong social deb-
ate. I knew many people were perhaps misinformed and, for var-
ious reasons, perhaps not at ease with the subject, and in my mind this was understandable. But I never thought it could ignite such strong conflicts. I took for granted that most people were able to respond to erotic art reasonably, and in a logical man-
ner, without extreme reactions to it. In my mind it was supposed to be simple: when exhibitions con-
taining some nudity were well arranged, well prepared and placed in a public area that was acceptable for this sort of art, what could possibly be the problem?

SomethingDark - WebMagazine - SDk01 - Art - Does Miss Erotica sleep with Mr Porn? by Amoxes

2010-06-25T09:50:33Z

Quickly enough I found out that it disturbed many people. From time to time some of my paintings were banned from internet gall-
eries and some even were taken off walls during my exhibitions – without even politely proposing that I at least exchange the off-
ending painting for another, less “offensive” one. “Pornography” is the key word that kept on coming back to me, and no matter how hard I tried to explain in a clear and simple way that it had noth-
ing to do with the porn industry, there was nothing I could do. Now by saying that, I don’t judge anybody or any industry, it’s just that for me an orange is not an apple even if it’s round. Yes, we can say “Well, they’re both fruit”; and so they are, but they don’t taste the same or look the same, and that’s what makes them different.

At first, I took these comments very lightly – and continued to ignore what was about to cause me deep disappointment and frustration, which was the real-
isation that maybe, after all, we live in a world of hypocrites. It turned out that it was more ex-
hausting explaining over and over again the whys and the hows of my erotic art than creating all the paintings and building the art shows in the first place. It had to stop, at least in my own mind; I

had to draw an invisible line over which no destructive critics could trespass. So I decided to study the history and origins of the erotic art world from different times and cultures. I realised how complex it was and how there was, and is, much to be learned. Over the years I had the chance to meet artists, photographers and even some writers of all ages and from many cultures that were going through the same process. When speaking with some of them, some confessed that the social pressure was too much and they had decided they would just quit so they wouldn’t be accused of being a pervert, or, in some cases, worse.

Hearing stories like that took me to another level of thinking. Many questions came to mind. What would I do if one day my work would publicly be associated with something that I’m not? How would I cope with the pressure? How would I unashamedly com-
bine my erotic art with my non-
erotic art in one portfolio under my name, to proudly show all my work with a united perspective? I must admit there was a time when the idea of never painting another nude came to mind. Later, I went through a stretch of many years in which I produced no erotic art nor even considered it. During that time I amassed

SomethingDark - WebMagazine - SDk01 - Interview with Amoxes

2010-06-25T09:50:30Z

Amoxes

SDk unveils the life and work of an
artist committed to the erotic

SDk: One question immediately suggests itself from the outset: you do not present yourself as “Canadian” – including in your SDk profile – but, instead, state your nationality as your ethnic backgrounds. Why is this?

Amoxes: Good question! When people ask me my nationality I rarely say Canadian; my answer is most of the time Métis. Why? Well to start, I’m half Native Indian with various ethnic back-
grounds, and because of this mix I never really saw myself attached to one side of my family roots but more like a mixture of all of them. I see myself as being part of the world and less a part of a country, state or even a single culture. We all need to be born somewhere and we get this ethnic heritage depending where we arrive, and we live with it during this life. If we look around us today, people do not just relate to one identity; we are starting to relate to many people at once and never before has the world been so open to this.

Does your emphasis on ethnic identity have anything to do with the “Middle Eastern”

paintings you exhibited in 2004? What is the connection between yourself and the Middle East, and how did you come to do these paintings?

This question is a complex one to answer. My connection with the Middle East is strangely a very deep artistic and personal one. Even perhaps a spiritual one but not in a religious way. I always felt grounded with the people there and in a way connected with the essence of the various countries we find there. I was born and raised in Toronto and during my youth many of my good friends where from the Middle East or close to there, not to mention lots of Haitians as well. I guess having the chance to grow up with these cultures created a bond from the start.

Your focus as an artist rejects mainstream consumer culture; can you elaborate on how you came to adopt this position?

I guess it’s in my nature. With this said I’m not someone who seeks out public attention and uses a sort of “Je suis an original artist” slogan, making people believe my work is pure, original and special,

like we see a lot of these days. Absolutely not, and I want to make this very clear. It’s not really a choice not to follow the commercial road but, rather, a need to follow what truly repre-
sents my inner self. I don’t have a problem for those who decide to make commercial art, we all need to pay our bills and it’s the safer road if we want to live a stable life. Of course, I won’t refuse a well-paid commission if it’s offered – I just don’t concentrate all my work in that direction.

Since I was seven it was already clear to me I would not follow the mainstream. Believing and apply-
ing this creates consequences and I learned this the hard way. Still today it’s not always easy but it’s my choice. I’d rather work a part-time job and be able to create what I want than to be castrated mentally and artistically and create insipid work that doesn’t represent what I truly want to express. Money doesn’t always come into it and quite frankly it’s frustrating at times, but that’s the deal. For those who read this and would like to follow this path, understand what you are truly getting into. This

choice might create social prob-
lems, financial problems, and could even cost some of your friends and loved ones who might reject you.

Why? Simply because it might be-
come too hard for them to cope with your situation, and that is understandable. Everything has a price, even this form of liberty. But is “liberty” truly out there, or do we think we're free but really caught up with something else?

Do you regard your non-erotic

SomethingDark - WebMagazine - SDk01 - Interview with Amoxes

2010-06-25T09:50:25Z

art as fitting more comfortably with mainstream culture, and how do you view this?

My answer regarding erotic art will be blunt. In my opinion, we live in a very hypocritical society that hides behind false masks. Do I regard my non-erotic art as fit-
ting more comfortably with main-
stream culture? Yes and no.

Yes, because my erotic art seems to endlessly create that itch you can’t scratch for all those hypo-
crites out there who love to ex-
press their outrage about this sort of creativity while in some cases secretly admiring it. I’m quite sure many artists, editors, photographers, models, etc. out there are going through the same experiences. Sadly, we are far from seeing the end of this cru-
sade against creative freedom, especially with anything related to erotic art. Intolerance will be the next problem in the near fut-
ure; actually it’s already here – just look at the censorship camp-
aigns that lack any sense of social understanding.

No, because in a way no matter what you do or how you create your work, when you follow your heart and passion it always shows up in what you do. What I mean is that even if I painted a nice little house with a nice little

prairie with a family sitting in the grass eating lunch, people will still find something to complain about because either the colours are too rich or the lady on the grass looks too much like Bettie Page.

Your orientation as a person seems to embrace an inter-
national community conscious-
ness based on creativity and uninhibited expression in all artistic and cultural endeavours, and you appear to be doing all you can to promote this comm-
unity consciousness. Is this the case? If so, what are your short-
term goals and what are your long-term ambitions? What have been your achievements and your disappointments?

You are absolutely right, the Ventcour project is the starting point where I want to mix un-
known authors and artists in all styles and create various artistic projects. I first gave myself a two-
year goal to create, with the help of our friends, writers and artists from Austria, a website where we can all be united. Then, with this done, start selling limited editions of our quality artistic books on
the ’net.

But before continuing let me ex-
plain what is Stroff-Arts. Stroff-
Arts was created in 1996 and was registered in 1999 when we pub-

lished our first book. It was a small book of dark poetry called Paul Stroff, written by Jean-
François Turgeon and illustrated by myself. This full-colour book was intended to be simple in every way, no glamour or comp-
licated text, or complex drawings; the subject was a classic love-
and-death story. When this 55-
page book came out, it was rec-
eived mostly positively by youth, but it also met with a lot of neg-
ative criticism and accusations against us; for example, we were “deranged drug addicts”; our book should be burned (this was said by the father of a librarian I knew); one local community radio station said it was violent and weird; and then there had to be a feminist who added that the book was degrading for women (I had a laugh there); and so on…

In 1997 no publisher wanted to hear us out or give us the chance to express ourselves, even those organisations and people that clearly advertise support for local and original work. The classic excuse was: “You don’t fit in”. After two years of that we de-
cided to become our own pub-
lishers. We worked hard to pay off everything ourselves to create something strong that would not only publish our own work, but also quality work from other

writers who are going through similar problems. Being reduced to silence is unacceptable to us, and publishing original work without “castration” is our goal.

Everybody involved is excited and will help make this work; I’m more than pleased at how things are going. On the other hand, and in keeping with my past experience, every and I mean every so-called public body – including those gov-
ernment ones that say “We help” – never supported us or took the time to understand our goals and how they can help emerging art-
ists. Instead, they help out friends and artistic cliques with generous grants – they nourish

SomethingDark - WebMagazine - SDk01 - Featured Fetish Research - Stilettos: the quintessential fetish object

2010-06-25T09:50:21Z

Research

Stilettos: the quintessential fetish object

by Daryl Champion

Stiletto heels are, arguably, the quintessential fetish object, the point at which popular culture, high fashion and fetishism intersect. We are not talking about “high heels” in a general sense, although they, too, occupy a revered place in the canon of foot, shoe and boot fetishists. “Stiletto” is the diminutive of the Italian word for “dagger”, stilo; thus, stiletto: “little dagger”. It is from the Latin stilus, for “pointed instrument”. To earn the designation of stiletto, the dagger must possess a narrow, slender blade, thick in proportion to its width. It is a lethal weapon designed specifically for stabbing, not cutting.

Little imagination is needed to see why the term “stiletto” is applied to a particular style of high heel: those that are narrow, often long, and taper to an extremely small base. Fashion historian Caroline Cox, in her

book Stiletto, draws attention to “the association between death and the piercing quality of the stiletto knife and shoe” by pointing out that “[t]here’s even a surface missile named after it, the Raytheon Stiletto… Not for nothing do we refer to a pair of stilettos as killer heels”. We should not be surprised, then, that heels have, in fact, killed.1

One can easily appreciate the application of “killer heels” to stiletto-styled heels, although the term has assumed cliché status and is often applied where a heel is not literally named after an instrument of death and, indeed, where the laws of physics tell us there is no real possibility of a woman dispatching an undesirable male with a quick, sharp thrust of the heel through the rib cage or the eye socket.

Let us ponder this latter possibility. It stands to reason the smaller the surface area upon which any given weight is concentrated, the greater the pressure exerted on that surface area. Accordingly, the weight of a very modestly proportioned human being – here recognising that men of certain predilections are also partial to wearing

SomethingDark - WebMagazine - SDk01 - Featured Fetish Article - I do have some rules: the heels stay on... by Arwendur

2010-06-25T09:50:17Z

Article

I do have some rules: the heels stay on...

by Arwendur

I’ve had an interest in photo-
graphy since I was around 11 years old. My grandfather used to shoot, develop and print stills and cine film, mainly of family and friends. He had a small darkroom, and it was fascinating to watch him work and occasionally assist. So I guess I learnt the basics of photography from my grandfather at a young age but from then on I’ve been self-taught.

Having spent a long time in tech-
nical roles in science and engin-
eering, I’ve closely followed the incredible growth and improve-
ment in quality of digital imagery and photography and it’s this improvement that has recently inspired me to pick up a camera again and become more seriously involved in photography.

I mainly use digital technology although I appreciate and occ-
asionally use film. Film has a beauty of its own and my app-
roach to digital photography is

purist, in a sense, as I do very little digital manipulation, if any. I try to digitally mimic the tech-
niques one can use in a trad-
itional darkroom, techniques such as conversions to black-and-
white and sepia or duotoning. Photoshop is a fantastic tool, you can’t really do without it if you shoot digitally but I’d like to think I’m still doing “real” photography, where most of my pictures would still work whether taken on film or imaged on a sensor.

Although most of my pictures can generally be termed “fetish”, I really don’t know if I have any particular style; that’s for viewers to determine, should they want to. In some respects I don’t know what influences me, but photo-
graphy that inspires me comes from the true pioneers of their craft across many genres: fetish, landscape and architecture, also from surrealist art and design. I like the works of Ansel Adams, Helmut Newton, Bob Carlos Clarke, Erwin Olaf, Günter Blum and Melvin Sokolsky, to name a few that come to mind. I love Sokolsky’s Paris 1963 “Bubble” series: amazing execution, his idea inspired by The Garden of Earthly Delights, a 400-year-old Hieronymus Bosch painting.

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UK: Economy and the arts

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SomethingDark - WebMagazine - SDk01 - Photography - The dearth of originality by Artpunk

The dearth of originality

SomethingDark - WebMagazine - SDk01 - Photography - The dearth of originality by Artpunk

SomethingDark - WebMagazine - SDk01 - Interview with Artpunk

SomethingDark - WebMagazine - SDk01 - Interview with Artpunk

SomethingDark - WebMagazine - SDk01 - Nonfiction Feature Article

Twenty years later: Mapplethorpe, art and politics

SomethingDark - WebMagazine - SDk01 - Nonfiction Feature Article

SomethingDark - WebMagazine - SDk01 - Nonfiction Feature Article

Censoring Mapplethorpein the UK†

SomethingDark - WebMagazine - SDk01 - Nonfiction Critique - Lucifer and the light of passion

Lucifer and the light of passion

SomethingDark - WebMagazine - SDk01 - Nonfiction Reflection - Beautiful failures: why I write fetish fiction

Beautiful failures: why I write fetish fiction

SomethingDark - WebMagazine - SDk01 - Art - Does Miss Erotica sleep with Mr Porn? by Amoxes

Does Miss Erotica sleep with Mr Porn?

SomethingDark - WebMagazine - SDk01 - Art - Does Miss Erotica sleep with Mr Porn? by Amoxes

SomethingDark - WebMagazine - SDk01 - Interview with Amoxes

SomethingDark - WebMagazine - SDk01 - Interview with Amoxes

SomethingDark - WebMagazine - SDk01 - Featured Fetish Research - Stilettos: the quintessential fetish object

Stilettos: the quintessential fetish object

SomethingDark - WebMagazine - SDk01 - Featured Fetish Article - I do have some rules: the heels stay on... by Arwendur

I do have some rules: the heels stay on...

Censoring Mapplethorpe
in the UK†