Editorial

Beep boop - you have reached the internet.

Welcome back to the eternal interconnected interplay incubator, coming to you live from comment section cyberspace with our issue #2. Fresh out of our issue #1 ~the navel we dive straight into a different kind of orifice, another one that’s endless - or at least has the potential to be.

The comment section is a peripheral space - a borderland, a place destined for interaction and perhaps refuge. Simultaneously it is a pit, a void to be yelled in, a void that echoes back. In summary: a place that seems to be rarely quiet.

And yet at first sight it is often hidden. A view comments-click away. Traditionally, we tend to place the focal over the marginal - we see this in the way most social media platforms are structured. It takes a scrolling down until we encounter the borderland, teeming with the marginal. The internet has made these marginal spaces accessible to everyone with an active connection, and their content is often extensive - 3.416.360 comments on the world_record_egg alone. Much too extensive, it would seem, to ever get through. But this does not deter people from commenting - and how! Humanity likes to reveal itself in the margins - these spaces that, apart from interaction, afford anonymity.

Life in the margins then. We are happy to show you around. Please leave your passport at home - no one needs to know your real name here. On our way we’ll encounter some wonderful artists, photographers, and writers who will show you just how many things a comment section can be.

OK - are you ready to press send?

Chia Amisola’s The Sound of Love is a beautiful example of this life in the margins. They describe the project as a ‘sharing in sound’, likewise as transcendence. Through the perspective of a youtube commenter a song takes on a new significance, a stranger’s frame of reference. It is intimate, allows us to scroll endlessly through experiences we may recognize or wish to have, and we may find that the song takes on a new meaning for us too. It is an aesthetic alternative to a habit we have for endless scrolling and fulfills a curiosity we have for the other - a peaceful trip along the borderlands in a spaceship that provides some excellent tunes.

Next we encounter our cybernetic colossus of Rhodos, a shiny, sexy, scarred icon to lead us deeply into the internet unknown. Sofia Talani’s Rabbit Hole seems to be both beacon and warning as we continue on our voyage. Triggering our curiosities, a slight tendency for voyeurism, we can’t help but descend. What fires are burning at the bottom of this pit?

In Nina Schuts’ The one about the monster, what is at the bottom of the pit is a murder. The margins, meanwhile, are buzzing with devoted commenters determined to unveil the truth, following a trail of online breadcrumbs left behind by the perpetrator. Instantly familiar to anyone who has ever visited a comment section, what unravels is a dialectic between cynics and fanatics, pathologists, baristas, the occasional know-it-all and someone from South-Korea who seems to have tabs on a fantastic pancake recipe.

We lift off, move on once more, and the skyline is on fire.

Giuseppe Francavilla’s How to dim a fire perfectly exhibits just the kinds of fires that we may encounter on our travels through the comment section. Strange fires, comical fires, fires that seem too big to be extinguished by a simple LOL dropped from our vessel the E.I.I.I. zine. While he does offer us creative ways of putting out these fires, How to dim a fire shows that dimming a fire in a comment section may be a futile effort to begin with.

But perhaps there is something to appreciate about this chaotic beauty of everyone being able to tell you to F off all the time 😌, says Cesar Majorana in an interview we are calling a 14:00 interview in the comment section. We speak with him about his life on the internet, big moods and little moods, and the nerve-wrecking cinematic narrative that is our timeline/skyline these days.

(oh, and when you roll down the window, you may notice the smell of fertile soil, the smokers’ area at the local bar, the warm musky sweat of a room full of strangers, the polyester seat cushions on public transport, and the punchy aroma of cheap fruity alcohol)

As we begin to make our way back, fruit cocktail in hand, you may want to remain on the comment section frequency. Enter Radio Bubbles. This virtual pet developed by Brin & Ash allows you to send little messages into the borderland ether, which in turn can be received by other players when they tune into your frequency. A comment section pour comment section, if you will.

Lastly our woodland Allegory of an Internet Troll, which first appeared in our newsletter, has been beautifully illustrated by Pien Kars.

🪐 🪐 🪐

E.I.I.I. would like to thank her issue #2 contributors: Chia Amisola, Sofia Talani, Nina Schuts, Giuseppe Francavilla, Cesar Majorana, Brin & Ash, Pien Kars,

and again, Timothy Hardie, for his excellent design work.

Also a big thanks to BUCKBUCKMOOSE, for some wonderful backing tracks.

Please like and subscribe, and see you for round 3, issue 3.