The Subverse, Season 5
Antone Martinho-Truswell
Susan Mathews of Dark n Light Zine speaks with Antone Martinho-Truswell, a behavioural ecologist, Operations Manager at the Sydney Policy Lab, and Research Associate at the School of Life and Environmental Sciences at the University of Sydney, Australia.
This episode considers the parallels between the ‘evolutionary grooves’ of the traits of humans and birds — the former, by becoming the cultural ape, and the latter through flight.
Read more on the Dark n Light website.
The Subverse, Season 5
Joaquin Ezcurra
Susan Mathews of Dark n Light Zine talks with Joaquin Ezcurra, a cartographer, marine technician and web developer.
Since 2017, Joaquin has been actively involved in Aerocene, a practice and movement for eco-social justice founded by artist Tomás Saraceno.
Aerocene uses art, site-specific installations and augmented reality sculptures to promote climate change awareness. Joaquin has been involved in its aero-solar flight operations, digital strategies, website development, app development, communications, acts as a community liaison, and documents the movement through thousands of images and videos.
Read more on the Dark n Light website.
The Subverse, Season 5
Mădălina Diaconu - Part 2
Susan Mathews of Dark n Light Zine continues her conversation with Mădălina Diaconu, a researcher at the Department of Philosophy at the University of Vienna, Austria and author of Aesthetics of Weather (2024).
Mădălina works on environmental aesthetics, urban aesthetics and phenomenology of perception.
Read more on the Dark n Light website.
Dark N Light Zine - The Subverse, Season 5
Mădălina Diaconu - Part 1
Susan Mathews speaks to Mădălina Diaconu, a researcher at the Department of Philosophy at the University of Vienna, Austria and author of Aesthetics of Weather (2024) who works on environmental aesthetics, urban aesthetics and phenomenology of perception. Re-defining aesthetics to mean not just beauty but perception, Mădălina spoke of weather not just as a frontal experience, but our immersion in the atmosphere, the very medium of our life and existence as it permeates our porous bodies and sensitivities. We experience it not as thinking subjects, but as living beings. While it is, in principle, a commons that is available to all, its perception and access is socially, culturally, politically conditioned. Aesthetic perception converges with scientific knowledge within the ethical consideration—we simply cannot enjoy a natural catastrophe. There is a communication of vessels between our moral and our aesthetic being.
Dark N Light Zine - The Subverse, Season 5
Dr. Roxy Mathew Koll
Susan Mathews in conversation with Dr. Roxy Mathew Koll, a climate scientist at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology in Pune, India. Roxy has made breakthrough contributions to the research, monitoring, and modelling of climate and extreme weather events over the Indo-Pacific region. His work has advanced the scientific understanding of monsoon floods and droughts, terrestrial and marine heatwaves, and cyclones, facilitating the food, water, and economic security of the region. His recent research focuses on developing climate-smart health warning systems that integrate climate and health data with AI/ML to enable early action and long-term planning. Roxy actively collaborates with citizen science networks, local governments, and media to bring science to society.
Cataplisms
The Amazing Morphs of the Golden Cat
In this multimedia story for Cataplisms, we join conservation anthropologist Sahil Nijhawan and his collaborator Iho Mitapo in the Dibang Valley on a journey that is both spiritual and scientific. Iho and Sahil are founding members of the Dibang Team, a biocultural conservation initiative led by the Idu Mishmi, the indigenous inhabitants of the Dibang valley, that takes a multi-pronged and multi-disciplinary approach. It has established an ancestral storytelling program (Taju Taye), piloted a program that adapts the traditional system of shamanic learning to present-day socio-economic realities (Igu Aahito) and pioneered community-led conservation and research.
Illustration by Sudarshan Shaw.
Cataplisms
Crooked Cats
In this audio story, Nayanika Mathur, Professor of Anthropology and South Asian Studies at the University of Oxford, delves into the conflict between big cats and humans. Nayanika’s book, Crooked Cats: Beastly Encounters in the Anthropocene (2021), was a key source of inspiration for Cataplisms, a project which examines the intersections of capitalism through a feline lens. In this piece, Nayanika focuses on the governance of nonhuman animals, their entanglements with humans, and what the consequences are.
Stories from the Subverse - Dark n Light
Movement, Mountains, Metamorphosis and Music
Siddharth Pandey, a writer, artist, and historian, extols the wonders of moving, and allowing oneself to be moved. The simple act of walking becomes radical, with the potential to shirk Nazi commands in Munich, to reclaim fresh air and majestic mountain views from imperial exclusivity in Shimla, to change, create and stir the imagination.
As he moves through the mountains, Siddharth challenges their apparent immobility, not just in the liveliness that they host and nurture, but in their very genesis. Every step he takes literally shaping perceptions and perspectives, the scene constantly adjusting itself, illustrating another gift of movement: the affordance of variety, of diversity, and of perpetual newness. A transformative magic Siddharth explores in his book, Fossil.
Arcx Season 4 - Dark n Light
Sami Ahmad Khan
Anjali Alappat sits down with writer, academic and documentary producer, Sami Ahmad Khan. He is the author of Red Jihad: Battle for South Asia (2012), Aliens in Delhi (2017), and the monograph Star Warriors of the Modern Raj: Materiality, Mythology and Technology of Indian Science Fiction (2021). Sami was shortlisted for the Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar and his fiction has been the subject of formal academic research and a part of university syllabi in India and the US. His overview of Indian SF has been translated into Czech and his short story has been translated into Marathi. His creative and critical writings have appeared in leading academic journals (Science Fiction Studies, The Journal of Popular Culture, Foundation), university presses (MIT Press, University of Wales Press), and trade imprints (Gollancz, Hachette, Bloomsbury, Routledge, Rupa, Juggernaut, Niyogi).
Arcx Season 4 - Dark n Light
Gautam Bhatia
In episode two of season four, lawyer, author, and editor Gautam Bhatia returns!
When we last spoke to Gautam, he had just published The Horizon, the much-anticipated sequel to The Wall. Since then, he’s published a variety of non-fiction books, helped curate and edit a new anthology, Between Worlds, for Westland Books, and published a new sci-fi novel: The Sentence.
The Subverse, Season 3
Episode 7 - Fire Changes Everything
In this episode, Susan Mathews of Dark n Light Zine narrate an eccentric story of fire, an intangible and odd element. She begins with lines from William Blake’s “The Tyger”, which invites us to partake of creation and the paradoxes of the divine, with an equal measure of wonder and terror evoked through fire.
Fire is more than just combustion and volatility, a chemical reaction or an ecological stimulus. The history of fire and the history of life are twin flames.
Keep reading on the Dark n Light website.
The Subverse, Season 2
Episode 2 - From the Stars to the Tidepool
In this episode, Susan Mathews of Dark n Light Zine talks about the molecule of life, the matrix of the world, cosmic juice — water.
This episode is part tribute, part meditation on the journey of water from the stars to the tide pool.
From the stars to the tide pool is a tale of magic, of diving into a wreck, of embracing differences, articulating agency and accounting for our water wounds. It is a journey from the outer to the inner space of water, to coming to terms with our fishy beginnings, and our watery selves and learning to swim towards unknowable futures.
DOGMA
A film by Francesco Ruffini
What makes a dog a “good boy”? Discover the world of doggy people and dog shows through their best companion’s eyes.
Follow the sounds of men’s cutest obsession. How far do we go in striving for success – and who do we become?
Year: 2018
Country: United Kingdom
Festivals: Edinburgh International FF, Interfilm Berlin, Tenerife Shorts, Glasgow Short FF, Cine Nova Lisbon
Raj - Lost and Found
A film by Dancing Atoms
A short film shot in the depths of the Kumbh Mela. The protagonist Raj finds himself lost and desperate, encountering all kinds of people.
Watch the film and follow him as he navigates his way through one of the most densely populated events in the world.
Read more on filmfreeway.
