Page 142 of The Examiner

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.

Royal Hastings, University of London Multimedia Art MA *Final Project*

Candidate name: Ludya Parak

Candidate number: 0883481

Later stages:

The project slid from regular failure to full-on disaster long before the later stages. When RD8 came to the studio, all 200 of them, and sent us pages of feedback, it was yet another turning point downwards. Everyone split off into their own hell.

This stage is always a headache. The client can literally turn round and say, ‘Don’t like it, start again.’ It wasn’t that bad, but for Jem, changing the design felt like the end of the world. For the rest of us, the world had already ended and this was just some weird twilight existence. OK, I’m being dramatic, but it is dramatic.

At the same time it started to hit us that we actually had to do the installation. People were expecting a tunnel and a giant head sculpture, accompanied by a multimedia showcase of the company’s history. I could feel the pressure crowd in on me. Why do I put myself through this? I didn’t choose to be here. I was chosen because I’m a jobbing designer. Like that would make me any better at passing for an art student.

So Jonathan holes himself up in the house with the voice, and that’s where he and Suzie stay. He’s obsessed. When I go round to find out exactly where I stand, he keeps me at the door. But I need to know what I should say. If he doesn’t tell me what to say, I’ll have to tell the truth – when I’m asked. I end up shouting, and Jonathan hisses at me to keep my mouth shut, this is nothing to do with AetherGen now.

‘Gela deserves us to graduate, though, right? She’s put her career on the line, we owe her that.’

He looked at me like we don’t owe anyone anything. This is way above my pay-grade. All I can do is make the components, work on the tunnel, finish the multimedia presentation and deal with the inevitable when it comes.

Doodle message group [Private] Jem and Patrick, 21 May 2024:

Jem Badhuri

Hi Pat, long time no see. The tunnel’s nearly finished, isn’t it?

Patrick Bright