MMAM（FTP） Final Project and long essay Final Grade Tutor’s Report, 31 May 2024

MMAM ( FTP ) Final Project and long essay Final Grade Tutor’s Report, 31 May 2024

Brief: Create a multimedia installation in the foyer of RD 8’s headquarters to complement the company’s launch event for a new system that blends radio waves with cloud technology for a new generation of mobile payment systems.

Overview: The group had one task left: to move their installation to RD 8’s event, set it up and talk to guests during the champagne reception. It was simple – probably the least involved and most enjoyable stage of the whole process. The moment where all they had learned on the course could be put into practice.

Jemisha Badhuri

With her burning ambition, mischievous guile and ruthless streak, Jem has quietly disrupted this course from the start. Last summer, when I met her at the West Mids degree show, I thought I’d found a student who literally wouldn’t see what AetherGen was up to. Jem saw everything, and more. She works hard to overcome any obstacle she encounters. Despite taking some unconventional paths to assert herself, she’s an accomplished artist and, more than any other student on this course, has developed her talent into the stratosphere. Final grade: Distinction

Patrick Bright

When I struck up a conversation with Patrick over the counter at Modern Art, it was only to offer my sympathies after the burglary. As he rambled about the break-in and mixed it with yearning memories of his home town in Ireland, it hit me. This lovely, innocent middle-aged man was the final piece of my puzzle. Someone who, if he saw anything, would see only the good in it. Yet what you see can be deceiving and he wasn’t that innocent after all. Patrick stopped responding to my messages after the event. Wherever he is, I wish him well. Final grade: Merit

Jonathan Danners

I met Jonathan on a climate-change march. I was only there to keep a friend company. We walked beside each other and got talking – it was as simple as that. I mentioned I worked at Royal Hastings and he said his sister-in-law was Alyson Lang; his wife, her sister Suzie, was walking way ahead of us, leading the march with a banner and megaphone. Jonathan was lovely, even said he’d help me approach Alyson to visit our undergrads. Later he told me Royal Hastings has strong links to RD 8 via the engineering department. Like all bad ideas, I can’t remember exactly when we decided I’d be a part of their mission to expose RD 8’s toxic atmospheric defence tech. But I contacted the company on behalf of the art department. It coincided well with our change in policy: the clause in our mission statement that said all RH art courses must have a clear relevance to industry and commerce. Jonathan is a driven and passionate leader determined to make a faceless organisation pay for the deaths of his mother and sister. I hope he finds peace. Final grade: Merit

Alyson Lang

Alyson Lang created the most extraordinary, inventive and beautiful artwork for this course. But Suzie Danners worked harder and for longer – on a job no one else could do. Suzie and Alyson are sisters, born somewhere in China, but as their earliest memories are of scavenging on a rubbish heap alongside others in similar destitution, who knows what their true background was. They can only have been toddlers when they were adopted by aid worker Sue Lin Lang and her engineer husband Charlie and brought to the UK , where they enjoyed a happy and privileged upbringing, in complete contrast to their start in life. Yet something about the horror of those early years meant Suzie was able to do something that drove the other team members to the edge of insanity. Day in, day out, she kept Cameron’s phone working and his family, friends and colleagues in the dark about what had really happened. Final grade: Distinction

Ludya Parak

As a stressed single mother struggling to maintain a freelance career, I never expected Ludya to be an outstanding student. But with her background in design, she could bring some weight to my course feedback. So when Jonathan and Suzie wanted Ludya on the course too, I agreed. I see now they needed to balance the power. Three of them against three regular group members. Only in the end, Ludya rejected them. When she drove away from RD 8 she kicked Suzie and Jonathan out of the car and told them she was finished with AetherGen. I understand she drove straight to a police station to turn over her laptop and phone. All three discovered the limits of teamwork, and Ludya was central to that learning. Final grade: Pass

Cameron Wesley

Cameron was a remarkable student who, had he not vanished under a cloak of secrecy, I’m sure would have passed his MA and rediscovered the joy of creativity. I hope to name a prize after him, if I can get the paperwork to Hannah on time and the idea is passed by the department committee. It will be awarded to the student who achieved the most, against the odds. I’m sure he’d be pleased to know his time at Royal Hastings is not forgotten. Not by me. Final grade: Discretionary pass

And now I’ve got that off my chest, I’ll write a Tutor’s Report that I can actually submit. One that says how well all the students did and how much I learned from them – knowledge I can take forward to next year’s course.

Do you see now what my problem is? After my last exchange with the college admin, I sought out three people connected to this case: Hannah O’Donnell, Gela Nathaniel and Jemisha Badhuri. They agreed to send me their communications with ‘Ben Sketcher’, so that I could gain a better understanding of events leading up to and beyond that final project. This explains why you can see them here.

I went to the police and gave them all the documents I had, along with every contact detail. They thanked me and said they’d be in touch.

I didn’t hear any more.

Weeks later I noticed a small news item about three climate-change activists who were charged with trespass, cyber-fraud and criminal damage. They belonged to a small underground group called AetherGen, which effectively dissolved when its leader disappeared, around the time of their arrest. They all pleaded guilty, so there was no trial. Two were given sentences of ten years each; the third a suspended sentence, because she had provided evidence that led to the other convictions – her lawyers pleaded that she was a single parent whose mother was unwell. Apparently the trio had broken into a high-security building to damage expensive technology, and the judge was determined that sentencing would be robust – to deter others.

Any investigation into what happened to Cameron, Patrick or the mysterious Ben Sketcher would shine a spotlight on technology that RD 8 and their clients want to keep shrouded in mystery. So officially nothing unusual happened on the inaugural Masters degree in Multimedia Art (Full-Time Programme).

I approved Gela Nathaniel’s grades and finally clicked ‘retrieval complete’ on the Doodle files.

The police must surely have additional evidence gathered from the devices of the conspirators and witnesses. If these ever come to light, then you will have a far clearer understanding of this strange case than I ever will.

Yours,

Philippa F. Moreton, BA , MA , PhD

The Examiner

To: Gela Nathaniel

From: Mae Blackwell

Date: 31 May 2024

Subject: Post-mortem

Dear Gela,

I appreciate you had nothing to do with what happened last night, but Marketing is holding a post-mortem and I know Royal Hastings will not emerge in the best light. This is a terrible shame, as I understand our research-and-development division enjoys a close relationship with your engineering faculty. The future of that link is in severe jeopardy.

Did you know your group contained AetherGen activists? The only saving grace is that our guests, having explored the experiential and immersive installation, thought Jem’s retrieval of the head statue from the sculpture was performance art to round off our presentation. Many took it as a satirical comment on the 24/7 mobile-phone ‘habit’ that most people seem to have these days. If it were not for that, we would be turning this whole episode over to our lawyers as a case of trespass and sabotage.

Please know that RD 8 are fully committed to reversing the effects of climate change. We have switched to 100% electric vehicles and maintain a company-wide policy to reuse and recycle. Our aim is to be carbon-neutral by 2030.

On another matter, your student Patrick Bright signed in, but didn’t sign out yesterday. We need his ID pass returned asap. I see Cameron Wesley signed in and out via our biometric gate, but I didn’t see him at all, did you? If you see him, please ask him to contact me asap.

Mae

To: Mae Blackwell

From: Gela Nathaniel

Date: 31 May 2024

Subject: Re: Post-mortem

Dear Mae,

Thank you for your strategic letter. I would apologise for last night, but that would be inappropriate, given that you not only knew very well the AetherGen unit was taking this course, but also paid me to admit Cameron too. You wanted him to watch them, and intended them to find a dummy unit – one they thought was integral to RD 8’s atmospheric defence technology that killed Jonathan’s mother and sister. When they ‘exposed’ this innocent tech, you wanted to humiliate their organisation.

Only they turned the wrong way and stole something else. A Dead Hand unit that held the power to destroy the world. Jem disabled it when she planted a tiny chip that generated randomised statements in Cameron’s voice. A trick designed to punish her fellow students. How lucky that she did. The group never knew what they had really stolen.

Hearing that voice changed the group. Cameron’s murder meant it wasn’t dismissed as a trivial curiosity, but was given shape, form and meaning. Call it mass hysteria in the wake of severe trauma. Scientists suddenly believed in the afterlife. Good, kind people found themselves on a pathway to the unthinkable, where every step led them further from their moral core. Those who claimed to hate capitalism considered selling the tech to aid their own escape. For a while they had to live in the moment, instead of thinking about the future of the planet. I wonder if they learned anything from that …

You know Cameron’s dead, Mae. He died working for you. Trying to recover the radio phase of the Dead Hand system that at one time might have launched a thousand nuclear weapons. All to keep your new atmospheric technology secret. And is that really because you don’t want the enemy to find out or because, if ordinary people knew, they wouldn’t want such destructive potential to exist?

A lot of ex-army men end up in the City. Cameron went from Iraq to Canary Wharf, but couldn’t handle the change in atmosphere, in the quality of risk. He called it burnout, but it wasn’t quite that. He longed for the danger of his former life. I wonder how his death will be covered up.

We’re not as secretive in academia as you are in business. Low-grade hacker and AetherGen’s puppet-master, Ben Sketcher, found it all too easy to pose as the external examiner and access course essays and event details. He knew exactly where his errant sleeper group would be. Patrick thought the external examiner would call the police and end the trap he found himself in – he gave Ben access to RD 8. That’s why you think Cameron signed in and out.

Your incinerator was the group’s ticket to freedom. Finally a way to destroy the final piece of Cameron’s body and his phone, giving whoever had the unit a chance to escape. Of course the success of any new start depended on that unit being the long-lost Spiritfinder. A scientific endeavour to answer the ultimate question of life … and death. But of course it wasn’t, was it?

Mae, if you hadn’t wanted to discredit AetherGen, then none of this would’ve happened, because the Danners would never have got near the Dead Hand unit otherwise, far less steal and reactivate its devastating capabilities. It was your luck that a twenty-one-year-old art student had confidence, talent and cheek enough to save the world.

I learned a lot from this MA course. I underestimated Jem and Patrick, but Patrick the most. He decided to act – to stop what he thought he saw: Cameron attacking Ludya. How did something so simple become so tangled and awful? Because it seems Patrick paid for that mistake with his own life. I saw him enter the incinerator block with Ben. Then I led Jem safely to her dad’s car. I didn’t look back.

Which of them walked away? Patrick’s shop workers say he might have gone back to Ireland, but I can tell how worried they are. Now you say that he didn’t sign out, so I fear the worst.

All the time my group was coming into the art studio, working on their assignments and the final project, each of them had their own agenda, which changed shape as we went along. It’s all very poetic and beautiful in its own way, Mae.

When the police ask me, I’ll tell them everything. But you and I both know nothing will happen.

Gela

To: Gela Nathaniel

From: Lisa Hough

Date: 4 June 2024

Subject: Cameron Wesley

Dear Ms Nathaniel,

You may remember we communicated a few months back, when I was trying to locate my former husband, Cameron Wesley. The last I heard of him was that he’d enrolled on an art course at Royal Hastings, so of course you were the first person I contacted when he missed our son’s sports day.

I am very sorry to inform you that Cameron sadly passed away on a covert operation. They never tell you the details, so when and where this happened we’ll never know, but I see now that he must have left your art course to go on that final job. I’m sorry to contact you with such terrible news.

Your sincerely,

Lisa

To: Lisa Hough

From: Gela Nathaniel

Date: 4 June 2024

Subject: Re: Cameron Wesley

Dear Lisa,

Thank you for your email. I am so sorry to hear that sad news about Cameron. He was a lovely man, with genuine creative talent. I first met him at The Sanctuary when I was introducing everyone there to the therapeutic potential of art. We built up a close bond over that time. I will never forget him. Thank you for letting me know the sad news.

All my love,

Gela

To: The Danners Gallery

From: Jem Badhuri

Date: 4 September 2024

Subject: New soundscape artist

Dear Barbara,

I visited the Danners Gallery with my father a few months ago and you very kindly showed us round the exhibition. At the time I was studying for an MA in Multimedia Art at Royal Hastings and I’m delighted to say that, after a year of hard work and commitment, I gained a well-deserved Distinction for my work in clay and sound.

While at your gallery I couldn’t help but notice something missing – and that vital element was a soundscape. My Royal Hastings tutor described me as ‘the master of sound’, and I agree. Sound is a vital element of the human sensory experience and I can create an auditory journey to enhance your visitors’ uptake of any exhibition or event. I would like to offer my services as a soundscape artist.

As you will be one of my first-ever clients I am happy to negotiate a ‘mates’ rates’ fee on the basis that your boss’s son, Jonathan, took the same course. I helped him create a project in clay for one of our assignments, so he should give me a good reference. The positive thing about his prison sentence is that at least you know where to find him.

I am happy to visit again and discuss the benefits my services can bring to your business. My dad can drive me to Gloucester at any time. However, due to the fact that I am sight-impaired, I will require some additional assistance to allow me full access to the task, but please rest assured that when I need help, I will ask for it.

Thank you, Barbara. I look forward to hearing from you via the contact details below,

Jem Badhuri, BA , MA

WhatsApp chat between Jem Badhuri and a withheld number, 5 September 2024:

Withheld number

Hello there, young Jem, BA , MA , how are you?

Jem

Gasp! Is this Pat from MMAM ?

Withheld number

Are you OK after that crazy night?

Jem

OK? I’m on top of the world! Got my first soundscape commission from a restaurant round the corner. Signed up for an advanced course in sound electronics, tax-deductible. Dad’s looking at quotes to soundproof the loft and he’s coming round to the idea of knocking a doorway through to the second bedroom, so I can have a clay studio too. Oh, and do you remember a lovely waiter called Mikael from the RD 8 event? We’re going to Paris for the weekend and he’s teaching me the guitar. Even my dad likes him.

Withheld number

That’s all grand. I’m very glad.

Jem

Don’t the police want to speak to you about what happened?

Withheld number

Maybe one day someone will, but too many want to keep RD 8’s secrets for that to be official.

Jem

The real examiner asked to see all my messages, and the police took my phone. It was very exciting! When they told me what was inside that resin block, I finally realised why everyone had screamed. It barely registered at the time, I was so intent on saving the clay sculpture.

Withheld number

I’m afraid it went into the incinerator with everything else. I’m sorry.

Jem

Oh, I’m glad now – imagine having that big old thing in the house! What was I thinking?

Withheld number

I hope you’re OK after everything, Jem.

Jem

When Gela told me what was in the resin, for the first time ever I felt glad I couldn’t see. You know me, Pat, I’m a bright-side sort of person, but I don’t always feel it, deep down. I look back on how I behaved during the MA and wonder if not identifying as disabled was a kind of denial.

Jem

Now I know there’s beauty in everything.

Withheld number

Well, I guess we all learned a lot on our MA , whether it was part of the course or not.

Jem

True! I’ve been thinking about visiting Jonathan and Suzie in prison, but they’re so far away and I’m busy.

Withheld number

Some prisons run art classes, so perhaps they’re creating new work themselves.

Jem

Gela will be delighted when she hears you’re OK.

Withheld number

Now, Jem, please keep this to yourself.

Jem

She says you signed in to RD 8, but never signed out, though someone used Cameron’s fingerprint to sign in and out – was that you? She said the old radio was incinerated along with the clay head and the resin cube I found inside it. And that when the incinerator finally cooled down, they discovered fragments of human bone.

Withheld number

I’ve no idea who that could’ve been.

Jem

Gela says she told the police everything she knows and that it’s up to them now. That we should enjoy our lives, because that’s what Cameron would’ve wanted.

Withheld number

It’s good advice.

Jem

You’ll never guess where I keep the scorpion paperweight you made! Right beside me on my desk. Did you keep one yourself?

Withheld number

I did. And it’s right beside me too. On top of an old radio, which I listen to at the same time every day. As the voice speaks, I look at the scorpion, its sting ready to strike. Neither will let me forget.

Withheld number

Jem?

Withheld number

Jem, please say you’re still talking to me.

Jem

Are you back home?

Withheld number

I’m closer. Put it that way.

Jem

Painting and sketching?

Withheld number

I am. And it’s all I ever dreamed it would be. But we can’t stay in touch. Good luck, Jem. May you achieve everything you’ve ever wanted in life, and more.