Royal Hastings, University of London Multimedia Art MA Final Project

Candidate name: Alyson Lang

Candidate number: 0883484

Introduction:

I found a circuit board on the rubbish tip that was our home in Guangxi Zhuang, my sister and I. It’s my earliest memory, that circuit board. A flat, green landscape embedded with tiny colourful shapes made of glass and Bakelite. Set part-haphazard, part-regimented along straight, intersecting lines. I stared and stared at it. I’d wanted a doll’s house, like I’d seen on a page torn from a magazine, but this was more than I could dream of. I imagined people small enough to populate these miniature buildings and parks. I was their creator.

Since then I’ve been captivated by circuitry, old and new. Some boards are like plans for a new town, residential developments, schools, shops, community hubs set along tightly packed streets. Others are industrial. Gas holders, water tanks, cylinders linked by networks of pipes and cables. Each is different. Each a three-dimensional map of a tiny futuristic world.

As I got older, I discovered what these mysterious shapes and lines are: resistors, capacitors, crystals, oscillators, diodes, transistors, fuses. What they do . How they work . When I stopped seeing them simply as an aesthetic to be admired, I could appreciate the scope they represent, the universe of possibilities in those tiny worlds … There and then I knew exactly what I wanted to be when I grew up: an engineer.

Jem Badhuri’s Doodle Diary, 20 May 2024:

They say if a woman is killed, she most likely knows her murderer. So likely, in fact, that any police investigation will start with the men closest to her and work outwards eliminating suspects as they go. They must know a thing or two about it, so I’ll do the same.

Ever since that first inkling I had that Alyson was missing, nothing has happened to disprove my suspicion. Some people on this course have tried to convince me nothing is wrong. Are they party to certain information, or have they been convinced by someone else?

The further I get into my investigation, the fewer people I feel I can trust. Still, I have to bear one thing in mind: the two men closest to Alyson are her husband and Jonathan. Well, now I know they are one and the same.

Message group: 2024 Examiners, 30 May 2024

Karen Carpenter

AetherGen? The hippies who want us to stop driving and eat lentils? I thought they’d glued themselves to one too many buildings. Ha-ha!

Ben Sketcher

According to an article I read, they’re under new leadership and the oldstyle protests have stopped. A change in strategy, apparently.

Tilda Ricci

Our students are intelligent and free-thinking. It’s only to be expected that some engage in political activism. However, the fact that ‘Alyson’ is really her sister Suzie – Jonathan’s wife – is rather curious.

Ben Sketcher

The ‘affair’ was acknowledged only when Patrick spotted them behaving as if they were ‘together’. They only ever meant to appear as fellow students.

Tilda Ricci

Why does Gela not notice the Lang woman who arrives in the studio on day one isn’t the artist she’s so in awe of? There are pictures of Alyson online. I fear she may have been duped.

Ben Sketcher

Gela is in on whatever scam the Danners are pulling.

Karen Carpenter

I’ve spotted something! When they first meet, Patrick complements Alyson on losing weight. She’s slimmer than the Alyson Lang whose pictures he finds online.

Tilda Ricci

You’re right, Karen. But surely the others google Alyson too? Jem would notice that.

Ben Sketcher

Is Jonathan key to this? Is he so controlling that he makes his wife impersonate her sister, just so he can take the same art course and keep an eye on her all day?

Tilda Ricci

The real Alyson seems party to the deception, at first. According to Jem, she too becomes worried about Suzie’s whereabouts.

Ben Sketcher

For Assignment Five, when the group document lost things, Jonathan submits images that reflect the loss of a partner. By then Jem is convinced Alyson – or Suzie, his wife – is missing.

Karen Carpenter

Yet when Jem asks about Alyson, both Jonathan and Patrick say they’ve seen her. Gela too.

Ben Sketcher

Gela is in denial that her star student has gone. She’s already lost Cameron, who isn’t a burnt-out professional, but a private investigator working on a project called kiss-kiss – a project Gela is well aware of.

Tilda Ricci

He talks about coming from a high-level marketing job.

Ben Sketcher

That was years before.

Karen Carpenter

Young Jem says the trip to Somerset is key. Patrick hints at something similar. Sounds like there was an almighty blow-up and Suzie flounced off. Ditched the hubby and went. For their own reasons, neither Jonathan nor Gela want to admit it.

Karen Carpenter

Ben? Are you still there?

Ben Sketcher

I’ve met Jem. She’s here in the car with me, outside RD 8. This is getting more worrying by the minute. I need to ask Hannah something.

WhatsApp chat between Ben Sketcher and Hannah O’Donnell, 30 May 2024:

Ben

That time you overheard the voice. You were outside, about to show Jem’s dad into the studio, am I right?

Hannah

That’s right, yes.

Ben

Please, think very carefully. Was Alyson Lang there?

Hannah

She wasn’t there.

Ben

Are you sure? Jem says she was missing, but the rest of the group all say she was there and heard the voice.

Hannah

I’m sure, because I had to tell her the keycode had changed, but couldn’t because she wasn’t there.

Doodle message group [Private] Gela, Jonathan and Alyson, 20 May 2024:

Gela Nathaniel

I had to call Jem and assure her I know about the Alyson/Suzie thing and that it’s under investigation. I hope to God that stops her meddling.

Jonathan Danners

Good work.

Gela Nathaniel

What about Patrick?

Jonathan Danners

Don’t worry about him.

Gela Nathaniel

She and Patrick are so close – what if she’s shared her suspicions with him?

Jonathan Danners

He won’t say anything.

Gela Nathaniel

Where IS Suzie?

Jonathan Danners

She’s with me.

Alyson Lang

I’m here, Gela. Don’t keep trying to call us. We’re not picking up.

Gela Nathaniel

You’re not sticking to your side of the bargain.

Alyson Lang

We finished the course. That’s our part of the deal.

Gela Nathaniel

The course isn’t finished by a long way! There’s the final essay and the installation. You can’t leave it to the others at this stage.

Jonathan Danners

We’ll be there to set up and make sure everything finds its way to the incinerator afterwards. Anything else, just pay someone.

Gela Nathaniel

I want to keep the installation, and I can’t ‘just pay someone’. This is a respectable college, there are standards, protocols and best practice. Every process is documented and totally transparent.

Jonathan Danners

You’ve still got Ludya – then there’s Patrick and Jem. You’ll think of something. We’re too busy here and, anyway, we’ve already got what we wanted.

Doodle message group [Private] Gela and Cameron, 20 May 2024:

Gela Nathaniel

Suzie and Jonathan say they got what they wanted. How can they have? Thanks to you, they failed. Didn’t they?

Cameron Wesley

Failed at what they meant to do. In the process, they found something else.