Sound up on Jon T’s video please! Joining
is —our artists in residence— hammering up some funked-up lofts and condos with views for us!Open Call!!: Join the Conversation in Volume 2 of SUM FLUX (edition 1 dropping February 9, 2025).
Art is resistance. Every act of making meets an opposing force. Every idea is sharpened by its counterpoint. Tension, contrast, and dialogue between forces—these are what give art its charge.
This zine is a collective act of exchange and response. Over twenty Substack writers have already joined the conversation, crafting pieces that explore these themes in dialogue with:
The Prompt: (Equal and Opposite Forces)
Newton’s laws of motion tell us that no force exists in isolation—when one entity exerts a force, an equal force responds in return. Forces come in pairs; every action is met with a counterresponse—the symmetry of every countermotion.
Volume 2: FAB = -FBA explores the equal and opposite forces that shape reality. Newton’s laws reminds us that no action exists in isolation—every push meets resistance, every motion has its counter. From collisions and counterweights to mirrored tensions in relationships, politics, and personal histories, this volume asks: “What happens when forces meet?”
Art, in all its forms, thrives on opposition—whether in literature, film, or philosophy, the dynamic between forces creates movement, depth, and meaning. The following voices reveal how this formula is ubiquitous across artistic expression:
Literature
William Blake: “Without contraries is no progression. Attraction and repulsion, reason and energy, love and hate, are necessary to human existence.”Art exists in the liminal space between opposing forces, fueling evolution and meaning.
James Baldwin: “The role of the artist is exactly the same as the role of the lover. If I love you, I have to make you conscious of the things you don’t see.”
Art is the counterforce to blindness, making the unseen visible.
Film
Jean-Luc Godard: “A story should have a beginning, a middle, and an end, but not necessarily in that order.”Narrative structures bend and resist convention, motion countered by counter-motion.
David Lynch: “The more unknowable the mystery, the more beautiful it is.”
Meaning exists in the interplay between what is revealed and what remains hidden.
Art & Philosophy
Marcel Duchamp: “I have forced myself to contradict myself in order to avoid conforming to my own taste.”Creative energy is sustained through opposition and reinvention.
M.C. Escher: “We adore chaos because we love to produce order.”
The artistic process is a negotiation—between disorder and its opposite, form.
The pieces will roll out in three waves: February 9, February 16, and February 23.
Send us your work (in private messages) if you wish to chime in and we’ll post them on our site! Let’s keep pushing back, pulling forward, and creating in the spaces between.
Open Call Submissions links will go here:
Rock and Fire by Matthew Clapham
Scars and Frogs by Gillian Fletcher
Born of Chaos by S.L. Stallings
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