C̵͉͋̔͞U̠҉̷̙ͦR͉̜̎͡͠R͉̜̎͡͠Ḛͭ̉̇͟N̺̻̔̆ͅT̨͈͗̌ͥ O̖̼ͩ͌͐B̩͎͍̾ͅS̵̙͕̀̃Ḛͭ̉̇͟S̵̙͕̀̃S̵̙͕̀̃I̍̅̀̎̊O̖̼ͩ͌͐N̺̻̔̆ͅ D̶͔̭̪̻I̍̅̀̎̊G̩̱ͩ̏͜I̍̅̀̎̊T̨͈͗̌ͥA̷͙ͭͫ̕L̸̖̽̌͂ P̧͕̒̊͘U̠҉̷̙ͦB̩͎͍̾ͅL̸̖̽̌͂I̍̅̀̎̊S̵̙͕̀̃Hͥ̽ͣ̃̔I̍̅̀̎̊N̺̻̔̆ͅG̩̱ͩ̏͜
‘Ruin Drive’ by Ingrid Smevåg Gundersen @ingridsgundersen marks our enduring dive into the UNDERWORLD.
In ‘Ruin Drive’, the author’s thinking takes departure from the work of Margaret Abeshu Leversby @margaret____abeshu exhibited at Kunsthall Oslo @kunsthalloslo . Uncanny figures constructed of synthetic hair, motorcycle helmets and hubcaps, Abeshu Leversby’s sculptures come alive through Gundersen’s thinking, existing in a space of oscillation between past and future, horror and familiarity, stillness and agency. This essay is a beautiful meditation on the enduring self-(un)identification with the material objects that ensconce and produce the human.
The sub-theme PERMEABLE BODY explores bodies (human or otherwise) as porous entities. Focusing on how information crosses spaces and membranes to transfer from one body to another, from outside to inside or vice versa, the permeable body is ultimately relational.
The published articles remain open to all readers for one month from the date of publication and thereafter become part of the CO archive available to subscribers only.
🔗 Link in the bio!
📸 Closeup of ‘Ruin Drive (blonde)’ in Margaret Abeshu Leversby’s ‘Reality is Radical’ at Kunsthall Oslo • Image credits Adrian Leversby @adrianleversby •
C̵͉͋̔͞U̠҉̷̙ͦR͉̜̎͡͠R͉̜̎͡͠Ḛͭ̉̇͟N̺̻̔̆ͅT̨͈͗̌ͥ O̖̼ͩ͌͐B̩͎͍̾ͅS̵̙͕̀̃Ḛͭ̉̇͟S̵̙͕̀̃S̵̙͕̀̃I̍̅̀̎̊O̖̼ͩ͌͐N̺̻̔̆ͅ D̶͔̭̪̻I̍̅̀̎̊G̩̱ͩ̏͜I̍̅̀̎̊T̨͈͗̌ͥA̷͙ͭͫ̕L̸̖̽̌͂ P̧͕̒̊͘U̠҉̷̙ͦB̩͎͍̾ͅL̸̖̽̌͂I̍̅̀̎̊S̵̙͕̀̃Hͥ̽ͣ̃̔I̍̅̀̎̊N̺̻̔̆ͅG̩̱ͩ̏͜
‘Submerged Lineages: Rae-Yen Song 宋瑞渊 •~TUA~• 大眼 •~MAK~• and the Ecology of Ancestral Becoming’ by Ricardo Reverón Blanco @inner_effigies
Through a reading of the solo exhibition •~TUA~• 大眼 •~MAK~• by Rae-Yen Song @raeyensong this article examines the idea of ancestry not as historic lineage but metabolic processes.
Catch up on the latest monthly read and tap the link in our bio! 🔗 The full article is available on our website for two more weeks and thereafter part of the archive available to subscribers only.
📷 Rae – Yen Song, 宋瑞渊 – •~TUA~• 大眼 •~MAK~• at Tramway, Glasgow. Image credit Keith Hunter.
✦ DAZZLED ✦
‘born under thread’ by Floor Berkhout @floor.berkhout
‘When we treat technology as magic, we lose the capacity to question, modify, or refuse it. You cannot hold a cloud responsible, but you can hold a machine operator responsible if you can see how they turn the gears.’
Floor Berkhout is a Dutch artist and researcher working between textile and information design. By implementing the traditional craft into the computation system, Floor hopes to direct our attention to the current state of disconnect between ourselves and the devices to which we are inherently linked.
🔗 Read more via the link in our bio.
📷 Featured images:
Floor Berkhout • born under thread • weaving (2025) • Photos by Floor Berkhout, Greta Munaro
Today we got the keys to our new space ✨🔑✨
A gem hidden inside a serene inner courtyard, just a few minutes walk from Amsterdam Central, this is a place where our work over the years – across digital, print, curation, research, discourse and community projects - finds a home (and manifests!) in a physical world.
Over the coming months we’ll be carefully shaping it into something we hope you’ll want to spend time in.
More soon!
And with thanks to those around us who made this step possible! A big shout out to Pieter Verbeke of @san.serriffe and our neighbours in the wonderful creative community around Het Blaauwlakenblok.
Small object. Charged presence.
With the Lit Clip, @corrinagoutos transforms an everyday accessory into something more ambiguous — somewhere between utility and statement, between playful and confrontational.
It clips, it holds, it signals.
A subtle shift — but enough to change how it’s read.
Blooming, not through colour,
but through attitude.
Shop the Article > LIT-IGATION on our website, see link in the bio
C̵͉͋̔͞U̠҉̷̙ͦR͉̜̎͡͠R͉̜̎͡͠Ḛͭ̉̇͟N̺̻̔̆ͅT̨͈͗̌ͥ O̖̼ͩ͌͐B̩͎͍̾ͅS̵̙͕̀̃Ḛͭ̉̇͟S̵̙͕̀̃S̵̙͕̀̃I̍̅̀̎̊O̖̼ͩ͌͐N̺̻̔̆ͅ D̶͔̭̪̻I̍̅̀̎̊G̩̱ͩ̏͜I̍̅̀̎̊T̨͈͗̌ͥA̷͙ͭͫ̕L̸̖̽̌͂ P̧͕̒̊͘U̠҉̷̙ͦB̩͎͍̾ͅL̸̖̽̌͂I̍̅̀̎̊S̵̙͕̀̃Hͥ̽ͣ̃̔I̍̅̀̎̊N̺̻̔̆ͅG̩̱ͩ̏͜
‘Submerged Lineages: Rae-Yen Song 宋瑞渊 •~TUA~• 大眼 •~MAK~• and the Ecology of Ancestral Becoming’ by Ricardo Reverón Blanco @inner_effigies deepens our sinking into the UNDERWORLD.
Staying with the aesthetics of the afterlife, Reverón Blanco provides a very different point of entry, one of contamination as ancestry. Through a reading of the solo exhibition •~TUA~• 大眼 •~MAK~• by Rae-Yen Song @raeyensong this article examines the idea of ancestry not as historic lineage but metabolic processes. The work is created from the absence of an ancestor who drowned at the age of thirteen, ‘tua mak’. In the work, ‘tua mak’ materialises as skin, breath and qi, but these are not discrete parts of a whole. Instead, they become inter-related nodes in the wider ecosystem of the artwork. In this detailed consideration of Song’s work, ancestry is a transforming and transformative process of ‘circulation rather than origin’.
The sub-theme SUBTERRANEAN LOGIC investigates knowledge that has been repressed by dominant structures. Spotlighting the intuitive, irrational, occult and mythological, we focus on how these types of meaning-making manifest in material and visual culture.
The published articles remain open to all readers for one month from the date of publication and thereafter become part of the CO archive available to subscribers only.
🔗 Link in bio!
📷 Rae-Yen Song, •~pond~• (tua mak’s qi) in 宋瑞渊 - •~TUA~• 大眼 •~MAK~• at Tramway, Glasgow, image credits Keith Hunter.
UNDERWORLD 🕳️ 🖤 🥽 🪨 ⚔️ Ugly, exciting, attractive?
Fasciation is a rare but well-documented abnormality in plant growth, where the structure of a plant shifts from its usual form into something visibly distorted.
Most often, stems that should grow round become flattened, widened, or fused, creating ribbon-like or crested shapes. 
At the center of this phenomenon is the plant’s apical meristem, the small region at the tip where growth is controlled. Under normal conditions, this region functions as a single point, producing cylindrical stems and orderly development. In fasciation, that point becomes elongated or split, and growth is redistributed across a wider surface.
This shift in growth is not random at the cellular level. The same cells are dividing and expanding as they normally would, but the organization of those cells has changed, which alters the overall shape of the plant.
The causes of fasciation are varied and not always clearly identifiable. It can result from hormonal imbalances in growth tissues, genetic mutations, or infections by bacteria such as Rhodococcus fascians, which interfere with normal growth signals.
Although its appearance can be dramatic, fasciation is generally not fatal to the plant. It is best understood as a developmental irregularity in the plant’s growth system, where structure is altered but basic biological function continues.
Via @archived.dreams
#10 Underworld Issue by Current Obsession. Welcome to the descent.
Departing from our earlier investigations of surface, signature and sign, the issue moves deliberately downward – beneath surfaces and systems of classification, to explore the hidden orders that shape bodies, materials and ways of knowing.
It approaches adornment, skin and ornament as active interfaces, where invisible forces register materially.
Bodies here are permeable rather than autonomous, training themselves into legibility through labour, ritual, discipline, repetition and exposure.
#10 Underworld Issue attends to cosmologies and knowledge systems that persist in the shadows through concealment, resilience, and survival, as well as to the infrastructures of extraction, circulation and decay that bind bodies to geology, technology, and death.
The descend happens gradually through activations and four individual chapters. Across theory, fiction, interviews and visual material, the issue gathers these subterranean threads into a single publication that will be released at the end of the year.
Subscribe to Current Obsession to be among the first readers to receive the issue. Comment ‘underworld’ and we will send you a subscription link or check the link in our bio.
Underworld Issue identity by Ieva Jakusa @ieshulis · ‘Cosm’ type by Benn Zorn @bennzorn2.0 ·
C̵͉͋̔͞U̠҉̷̙ͦR͉̜̎͡͠R͉̜̎͡͠Ḛͭ̉̇͟N̺̻̔̆ͅT̨͈͗̌ͥ O̖̼ͩ͌͐B̩͎͍̾ͅS̵̙͕̀̃Ḛͭ̉̇͟S̵̙͕̀̃S̵̙͕̀̃I̍̅̀̎̊O̖̼ͩ͌͐N̺̻̔̆ͅ D̶͔̭̪̻I̍̅̀̎̊G̩̱ͩ̏͜I̍̅̀̎̊T̨͈͗̌ͥA̷͙ͭͫ̕L̸̖̽̌͂ P̧͕̒̊͘U̠҉̷̙ͦB̩͎͍̾ͅL̸̖̽̌͂I̍̅̀̎̊S̵̙͕̀̃Hͥ̽ͣ̃̔I̍̅̀̎̊N̺̻̔̆ͅG̩̱ͩ̏͜
‘More is more! Fetish Nirvana’ by Elaine ML Tam @deep_frill is the latest monthly read advancing our venture into the UNDERWORLD theme.
In this article, Tam turns to the phenomenon of the Chinese afterlife, rife with joss paper stamped with luxury market monograms, to interrogate the aesthetics of ‘desire after death’ through the opulent excess of the Nirvana Memorial Garden columbarium in Singapore.
The full article is available on our website for two more weeks and thereafter part of the archive available to subscribers only.
🔗 Link in bio!
📸 Nirvana Memorial Garden, Singapore, 2022. Photographed by Elaine M.L. Tam; re-touching by Lidija Kononenko.
Introducing a new voice in our store @ionahindmarchbisset
Working at the intersection of jewellery, body and self-expression, Iona Hindmarch Bisset rethinks adornment from the inside out.
Their grillz are not just accessories, but sculptural extensions of the body. Custom-fitted, intimate, and unapologetically visible, they challenge where jewellery belongs and how it is worn.
A practice that moves between precision and attitude.
Why don't you get yourself a grill?! #linkinthebio
UNDERWORLD 🕳️ 🖤 🥽 🪨 ⚔️ A plant that refuses the premise of being one, the Ghost Pipe (or Corpse Plant).
No chlorophyll, no green, no photosynthesis.
It draws nutrients from underground fungal networks connected to nearby trees.
A translucent, almost synthetic appearance.
Emerges briefly above ground. Then disappears.
Via @dasswerke
