#Marie Balandin

[nerdypixel]

I think already know who will win, but I find it still funny. Please make Alex proud.

[mag200]

MAG90: Body Builder

watercolor & ink // kofi

[kat-and-their-cats]

Day 8 of my favourite Avatar polls, each poll will run for 1 week and will release daily in alphabetical order of entities.

Please repost for larger sample size.

[wonderfultoweird]

MAG 90: Body Builder

Elias is such an asshole he's like "oh you tried to leave? hmm and how did that work out for you?" I don't think Tim has any clue that Elias is a key part of it (or perhaps he does considering he recorded the conversation)

Martin is so sweet he just wants people to get along

"My muscles were smooth and rounded, not like the, the veined, bulging forms I idolised." a little fruity

Gym bro is really meticulous about his drug use and decisions, i can respect that at least

omg J! it's Jared from mag 49! good to know he has hobbies outside of his job

"Despite his enormous size, his face seemed pretty normal, even handsome, with the sort of cheekbones and jawline I’d kill for." gay. now I'm only going to be able to think of Jared's face as this:

lockers are probably for the body parts the members "don't want"

being alone in a gym would actually be pretty cool for me tbh

oh a friend! glad it's a girl tbh

Seems like Marie might have some complex about her body that isn't really helped by all of the praise and championships it gets

Never go to a creepy place when you're not supposed to be there

"Marie only had two arms. Marie had legs. And Marie had a head. The thing that swung and flipped and twirled around the bars was nothing like Marie" okay well. maybe that's not what Marie's dream body looks like. everyone has different preferences :)

Oh okay, so the lockers are the body parts they did want to keep!

Yeah Marie is definitely gone

ANIMAL MUTILATIONS? OMG they use animal parts to attach... jesus.

[tmaoftheday]

Day: August 23rd

Episode: MAG 90 - Body Builder

Event: In 2013, a police report naming Marie Balandin as a person of interest in a series of animal mutilations was filed.

[magnusmysteries]

The Woman With The Backwards Arms UPDATE

Reposting this with something added. Added thing in bold.

The Magnus Archives was a horror podcast. It is now completed. Many of the show’s mysteries were never explained on the show. I intend to explain them. Spoilers for the show, but also spoilers if you wanna solve these mysteries yourself.

Meat is about the ritual of the Flesh. Tom Haan’s people are throwing meat into a giant mouth. Lucia Wright happens to be near the church where the ritual takes place. She is discovered and handed meat. She chooses to help throw meat into the mouth, because she is scared they’ll hurt her if she doesn’t. One of the people throwing meat is a woman with arms that bend backwards. Lucia is thinking about escaping, but does not get an opportunity. She says what spurns her on to keep throwing the meat is that she saw the woman with the backwards arms had fallen and some of the others had thrown her in the mouth.

Like I said in Part 32, I think had Lucia not agreed to help throw the meat, the ritual would have failed. Had she been forced or threatened to leave or to participate the ritual would have failed.

I think the woman with the backwards arms is Marie Balandin from Body Builder. There are three clues to this. First, in Flesh Jared talks about being invited to rituals by those of skin and hunger (that is Stranger and Flesh.) He doesn’t go, but says some of those whose body he changes goes.

Second, in Bodybuilder Jared asks the statement giver what part of his body he hates. Those are the parts Jared will change. In the same episode the statement giver describes Marie like this: “Often I’d find her staring at the mirror in the changing room, her gaze locked on her shoulders, moving them slowly up and down with a look of disgust on her face.” Jared changes Marie’s shoulders, hence the woman has backwards arms.

Third, the woman is very tall and gangly. She has to stoop to get through the entrance of the church. In Body Builder we learn that Marie was suspected of animal mutilations. Sheep had been found dead with their femurs removed. Martin wonders what Marie was planning to do with the femurs. She was planning on putting them in her legs to get taller.

The animal mutilations happened in 2013. The Flesh ritual happened in 2008. Marie is another time traveler. (see Part 20, Part 21, Part 25, Part 26, Part 27, Part 28, Part 33 and Part 34 for more on time travel).

Why did Marie travel back in time? I think in the original timeline, at some point Lucia stops throwing the meat and escapes. And the ritual fails. Marie goes back in time to change this. The people can’t threaten Lucia. So Marie deliberately falls in front of Lucia and is thrown into the pit, to scare Lucia into continuing. The ritual would have succeeded except for the explosion.

Earlier, Lucia said the woman rested her eyes on her, suggesting Marie knew who Lucia was.

Of all the time travelers on the show Marie is the only one without some obvious connection to Hill Top Road. But there is an indirect connection: the demon inside Father Burroughs cooperated with Tom Haan to torment the Father (see Part 22). The demon traveled in time while inside the father. The demon might have told Tom about the rift in time.

In Desecrated Host Father Burroughs holds a fake mass where he is tricked into eating human flesh. I think the purpose of the mass was to turn the yellow stole into an artifact. An artifact of both the Spiral and the Flesh. The Spiral since the demon and hallucination is of the Spiral. And the Flesh because of the cannibalism. In the fake mass there is an audience with fevered, jaundiced yellow skin. When the ritual of the Eucharist begins, the audience begins to vanish. I think the audience symbolizes the Corruption, and they are banished by the cannibalistic ritual because the Flesh is the opposite of the Flesh. (See Part 3).

I think the yellow stole would have been used during the Last Feast. By incorporating an artifact of both the Flesh and Spiral, the ritual could have brought through both the Flesh and Spiral into our world. That’s why the demon is working with Tom Haan.

I think Jared Hopworth is part Spiral (see Part 3). Hence Marie is too. Including a Spiral-Flesh avatar in the Last Feast might also have brought through both the Flesh and the Spiral.

[aflyingcontradiction]

The Magnus Archives Relisten: Episode 90 - Body Builder

Martin: Right. Um, I was actually gonna to record a statement, if, if that’s alright Tim? Tim: Yeah. It’s already running.

Tim's mental state re: the tape recorder turning itself on at all hours of the day is probably something like "Eh, this might as well happen. I don't have the energy to get upset."

Statement of Ross Davenport

Whyever did I remember this statement as being given by a woman when it's not?

It was text only, and read, “Your perfect body is here. Become all you can be.”

Okay, it's kind of hilarious how this is a perfectly reasonable ad for a gym, wouldn't give it a second look if I saw it somewhere. And yet...

It was a hot day, but the air in the reception was cool, tinged with that familiar scent of sweat, and something else I couldn’t quite identify.

What's the other smell then? Rot?

About five days into my time there, I finally met someone else. Her name was Marie Balandin, and she seemed just as surprised to see me as I was to see her.

Ah, okay, I think I just confused the statement giver and Marie here, hence the "Why did I think a woman gave this statement"?

She’d push herself way past the point of exhaustion every day, and for all the awards her body had gotten her, it sometimes seemed to me like she wanted to destroy it.

Marie clearly has some sort of severe dysphoria or dysmorphia going on.

It was not Marie, swinging round and about on the bars. Marie only had two arms. Marie had legs. And Marie had a head.

I love the style of this reveal, saying everything that needs to be said without saying any of it directly.

I tried to contact Mr. Davenport about it, and did get through, but he told me to… um, he… he… wishes no further contact with the Institute. - Martin

People getting all creative about paraphrasing someone telling them to go fuck themselves will never not be hilarious.

My impression of this episode

Body horror frequently gets me - people's bodies being mutilated irreparably, having things attached or taken away... anytime that shows up in fiction I consume, my mind zeros in on it and I can't get it out of my head for quite a while, sometimes to the point of nightmares. BUT - and this is a great big BUT (hehehe) - it's not the changing of the bodies that gets me, it's the violation. And that's where this statement falls a little flat for me because, yeah, there's the shock and horror of Jared's "customers" being revealed, that is a really strong scene on its own and that did stick in my mind for quite a while. But there's also the strong implication that Jared didn't actually FORCE any of them to become what they became. He doesn't try to stop Ross on his way out, seeming at worst a bit disappointed that Ross is so clearly uninterested in Jared's flavour of extreme body modification. And it's explicitly stated that the - erm - post-human gym rats seem JOYFUL. So, like, unless I'm supposed to read a "Jared brainwashed them with his terrifying Flesh powers" into this (and brainwashing isn't really Flesh territory), I've got to conclude that everyone at the gym is there because they want to be. And yeah, wanting to be a headless, many-armed creature with a smile stitched onto your torso is a bit shocking, but hey, you do you, gymnast creature dude! Tbh, this statement would've worked better for me if it had focused on the people that the extra limbs were presumably taken from. Unless it's just a limb exchange... ("I really hate having arms, I want all my limbs to be legs." "Why the fuck would you want legs, arms is where it's at." "DUUUDE." "DUUUUUUUUUUUDE!" ... great, now I've turned it wholesome.)

[sashaburenkov]

“Shiryaevo Biennale. Central Russian Zen” 31/08/17–08/10/17

Media preview with exhibition curators: 31/08, 5 p. m. Exhibition opening: 31/08, 6.30 p. m.

On August 31, 2017, “Shiryaevo Biennale. Central Russian Zen” exhibition will be opened in the National Centre for Contemporary Arts, part of ROSIZO. The project of Samara branch will be the third one on the regional project site of the NCCA in Moscow. The exhibition is a metaphorical reflection on the experience of the oldest active international biennale of contemporary art in Russia, which has been held since 1999 in the ancient Russian village of Shiryaevo on the Volga bank, one of the most beautiful places of the Samara bend surrounded by the Zhiguli Nature Reserve on all sides. The Shiryaevo Biennale was intended and carried out as an international experimental project by famous Russian curators Nelya Korzhova and Roman Korzhov, the founders of the Samara Regional Public Charity Foundation “The Centre for Contemporary Art” with active contribution from Hanns-Michael Rupprechter and the Stuttgart Union of Artists from Germany as well as a group of artists from Kazakhstan headed by Rustam Khalfin.

The exposition will be based on the archive of the biennale; photos, videos, objects and installations from the personal collection of Nelya Korzhova and Roman Korzhov. However, at the same time, the exhibition goes beyond the traditional retrospective and creates an idea of the biennale’s authentic image for the widest audience. The conceptual solution of the exhibition is a large-scale video chronicle of the project, as well as the exhibition hall covered in river sand and stands from quarry stone mined in Shiryaevo for the last 200 years — it is a total installation representing a kind of mental map of Shiryaevo. The exposition gives an opportunity to feel the unique atmosphere of the biennale, reflects the ideas of contemplative and performative nature of the event and becomes a starting point for a conversation about the history of its creation.

The strategy of the Shiryaevo Biennale is aimed at finding new forms of contemporary art communication in social environment. The form of the main biennale project, “creative laboratory” and “nomadic show”, is Nelya Korzhova’s original idea uniting the Eastern concept of nomadism, referring to free movement, wandering, and the Western concept of a “show”, a public presentation. The space for creation display during the “nomadic show” is the entire village of Shiryaevo with the surrounding landscape: the Volga, mountains, mines, lake shore, village houses and streets. As an artistic phenomenon, the “nomadic show” stands closest to mystery play evolving in time and space and changing the experience of those who participate in it. It makes visitors follow a unique route and experience the meditative qualities of the Central Volga landscapes, a kind of “Central Russian Zen” reflecting the biennale’s setting for contemplation, intangibility, emptiness, and absence of any tracks left behind.

The Shiryaevo Biennale offers not only an alternative to the traditional functioning of art within the framework of the “white cube” concept, but also a strategy of independence from the vertical of power in art. Created by “artists for artists” the biennale turned out to be resistant to shocks and succeeded in surviving as a special experience of international co-creation. The condition of artists’ living in the houses of local residents is seen as a way of creating a perfect environment for artistic expression. The main idea of this experiment is to give an artist a chance to start working from scratch without feeling the pressure from his or her established image and the art market technologies.

Today the Shiryaevo Biennale is the best internationally known contemporary art event in the Samara Region. Throughout the years the biennale has hosted artists and curators of special programs from Russia, Kazakhstan, Germany, France, Great Britain, Sweden, Austria, Italy, Lithuania, Estonia, Armenia, Denmark, the USA, the Netherlands, Singapore and Norway.

The exhibition will be accompanied by an educational and performative program both in the building of the Moscow branch of the NCCA and in the city space.


Artists Hanns-Michael Rupprechter, Ulli Berg, Andreas Bar, Juergen Kierspel, Regis Pinault, Marlene Perronet, Rustam Khalfin, Sergey Maslov, Georgy Tryakin-Bukharov, Zauresh Madanova, Galim Madanov, Nelya Korzhova, Roman Korzhov, Oksana Stogova, Francisco Infante, Nonna Goryunova, Angela Arsinkey, Vanessa Henn, Viktor Vorobyov, Vito Pace, German Vinogradov, Tutti Frutti group, Evgeny Ryabushko, Elena Vorobyova, Erbolsyn Meldibekov, Jonas Valatkevicius, Martin Rogers, Nata Morozova, Vladimir Logutov, Andrey Syaylev, Kira Subbotin, Natalya Syzgantseva, Nikita Volchenkov, Vito Pace, Ilya Polyakov, Natalya Elmanova, Sergey Krivchikov, Alexey Zaytsev, Stephan Koeperl, Sylvia Winkler, Ellen Rein, Natalya Fomicheva, Alexandr Ovchinnikov, Elena Morozova, Peter Haury, Elke Hammelstein, Iris Hellriegel, Anatoly Osmolovsky, Vazgen Rakhlavuri-Tadevosyan, Gerd Viedmajer, Viktoria Lomasko, Diana Machulina, Diego Sarramon, Natalya Samkova, Anna Orekhova, Alexandr Korneyev, Alexey Kallima, Arpine Tokmajan, Sergey Balandin, Artem Ivashkin, Ignat Daniltsev, Vitaly Stadnikov, Oleg Lyuboslavsky, Svetlana Subbotina, Joe Lee, Yulia Zhdanova, Ruediger Schestag, Yuri Albert, Anna Brochet, Bertrand Vallet, Gero Goetze, Marie-Helene Dubreuil, Yulia Zhdanova, Romain Gibert, Mari Kartau, Alexey Kostroma, Gert Mezger, Sabine Pfisterer, Emmanuel Rodoreda, Krishna Subramania, Mare Tralla, Anfim Khanykov, Matthias Holland-Moritz, Alexander Schikowski, Jochen Gerbert Schloder, Zvetofor group, “Escape” program, Georg Zaiss, Anna Korzhova, Andrey Kuzkin, Emilie Pischedda and Valentin Souquet, Haim Sokol, Oksana Stogova, Manfred Unterwerger, Wolfgang Spaeth, Greta Weibull, Klas Eriksson, Ingela Ihrman, Kalle Brolin and Kristina Muentzing, Elena Dendiberya and Anatoly Haiduk, Janno Bergman, Andrus Joonas, Martina Geiger-Gerlach, Kathrin Sohn, Barbara Karsch-Chaïeb, Rosa Ruecker, Ivan Lungin, Pia Maria Martin, Susanna Messerschmidt, Astrid Nylander, Calle Holck, Johanna Karlin, Swetlana Heger, Katrin Hornek, Martial Verdier, Gabriel Feracci, Lewden Martin, Sybille Neeve, Ciro Vitale, Alexandr Zaytsev, Mikhail Lezin, Ivanhoe, Vladimir Arkhipov, Serious Collision Investigation Unit Coalition group (Felix Gmelin, Alan Armstrong, Joakim Forsgren, Mikael Goralski, Amanda Hårsmar, Ronak Moshtaghi, Kjersti Austdal), Paulo Paes, Radesign group (Anton Rakov, Yulia Ratieva), Darya Emelyanova, Dmitry Kadyntsev, GKP group (Vitaly Cherepanov, Anna Mineeva), Dominika Skutnik, Marek Frankowski, Antibody Corporation (Adam Rose, April Pollard), Eryka Dellenbach, Merzedes Sturm-Lie, André Talborn, Alexey Trubetskov, Olga Kiselyova, Alisa Nikolaeva, Nicolas Courgeon, S’ilTePlait group (Bernard Touzet, Théophile Péju, Pierre-Loup Pivoin, Raphaël Saillard), Club Fortuna group (Kurdwin Ayub, Xenia Lesnievski, Julia Rublov, Sarah Sternat, Maarten Heijkamp, Nana Mandl, Thomas C. Chung), U/n Multitude group (Nikita Spiridonov, Elena Zubtsova, Ilya Fomin), YUNRUBIN group (Joanne Pang Rui Yun, Jonas Rubin), Maria Kryuchkova, Ilya Samorukov. Films by Hanns-Michael Rupprechter “Multivitamin Cocktail”, 1999, and YUNRUBIN group (Joanne Pang Rui Yun and Jonas Rubin), Singapore/Denmark, “Dollar Hauler on the Volga”

Venue: National Centre for Contemporary Arts (13/2 Zoologicheskaya Street) Curators: Nelya Korzhova, Roman Korzhov Co-curator: Alexandr Burenkov Architects: “NOVOE” Architectural Bureau

http://www.ncca.ru/articles.text?filial=9&id=349 http://www.ncca.ru/events.text?filial=2&id=4252 http://www.colta.ru/articles/art/16875 https://syg.ma/@knowitall/shiriaievskaia-biiennalie-sriednierusskii-dzien

[magnusmysteries]

Part 35: The Woman with the Backwards Arms

The Magnus Archives was a horror podcast. It is now completed. Many of the show’s mysteries were never explained on the show. I intend to explain them. Spoilers for the show, but also spoilers if you wanna solve these mysteries yourself.

Meat is about the ritual of the Flesh. Tom Haan’s people are throwing meat into a giant mouth. Lucia Wright happens to be near the church where the ritual takes place. She is discovered and handed meat. She chooses to help throw meat into the mouth, because she is scared they’ll hurt her if she doesn't. One of the people throwing meat is a woman with arms that bend backwards. Lucia is thinking about escaping, but does not get an opportunity. She says what spurns her on to keep throwing the meat is that she saw the woman with the backwards arms had fallen and some of the others had thrown her in the mouth.

Like I said in Part 32, I think had Lucia not agreed to help throw the meat, the ritual would have failed. Had she been forced or threatened to leave or to participate the ritual would have failed.

I think the woman with the backwards arms is Marie Balandin from Body Builder. There are three clues to this. First, in Flesh Jared talks about being invited to rituals by those of skin and hunger (that is Stranger and Flesh.) He doesn’t go, but says some of those whose body he changes goes.

Second, in Bodybuilder Jared asks the statement giver what part of his body he hates. Those are the parts Jared will change. In the same episode the statement giver describes Marie like this: “Often I’d find her staring at the mirror in the changing room, her gaze locked on her shoulders, moving them slowly up and down with a look of disgust on her face.” Jared changes Marie's shoulders, hence the woman has backwards arms.

Third, the woman is very tall and gangly. She has to stoop to get through the entrance of the church. In Body Builder we learn that Marie was suspected of animal mutilations. Sheep had been found dead with their femurs removed. Martin wonders what Marie was planning to do with the femurs. She was planning on putting them in her legs to get taller.

The animal mutilations happened in 2013. The Flesh ritual happened in 2008. Marie is another time traveler. (see Part 20, Part 21, Part 25, Part 26, Part 27, Part 28, Part 33 and Part 34 for more on time travel). 

Why did Marie travel back in time? I think in the original timeline, at some point Lucia stops throwing the meat and escapes. And the ritual fails. Marie goes back in time to change this. The people can’t threaten Lucia. So Marie deliberately falls in front of Lucia and is thrown into the pit, to scare Lucia into continuing. The ritual would have succeeded except for the explosion.

Earlier, Lucia said the woman rested her eyes on her, suggesting Marie knew who Lucia was.

Of all the time travelers on the show Marie is the only one without some obvious connection to Hill Top Road. But there is an indirect connection: the demon inside Father Burroughs cooperated with Tom Haan to torment the Father (see Part 22). The demon traveled in time while inside the father. The demon might have told Tom about the rift in time. 

Is the demon of just the Spiral or of both the Spiral and the Flesh? I’m not sure. I think Jared Hopworth is part Spiral (see Part 3). Hence Marie is too. I think if the ritual had succeeded and included a Spiral avatar it would have brought through both the Flesh and the Spiral.