Page 139 of The Examiner

Date:20 May 2024

Course:Multimedia Art, MA

Exam:We call it the ‘long essay’. A thesis that explains the final-module art project, its background, inspiration, etc.

In the space below, please give as much detail as possible regarding the mitigating circumstances you feel will affect your ability to achieve your full potential in this exam or submitted work.

I am well aware this form should be completed by Alyson herself. I am her tutor. I’ve made the decision to submit what there is of Alyson’s long essay, which I found in her drafts folder on Doodle. I expected her to revise the content before her final deadline, but that hasn’t happened. Alyson threw herself into this project, but at some point – I don’t recall exactly when – she became distracted and her attendance declined.

Please believe me when I say this student is outstanding. She worked so hard, for so long I would hate for that to go unrewarded. You’ll see how intriguing and insightful her long essay is, even the little of it we have. She deserves to graduate with not just a pass, but a Distinction (I am also well aware I cannot influence the external examiner here, and this is not an attempt to do so).

If you have any questions at all about why this student deserves special consideration, I am happy to clarify. Thank you for your understanding in this most exceptional case.

Gela Nathaniel.

PS I am hoping against hope she will return to help create the installation, as planned, for the event. GN

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