Fateful Reinventions

FATEFUL REINVENTIONS

by Toria Liao

What does it mean to be a creator? And what does a creation become, in the end?

Issue 8.1 of Augur Magazine draws our attention to the very act of creation itself—from the spark of a new idea to its unpredictable aftermath. For my first solo curation of an Augur issue, I found myself dwelling on pieces that show us the power and consequences of human ingenuity. It was important to me to explore not only invention, but reinvention—how we can break free of what someone else intended us to be, and become what we want for ourselves and for the world. 

Here at Augur Society, we’re reinventing ourselves too. As we open the Augur Press to submissions; as we release the second season of our podcast, Murmurstations; as we look to new programming opportunities—I am struck by how far this little bird has flown. I think about what we need to keep going: the lessons to keep and remember from the past; the nourishment and rest we need to sustain our flight; the dreams we are still flying towards. 

Of course, nowadays it can feel like our environment is hostile to dreaming. Some say machines can replace creatives, as if we are defunct technology. What once seemed outrageously speculative now seems mundane. It’s fitting, then, that this issue teeters on the brink of apocalypse—from the immediate creep of environmental destruction to the slow collapse of supportive social structures, we journey through and arrive beyond the anthropocene. It’s impossible not to feel that this issue of Augur, in particular, catches us in a hall of mirrors that refracts many possible fates—not all of them easy, or peaceful.

Even so, what I hope to see in that mirror are the themes that run through the poems and stories contained in these pages. Our creators portray universes where the world is ending—or has ended—and community is all we have. Ghostly voices abound in those communities—not only human ones, but robotic remixes, interstellar noise, and sounds emanating from the very earth. Those voices tell of what must be preserved in our histories, of what joys to seize in the present, and foretell how we might take what is known and make something new to meet our future. They ask us how we can deprogram away from the confines of oppressive structures and invent our way towards justice and liberation. They honour the sacrifices made along the way.

My intention is for Issue 8.1 to walk that tenuous line of hope without becoming ungrounded idealism, and without succumbing to fatalism and despair. The present still rests in our hands. The futures we dream of are not out of reach. But to survive, we need each other. 

Sincerely,
Toria Liao
COO and Editorial Director