Dec 20, 2021
About our cover by Circa @circadraws
“Would I have been different
if I had chosen a different path
if I had paused and looked back
What will I get to see at the end of this path
where you will be standing”
(BTS – Path / Translation by Doolsetbangtan)
I spent most of my years growing up in various communities on the internet, but to this day nothing comes close to the network that is BTS and ARMY. I chose to interpret this kind of connection in a pretty straightforward way by depicting it as a tangle of roads. Steadily growing and reaching new places, interwoven, overlapping, and most importantly being a way for people of many different backgrounds to meet. The foundation of BTS and their work are present in every step, but the pathways have a life of their own, some more independent than others, everchanging and similar to rhizomes.
Warm wishes,
Circa
Issue Overview
90002 Parallax: BE and “My Time”
⚯ SUPPLEMENTAL STORY ⚯
Where institutionalized varieties lack the range to grapple with the still-unknown universes of time and space, Black English accounts for the magic of being human and being spirit all at once. When we walk to the store, for instance, I walk, you walk, they walk, she walk, he walk. We exist forever, and we exist together.
Fan Activists or Activists Who Happen to Be Fans?
⚯ ACADEMIC ARTICLE ⚯
Through analyzing public ARMY responses to Western media portrayals of ARMY #BLM activism, this paper demonstrates that fans and celebrities have a symbiotic and rhizomatic, rather than top-down relationship when it comes to encouraging fan activism.
Heartache & Honey
⚯ CREATIVE COLLECTIONS ⚯
… and now, in the time of COVID, trapped in an inescapable bubble of dusty monotony, lured in by a disco beat, I explode into PASSION.
Counting Grey Rhinos
⚯ SUPPLEMENTAL STORY ⚯
But there is beauty in knowing that the present is always changing, and in its incompleteness is the potential for something better to be written.
Branding as a Tool for Protection of Intellectual Property Rights: BTS and ARMY as a Case Study
⚯ ACADEMIC ARTICLE ⚯
A case study that examines how fans of Korean band BTS, known as ARMY, work to protect the intellectual property of the band.
7 Paintings: Rain, Heavy, Green, Fly, Fireball, Immersed, Drum Dance
⚯ CREATIVE COLLECTIONS ⚯
As an OT7 ARMY, I work in series, one theme for seven paintings. In this series, I explored images of the members performing. I was interested in images that express both the passion and the beauty of their performances with an emphasis on dramatic lighting effects.
London, Seoul, and Southwest Virginia — Across Homes with BTS
⚯ SUPPLEMENTAL STORY ⚯
BTS were my watering can; poured on, they enabled all the existing and new and ever-widening interests to grow.
Park Jimin the Dancer: Study in Ink (Filter 2020 edition)
⚯ CREATIVE COLLECTION ⚯
My artwork on dance is not just appreciation and celebration of either dance or a dancer. It’s a coping mechanism.
A Serendipitous Encounter
⚯ SUPPLEMENTAL STORY ⚯
I haven’t been here a long time, but I’m never, ever leaving, and one thing is for sure, BTS will always have ARMY right behind them.
Homecoming with BTS
⚯ SUPPLEMENTAL STORY ⚯
Home really is where the heart is.
BTS: My Pandemic Panacea
⚯ SUPPLEMENTAL STORY ⚯
BTS revitalized my spirit and kept me company through the isolation of quarantine as an indisputable continuum and as a content juggernaut that creates an immensely full and utterly delightful fan experience.
Hope, Dream
⚯ CREATIVE COLLECTIONS ⚯
The quote presented in the opening of the “Black Swan” MV says it all. “Hope, Dream” would be the desire to keep true to my art, hoping and dreaming that my passion doesn’t fade away and will stay with me until I die.
First Contact: My BTS Origin Story in Three Acts
⚯ SUPPLEMENTAL STORY ⚯
More than three years later, now fully steeped in BTS lore, I look back on those few days of first contact in November and appreciate how momentous that event was for BTS as well as for me.
Underneath These Feet
⚯ CREATIVE COLLECTIONS ⚯
I’m reminded of a distant memory,
of a friend who told me,
“I was you and you were me.”
But we aren’t the same, are we?
The Two Halves
⚯ CREATIVE COLLECTIONS ⚯
The question over how the emotions of both sides of myself can be validated for me to be at peace is something that I will continue to search for throughout my life. But for a start, I was able to understand myself better through the process of creating this artwork.
Wishing on Myself
⚯ SUPPLEMENTAL STORY ⚯
when the world seemed too huge to fit me, BTS narrowed it down to a street, a tree, a minute. they made me hold onto small things, like a song, and move further and further, until you can finally keep on living without explaining to yourself why you have to do it.