Your Canon is Dead: Exploring Trickhouse Press and Virtual Oasis

Front cover of Virtual Oasis. Designed by Dan Power

When I think about the future, I admittedly drift to something ominous. Today’s youth must concern themselves with disenchanting realities: the rise of hyper-capitalist overlords, crises and collapses in every corner of the world… it’s easy to feel jaded with what could be.

But the future has also brought new opportunities for innovation, for tomorrow’s visionaries to tear it down and start anew. This era of interconnectivity can breed possibility and creativity like never before. This is the philosophy that guides Trickhouse Press, an online indie publishing press – particularly with their collection Virtual Oasis, a “dream shared between machines both fleshy and fibre-optic”.

Trickhouse Press and the Defense of “Weird Work”

Trickhouse Press is the brainchild of Dan Power, a Lancaster-based creative who takes inspiration from the gaps he longs to fill in the publishing industry. Trickhouse was founded during the UK’s lockdown in July of last year. Power notes that the press’ goals are “...to offer high-quality books at low costs, to treat each book as an object in itself, and to try and upset the stodgy UK poetry establishment by dropping books which are risky, playful, inventive, and wilfully going against tradition and convention.” 

One principle of the press is that its only physical components are the publications themselves – submissions, sales and promotions occur entirely online using their webpage and Twitter. “I like the idea of these objects coming out of the ether,” Power shares, “like the digital has transferred into the real world when usually it's the other way around.” These relations between the digital and the physical are of key interest to the press, both thematically and in operations.

Each Trickhouse publication is treated as its own entity, bearing no resemblance to other releases and with no universal stylings for publishing design or format. Each publication carries its own creative philosophy and purpose. As Power puts it, “...each book is treated as a project in itself, and not like another gem in the press' crown.”

Front cover of Sticker Poems. Designed by SJ Fowler

Power is committed to taking the attitudes and processes of today’s creative outlets and flipping those on their head. “I want the press to be a space where weird work can be treated as something other than a novelty,” he explains, “and put on a level footing with the rest of the contemporary canon.” His perspective is inspiring, and much-needed on the scene – creative experimentation is not a cultural phase, but a longstanding and respectable tradition.

Power also expresses that the press holds a deep appreciation for aesthetics, and how “...visual culture forces language to adapt.” Trickhouse aims to “...stretch the definition of a poem as far as it can [go] by playing into the visual properties of the words as much as their meaning or contents.” He offers i know god is watching by Crispin Best as an example – a ludicrous collection of Minion memes accompanied by existentially-strained musings. These memes, a dialect within the digital language of boomers, are re-examined as vessels concealing the heaviest weights of the collective psyche. If this sounds ridiculous, yet believable, good – Trickhouse has delivered on its promises.

The first season of Trickhouse Press’ publications. Photo courtesy of Dan Power

Virtual Oasis: A Human-AI Anthology

Building off of these values and goals is Virtual Oasis, a poetry collection published by Trickhouse Press this past April. 

Virtual Oasis is primarily an exercise in ekphrastic poetry, with human writers taking creative direction from AI-generated photographs and compositions. Creative submissions came from across the UK, representing contemporary scenes in Glasgow, Lancaster, London, and a few places in between. Power observes that “...the poems [in Virtual Oasis] tend to be more conventional, although the variety of the approaches ... and previously untapped source material allow [the work] to feel fresh and striking.” It humours me, how I underestimated these adjectives.

Going into my review of the collection, it was made clear that every stylistic choice in Virtual Oasis serves a purpose and warrants consideration, further obscuring the boundaries between human and artificial intelligence. The main idea is to suggest something far more reciprocal than AI as a source of creative inspiration – AI is in itself a creator, capable of mutual exchange and possibility.

The cover design of Virtual Oasis is a callback to cyberculture, with a Windows 95 WordArt banner and a shore of vaporwave gridlines. While this aesthetic hit its peak years ago, I interpret its purpose (and that of the title) as something precursory to comfort the reader with technological memories. I feel stretched between visuals of the near-past and approaches of the near-future, leaving me with a sense of disorientation that fits perfectly with the freefall of what’s to come.

AI-generated image for “to the woman on the Zoom open mic who started crying” by Rhiannon Auriol. Photo courtesy of artbreeder.com

A first look inside leads to a subverted oasis. All images for the collection were taken from artbreeder.com, a machine learning-based art website that relies on the ‘remixing’ of existing database images to generate new––and increasingly obscure––creations.

Cross-bred mutant pigs stand with assertion amongst a floating pool of sea anemones. What appears to be both a bird and a banana gapes at me from the depths of a sapphire sea, because why not? I am fascinated by the simultaneous freedom and limitation involved in deciphering this imagery. Does this technology ruminate on failures and successes in the name of creativity? Do the authors?

Regarding the collection’s typeface, Power notes a deeper consideration:

“The font was chosen to resemble code text, since in this anthology the poems function in the same way as lines of code - just as code was read and processed by a computer to generate the images we see on one page, the poems are read and processed by a human reader to generate mental images on the other. In this way, the distinction between artificial and natural intelligence is called into question, as the reader is asked to perform the exact same task as the AI.”

This reflection weighs heavy on my sleepy brain. Let’s see what this reader can accomplish.

AI-generated image for “Leaving is a sense of breaking contract” by Naomi Morris. Photo courtesy of artbreeder.com

Flipping through the collection, the reader is subjected to the same system crashes faced by technology. I naturally––unintentionally––fixate on the pieces that my brain can make sense of, but every passage is worth the mental exercise. 

Accompanied by a knock-kneed girl with distorted attire, Naomi Morris’ piece “Leaving is a sense of breaking contract” describes personal habits of independence and detachment. I take comfort in its relevance and the synergy of this collaboration.

Matthew Whitton’s “from [ ] [ ] of what remains, With little else [ ] [ ] who complains?” stems from what appears to be a tilted desk lamp illuminating crimson-red walls. This postmodernist piece situates the function of a poem as a lighthouse meant to both highlight and obfuscate literary messages:

“...and what is our purpose, of course, but to say this: that the poem illuminates, without necessarily clarifying, the stream of revolution, which is, at once, an overturning and returning, and our metaphor of the lighthouse, therefore, is not a happy accident or the smug self- assurance of the perfect image; no, it is at work in the poem itself: steadfast, reliable, the light alights always on the same point, but always in motion…”

AI-generated image for “from [ ] [ ] of what remains, With little else [ ] [ ] who complains?” by Matthew Whitton. Photo courtesy of artbreeder.com

In fact, it is more fulfilling to make one’s way through the thickest fogs of experimentalism that the collection deploys. These entries revel in the syntax errors, ensuring speculation and deep reflection between reader and artist. Somewhere in the contents of James Knight’s “Drone” is commentary on modern technology’s ever-changing forms and functions. This piece is inspired by a similarly chaotic corruption on the AI’s behalf, involving an almost-collage of a disfigured entity strolling through clouds.

Visual Oasis has not done enough to dissolve my skepticism of artificial intelligence – but fortunately, that is not its intention. The collection pushes boundaries and challenges the mind to meta-rationalize its definitions of artistic merit; it prepares us for the future and appeals to our past. Virtual Oasis rejoices in the imperfections of both man and machine, delivering a coherent collection that only sometimes makes sense.

AI-generated image for “Drone” by James Knight. Photo courtesy of artbreeder.com

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VIRTUAL OASIS

An anthology of human-AI responses

Edited by Dan Power

Trickhouse Press

Lancaster

April 2021

Featuring the creative work of Alex George, Calum Rodger, Dan Power, Denise Bonetti, Emma Bolland, James Knight, Kirsty Dunlop, Maria Sledmere, Mary Clements, Matthew Haigh, Matthew Whitton, Max Parnell, Memoona Zahid, Naomi Morris, Nasim Luczaj, Rhiannon Auriol, Robin Boothroyd, Sam Riviere, Sameeya Maqbool, Scott Lilley, SJ Fowler, T. Person, and Vik Shirley.

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Trickhouse Press

Website | Twitter

Rebecca L. Judd (she/they) is the features editor of Also Cool Mag. She writes and creates out of her studio apartment in Ottawa, kept company by vivid dreams and a cuddly grey kitty named Dora.

This interview was conducted over email, and has been condensed and edited for clarity.

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Multi-Level Marketing and the Boss Babes Left Behind

Visual by Amery Sandford

Now more than ever, the pressure is on to find your “side-hustle.” The COVID-19 pandemic continues to flourish around the world, affecting many industries and – consequently – prospects for employment. Under these conditions, working for YOU is a form of survival. If you can dream it, you can do it – and if you can do it, you can probably make money off of it. 

Entrepreneurship is everywhere you look – free time has turned into hobbies, and hobbies turned into small businesses. That is not to say that every small business is thriving. On the contrary, government support has developed for the businesses facing diminished revenues with ongoing costs of rent and labour. But if your hustle speaks to the right niche and employs a strong digital strategy, the possibilities are endless.

When it comes to small business, multi-level marketing (MLM) companies are not an obvious example. The business itself is not inherently “small,” but rather the distributors that find their way into personal networks. They are friends, mothers, and high school classmates you haven’t talked to in six years. They are working people looking to supplement their income, and those unemployed or between jobs who want to be their own boss.

A direct message sent to the author last month

And that’s what everyone wants at a time like this, right? To do business and profit on our own terms, in such a way that’s compatible with our lifestyles. There is nothing wrong with wanting to pay rent and feed your family. There is nothing wrong with supporting small businesses and creators when they are most vulnerable. It is not the “side-hustle” as a concept that presents the problem, but the craftiness and deceit of multi-level marketing companies. 

The truth is, multi-level marketing is an incredibly predatory practice. These businesses perpetuate false narratives of prosperity and exploit the boom of girl-bossery when, in reality, both the distributor and the customer are sold a vision they cannot realize. This is especially important to remember in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic: people have lost work and need solutions, making the current climate a perfect opportunity for the MLM to strike.

Multi-level marketing companies are related to the pyramid scheme, insofar as distributor recruitment makes up a good deal of operations – often more than the sales themselves. Daryl Koehn, a professor of business ethics at DePaul University, makes a careful distinction between MLMs and pyramid schemes, for at least MLMs actually have a product to sell. But when distributors must purchase inventory that they cannot sell, the line between pyramid scheme and MLM is easily blurred.

Across multi-level marketing, the most popular companies tend to specialize in beauty, health and wellness. Companies like Avon and Mary Kay have built international reputations off of their cosmetics. Monat promises to give you the hair of your dreams. Arbonne and It Works! sell smoothie mixes and serums to make your body beautiful, inside and out.

These brands have gained notoriety across social media, relying on mommy groups and message requests to push products that will totally change your life. The distributor role is promoted in a similar fashion, as an emancipatory experience that will provide for your family and work with your lifestyle. The Avon lady of yesteryear who showed up at your door is now the momtrepreneur living her best life and letting you know via Instagram. These companies have also grown as the concept of self-care becomes more important to society. Taking care of your body and self-image has become a way to cope with external anxieties. 

And so, with the pandemic forcing many women to stay home and many others out of work, the largest MLMs have only continued to grow. In their recruitment, these companies and their networks play off of pandemic-related fears, offering a safe and sanitary working experience. One Arbonne distributor posted that, while others were freaking out over unemployment, “... [she was] just over here hanging out, building [her] germ free multi-million dollar global business from home." When the $600 stimulus cheque was released, Monat distributors complained that they’ve been ghosted for showing women how to make $600 “every month.” But is it really that simple? Is the MLM entrepreneur lifestyle some golden ticket that we are seemingly dodging out of ignorance?

A sample from the “work with me!” forms that MLM distributors will advertise.

This offer sounds too good to be true mainly because it is. Positive experiences with multi-level marketing networks are highly individualized and promoted as universally attainable in order to maintain a steady flow of further distributors. When you successfully recruit someone, you are then entitled to a portion of their proceeds as commission or a bonus. The most successful distributors have the most distributors under them, which makes the endless search for others an essential aspect of the business. Not everyone can be the “regional vice president” with a free company car (that is not actually free at all) – in these cases, either everyone they know is using MLM products, or everyone they know has been sold the #bossbabe fantasy.

So unsuspecting women believe that the anomaly is accessible, and are sold a promising vision. To facilitate the recruitment process, many MLMs have milked the growth of pop feminism in their marketing. Given that 75% of MLM distributors around the world are women, their empowerment is used as a tool of coercion. This works as a determining factor for others to join the cohort and make profit for the initial recruiter, typically at the expense of their own economic security. For example, MLM inspo accounts routinely use hashtags like #bossbabe, #girlboss, and #momtrepreneur, and the companies themselves extend similar mottos into branding. 

This strategy targets more specific groups as well. With the pandemic continuing to put women out of work, this “boss babe” messaging specifically targets lower-income women. Did you just get fired, with hungry mouths to feed and a mortgage to pay? There is a way to “get rich” right in front of you … What are you waiting for? Consider the distancing measures and women’s feelings of isolation from social opportunities. For women who live alone, or stay-at-home mothers helping their children through virtual school, this side-hustle is also poised as a network of genuine female friendship. 

Looking at the numbers, these endeavours hardly pan out, and end up creating further problems for the women they supposedly uplift. One study conducted by the Consumer Awareness Institute found that 99% of MLM distributors end up losing money. This makes sense when you consider the cost of entering the business – starter kits and monthly stock can cost hundreds of dollars, which will come out of the distributor’s pocket. What’s more, many like-minded social circles have exhausted their options for further recruitment. You cannot recruit someone who is already part of the business, so the first friend to recruit will be making better profits than those in their downline. In these circumstances, “female friendship” has some serious limitations.

Inspiring slogans like this one are often used to connect the MLM to women’s empowerment. Merchandise via Mom Life Gear

Given the over-saturation of these markets, distributors must deceive in order to actually turn a profit. If they have run through their personal networks – which is a common situation – they must rely on the other side of profit-making: the product sales. Across many different companies, there are products that have kept customers coming back. But when distributors feel the pinch, they will jump on trends to boost their sales. 

This has become a huge problem during the pandemic, as many wellness distributors are exploiting public fears and deliberately promoting misinformation in order to keep afloat. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), an independent agency of the United States government, has sent at least 10 warning letters to different MLMs (including Arbonne and doTERRA) since the beginning of the pandemic for their false claims about health benefits. 

Young Living’s Thieves line of essential oils has also been promoted for “antiviral properties.” When contacted about these claims, a spokesperson for YL asserted that this was misinformation, and that this form of marketing is prohibited. But because MLMs operate with a highly decentralized structure, those who spread lies will likely go undisciplined.

This distributor – and many others – have taken to sweeping claims about product capabilities in order to turn a profit. Retrieved from r/antiMLM

Although many of us purchase products from other sources, or are well-informed on the dangers of multi-level marketing, the fact of the matter is that these companies continue to grow. Even if this is an avenue you’d never consider for yourself, MLM distribution may be something that impacts your unsuspecting relative or friend. 

Fortunately, platforms are taking action – a recent update to TikTok’s community guidelines included new policy against content related to multi-level marketing and pyramid schemes. But new strategies will emerge, and this problem is far from over. MLM companies will only get bigger as major crises and their accompanying recessions develop over time. They will only get bigger as the virtue of girl-bossery becomes further manipulated for capitalist gain, as something to aspire to with no room for critique.

Entrepreneurship is admirable and side-hustle businesses may hold potential for financial support, but only when they are built off of solid foundations. Multi-level marketing has the power to create further amounts of debt and destroy personal relationships. Nobody is immune to these damages.

Rebecca L. Judd is a writer and student based in Ottawa. When not stuck in a daydream, she can be found writing, collaging, and talking about The Sopranos to anyone who will listen.

Amery Sandford is an illustrator and musician based in Montreal.

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