ISSUE II
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<strong>ISSUE</strong> <strong>II</strong> 3<br />
LETTER FROM<br />
THE EDITORS<br />
Dear Reader:<br />
I was first brought onto this project in July of 2019, right as Stephanie and Rukan were<br />
getting the idea off the ground. At the start, we simply had an idea we continued to build<br />
on, and now, a whole year later, I’ve had the wonderful opportunity to see our cohort<br />
develop into this issue. My personal artistic vision has been shaped by this journal, from<br />
all the artists, writers, and creators who have trusted us with their pieces, to watching<br />
our team develop the many aspects of Sienna Solstice. At the start of this issue timeline<br />
I was reminded of the opening lines from Marge Piercy’s poem To be of use, “The people<br />
I love the best / jump into work head first / without dallying in the shallows”. Despite the<br />
hitches in the road this team has jumped into work headfirst, and I am eager to share<br />
the result with you.<br />
—Lea<br />
When the editorial team was initially developing our journal identity, we didn’t have<br />
many questions answered. We weren’t sure how long this project would last, nor did we<br />
know much about running a journal as complex as Sienna Solstice. Our team of four was<br />
propelled only by our diversified passions, unified by a desire to explore, and ultimately<br />
dissolve, this delineation between the arts and sciences.<br />
Looking back on our 2019 selves, we’ve come a long way, not only developing our mission<br />
and identity, but also our team. As several of you know, we’ve brought on a few<br />
more curious spirits to help us work through Sienna Solstice’s inherent dynamism and<br />
innovation. Expanding our team inspired within us a new commitment to consistently<br />
produce pioneering content within our antidisciplinary niche, and our <strong>ISSUE</strong> <strong>II</strong> cohort is<br />
a testament to this promise. We hope their work surprises you as much as it did us.<br />
Among this issue’s themes were beautiful juxtapositions of interconnectedness and solitude,<br />
inception and destruction, and arguably the most striking: love and withdrawal. In<br />
this new life in which cities are burning and the physical divides between us are growing,<br />
we hope this issue reminds you of what once was—and what will be again.<br />
Thank you for celebrating with us this Fall Equinox.<br />
Warmly,<br />
Kate, Lea, Rukan, & Stephanie
TABLE OF CONTENTS<br />
PAGE 6<br />
yasmeen<br />
Safia Elhillo<br />
An Interview with Safia Elhillo<br />
Sienna Solstice Editors<br />
PAGE 10<br />
The Last September Equinox<br />
Elliott Voorhees<br />
PAGE 12<br />
This Poem Has Already<br />
Forgotten Its Name<br />
Darnell “DeeSoul” Carson<br />
Haptic<br />
Ibuki Kuramochi<br />
PAGE 14<br />
Moving City<br />
Emily Ren<br />
PAGE 16<br />
Dancing in the Demolition<br />
Site of My Childhood Home<br />
Anne Kwok<br />
Peel<br />
Ibuki Kuramochi<br />
PAGE 18<br />
a rant 2... whom<br />
“ma.jo.me” (Matt Mett.)<br />
PAGE 20<br />
ochre solitude<br />
Jackson Forte<br />
after you showed me that video<br />
about gravity<br />
Blake Levario<br />
saltwater<br />
Melissa Skowron<br />
PAGE 22<br />
Flower shopping with<br />
Frida<br />
Emily Ahmed TahaBurt<br />
Plantshoot 1 & 5<br />
Milena Correia<br />
PAGE 24<br />
If a Virus Could Sing<br />
Markus J. Buehler<br />
PAGE 28<br />
summer on the taxi<br />
Esther Kim<br />
See Me in Your Dreams<br />
Geneviève Dumas<br />
Postcards from Portland<br />
Matthew Kaminski<br />
PAGE 30<br />
huevos con tortilla<br />
Andrés González-Bonillas
PAGE 32<br />
Divine Myth<br />
Smiti Mittal<br />
PAGE 34<br />
Alexander Hamilton<br />
Rohit Ghusar<br />
DUM-E: Generalizaton Assembly<br />
based on Human Attention<br />
Justin Lin<br />
PAGE 42<br />
A resistance plan was hastily<br />
drawn up.<br />
S. Cearley<br />
If Only We Could See Past<br />
the Dust<br />
Eric Kwok<br />
PAGE 44<br />
Tigris<br />
Gilare Zada<br />
PAGE 36<br />
Shelf Cloud: a caution<br />
Jasmine Flowers<br />
The Wrath of Poseidon<br />
Eric Huang<br />
PAGE 38<br />
Therapeutic Lantibiotic Delivery<br />
and Functionalized Antimicrobial<br />
Surfaces...<br />
Neil Kadian<br />
untitled<br />
Lisa Yang<br />
Some Things Remain the<br />
Same<br />
Andrea Salvador<br />
Exploring the Performance of<br />
Deep Residual Networks in<br />
Crazyhouse Chess<br />
Gordon Chi<br />
Interconnected<br />
Anashrita Henckel<br />
Developing Coupled Physical-<br />
Biogeochemical Models of<br />
Mesozooplankton...<br />
Patrick Kim<br />
PAGE 46<br />
Your time is coming<br />
Geneviève Dumas<br />
Tonality Spectrum<br />
Ian Fleck<br />
PAGE 40<br />
we need space<br />
&<br />
a coming of age but, irl:<br />
respectability politics<br />
Osadolor Osawemwenze<br />
PAGE 48<br />
The Anatomy<br />
Eva Ojeda F.<br />
Hello My Name Is<br />
Daniel Han<br />
PAGE 50<br />
Artist & Author Biographies
6 SIENNA SOLSTICE<br />
yasmeen<br />
Safia Elhillo<br />
Source: Poetry (July/August 2018)<br />
i was born<br />
at the rupture the root where<br />
i split from my parallel self i split from<br />
the girl i also could have been<br />
& her name / easy / i know the story<br />
all her life / my mother wanted<br />
a girl named for a flower<br />
whose oil scents all<br />
our mothers /<br />
petals wrung<br />
for their perfume<br />
i was planted<br />
land became ocean became land anew<br />
its shape refusing root in my fallow mouth<br />
cleaving my life neatly<br />
& my name / taken from a dead woman<br />
to remember / to fill an aperture with<br />
cut jasmine in a bowl<br />
our longing<br />
our mothers’<br />
wilting<br />
garlands hanging from our necks
<strong>ISSUE</strong> <strong>II</strong> 7<br />
An Interview With Safia Elhillo<br />
While you were explaining your poem “yasmeen” in The Poetry Magazine Podcast, we<br />
came to understand the poem as recounting three separate timelines: one where the<br />
speaker is Yasmeen, one where she’s Safia, and one where she has to live with both,<br />
and neither is extricable from her identity. Why did you think a contrapuntal poem was<br />
the best way to present these three timelines?<br />
SAFIA ELHILLO: I was thinking a lot about inherited form, in general, at the time of<br />
writing that poem, and in the case of this particular poem, the form preceded the<br />
content. I’d never written a contrapuntal before, and I’d been reading Olio by Tyehimba<br />
Jess, which is full of these wild contrapuntals that you can read backwards<br />
and upside-down and all sorts of unfair stuff. The summer before, at Cave Canem,<br />
he’d given a talk about his process and walked us through a bunch of his contrapuntals.<br />
I had not been particularly excited about form in that way until I saw him<br />
take such ownership of a form that I think people of color in general—Black people<br />
in particular—have been left out of the conversation about some of those older<br />
forms. So, to see him achieve beyond fluency in the form made me really want to<br />
write a contrapuntal.<br />
I would say that the process of building a poem is measuring out each word and<br />
each line, and [writing a contrapuntal poem] takes that process and magnifies it<br />
because the line not only has to work as a line, it also has to work as half of another<br />
line. So, it really was the longest I’ve ever spent writing such a short poem. So, the<br />
poem was made from scratch in that way, where I had to go into it not knowing what<br />
the poem was going to be and go to meet the form and see what came out.<br />
I was thinking a lot about this idea of an alternate self. There’s a Ladan Osman interview,<br />
where she talks about the particular diasporic experience of always having<br />
to contend with an alternate version of yourself and using that alternate version of<br />
yourself as a metric to measure your actual self against. Like, if I’d only grown up<br />
back home all this stuff I think is wrong with me would not be wrong with me. If I’d<br />
only grown up back home, my ends wouldn’t be split. In hindsight, it is an idea that<br />
makes a lot of sense for the contrapuntal form. I am not generally so “woo-woo”<br />
about the process of making a poem—it’s work. I have to sit and think and do, but<br />
sometimes, there is an element that is beyond something I can language and this<br />
was that—where in hindsight, when the poem was done, I was like, “Oh. Okay, of<br />
course. This is the only poem this could have been.” But at the time, I knew what I<br />
was doing, and also, I didn’t know what I was doing. I was so occupied with fulfilling<br />
the exercise that I almost didn’t notice the poem that was being made.
8 SIENNA SOLSTICE<br />
Earlier, you mentioned how you’re “limited by your particular obsessions”. One of<br />
the things I noticed is you have quite an “obsession” with ampersands, and you<br />
utilize them a lot in your poetry. Could you expand more on your attraction and<br />
utilization of ampersands within your poetry?<br />
SAFIA ELHILLO: On the most basic level, the ampersand is me trying to write<br />
an Aracelis Girmay poem every time and failing. She also has a poem called<br />
“Ode to the Ampersand”, but what I love, just on a technical level, when I am<br />
making a poem, is I’m always trying to use as few words as possible to articulate<br />
the thing. At the end of the day, the ampersand is very economical. It<br />
is one symbol that takes up the space and the meaning that, otherwise, you<br />
would have to have a whole other word in there—three more letters [and] this<br />
much more space on the line. That feels cluttered to me. I like this neat, little<br />
bundle that contains a word in it without going through the trouble of spelling<br />
out a word.<br />
You once said in a previous interview the best advice you ever received was in<br />
the form of a Toni Morisson quote saying “If there’s a book you want to read and it<br />
hasn’t been written yet then you must write it.” What would you say to young writers<br />
entering a world that feels everything has either been written or is too niche<br />
to be read?<br />
SAFIA ELHILLO: I don’t believe anything is too niche. I don’t think there’s such<br />
a thing. Nothing is universal. I think the only thing that is universal is specificity,<br />
so we might as well write [about] our particular situations because<br />
that hasn’t been written before. Even if there was a book that was written by<br />
someone who was not me, whose main character was Safia and she was Sudanese-American<br />
and she was a Sagittarius and 5’3 and born in Maryland. I still<br />
would have something different to say. Because all of that stuff is just identity,<br />
[and] identity is central to a lot of those questions surrounding representation<br />
in literature but it’s not the end of the project. Just because there’s a book with<br />
a Sudani girl in it doesn’t mean that the book is written. I think that’s when<br />
representation politics fails us—when representation is seen as the end of the<br />
project. But it’s not. There are still things that I have experienced, that I have<br />
observed, that I have felt, that intersect with my identity and also intersect with<br />
my geography and my astrological sign and the weather and where I am in my<br />
menstrual cycle. All of that is the alchemy that makes the voice and the story.<br />
It is niche. Everything is niche. Even those old canonical, white men eating<br />
an apple in a forest—that’s niche. That’s a subculture that I’m forced to get to<br />
know because that is literally niche. I’ve never met those types of people. That<br />
does not mirror the culture I grew up in. So, I think there are ways that stories<br />
and cultures and perspectives that are not straight cis, white, old men are<br />
made to feel that they’re niche because they’re not as historically cannonized.<br />
But that really was an oversight on the part of the canon and the cannon is<br />
lucky that we’re trying to correct that.
<strong>ISSUE</strong> <strong>II</strong> 9<br />
antidisciplinary<br />
(adjective)<br />
• • •<br />
A rejection of the idea of the “interdisciplinary”,<br />
as disciplines are not only interconnected, but<br />
interdependent.<br />
Wherein no system of thought can contain the<br />
fullness of the human experience.
10 SIENNA SOLSTICE<br />
The Last<br />
September Equinox<br />
Giorgio De Chirico, The Song of Love,<br />
1914. Oil on canvas.<br />
I lean in adobe<br />
archways that cast<br />
vaulted shadows a / cross the pavement,<br />
where you rest your marble<br />
coiffure on humid clay.<br />
unfurling<br />
raucous curls<br />
waving against / the thick sky dripping.<br />
I chisel away<br />
at your pupils / expanding<br />
grey iris eclipsed<br />
with an empty / new moon I need<br />
to fill with silver<br />
until eyelids<br />
sink<br />
lashes brushing wispy clouds<br />
off the horizon<br />
of your cheeks.<br />
My tongue traces your broken lobe<br />
with whispers<br />
Can a person be<br />
an equinox?<br />
Elliott Voorhees<br />
The setting sun spills into<br />
your contours / crisp,<br />
luminous geometry.<br />
Orange cheekbones and crimson lips<br />
relaxing into the dying<br />
afternoon / purpling the desert sky / my dark gaze<br />
on the edge of the world<br />
there’s a runaway train<br />
singing / you to sleep.
<strong>ISSUE</strong> <strong>II</strong><br />
11<br />
Photography by Luis Peña
12<br />
This Poem Has Already<br />
Forgotten Its Name<br />
Darnell “DeeSoul” Carson<br />
It has always been something of an amnesiac.<br />
When this poem wakes up, it stares at the ceiling<br />
until it can remember what it was getting up for.<br />
It takes long showers and thinks it is lost at sea.<br />
A minute from now, it will not even remember<br />
how it began, metaphor or mortality.<br />
Even now the moment is fading,<br />
so it finds the closest conceivable thing<br />
that can still hold its attention:<br />
the condensing shower steam,<br />
the water drop descending down<br />
the plastic curtain, how it<br />
hesitates before joining the<br />
pool at the bottom, how<br />
it knows that the union will<br />
make it so indistinguishable,<br />
so common, so unworthy of<br />
remembering.
13<br />
Haptic<br />
Ibuki Kuramochi<br />
“Under this circumstance, all human relationships<br />
are now concentrated in the<br />
virtual world through the Internet. People’s<br />
thoughts, remarks and lives are<br />
appear in our vision which formed into<br />
photographs, movies, letters, and become<br />
a huge timeline. My work evokes<br />
and awakens the oblivion of the physical<br />
body in the current virtual world.”
14 SIENNA SOLSTICE<br />
MOVING CITY<br />
EMILY REN
<strong>ISSUE</strong> <strong>II</strong> 15<br />
How does architecture occupy and alter a space?<br />
Often characterized by its tall skyscrapers, the modern city is multi-faceted and constantly<br />
expanding upwards and outwards. Through the use of intentional space and selective color,<br />
I explore the building of modern cities and its social and physical impacts on society.
16 SIENNA SOLSTICE<br />
Dancing in the<br />
Demolition Site<br />
of My Childhood<br />
Anne Kwok<br />
Home<br />
It was the ground between our shadows that<br />
wanted your touch, something to hold onto that was more<br />
skin-like than summer’s heat. And it was fitting that<br />
I danced like a lonesome ribbon in the living room while our house<br />
cracked open, a mouth to the hurricane. Look how the air<br />
curls around our furniture like a mother’s arm, the curved fall<br />
of willow strands like softened bone, how the roof is blown<br />
into a sundress spilling from our shoulders. The hour<br />
always leaving, always in a hurry to forgive sweat running<br />
down a knife. I can’t feel my feet now that the memory<br />
has wrecked through me like a river.
<strong>ISSUE</strong> <strong>II</strong> 17<br />
Peel<br />
Ibuki Kuramochi<br />
“All of these video works were created during the<br />
pandemic. I made these video works almost everyday<br />
like a diary. I featured performance movements<br />
and thoughts of the days. Fear, despair,<br />
impatient feeling with the changing days. Everyone’s<br />
sharing the same feeling at the same time.<br />
The world is shaking a lot. I am a part of this world.”
18 SIENNA SOLSTICE<br />
a rant 2.<br />
a multimed<br />
“ma.jo.me”
<strong>ISSUE</strong> <strong>II</strong> 19<br />
.. whom<br />
ia collection<br />
(Matt Mett.)<br />
“The original form of "a rant 2...whom" began as a freestyle<br />
rap recorded at 2 in the morning as I "walked and roam[ed]"...<br />
one of Oahu's "lone-ly road[s]"... "in dimmed lights and temperate<br />
cold."<br />
Flurries of mixed emotions clouded my head as a result of<br />
fallout with a friend: nostalgic, reflective, and longing to return<br />
to the "good ol'" days of shared memories with him. I<br />
shuffled my feet home, ready to transpose and transcribe my<br />
thoughts onto (digital) paper— into what is now a concrete<br />
poem with words slightly revised from the original recording<br />
and a visual arts accompaniment.”<br />
“In the winter<br />
In dimmed lights<br />
And temperate cold<br />
On this lonely road<br />
As you walk<br />
And roam...<br />
A lamb<br />
A lone.”
20 SIENNA SOLSTICE<br />
Ochre Solitude<br />
Jackson Forte<br />
Ochre Solitude is a piece for solo piano, inspired<br />
by the Korean poem An Autumn Day<br />
by Lee Si-young. It attempts to capture the<br />
mysteries of the human subconscious while<br />
being alone, and at the same time harnessing<br />
the feelings of being at peace with oneself.
<strong>ISSUE</strong> I 21<br />
after you showed me the video about gravity<br />
Blake Levario<br />
nonetheless<br />
well, actually<br />
i know about gravity<br />
what the fuck is gravity<br />
here, fall into my arms<br />
still don’t get it<br />
and if you know<br />
how to love me:<br />
leave me alone<br />
explain it to me again<br />
don’t show me<br />
that youtube video<br />
please.<br />
those pictures of the moon<br />
so blurry and dense<br />
why can’t it<br />
be simple<br />
open your palms show me your pull<br />
the seams of gravity so lovely<br />
god, are you all you imagined are you<br />
all you wanted to be ?<br />
i’m still<br />
all alone<br />
and i’m okay i’ve always been.<br />
but please, show<br />
me that video<br />
one more time.<br />
*Note: astronaut graphic is not part of Salt Water<br />
Salt Water<br />
Melissa Skowron
22 SIENNA SOLSTICE<br />
“I paint flowers so they will not die.” -Frida Kahlo<br />
Well we aren’t really shopping together<br />
it’s just me recognizing her<br />
portrait by the cash register<br />
in the nearby farmer’s market—<br />
well, a parking lot corner with<br />
beachy air, a few gourds and prices marked for “annuals”<br />
(which i learn means flowers that just die by the end of the year never to return)<br />
(i wonder if Frida had annuals and knew to call them “annuals”)<br />
(was it annuals that inspired her to paint them because they always die)<br />
(and she kept them alive)<br />
Thinking what the hell is her portrait doing in this small town market<br />
pale faces everywhere like daisies<br />
or ghosts<br />
if she were here i wouldn’t dare approach her, all<br />
smock and big earrings and tied up hair and perhaps a bag strap across her body<br />
as i’ve met heroes and celebs before, put a foot in my mouth<br />
and kicked myself with it,<br />
still waiting for the right time to message remember me<br />
so we can celeb and collaborate?<br />
(or better yet<br />
someone to approach me) no,<br />
like how my man and i keep each other at arm’s length,<br />
it’s just not the right time,<br />
i’m not who i yet want to be<br />
in this frozen summer<br />
like<br />
should i have thrown something at that man’s car<br />
when two weeks before in the same neighborhood<br />
i walked down the street<br />
like Frida may have through an aisle of annuals<br />
and he screamed<br />
for me<br />
to go back to where i came from 3 times<br />
Flower shoppi<br />
Emily Ahme<br />
should i take a petal out of Frida’s book<br />
and paint flowers and feminism and my Egyptianism<br />
and elephants and doves instead<br />
yet here i am<br />
returning anyway for fruit and flowers<br />
just from a distance<br />
Photography by Milena Correia
ng with Frida<br />
d TahaBurt<br />
<strong>ISSUE</strong> <strong>II</strong> 23<br />
***<br />
Maryland is nasty humid<br />
(my first fern still died a few weeks ago)<br />
(ferns are not annuals)<br />
(did Frida’s ferns die and is that why she painted them)<br />
(did she have a spray bottle to humidify ferns too because that’s not working for me)<br />
(or did she leave them in the bathroom while taking a shower<br />
steam painting overtop the mirror and the plant)<br />
(my birthday just passed and i took photos of the bouquet<br />
to paint it and immortalize it forever because i’m reeeally not 22 anymore and<br />
i’m trying<br />
to take photos more because<br />
i can feel it all slip away<br />
and that’s<br />
something i got from her)<br />
Her Baba was German<br />
i tell my Baba in Cairo on the phone later<br />
because he has the utmost respect for her<br />
(he was called a communist freak too)<br />
and he says<br />
Can that be true?<br />
She’s the face of Mexico<br />
i want to ask him if people cut in half<br />
can’t be the face of anything<br />
i look out the window after the call<br />
and the town stares back<br />
blue and conniving<br />
impossible to stay,<br />
difficult to leave,<br />
horrible occurrences can hold a person hostage<br />
***<br />
Milena Correia<br />
Eventually the tourists flow through the market line<br />
just passing through this place<br />
i approach Frida and the counter with a few gourds and onions<br />
i didn’t grab any flowers<br />
one day I too will pass it by<br />
That’s when<br />
I’ll go home<br />
and I’ll paint my flowers there<br />
and I’ll bury them where they were born
24 SIENNA SOLSTICE<br />
IF A<br />
VIRUS<br />
COULD<br />
SING<br />
Markus J. Buehler<br />
Laboratory for Atomistic and Molecular Mechanics<br />
(LAMM), Massachusetts Institute of Technology,<br />
Cambridge, MA, United States of America<br />
Proteins are key building blocks of virtually<br />
all life, providing the material foundation of<br />
spider silk, cells, and hair, but also offering<br />
other functions from enzymes to drugs, and<br />
pathogens like viruses. Based on a nanomechanical<br />
analysis of the structure and<br />
motions of atoms and molecules at multiple<br />
scales, we showed that each of the protein’s<br />
building blocks – amino acids – have<br />
a unique frequency spectrum, or tonal quality<br />
once transposed to the audible range,<br />
allowing us to translate protein sequences<br />
into musical patterns [1,2] (Figure 1).<br />
Moreover, the hierarchical structuring of the<br />
protein can be translated to music through<br />
variations of volume, note length,<br />
rhythm, and overlaying melodies<br />
leading to counterpoint [3]<br />
(Figure 2). Using this concept of translating the<br />
hierarchical structure of matter into music – a<br />
method termed materiomusic<br />
– we developed sonified versions<br />
of the coronavirus spike protein<br />
of the pathogen of COVID-19, 2019-nCoV (see<br />
Figure 3). The resulting audio features an<br />
overlay of the vibrational signatures of the<br />
protein’s primary, secondary and higher-order<br />
structures and can be played in either<br />
the innate nanomechanical<br />
tuning of molecules (the amino<br />
acid scale) or mapped into<br />
equal temperament tuning [4] .<br />
Sonification of the Coronavirus<br />
Spike Protein [Amino Acid Scale]<br />
Figure 4: Visual representation of the virus<br />
spike protein (left) interacting with the human<br />
cell receptor (ACE2), on the right. This moment<br />
of infection represents the molecular binding<br />
event that occurs during infection process.<br />
Viral Counterpoint of the Coronavirus<br />
Spike Protein (2019-nCoV) [equal<br />
temperament tuning, orchestral classical]<br />
The method allows for expressing protein structures<br />
in audible space, offering novel avenues to<br />
represent, analyze and design ar-
<strong>ISSUE</strong> <strong>II</strong> 25<br />
chitectural features across lengthand<br />
time-scales. This type of<br />
approach can be broadly utilized<br />
and used for other protein structures,<br />
including as a means to<br />
assess detailed molecular processes.<br />
For example, we applied it<br />
to the moment of infection, when<br />
the virus begins to interact with the human<br />
cell receptor ACE2 (Figure 4). The musical<br />
realization of the moment of infection,<br />
written for piano, provides<br />
a microscope into the details<br />
of molecular motions of attachment<br />
and release.<br />
Reflection of Infection (for piano)<br />
Applications of the approach<br />
may include the development of<br />
de novo antibodies by designing<br />
protein sequences that match,<br />
through melodic counterpoints,<br />
the binding sites in the spike<br />
protein. The musical coding also provides a<br />
powerful dataset for AI applications, where the<br />
coding of protein folding and function can be<br />
used to design de novo proteins, or to evolve<br />
existing proteins into new designs.<br />
Other applications of audible coding<br />
of matter include material<br />
design by manipulating sound,<br />
detecting mutations, and offering<br />
a way to reach out to broader<br />
communities to explain the<br />
physics of proteins. It also forms a physics-based<br />
compositional technique to<br />
create new art, which is akin to finding a<br />
new palette of colors for a painter. Here,<br />
the nanomechanical structure of matter,<br />
reflected in an oscillatory framework,<br />
presents a new palette for sound generation,<br />
and can complement or support<br />
human creativity, transcending scales,<br />
species and manifestations of matter.<br />
Figure 3: Visual representation of the coronavirus spike protein, used for<br />
a musical realization. The protein consists of three chains, interwoven<br />
into a complex hierarchical structure. Musically, the interwoven geometry<br />
is reflected through intersecting melodies. The tip of the spike proteins<br />
interacts with the human cell during the moment of infection.
26 SIENNA SOLSTICE<br />
Figure 1: As reported in [5] , a visual representing of the sonified barcodes of each of the 20<br />
amino acids, the building blocks of proteins. Each of these notes can be viewed as a novel type<br />
of building blocks that can be used to generate new art, similar to new colors or new paint<br />
materials or paint strokes (see bottom row for examples). Moreover, the construction of musical<br />
art within the constraint of these sets of vibrations offers an interesting challenge in the design of<br />
novel music, as exemplified in the examples reported in this article.<br />
As an example of multi-protein orchestration, see:<br />
References:<br />
[1] T. Giesa, D.I. Spivak, M.J. Buehler, Reoccurring Patterns in Hierarchical Protein<br />
Materials and Music: The Power of Analogies, Bionanoscience. 1 (2011).<br />
doi:10.1007/s12668-011-0022-5.<br />
[2] Z. Qin, M.J. Buehler, Analysis of the vibrational and sound spectrum of over 100,000 protein<br />
structures and application in sonification, Extrem. Mech. Lett. (2019) 100460.doi:https://doi.<br />
org/10.1016/j.eml.2019.100460.
<strong>ISSUE</strong> <strong>II</strong> 27<br />
Figure 2: Comparison of musical structure with protein structures, reflecting a correspondence<br />
between hierarchical features across manifestations from material to sound<br />
and the other way around. Listen to this piece for a audible illustration of the concept:<br />
Hierarchical systems in materials and sound:<br />
[3] S.L. Franjou, M. Milazzo, C.-H. Yu, M.J. Buehler, Sounds interesting: can sonification help us<br />
design new proteins?, Expert Rev. Proteomics. 16 (2019) 875–879.<br />
[4] M.J. Buehler, Nanomechanical sonification of the 2019-nCoV coronavirus spike protein<br />
through a materiomusical approach, (2020). http://arxiv.org/abs/2003.14258 (accessed April 16,<br />
2020).<br />
[5] C.-H. Yu, Z. Qin, F.J. Martin-Martinez, M.J. Buehler, A Self-Consistent Sonification Method to<br />
Translate Amino Acid Sequences into Musical Compositions and Application in Protein Design<br />
Using Artificial Intelligence, ACS Nano. 13 (2019) 7471–7482.
28 SIENNA SOLSTICE<br />
summer on the taxi<br />
Esther Kim<br />
and this late afternoon<br />
heat traces our eyes.<br />
i blink, watch<br />
the sun-ridden apartments and blue<br />
convenience stores<br />
through the window,<br />
like filmstrips—<br />
i never liked film<br />
as in you never wanted to be<br />
filmed, but there’s always<br />
next summer<br />
to let each collected dollar<br />
follow behind us in the wind<br />
as the Han River bows<br />
to us. this is<br />
Seoul you say when the sky<br />
undresses and rain hurtles<br />
into the neon city. at night,<br />
we gather the songs<br />
of cicadas and laugh<br />
into the painted 108<br />
for the last time, before<br />
we arrive at the airport<br />
with the dawn<br />
in our throats, before<br />
we realize there is no goodbye<br />
in the language of this city.
<strong>ISSUE</strong> <strong>II</strong> 20<br />
Postcards from Portland<br />
Matthew Kaminski<br />
Art by Geneviève Dumas
30 SIENNA SOLSTICE<br />
huevos<br />
Andrés González-Bonillascon tortilla<br />
Open and I am cooking huevos con tortilla to 25/8 by Bad Bunny<br />
Open and me and Fernie blast Christian Nodal in my dad’s car<br />
Singing to the tears in our eyes<br />
And the sun has set<br />
And we have laughed at the rooftops and their stars<br />
Open and I am going 105 on the highway pumping blood like nitros<br />
I scream and so do my eyes but<br />
I get home safe that night<br />
Open and I am cooking huevos con tortilla to 25/8 by Bad Bunny<br />
And fuck I could use a smoke<br />
And I lose count of the sunsets<br />
Open and my mom is burning sage again<br />
She talks about how the smoke forms<br />
It curls and whisps<br />
And<br />
The corridos in my neighborhood<br />
Sing to the doves on the wires<br />
And they sing back<br />
Open and home is not what I remember<br />
Open and I am cooking huevos con tortil<br />
The maiz yellows and browns<br />
And the eggs need salt<br />
And the salsa hurts my nose sometimes<br />
And the glass plate stays warm<br />
And the sun is up<br />
And I lose track of when it sets<br />
Open and I haven’t called my nana in a m<br />
And she’s not going to the illegal casinos<br />
Or at least not that she’s telling her daugh<br />
Open and the corridos are still singing<br />
And the gray doves sing back<br />
And they eat huevos con tortilla<br />
Left on the patio table<br />
And the sun sets<br />
And there is no need to track it.<br />
Open and I am cooking huevos con tortilla to 25/8 by Bad Bunny<br />
And one of the lights above the stove is out<br />
And I take my nanas apron out of the drawer<br />
Stitched from the same hands that held me<br />
And call me Andresito<br />
And the lines in my hands look like hers<br />
Open and there is no violence in these<br />
Lines and that is where lineage ended<br />
Open to the sunroof<br />
And the streetlights become their own constellations<br />
And<br />
They are not as extravagant as the ones in the sky<br />
But there are what I have now
<strong>ISSUE</strong> <strong>II</strong> 31<br />
it to be<br />
la to 25/8 by Bad Bunny<br />
inute<br />
anymore<br />
ters
x<br />
32 SIENNA SOLSTICE<br />
Divine Myth<br />
Smiti Mittal<br />
My mother has never believed in religion.<br />
Not surprising, considering her childhood<br />
was congested with countless trips<br />
to astrologers and healers that her parents<br />
thought might ‘fix’ her younger sister,<br />
who was hard-of-hearing. Doctors<br />
too, along the way, but doctors, like most<br />
scientific professionals, seem too sure of<br />
the truth. A false faith is more comforting.<br />
As a result of her skepticism, I grew up<br />
being taught, Celebrate Diwali, but only<br />
‘culturally’. Visit temples but as feats of<br />
architecture. Learn the Hanuman Chalisa<br />
but because it pleases your grandmother.<br />
Because Faith is ancient and you<br />
are a strong independent woman in the<br />
21st Century. God cannot do anything<br />
for you that you cannot do for yourself.<br />
*<br />
It’s 2012. My sister and I ring the doorbell<br />
and wait as my mother tugs open the<br />
creaking metal gate our grandfather insisted<br />
on installing when we first bought<br />
the place. Inside, wooden floor-paper<br />
peels beside the shoerack. I kick<br />
off my shoes without untying the<br />
laces and cross the cramped six<br />
metres it takes to get to my parents’<br />
bedroom. Documents decorate<br />
the Egyptian-blue sheets as<br />
my father hunches over our family<br />
computer. One of the big boxy<br />
ones that has a separate CPU unit. My<br />
grandfather has been in the hospital, so I<br />
worry. Is this paperwork for some surgery?<br />
Could said surgery be unnecessary, and our<br />
family a victim of the medical fraud committed<br />
by Indian hospitals to meet surgery<br />
targets? At 11, I am already cynical. But at 11<br />
I am still a child. So not wanting to disturb<br />
my father and curious what’s for dinner,<br />
I return to the living room.<br />
*<br />
My mother’s anti-faith often takes the note<br />
of, If god exists why is there so much pain? If<br />
prayer works Why is my sister not okay?<br />
I think this is a reflection of the inherently<br />
transactional nature most religion<br />
tends to take. Prayer ~in exchange~<br />
for favors, for forgiveness, and<br />
for freedom. Prayer as a choice you get<br />
to make as opposed to a stubborn inner<br />
reaching for relief I cannot dismiss.<br />
*
<strong>ISSUE</strong> <strong>II</strong> 33<br />
My sister is an appendage of myself I am<br />
constantly aware of. For the following moments,<br />
I cannot remember where in our<br />
living room she stood or what she wore. My<br />
mother has something to tell us. I don’t remember<br />
how she phrases it but I remember<br />
the hollowing out of a pit in my stomach.<br />
I see death scrawled across tan kitchen<br />
tiles and ashes scattered across the<br />
sink. My grandfather is no more. Matter<br />
of fact, but not to me and not at the<br />
age of 12. Was it 11? I’ve lost relatives<br />
before, but this time is different. I feel<br />
before I think, I cry before I feel, I cannot<br />
breathe and I cannot remember<br />
where my sister stood or what she wore.<br />
*<br />
The night my grandfather dies, I recite<br />
the Hanuman Chalisa to myself over<br />
and over again until I can fall asleep.<br />
At some point in the next couple of days, I<br />
learn my grandfather’s cancer always came<br />
with an expiry date. My parents kept this<br />
from me. Towards the end, I was so bitter<br />
because they wouldn’t let me see him (because<br />
a child, however cynical, has no job<br />
smelling death) so when he left, “I will never<br />
see him again” hit stronger than his deathis<br />
too abstract to process.<br />
*<br />
In the aftermath, my first line of thought is<br />
extrapolation. The possibility of any other<br />
loved one spontaneously leaving suddenly<br />
seems overly real. I start to wonder<br />
every time I leave the house -to go<br />
downstairs to play or for tennis lessons<br />
or for a walk - who might be dead the<br />
next time I walk back in. Specific nightmares<br />
start to frequent - my father falling<br />
sick, my sister being chased, my<br />
mother killing herself.<br />
*<br />
I am certain I will never forget the first<br />
three verses of the Hanuman Chalisa.<br />
*<br />
I make up this ritual where I imagine<br />
him on top of a bed of clouds during<br />
the morning prayer at school. I rise,<br />
touch his feet, and ask for his blessings.<br />
This traditional grandparent relationship<br />
isn’t very representative of ours,<br />
but it makes me feel like I’m doing what<br />
I’m supposed to. Like the vast stretches<br />
of time through which the feet-touching<br />
of both elders in the family and God has<br />
been sacred can somehow protect me.<br />
For the first time, faith has come up outside<br />
of an explicit need for hope. Any break<br />
in pattern requires investigation, so I read<br />
about theology to try understanding this<br />
deviation. This is when I learn more about<br />
the transactional nature of most religions.<br />
Despite this broad theme applying to most<br />
faiths, each one tends to establish a<br />
unique give-and-take relationship between<br />
man and God. In Christianity, one<br />
offers prayer in exchange for absolution.<br />
In Hinduism prayer is traded for favors.<br />
In Buddhism, one seeks Nirvana, ultimate<br />
release from the cycle of rebirth. My<br />
prayer feels less like exchange and more<br />
like an external hurling of hope at slippery<br />
walls hoping something will stick.<br />
*<br />
I remember the first day I forgot to think<br />
of him during the morning prayer. I felt<br />
guilty of not missing him any more and<br />
unsettled by the interruption of ritual.<br />
*<br />
In some sense, I agree with my mother.<br />
God cannot do anything for me that I cannot<br />
do for myself. God doesn’t take cash<br />
or card. But in another sense, I don’t because<br />
the illusion of God occupies a space<br />
separate from my mind, so it can hold up<br />
against trauma that I can’t. There are so<br />
many days all I need is a big bright bearhug<br />
from the cosmos. To be able to scream<br />
into the place where all the quantum<br />
probability decisions are made, ‘please<br />
bring back my grandfather,” long after<br />
he is gone. I need to imagine he isn’t gone.<br />
I need to meet him at that place in the<br />
clouds and be able to touch his feet. I<br />
need stories. To be able to tell them and<br />
then come back and read them when the<br />
telling-self is tired or terrified or traumatised.<br />
Maybe that’s all my mother’s<br />
critique of religion is: a story. I’ve had<br />
enough nightmares to know: if I felt helpless<br />
in the face of a lifelong pain my sister<br />
would need to endure, a burden I was<br />
for no explicable reason free from, I too<br />
would tell myself anything that externalised<br />
all of that guilt and pain and sorrow.
34 SIENNA SOLSTICE<br />
Alexander Hamilton<br />
Rohit Ghusar
<strong>ISSUE</strong> <strong>II</strong> 35<br />
DUM-E: Generalizaton Assembly<br />
based on Human Attention<br />
Justin Lin<br />
Today an important open question in the field of human-computer<br />
interaction is the capability of robots to autonomously interact<br />
with objects in their environment as well as interface with<br />
humans. In this paper, we explore planning and action representation<br />
through self play and human attention mechanisms<br />
in order to explore approaches towards few-shot learning in an<br />
environment without robust 3D mapping. In previous works, kit<br />
assembly and bin picking can be formulated as a shape matching<br />
problem that establishes geometric relationships between<br />
object surfaces and their target placement locations from visual<br />
input. We explore the ideas of self-play through repeated<br />
assembly and disassembly in a variety of test kit scenarios.<br />
Furthermore, we merge human gaze and pose estimation<br />
in order to build a shape and position representation that best<br />
emulates a human working environment where object interactions<br />
happen between robots and humans. Our self-supervised<br />
data pipeline is obtained through ground truth placement that<br />
emulates the methodology described in Form2Fit (Zakka et. al,<br />
2019). Our resulting system, Dum-E, is able to increase pick and<br />
place strategies by 14% in a variety of test kits and over 7%<br />
in completely new test cases versus simply self-play and other<br />
approaches such as simulation-based reinforcement learning.
36 SIENNA SOLSTICE<br />
a storm rolled in the east;<br />
i only came to warn you.<br />
my lower belly stretched<br />
of crops going on for<br />
miles: red dirt lines<br />
made from sweat.<br />
Shelf Cloud: a caution<br />
Jasmine Flowers<br />
across the sky, cloaking<br />
town as a dry welcome.<br />
people strained to see<br />
my dimpled white unfold.<br />
i admired the gritty faces<br />
& bodies. i traced grids<br />
cotton bolls shook deep<br />
in the fields & soft hairs<br />
stood to greet my wind.<br />
a cautious kiss boiled up<br />
in my maw: an early gift<br />
for those who watched.
<strong>ISSUE</strong> <strong>II</strong> 37<br />
The Wrath of Poseidon<br />
Eric Huang
38 SIENNA SOLSTICE<br />
Therapeutic Lantibiotic Delivery and<br />
Functionalized Antimicrobial Surfaces<br />
via Thermostable Degradation-Resistant<br />
Nisin-Adsorbed<br />
Endospores:<br />
Engineering an Alternative to<br />
Antibiotics and Pesticides<br />
Neil Kadian<br />
Antimicrobial peptides (APs) produced by a large number of microorganisms,<br />
plants, and animals hold considerable potential as broad-spectrum<br />
alternatives to traditional antibiotics, pesticides, and therapeutics. However,<br />
their clinical and industrial application is limited by their poor chemical<br />
stability, low specificity, and susceptibility to environmental degradation.<br />
This study sought to improve the stability, delivery, and application of the<br />
model AP nisin by exploting the phenomenal physiological stability of<br />
bacterial endospores for AP delivery. It was hypothesized that nisin adsorbed<br />
to the glycoprotein surface matrix of Bacillus subtilis endospores<br />
would show markedly improved chemical stability, shelf life, and resistance<br />
to protease degradation. Extensive wet lab testing<br />
including spectrophotometric BCA protein assays, broth<br />
microdilutions, and protease digests were used to characterize<br />
nisin-endospore adsorption kinetics, shelf-life, and<br />
bactericidal activity. Nisin-endospore binding conditions<br />
were optimized for maximally efficient loading. After storage<br />
in a liquid format for 2 weeks at 20°C, nisin-adsorbed<br />
endospores retained 80% (pH 7.0) or 40% (pH 10.0) antimicrobial<br />
activity, while free nisin lost all activity by week<br />
one. Following a 1-hour pepsin digest, endospore-adsorbed<br />
nisin retained 65% of antimicrobial activity while free nisin retained<br />
only 7%. This suggests that endospore delivery allows APs to be<br />
administered orally instead of intravenously and stored under non-ideal<br />
conditions using a cheap, environmentally-friendly, biocompatible carrier.<br />
Future applications to be tested include: functionalization of crops, fabrics,<br />
and other surfaces to mitigate microbial growth; co-adsorbing with<br />
proteinaceous ligands to localize APs at target tissues and organisms; and<br />
improved penetration of biofilms. This is the first study reporting the use<br />
of endospores to stabilize APs.
<strong>ISSUE</strong> <strong>II</strong> 39<br />
Art by Lisa Yang<br />
passed down like an antique vase or a plot of land<br />
perhaps both, she learns the method of growing:<br />
bones over skin, hair reaching waist, head bending south<br />
Some<br />
Things<br />
Remain<br />
The<br />
Same<br />
Andrea Salvador<br />
coaxed by the whispers of unruly ancestors<br />
she begins to mask appendixes, pull out wisdom<br />
teeth and bury pockets of fear as the film credits roll<br />
her stomach rumbles, but the stove remains unrepaired<br />
so she eats her feelings and yesterday’s<br />
leftovers on a plate that has withstood raised voices and cries<br />
as all spoilage do, beginning to want: to be nice, to be thrown<br />
out then taken back, to be a star, to look at them<br />
unfiltered – no canopy of smog to recognize the similarity<br />
of being: bright, discernible, too good for this world. i am just like<br />
you, she says, and the stars wink back. together, they wait<br />
to be rebirthed.
40 SIENNA SOLSTICE<br />
we need space<br />
Osadolor Osa<br />
"This artwork<br />
lack of auton<br />
During the pa<br />
through July<br />
this piece, ma<br />
struggles, an<br />
came massiv<br />
social media.<br />
trauma and ig<br />
mental health<br />
consumption<br />
sion makes th<br />
up quickly in<br />
autonomy in<br />
ence. Finding<br />
this time crea<br />
passive and a<br />
Black youths<br />
the present s<br />
the frontline f<br />
discourse, an<br />
representing<br />
future. All this<br />
being margin<br />
as angry. Not<br />
figures are sm<br />
emotion was<br />
creative visio<br />
ership of all f<br />
rightful anger<br />
when we cho<br />
These figures<br />
arranged to f<br />
image of spa<br />
The crowded<br />
box black you<br />
have to navig<br />
alism and eu<br />
of beauty, life<br />
such an impr<br />
is essential to<br />
tionalities and<br />
gles black no<br />
so I wanted t<br />
majority of m<br />
used. The foc<br />
is not only a v<br />
with the diffe<br />
also to showc<br />
mity to euroc<br />
sion of black<br />
facing misog
<strong>ISSUE</strong> <strong>II</strong> 41<br />
wemwenze<br />
is a look into the<br />
omy for black youth.<br />
st two months (May<br />
2020) of completing<br />
ny different issues,<br />
d oppression beely<br />
consumed on<br />
The erasure of black<br />
norance of black<br />
in regards to mass<br />
of systemic opprese<br />
black youth grow<br />
hopes to gain some<br />
voice and experione’s<br />
voice during<br />
tes liminality in<br />
ssertive resistance.<br />
are the future and<br />
imultaneously, being<br />
orce of dialogue,<br />
d change while also<br />
hope for a brighter<br />
is happening while<br />
alized and “painted”<br />
e how none of the<br />
iling. The lack of<br />
not only done for<br />
n but to take owneelings,<br />
including<br />
to oppression and<br />
ose to express them.<br />
are simple faces<br />
ormulate a bigger<br />
ce or the lack thereof.<br />
ness represents the<br />
th are put in. We<br />
ate white professionrocentric<br />
standards<br />
, and behavior at<br />
essionable age. It<br />
note the intersecadditional<br />
strugn-men<br />
go through,<br />
o have them be the<br />
uses and figures I<br />
us on black non-men<br />
essel to experiment<br />
rent hairstyles, but<br />
ase the non-conforentrism<br />
and expresfemininity<br />
while<br />
ynoir."<br />
a coming of age but, irl:<br />
respectability politics
42 SIENNA SOLSTICE<br />
A resistance plan was<br />
hastily drawn up.<br />
S Cearley
<strong>ISSUE</strong> <strong>II</strong> 43<br />
If Only We Could See<br />
Past the Dust<br />
Eric Kwok<br />
towering titan of gold<br />
solar shield made of silver sail<br />
unfurl the winds of this universe<br />
& reduce the moon to an echo.<br />
unclasp the secrets of the sky<br />
pearls of smoke, a billowing<br />
curtain of debris<br />
a storm of cosmic glitter.<br />
if only we could see past the dust,<br />
a galactical nirvana awaits<br />
Elysian Fields, promised lands<br />
with gardens of celestial relics.<br />
run your hand through a belt<br />
of constellations & watch each child<br />
split into hallways of light<br />
your crimson eye unblinking.<br />
unknot the umbilical star &<br />
deliver us back, into time’s womb.
44 SIENNA SOLSTICE<br />
Tigris<br />
Gilare Zada<br />
oh you tigris<br />
i have seen what you have done<br />
upon the rich banks<br />
creeping towards the kurdish shore<br />
as the crescent moon sung solely for you<br />
you snaked your way between nations at arms<br />
a murky serpent charged with crimes churning below<br />
unfazed by the rage that had crossed you before<br />
wars have thrived where your waters sigh<br />
you tigris<br />
you crooning flood of honeydew<br />
i have woken in cold sweat<br />
beads tauntingly mimicking<br />
your sweet droplets that clung to me<br />
i dripped in sugar when i listened to you<br />
you river styx<br />
my people emerged at your brook<br />
but there i crumble in my sleep<br />
drowning in the softness i let go<br />
when my home sank into you<br />
i have learned to hate you<br />
you monster of soft soiled beds<br />
on which i coil and writhe like you<br />
i am beginning to creep away from you<br />
the lonely moon weeps rivers for you<br />
Exploring the<br />
Performance of Deep<br />
Residual Networks in<br />
Crazyhouse Chess<br />
Gordon Chi<br />
Crazyhouse is a chess variant that<br />
incorporates all of the classical chess rules,<br />
but allows users to drop pieces captured<br />
from the opponent as a normal move. Until<br />
2018, all competitive computer engines for<br />
this board game made use of an alpha-beta<br />
pruning algorithm with a hand-crafted evaluation<br />
function for each position. Previous machine<br />
learning-based algorithms for just regular chess,<br />
such as NeuroChess and Giraffe, took hand-crafted<br />
evaluation features as input rather than a raw<br />
board representation. More recent projects, such<br />
as AlphaZero, reached massive success but<br />
required massive computational resources in<br />
order to reach its final strength.<br />
This paper describes the development<br />
of SixtyFour, an engine designed to<br />
compete in the chess variant of Crazyhouse<br />
with limited hardware. This<br />
specific variant poses a multitude of<br />
significant challenges due to its large<br />
branching factor, state-space complexity,<br />
and the multiple move types a<br />
player can make. We propose the novel<br />
creation of a neural network-based<br />
evaluation function for Crazyhouse.<br />
More importantly, we evaluate the effectiveness<br />
of an ensemble model, which<br />
allows the training time and datasets<br />
to be easily distributed on regular CPU<br />
hardware commodity. Early versions of the<br />
network have attained a playing level comparable<br />
to a strong amateur on online servers.
<strong>ISSUE</strong> <strong>II</strong> 45<br />
Developing Coupled Physical-Biogeochemical Models of Mesozooplankton<br />
Dynamics in the California Current System<br />
Mesozooplankton play an immense role in the<br />
global ocean. They are intricately intertwined in the<br />
pelagic food web and are major contributors to oceanic<br />
biogeochemical cycling through vertical migrations.<br />
However, much is unknown about the quantitative<br />
distribution and biomass of mesozooplankton<br />
in the ocean. Our limited knowledge impairs the<br />
development of global models, used to understand<br />
interactions of marine resources with functioning of<br />
the earth. In the upwelling system of the California<br />
Current System (CCS) and other productive regions<br />
throughout the ocean, these models are integral in<br />
developing sustainable environmental policy. Here,<br />
we assess ecological dynamics of mesozooplankton<br />
in the CCS and analyze the accuracy of current<br />
simulative models of these dynamics. Using datasets<br />
accessed from MARine Ecosystem DATa and the<br />
World<br />
ical<br />
Patrick Kim<br />
Ocean Atlas, climatolog-<br />
fluctuations of<br />
mesozo-<br />
oplankton biomass, sea surface temperature, chlorophyll<br />
levels, salinity, and photosynthetically active<br />
radiation in the CCS were standardized and synthesized.<br />
These analyses were compared to model<br />
output from a coupling of the Regional Ocean Modeling<br />
System (ROMS), modeling ocean physics, and<br />
Biogeochemical Elemental Cycling (BEC), modeling<br />
biogeochemical dynamics. Observational climatologies<br />
verified the significance of upwelling dynamics<br />
in the CCS. Model outputs underestimated mesozooplankton<br />
biomass during upwelling seasons and<br />
in regions of coastal upwelling. Regions of overestimation<br />
aligned with oligotrophic offshore regions.<br />
Compartmental modifications of ROMS-BEC may<br />
yield more accurate estimations of observed mesozooplankton<br />
dynamics. Especially with increasing<br />
perils of anthropogenic climate change, accurate<br />
models are essential for development of sustainable<br />
fishery management, regulation of wastewater nutrient<br />
outfall, and robust global climate policy.<br />
Interconnected<br />
Anashrita Henckel<br />
“During the first few weeks of lockdown, I created<br />
this piece as a way to capture quarantine life in<br />
Dubai. The first layer features faint drops of<br />
rain on parched Dubai ground. Rain occurs<br />
so rarely here, so when it comes, everyone<br />
revels in the experience despite being<br />
isolated - whether it be taking a photo,<br />
commenting to one another or using<br />
the moment to look up and out from our<br />
confining walls. The second layer is a paper<br />
cutting featuring iconic buildings in<br />
Dubai intermingled with everyday people<br />
in their homes. Diverse peoples celebrating<br />
birthdays, religious holidays like Ramadan<br />
and Easter and living, learning, teaching<br />
and meeting online. I wanted to capture<br />
our interconnectedness and used geometry to<br />
symbolise the order and routine in the seeming<br />
chaos of change and unpredictability. The organic<br />
hexagonal geometric form is inspired by Ernst<br />
Haeckel’s scientific drawings of plants and animals.<br />
I used this to represent the Covid-19 virus which, at the<br />
time, scientists knew little about and was a kind of mystery<br />
to us all overshadowing yet connecting our lives.”
46 SIENNA SOLSTICE<br />
Your time is coming<br />
Geneviève Dumas
<strong>ISSUE</strong> <strong>II</strong> 47<br />
T O N A L I T Y<br />
S P E C T R U M<br />
Ian Fleck
48 SIENNA SOLSTICE<br />
Acrylic on canvas,<br />
36 in x 24 in,<br />
2018<br />
The Anatomy is<br />
an acrylic painting<br />
depicting the<br />
skeleton structure<br />
of a contortionist,<br />
comparing<br />
it to their<br />
regular body<br />
through three<br />
triangles, one<br />
showing their<br />
belly, another<br />
their elbow and<br />
a last one showing<br />
one foot and<br />
half of a leg. This<br />
artwork began<br />
from my fascination<br />
with contortionists<br />
and the<br />
possibilities of<br />
the human body.<br />
Besides my BFA,<br />
I practice circus<br />
arts and I have<br />
always had a<br />
very bendy back,<br />
but I am not a<br />
contortionist yet.<br />
I wanted to know<br />
how our spines<br />
work and how<br />
can they get to<br />
be so flexible,<br />
but because<br />
there is no anatomy<br />
textbook<br />
that shows it, I<br />
decided to study<br />
the body and<br />
paint it.<br />
The Anatomy<br />
Eva Ojeda F.
<strong>ISSUE</strong> <strong>II</strong> 49<br />
Hello My Name Is<br />
Daniel Han
author & artist<br />
Biographies
Markus J. Buehler is the McAfee Professor of<br />
Engineering at MIT, leads MIT’s Laboratory for<br />
Atomistic and Molecular Mechanics, and a composer<br />
of experimental, classical and electronic<br />
music, with an interest in sonification. His primary<br />
research interests focus on the structure and<br />
mechanical properties of biological and bio-inspired<br />
materials, to characterize, model and create<br />
materials with architectural features from the<br />
nano- to the macro-scale. Using an approach<br />
termed “materiomusic”, his artistic work explores<br />
the creation of new forms of musical expression<br />
- such as those derived from biological materials<br />
and living systems - as a means to better<br />
understand the underlying science and mathematics.<br />
One of his goals is to use musical and<br />
sound design as a way to model, optimize and<br />
create new forms of matter from the bottom up,<br />
and to assess cross-system design relationships.<br />
He is also interested in research to explore relationships<br />
between classical music, mathematics,<br />
and the physical and biological sciences, an in<br />
the mapping of models of consciousness across<br />
systems. In recent work he has developed a new<br />
framework to compose music based on proteins<br />
– the basic molecules of all life, as well as other<br />
physical phenomena such as fracturing, to explore<br />
similarities and differences across species, scales<br />
and between philosophical and physical models.<br />
Darnell “DeeSoul” Carson is a Black queer<br />
poet, performer, and educator from San Diego,<br />
CA, co-director of the award-winning Stanford<br />
Spoken Word Collective, and Editorial Assistant<br />
at the Adroit Journal. A two-time CUPSI finalist,<br />
his work has been featured or forthcoming<br />
on Write About Now Poetry and Button Poetry,<br />
and in The Adroit Journal, The Unified Anthology,<br />
The Oakland Arts Review, and elsewhere.<br />
He is currently pursuing a degree in Cultural/<br />
Social Psychology with a minor in Creative Writing<br />
at Stanford University, where he has also<br />
led two-quarter long poetry workshop courses.<br />
S Cearley has tricked a computer into making<br />
poetry when it thinks it is making art. He is<br />
a former researcher in artificial intelligence and<br />
its use in generative literature, lecturer in philosophy,<br />
and a writer. For many years he has<br />
been creating these poems by tweaking expert<br />
systems, pushing the boundaries of the intended<br />
use of software. In the crisp, elegant world<br />
of mathematics and logic, he injects the fœtid<br />
swamp of human nature. His concrete poems<br />
have been published in many journals both online<br />
and on-paper. He has held classes on concrete<br />
poetry across the US, and many works<br />
have been featured in galleries in North America<br />
and Europe. More at futureanachronism.com.<br />
Gordon Chi is a Stanford sophomore currently<br />
studying Math and Computer Science. His research<br />
interests include the intersectionality of AI<br />
in healthcare, as well as the development of depthsearch<br />
based engines for board game variants.<br />
Since his freshman year, he has been a member<br />
of Dr. Andrew Ng’s AI in Healthcare bootcamp.<br />
Aside from research, Gordon enjoys playing<br />
chess, watching basketball and composing music.<br />
He is also a member of the North American<br />
Computational Linguistics Open Problem<br />
Committee, after having previously competed<br />
in the International Linguistics Olympiad.<br />
Milena Correia is a Brazilian artist, master’s<br />
student in aesthetics and artistic studies in photography<br />
and cinema at Universidade Nova de<br />
Lisboa, researching Brazilian women in documentary<br />
cinema. She studied theater and audiovisual<br />
and is the founder of Rustica Producoes,<br />
where she directs, photographs, edits and produces<br />
mainly films related to music and arts in<br />
general. She worked on music videos by artists<br />
such as Regina Machado and Tom Zé, Maurício<br />
Tagliari and Luedji Luna, Iara Rennó, Laya (in<br />
partnership with the photographer Gal Oppido).<br />
Responsible for editing the medium-length<br />
film “Sangria” by Luiza Romão, a film that was<br />
in several national and international festivals.<br />
Develops social and authorial projects through<br />
photography and film such as the partnership<br />
with Canudos Project, which takes place in<br />
the hinterland of Bahia - BR, and her recently<br />
experimental short film “The black hole and<br />
the blank page”, that flows around loneliness.<br />
Geneviève Dumas is the Montreal based printmaker<br />
artist behind the brand Goldengen. Her<br />
work is an investigation of unexpected representations<br />
that result from the combination of
fragmented materials & feelings through her<br />
printmaking. She’s using collage and screen<br />
printing to build up momentum and stories. She<br />
tries to let her art allow the viewer to question a<br />
lot of things, but mostly how we deal with ourselves<br />
& love and experience moments. She<br />
leaves just enough detail for you to wonder.<br />
Ian Fleck is a 15 year old sophomore at the<br />
Los Angeles County High School for the Arts,<br />
where he is the first chair clarinetist in the orchestra.<br />
He discovered his passion for music<br />
at a very early age, and played several instruments<br />
before deciding to focus on clarinet in<br />
2013. He soon joined the Kadima Conservatory<br />
of Music, where he continues to play yearround.<br />
Ian enjoys many disciplines of music,<br />
including arranging, transcribing, composing,<br />
conducting, and performing. He studies music<br />
from multiple genres such as jazz, classical, and<br />
contemporary. He is the youngest of three children,<br />
and lives in Los Angeles with his family.<br />
Jasmine Flowers is a well-watered poet from<br />
Birmingham, AL. Her favorite flowers should be<br />
jasmines, but she loves peonies too. She received<br />
her BA in English from the University of Alabama.<br />
Currently, she is a poetry editor for Variant Literature<br />
Journal. Her poems are published in Rejection<br />
Letters, River Mouth Review, giallo, Q/A<br />
Poetry, perhappened mag, Versification, and<br />
Mineral Lit Mag. Follow her on Twitter: @jas_flow<br />
Jackson Forte is a 19 year old composer and<br />
multi-instrumentalist from San Clemente, California.<br />
He is currently attending Chapman<br />
University as a sophomore, pursuing a double<br />
major in Music Composition and Keyboard Collaborative<br />
Arts, as well as a minor in film music.<br />
Jackson’s compositional style takes inspiration<br />
from video game soundtracks and impressionist<br />
music, as well as his own half-Korean heritage.<br />
Additionally, he writes music for student<br />
films, and is hoping to pursue a career in film<br />
scoring. As a pianist, he often collaborates with<br />
instrumentalists and vocalists as an accompanist,<br />
playing in concerts and recitals. Aside from<br />
this, Jackson also enjoys expanding his musical<br />
instrument collection, and he hopes to get his<br />
hands on a pair of bagpipes in the near future.<br />
Rohit Ghusar is a 20 year old film student at<br />
CSUN. He was born in Yuba City, California<br />
and has been into photography for about<br />
5 years and is a total camera nerd. Photography<br />
was his introduction into film and holds a<br />
very special place in his heart. Rohit’s dream<br />
is to be a writer/director for film since it encompasses<br />
all of his interests such as photography,<br />
music, and writing. Rohit has won Gold<br />
Key Scholastic Art Awards for his photography.<br />
Andrés González-Bonillas is a Xicano poet,<br />
student, and photographer based in Philadelphia<br />
via Arizona. His work focuses on Latinx<br />
identity, love, ancestral history, and radical<br />
politics. Andrés has been published in<br />
La Vida Magazine and has been a member of<br />
the Excelano Project since 2019. He is pursuing<br />
a BA in English at the University of Pennsylvania,<br />
with a focus in Post-Colonial Lit and<br />
Theory. Follow him on twitter @gonzanillas<br />
Daniel Han is currently studying at the University<br />
of Southern California School of Cinematic<br />
Arts. Inspired by Chazelle, Spielberg, and<br />
so many other legends, Daniel aspires to be<br />
an auteur of his future productions. A people’s<br />
person, Daniel values the human relationship<br />
and character above all else both in his works<br />
and in real life. Consequently, Daniel’s favorites<br />
genre to write and create is a coming of<br />
age story that is sprinkled with small moments<br />
of fantasy, or as people call it, “movie-magic”.<br />
Anashrita Henckel is an emerging artist who<br />
was born in the Caribbean, grew up in London<br />
and now lives and works in Dubai. Primary<br />
school teacher by day and artist by night, she<br />
works in a variety of media including drawing,<br />
painting, paper sculpture and digital art and has<br />
a particular interest in constructing geometric<br />
motifs that add layers and meaning to her artworks.<br />
As a young artist fresh out of university,<br />
Anashrita took part in exhibitions in London and<br />
Staffordshire and has seen many of her artworks<br />
sold to private collectors. She then took time<br />
away from the artworld to raise her two cheeky<br />
sons to teenagehood, but has now resumed creating<br />
and has artwork in several online gallery<br />
collections. Anashrita has plans to exhibit in
galleries and exhibitions once they are safe to<br />
reopen after the Covid 19 pandemic has eased.<br />
Eric Huang is a composer based in Los Angeles,<br />
California who is currently studying music composition<br />
and communications with an emphasis<br />
in business at the University of California, Santa<br />
Barbara. Although he also enjoys composing<br />
concert orchestral pieces, his main focus is<br />
writing music to film. Aside from creating music,<br />
he also enjoys cooking and playing badminton.<br />
Neil Kadian is a senior at Dr. Ronald E. McNair<br />
Academic High School in Jersey City, NJ. He has<br />
spent the last three years improving technologies<br />
for drug delivery in his high school and<br />
local labs, and often takes inspiration from biological<br />
architectures found in nature. He is humbled<br />
to be an ISEF finalist and alumni of several<br />
research programs including the Summer Science<br />
Program, NJGSS, Columbia SHP, and NJ<br />
Governor’s STEM Scholars. Neil’s work reflects<br />
his strong belief in the importance of centering<br />
academic research on altruistic values—originality,<br />
elegance, pragmatism, long-term forethought,<br />
efficient allocation of resources, and<br />
comprhensive consideration of outcomes—and<br />
hopes to echo these principles in the future as<br />
a research- and medicine-focused professional.<br />
Matthew Kaminski studies at Chapman University<br />
in Southern California and writes music<br />
for orchestra, small ensembles, wind ensemble,<br />
and vocalists. He is a ten time first place winner<br />
for the state of Oregon through MTNA and<br />
NFMC, and has been a national finalist three<br />
times in the US. His music has been described<br />
as extremely evocative with large amounts of<br />
imagery and emotion, and covers the genres<br />
of contemporary instrumental to electronic. For<br />
the last six years, Matthew has been a member<br />
of Cascadia Composers, chapter of NACU-<br />
SA, and YCP through fEar No Music. In 2019,<br />
Matthew attended the Brevard Music Center<br />
Summer Institute (NC) where he wrote Hidden<br />
Voices, which he later conducted the premiere<br />
of at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall<br />
with the Metropolitan Youth Symphony. More<br />
of Matthew’s compositions can be found at<br />
makcomposer.com, or on Spotify/Apple Music.<br />
Esther Kim is a Korean-American writer from<br />
Potomac, Maryland. Her poetry is forthcoming<br />
or published in Diode, Up the Staircase<br />
Quarterly, and SOFTBLOW. In the summer<br />
of 2019, she participated in the Kenyon Review<br />
Young Writers Workshop. A senior in high<br />
school, she has been recognized by the Library<br />
of Congress, the Scholastic Art & Writing<br />
Awards as a National Gold Medalist, The<br />
Atlantic, and the Poetry Society of the UK.<br />
Patrick Kim was born and raised in Los Angeles,<br />
California. Currently in his first year at Stanford<br />
University, he plans to study Earth Systems, Mathematical<br />
and Computational Sciences, or Political<br />
Science. He is broadly interested in the intersections<br />
between climate science, public policy,<br />
and communication. In his free time, he enjoys<br />
hiking, eating hummus, watering his house plants,<br />
and climbing buildings to stargaze on roofs.<br />
Ibuki Kuramochi specializes in artworks for exhibition<br />
(paintings, movies and digital works),<br />
and also specializes in live performances combining<br />
her live painting with her Japanese Butoh<br />
dance. From 2012, Ibuki started exhibiting works<br />
in major cities in Japan, U.S.A.,Taiwan, France,<br />
Italy and Australia. She studied Butoh dance at<br />
the world renown Kazuo Ohno Butoh Dance Studio<br />
in Yokohama in 2016. Through her work, she<br />
pursues the physicality of Butoh’s poetic choreography<br />
and the pursuit of the human body in<br />
anatomy. She visualizes her performance and<br />
body movements as two-dimensional works<br />
and video works. Ibuki explores concepts of the<br />
body, thought and physical resonance, metamorphosis,<br />
the ideal of the Sci-Fi animation<br />
character’s body, and the uterus and fetishism.<br />
Anne Kwok is a National Student Poet Semifinalist<br />
and a Foyle Young Poet. She has been honored<br />
by the Alliance for Young Artists and Writers,<br />
National Poetry Quarterly, Poetry Society of<br />
UK, Smith College, 1455 Literary Festival, and<br />
the Apprentice Writer, among others. Her work is<br />
published or forthcoming in Hyphen Magazine,<br />
Oberon Poetry, Eunoia Review, and Half Mystic.<br />
Eric Kwok is a queer, Chinese-American poet<br />
born and raised in Brooklyn, NY. A graduate from
New York University, they currently work as an<br />
Electrical Engineer in Southern California. When<br />
not being coerced by capitalism, they spend<br />
their time cooking Chinese soups for their beloveds,<br />
listening to poetry podcasts, reading fiction<br />
that explores the emotional interiority of diasporic<br />
transience, and arguing about fruit. You<br />
can connect with them on Twitter @jooksingzai.<br />
Blake Levario is a Mexican-American writer.<br />
He is currently enrolled in New York University’s<br />
MFA program in Poetry. He reads<br />
poems for the Adroit Journal and is frequently<br />
being sad on Twitter @b_levario. You can<br />
find his words in or forthcoming from Hobart,<br />
Alien Magazine, Pidgeonholes, and elsewhere.<br />
Justin Lin is a senior in high school with research<br />
interests in the foundational science<br />
of deep learning as well as SoTA applications<br />
of computer vision in the context of robotics<br />
and medicine. He’s an incoming researcher at<br />
the Harvard ML Theory Group and Berkman<br />
Klein Center for Internet & Society. Currently<br />
he’s a researcher at the UCLA Visual Machines<br />
Group and USC IPILab with publications<br />
at SPIE and CVPR regarding computer vision<br />
applications. Furthermore, he’s founded RELU<br />
Labs as a part of his research into human-robot<br />
interaction and works on various aspects<br />
of public policy regarding technology. Outside<br />
of academia, Justin loves to play basketball,<br />
scroll through Twitter, and go on biking trips.<br />
Matt Mettias is a multimedia visual and sound<br />
artist from Stanford University, where he is also<br />
currently studying educational policy and conducting<br />
research in psychology –– which still<br />
nurturing his artistic hobbies and tendencies.<br />
Some of his favorite activities include ocean<br />
diving in Hawaii (his home), playing pickup<br />
basketball with his best friends, and producing<br />
music –– everything from boom-bap rap<br />
and ‘classical trap’ to the blues and reggae.<br />
Smiti Mittal, a rising sophomore at Stanford University,<br />
first started writing in order to process<br />
pain. She has dabbled in slam poetry, creative<br />
non-fiction and play writing over the years. Regardless<br />
of the form, she is most drawn to stories<br />
that investigate the human condition. When not<br />
lost in thought, she can be found reading, running<br />
single cell data analysis or curating playlists.<br />
Reach out to her at smiti06@stanford.edu.<br />
Eva Ojeda F. is a multidisciplinary emerging artist<br />
currently based in the unceded territories of the<br />
Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples,<br />
colloquially called “Vancouver”. She holds<br />
a BFA from Emily Carr University of Art+Design.<br />
She was born and raised in Mexico City and<br />
her background as a WOC sets her practice as<br />
an artist. Eva’s work varies from performance<br />
art to sculpture and painting, exploring the<br />
themes of the body, race, identity and feminism.<br />
Osadolor Osawemwenze is an incoming student<br />
at Stanford University and plans on majoring<br />
in Communications. With his interest being<br />
vast and wide, he also intends on engaging in<br />
courses in Sociology, African and African American<br />
Studies, and Studio Art Practice. His future<br />
aspiration is to become a Creative Director to<br />
develop brands to change the way we see people<br />
in the marketing world. Not only as numbers<br />
or consumers but also people with important<br />
experiences to take into account, to increase<br />
media representation. In his podcast, a coming<br />
of age, but irl, Osadolor comments on all things<br />
concerning today’s youth. Diving into social issues<br />
and tying them back to pop culture, he offers<br />
entertaining insight on trends, while relaying<br />
his experience as a black student at a PWI.<br />
Follow him on his socials, keep up with his podcast,<br />
and check out his art at linktr.ee/osadolor.<br />
Luis Peña is a gifted designer, art director,<br />
Photographer, DP, and Director. His gift lies in<br />
his ability to see the world in the wide-eyed,<br />
holy-shit-this-is-amazing way that mostly<br />
only children do. This sort of purity of vision is<br />
rare indeed, and it allows him to notice things<br />
most people miss - like the small fragments of<br />
truth, beauty, and the unexpected that make<br />
up great film. He also enjoys candy orange<br />
slices, running ultra marathons, and sprinting<br />
blindly along the very thin line between triumph<br />
and disaster - especially if he can film it.<br />
Emily Ren is a college freshman from Plano,
TX passionate about the intersection of business<br />
and law. Her art explores the concept of<br />
the city and alienation from these metropolitan<br />
spaces, with a focus on minimalist design.<br />
When she’s not drawing, you can normally<br />
find her googling movie plot summaries<br />
or running around places in a suit and heels.<br />
Andrea Salvador lives somewhere in Asia,<br />
specifically a country with thousands of islands<br />
and constantly humid weather. She is an<br />
alumna of the Adroit Journal Summer Mentorship<br />
Program and the Sonorous Writing Workshop,<br />
while her work has been recognized by<br />
the Philippine Daily Inquirer, Columbia College<br />
Chicago, Trinity College - University of Melbourne,<br />
and Interlochen Arts Academy. In her<br />
spare time, she creates lists, watches sci-fi<br />
and horror movies, and rearranges her bookshelf.<br />
Find her on Twitter at @andreawhowrites.<br />
Melissa Skowron was born in Calgary, Alberta<br />
where she received her Bachelor of Fine Art in<br />
Painting from the Alberta University of Art in 2009.<br />
She has participated in many local shows including<br />
the Ignite! 2012 Emerging Artist’s Show, PARK<br />
art show, and as guest designer for Make Fashion.<br />
Emily Ahmed TahaBurt (she/her) grew up in<br />
Cairo, Egypt and Annapolis, Maryland. She is an<br />
emerging writer and this would be her first publication,<br />
though she was a finalist for the Etel Adnan<br />
Poetry Prize in 2019 for her chapbook manuscript<br />
On Distance. On Distance reflects on transnational<br />
relationships and how they inform other<br />
relationships, family histories, and xenophobia<br />
juxtaposed with a variety of twisted myths and<br />
fairytales. You can reach her on Instagram @emilyahmedtb<br />
or at emilytahaburt@hotmail.com.<br />
Elliott Voorhees is a cancerian poet from North<br />
Carolina. They studied English and Art History at<br />
the University of North Carolina at Greensboro,<br />
where they received their BA. From 2019-2020<br />
they were a member of the Leonard Pubantz<br />
Artist Residency Program where they created<br />
a collection of bilingual poetry written in English<br />
and German. This project stemmed from<br />
their love of language, particularly how it can be<br />
broken and reassembled to create new experiences.<br />
Starting in the fall, they will be a part of<br />
the MFA poetry cohort at California College of<br />
the Arts. They can be found on Twitter @_juuliuscaesar<br />
and on Instagram @juuliuscaesar_ .<br />
Lisa Yang is a Taiwanese Canadian multidisciplinary<br />
artist specializing in still life art direction,<br />
photography and prop styling. Her<br />
work focuses on bright and bold colours, textures<br />
and playful compositions. Often playing<br />
with fruits and mundane objects, she<br />
believes in not taking anything too seriously<br />
and to have fun in image creation. She currently<br />
resides and works in Montreal, Canada.<br />
Gilare Zada is a Kurdish-American from San Diego,<br />
California. She is a rising junior at Stanford<br />
University, and plans to major in English with a<br />
minor in Mathematics. Outside of school, she<br />
writes for the Stanford magazine and spends<br />
her free time writing poetry. Among ambitions<br />
to attend law school and live abroad, she<br />
hopes to one day publish her writing and return<br />
to visit Kurdistan with her mother, Berivan.<br />
Kate Hayashi<br />
Editor<br />
Rukan Saif<br />
Editor<br />
Lea Wang-Tomic<br />
Editor<br />
Stephanie Zhang<br />
Editor<br />
Esther Suyoung Moon<br />
Design<br />
Kelthie Truong<br />
Design<br />
Anicia Anjel Miller<br />
Junior Editor<br />
Jisoo Hope Yoon<br />
Poetry Reader