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On Saturday, the stage is set for the premiere of the fourth season of the viewer favorite “Maskorama”. Although the first program has not yet aired, it does not at all prevent sofa detectives from speculating about who is behind the inventive masks this time. Answers cryptically to “Maskorama” questions
This year’s season will probably be as exciting as the previous ones – despite radical changes to the detective panel. Previously, this consisted of Jan Thomas (56), Nicolay Ramm (34) and Marion Ravn (39), but in the new season only Ravn is still involved. The new detectives are Tete Lidbom (37) and Robert Stoltenberg (58). REALITY AWARDS: “Maskorama” won “Entertainment Program of the Year” at the Reality Awards and hinted at the eight new participants. Video: Reality Awards Show more
Although she is now highly topical in the popular TV programme, Ravn has an adventurous artist career with her in her luggage – unlike her fellow detectives. Completely finished
She and her friend Marit Larsen (40) were two of Norway’s biggest pop stars in the mid-90s and early 2000s, and together they formed the duo M2M. “MASKORAMA”: Se og Hør has obtained the secret “Maskorama” contract. Reporter: Nora Skavhaug. view more
To the USA as 14-year-olds
The debut single “Don’t say that you love me” they went to the USA to promote. The girls were then only 14 years old. There it sold for gold, reached second place on the Norwegian charts and was in fourth place in Australia. The song became a global hit, and it didn’t take long before the girls were contacted by the international record company Atlantic Records. In 2002, they were also invited by the American artist Jewel to warm up on her “This Way” tour. The 90s stars with surprising news for fans
They were supposed to be in the US to work on their international pop careers, and the world was at the Lørenskog duo’s feet. But then it suddenly stopped. OPENS UP: Marion Ravn talks about love on “Lindmo”. Watch the entire broadcast linearly at 9.50pm on Friday or on NRKTV. Video: NRK Show more
Turned down solo contract
Poor sales figures and weak enthusiasm from the record company Atlantic Records meant that the pop duo eventually packed their bags and returned home to Norway. Many also noticed that the good atmosphere between the best friends had quietly faded away, and was now not as good as it had been when the adventure with acoustic guitar and catchy pop songs started. – Have been cohabitants for two years
After they headed home, the M2M adventure was over, and the duo disbanded. Several then speculated whether Ravn had ditched her friend in favor of a solo contract with the record company Atlantic Records – for exampleil despite the fact that it recognized plateshad the label dropped the duo halfway through the Jewel tour, they had still offered Ravn – not Larsen – a solo contract. Ravn turned down this offer, but that didn’t stop the media from assuming that this was the root of the pop duo going their separate ways. SHOCK: We reveal to Helene Spilling that her partner, Birgit Skarstein, was in “Maskorama”. Reporter: Maria Ludvigsen. Video: Nora Skavhaug Show more
However, Larsen was able to deny this in Stylus Magazine. In the magazine, Larsen could tell that the breakup between them had taken place peacefully, which was in stark contrast to what the media at the time assumed. – Needed to take some distance
– When they (the record company, journ.anm.) decided that it had to end, it really had to end. We started going in our separate directions, because I wanted to make good pop music and Marion wanted to do more rock, she stated at the time. The adventure is over
Both Ravn and Larsen have been relatively tight-lipped about why the adventure ended so abruptly, but in the TV program “Every time we meet”, Ravn lifted the veil, however, and told a little more in-depth about the much-discussed “shock breakup” between the friends. EMOTIONALLY CHARGED: Marion Ravn immediately begins to cry when she realizes what is about to happen. Record speed, according to the other participants. Video: TV 2 Show more
– Marit and I had promised each other that we would keep going as long as it (M2M, journ.anm.) was fun, and it wasn’t fun anymore. Then we talked and said that it wasn’t fun anymore and didn’t want to continue. We were twins when we were 8 years old, but as 18-year-olds we were quite different and wanted different things, said Ravn in “Hver gang vi møstes”. – I was young and it was very tough
Furthermore, she added that she was offered a record deal after her friends had decided to give up, but that this news was leaked to the media before she had time to talk to Larsen. Marit Larsen is interviewed about the nomination in the Spellemannsprisen. She is nominated for composer and lyricist. view more
– I had hardly told anyone – and then it was on the front page of VG. Marit and I hadn’t even had the chance to tell that M2M was over once. And that’s where I feel the really bad things started. I was blamed for everything. Then I was the bad bitch who had ditched my best friend for a multi-million record deal, Ravn told the programme. Expecting her first child
Very successful
Nor did it become M2M forever, as many might have hoped for. But both Ravn and Larsen are still two of Norway’s biggest pop queens – on opposite sides. And despite all the speculation, the childhood friends are supposed to be friends to this day. Se og Hør has not been able to get in touch with Larsen or Ravn.

Marion Ravn and Marit Larsen: – About the breakup:

Object from the gold treasure from Vindelev, which spent some time at DTU in an attempt to better understand its origin and importance. Credit: Conservation Centre Vejle
Photographers and journalists from the BBC, TV 2, and DR were ready when an armored car drove up to the front of DTU's 3D Imaging Center on 10 February 2022. All cameras were pointed directly at a brown shoebox, which an archaeologist from the Danish National Museum carefully took out of the armored car and carried through the revolving door to the 3D Imaging Center. Inside the shoebox was the world's largest gold bracteate. The bracteate, which is a medallion-like necklace measuring 13.5cm, was found along with 15 other bracteates and four Roman medallions by an amateur archaeologist the year before in a field near the town of Vindelev in Denmark. Weighing 794 grams combined, the gold treasure is estimated to have been buried in the 6th century, and experts have compared the discovery to that of the Golden Horns of Gallehus. The problem, however, is that many of the bracteates are folded to a point where the archaeologists are unable to see the motifs and runic inscriptions on them. It is too risky to unfold the gold by hand, as it may break, which is why the National Museum and the Vejle Museums have sought the help of modern technology at DTU. "Sometimes technology can open doors that we can't. In this case, we want to get a better look at the inscriptions and images on the bracteates so we can learn more about the nobleman who owned the treasure. What was his position? What was his domain? If we succeed, we will gain a better understanding of the structure of society in the 5th and 6th century," says Mads Ravn, archaeologist and Head of Research at the Vejle Museums. To unfold the gold bracteate, you must first fold the white "sheet" so that it follows the folds in the bracteate. The local surface pattern from the data of the gold bracteate scan is transferred to the sheet. Unfolding the sheet then reveals what is hidden on the surface of the bracteate. Credit: Technical University of Denmark
The technology Ravn is hoping can provide new answers is known as CT scanning in hospitals, where it is used to create detailed X-ray images of a patient's internal organs. In recent times, this technology has also been used by physicists to scan material objects and recreate them as digital 3D models. For example, DTU has used it to scan and reconstruct a 66-million-year-old T. rex skull. However, the bracteates from the National Museum were not only brought to DTU's 3D Imaging Center in February 2022 to be scanned and reconstructed—they also needed to be digitally unfolded. After completing the scan, DTU's researchers were thus left with an ancient mystery and 9,600 CT images to unfold it. Gold thickness causes problems
One of the challenges in solving the mystery was the varying thickness of the gold. Where the gold on the bracteates is thin due to stamp pressure and engravings, the scans have produced what is called CT artifacts, which are visual discrepancies between the real bracteate and the resulting CT image. The entire gold treasure, which was found just 8 km from the Jelling monuments. Credit: Conservation Centre Vejle
"In hospitals, artifacts occur when, for example, you're performing a CT scan on a patient with surgical screws in their leg. The screws will create lines in the image, and the same thing has happened in this project. Our images are full of lines that wouldn't be there if the bracteates had had the same thickness everywhere," explains Carsten Gundlach, Senior Executive Research Officer at DTU Physics. He used the data from the hundreds of 360-degree scans of each bracteate for calculations for the spatial 3D images. Gundlach says that this method has resulted in fairly accurate 3D reconstructions of the bracteates in their folded condition. Nevertheless, the artifacts still caused trouble for Gundlach's DTU Compute colleague, Hans Martin Kjer, who tried to digitally unfold the bracteates. "We've tried to unfold one of the smaller bracteates called X17, but it's difficult for us to define the edge of the bracteate and the exact line between two surfaces. When the gold has many tight folds, it makes it difficult for us to separate the surfaces from each other. Ultimately, it makes it very difficult to produce a perfect unfolding where you can see all the details," says Kjer. However, the two researchers refused to give up. Through conversations with the archaeologists, they have gained an idea of which motifs are of special interest in a historical context. The focus of the project has therefore shifted from unfolding the entire bracteate to unfolding the individual parts that can give archaeologists new knowledge about Denmark in the 5th and 6th century. Getting a bracteat ready to be CT scanned at the DTU Imaging Center in an attempt to solve the mystery of where the Vindelev treasure originates. Credit: Mikal Schlosser
Treasure may have changed owners
Ravn says that Denmark at the time of bracteates can best be described as what the Romans called "wild Germania." Here, autocratic clan leaders ruled marked territories according to the same rules now used by biker gangs or the Mafia. "The more wars they won, the stronger clan leaders they became. And the more gold and riches they could get for their followers, the more followers they got," says Ravn. Judging by the size of the treasure from Vindelev, he believes that its owner must have been a very powerful, but previously unknown, clan leader. This gives the site around Vindelev, located 8km east of Jelling, the cradle of Denmark, a new and significant status as a center of power. At the same time, the treasure from Vindelev bears a close resemblance to other gold treasures found near the town of Gudme on Funen, which is considered to have been Denmark's most important center of power from the 3rd to the 6th century. This leads archaeologists to believe that some of the bracteates from Vindelev may have been made by a blacksmith in Gudme. If that is the case, the gold must have changed owners at some point. A 3D visualization from the reconstruction of bracteate X19. The red surface shows the specific area the researchers have focused on unfolding. The holes illustrate the artifacts that have occurred due to the thickness of the gold. Credit: Technical University of Denmark
The theory is therefore that there was a close connection—perhaps an alliance—between the clan leaders of the two centers of power. "It's possible that the gold was handed over as a gift in connection with weddings between daughters and sons from each clan," says Ravn. In order to confirm this theory, Ravn is particularly interested in seeing the motifs on the largest of the gold bracteates, which seems to have a folded twin motif in the middle. The stamps around the motif can also tell the researchers something about the origin of the bracteate and how old it is. If they turn out to bear the same stamps as the ones found in Gudme, then they were made by the same goldsmith, and the archaeologists can continue working with the theory of the close connection between Vindelev and Gudme. "It's a bit like a court case where the more circumstantial evidence we find, the stronger the case will be. We can't exactly ask the witnesses who were there at the time. We rely on circumstantial evidence, and this is where DTU can help," explains Ravn. Here you can see the surface unfolded. The unfolding reveals a motif of a man in the centre of the bracteate who may well have been a Roman emperor, according to archaeologists. Ancient Danes copied the portraits of Roman emperors on their jewellery and also added their own symbols to the portrait. Credit: Technical University of Denmark
Research never ends
In the digital treasure hunt for answers, DTU's researchers have come closer to finding the evidence than before. They have succeeded in unfolding a small area with fewer folds on one of the smaller bracteates called X19. "It's a significantly better result than when we tried unfolding the entire bracteate. With this method, we can optimize the individual areas," says Gundlach. However, while he still believes that the results can be improved, he thinks that the method has potential worth pursuing. "The method opens up the possibility of piecing together the individual parts after they've been unfolded," he says. The Vejle Museums are very enthusiastic about the new results, not just because the method can provide new insight into the power dynasties of the Iron Age, but also because it may help archaeologists determine why some of the bracteates appear to have been folded by hand while others have probably been destroyed by a modern plow centuries after being buried. "It would be interesting to see if DTU can distinguish between the randomly destroyed bracteates and the deliberately folded ones using the mathematical algorithms that they're already working with. We expect that the deliberately destroyed bracteates will be more symmetrically folded," says Ravn. He explains that if the clan leader himself has folded the bracteates, it indicates that the treasure was used as a sacrifice to the gods. The next step is to unfold the twin motif and the stamps on the world's largest bracteate. The DTU researchers are hoping that the work with the treasure will open up a new string of collaborations with archaeologists and museum professionals. But when the goal has been reached and the researchers will be satisfied remains just as unanswered as many of the riddles that still surround the treasure from Vindelev. "There are still many challenges to solve. Of course it's annoying that you can't just finish things up and move on. But you can always do more," says Kjer and adds, "Research never ends." Let us know if there is a problem with our content
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3D scans will uncover the secrets of Iron Age gold treasure

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Ravn of OneUs left the team, announced agency RBW Entertainment on Thursday. He chose to quit as he did not want to further cause damage to his bandmates and fans, and after careful deliberation with all the members including Ravn, the company has decided to respect the decision, it said in a statement. Rumors have been circulating online as someone claiming to be his ex-girlfriend said that he cheated during their relationship, and verbally abused her when confronted. This also dug up allegations that he had asked fans for “gifts” via the band’s online communications platform. The agency said that there are false claims and malicious pieces of misinformation in the rumor, and that it will take legal actions to get the facts straight. The six-member act will reorganize into a five-member group. Ravn debuted as a member of OneUs in 2019. The band released its eighth EP “Malus” last month and is slated to hold concerts in Seoul next week and tour Japan and the US next month. (Credit: Cube Entertainment)
(G)I-dle topped all five Korean music charts with “Nxde,” the main track from its fifth EP “I Love.”
It became the only artist to have two songs that achieved the feat so far this year, as the alternative pop tune follows the step of “Tomboy,” the lead song from the first studio album “I Never Die” that came out in March. The EP landed atop the iTunes top albums chart in 40 regions and sold more than 678,000 copies in the first week, surpassing the success of its first LP that was a chart-topper in 24 regions and recorded sales of 176,000 units. On Thursday, (G)I-dle came in first place on a television music chart show, its second with “Nxde.”
 
(Credit: KQ Entertainment)
Hongjoong of Ateez celebrates his birthday with a photo exhibit, according to agency KQ Entertainment on Thursday. He is hosting a show – dubbed “From November 7, 1998” -- that displays photographs he took. In the teaser video, the performer confides that he has been dreaming of putting on the show since 2020 over snippets of him capturing his bandmates in a number of settings as well as landscapes. The exhibit will be held Nov. 1-7 at a gallery in Seoul. Admission is free, but visitors can score points that will be converted into money that will be donated under the name of the band’s official fandom community. Separately, the eight members marked its fourth anniversary with a livestream on Monday. They are set to host a concert in Seoul this weekend that kicks off its international tour “The Fellowship: Break The Wall.”
 
(Credit: Source Music)
Le Sserafim sold combined 1 million copies of two EPs, achieving the feat in only six months, according to a local tally Thursday. Debut EP “Fearless” from May recorded sales of over 435,000 copies and second EP from Oct. 17, more than 630,000. The former sold more than 307,000 copies in the first week of sales, a record for a K-pop girl group’s debut album at the time. The second EP’s first-week sales figure is the sixth-highest ever among K-pop girl group. The multinational quintet is equally popular in Japan as well, despite the fact that it is yet to make an official debut in the country. “Antifragile” topped both daily and weekly combined album rankings upon release. “Fearless” also claimed the No. 1 spot on the weekly combined chart.

[Today’s K-pop] OneUs’ Ravn quits amid scandal

FreightWaves
DSV substitutes direct charter flight for truck-air service to Brazil; Kerry Logistics dispatches more freighters from Asia
5 minutes read
LATAM Cargo is operating dedicated charter flights for DSV to Brazil. This Boeing 767 freighter is being loaded at Huntsville International Airport. (Photo: DSV/Mark Davis)
Alabama’s Huntsville International Airport in the past year has attracted new air cargo services controlled by major global logistics companies, solidifying its reputation as a leading cargo hub among lesser-known airports that don’t have massive passenger traffic. Kerry Logistics is so pleased with the airport’s efficiency processing shipments from Hong Kong for distribution in the eastern half of the U.S. that it has already increased charter flights to four per week after opening an airside terminal there and starting service last August. Meanwhile, Latin American demand for exports from the Tennessee Valley and transshipment cargo from Asia has grown to the point that DSV is leasing an entire cargo aircraft each week for a direct flight to save time trucking goods to fly out of Miami. The logistics providers essentially function as private-label airlines without physically operating aircraft. By renting an entire cargo jet for a period of time, they can control the customer experience without being at the mercy of airline schedules and space limitations. After two years of constant supply chain disruptions and crowded shipping, many businesses are willing to pay more to ensure access to reliable capacity and speedier delivery. Hong Kong-based Kerry Logistics selected Huntsville (HSV) as its U.S. airfreight gateway because of its location — most of the Eastern Seaboard and Midwest is within a one-day truck drive — and delay-free cargo transfers. The company, which is publicly traded but controlled by Chinese parcel delivery giant S.F. Express, plans to enter into long-term leases with carriers to expand its controlled freighter network to Hanoi, Vietnam, next month with three weekly flights to Huntsville, followed by an equal number of dedicated flights from mainland China, Kevin Bulger, COO for U.S. freight forwarding division Kerry Apex, told FreightWaves. Huntsville is ranked No. 18 for international air cargo volume in the U.S. It has two long runways that can handle large aircraft and 2.3 million square feet of air cargo ramp space for freighter parking. Huntsville’s advantage is “speed to market. We handle the freight in our own warehouse with no congestion. It’s proven this gateway can compete with others,” Bulger said. Western Global Airlines, of Estero, Florida, operates the flights on Kerry Logistics’ behalf with tri-engine MD-11s, but the new routes could also be covered by Western’s Boeing 747-400 cargo jets or other providers, Bulger said. The current program primarily supports delivery of electronics from Asia to the U.S. Although airfreight demand out of Asia has softened in recent months, ongoing ocean shipping delays and limited air transport options are driving more shippers to logistics providers that can guarantee space, Bulger said. “It’s giving people more options within a controlled network. The key is stability,” he said. Several factors, including location, make Huntsville an attractive air cargo hub. Like other secondary airports focused on cargo, Huntsville doesn’t have huge amounts of passenger flights competing for air traffic control, runway access, ground services and U.S. Customs personnel. At the facility, shipments speed through customs clearance. Logistics companies with their own flow centers and flights also don’t have to wait for third-party handlers to process their shipments. Huntsville’s Jetplex Industrial Park is a registered foreign trade zone. Major interstate highways and the Port of Huntsville’s intermodal rail terminal serviced by Norfolk Southern railroad are in close proximity, facilitating freight connections for shippers in a multistate area. And the airport also is centered among several automotive manufacturers in the Southeast, including Volkswagen, Toyota, Nissan, General Motors and BMW, that can be reached by truck within hours. DSV’s Miami bypass
DSV, the fifth-largest logistics services provider in the world by gross revenue and a top five airfreight intermediary, in late May began offering service every Monday from HSV, to Sao Paulo. LATAM Airlines, the largest airline group and cargo carrier in South America, is operating the Boeing 767 freighter for Hovedstaden, Denmark-headquartered DSV. The new service, dubbed the LATAM Star, builds on DSV’s growing charter network, providing a full loop air transport that connects South America with DSV’s Asia routes. DSV already operates four cargo flights under contract with Atlas Air (NASDAQ: AAWW ) from Miami to Sao Paulo’s Viracopos International Airport, but there is no backhaul to the U.S. under DSV’s direction. After exchanging cargo in Sao Paulo, the LATAM freighter continues to Bogota, Colombia, where it picks up flowers, seafood and other goods and then delivers the entire load to Miami. Local distributors take the flowers and DSV arranges truck transport back to Huntsville for all the other products. Aerial view of Huntsville International Airport and its two extra-long runways. (Photo: Kerry Logistics)
“We’re now bringing in direct airlift into Huntsville rather than trucking it down into Miami, in essence cutting off at least a day’s transit time,” said Mads Ravn, executive vice president of air and sea for the U.S., in an interview. Until recently, DSV had to truck all its customers’ products to Miami to utilize the commercial capacity of multiple carriers operating to Brazil. Agricultural, automotive, technology and chemical products are among U.S. exports in high demand in Latin America, Ravn said. Brazil is one of the top 10 export destinations for Alabama products, according to the Alabama Department of Commerce. The new South American program is also based on increased volumes of high-tech components from Asia transiting through Huntsville on DSV controlled flights and continuing to factories in Brazil. Atlas Air flies Boeing 747 freighters two times per week from Hong Kong to Huntsville. One flight goes through Seoul, South Korea. Another flight is nonstop from Hong Kong. Both flights continue to Miami. Atlas operates a third DSV flight on a Hanoi-Huntsville-Miami route. Some shipments are offloaded and distributed in Alabama and Georgia and the rest is transshipped to Brazil on the LATAM flight or by Atlas Air via Miami. DSV leases 130,000 square feet of warehouse space, including temperature-controlled storage for pharmaceuticals and perishable items, on the HSV tarmac to process its air shipments. “What we’re also trying to do is stop sending everything by truck into Miami as trucking has become more and more expensive because of gas prices and the lack of drivers. Trucking has become an extremely expensive component. By stopping it in Huntsville we’re taking advantage of the fact we have the ability to fill a plane rather than spending another day and thousands of dollars trucking it to Miami,” said Ravn. Ravn said the freight forwarder hopes to expand the number of departures to South America in the future. Bulger said Kerry Logistics’ shipments bound for Latin America are currently relayed to Miami by truck for transfer to other commercial carriers but suggested the new DSV service could open the door to a future partnership with LATAM. HSV was one of the earliest second-tier airports in the U.S. to attract a direct all-cargo carrier when Panalpina, acquired by DSV in 2019, launched its Dixie Jet airfreight service between the northern Alabama city and Luxembourg in 1990. DSV currently offers that service three times per week with the support of Cargolux, which flies Boeing 747 cargo jets. LATAM previously provided service between Huntsville and Bogota, but it was discontinued when DSV took over Panalpina. LATAM is growing its 767 freighter fleet to capture more business opportunities like the one presented by DSV. The cargo division currently operates 13 767 cargo jets and is sending several older passenger aircraft to repair facilities to be converted into freighters. Along with the purchase of a production freighter from Boeing this fall, it could have up to 22 of the medium widebody freighters in its fleet by the end of next year.

Huntsville offers Southern hospitality to air cargo

The Atlantic
Two recent novels depict modern labor as a hallucinogenic hall of mirrors. Share
According to a lushly animated Chobani ad from last year, the future of work is agrarian and cutting-edge, folksy and modern— WWOOF meets Wakanda, perhaps. The commercial pictures a world in which farming retains a familial, salt-of-the-earth vibe despite the existence of robots so prehensile they can pick fruit. “A business is only as good as its people,” a farmer narrates as workers gather around a peculiar spread of bread, tomato soup, and a heaping bowl of yogurt, and a drone drops off a carton of oat milk. The ad may be set on a future farm and designed to peddle dairy products, but its pastoral setting and utopian veneer riff on the pitches of many companies seeking to present a change to workplace scenery as an upgrade in quality of life. During the pandemic, predicting “the future of work” has become a cottage industry among economists and marketers alike. Though the future is likely to bring widespread hardships for many—whether via stagnant wages or reduced quality of work —forecasters enthusiastically tout the ways that technologies such as “wellness pods” and the metaverse will transform (office) working life. Two recent dystopian novels offer more sobering perspectives on the trajectory of labor. In surreal, tactile, and often funny prose, Olga Ravn’s The Employees and Hiroko Oyamada’s The Factory present the workplace as a hallucinogenic hall of mirrors, a crucible where our sense of self warps and dissolves. Emphasizing mood over motion, the books channel the stifling torpor of modern labor, casting work as disorienting and suffocating. The Employees takes place on the Six Thousand Ship, a 22nd-century spacecraft orbiting the planet New Discovery. The ship’s staff consists of unnamed humans and androids whose roles center on the maintenance of “the objects,” mysterious artifacts found in a valley on New Discovery. When the objects begin exerting a strange power over the crew—changing their attitudes toward one another and their duties—the workers are interviewed about the shift in morale. (The genesis of The Employees is a 2018 art installation by Lea Guldditte Hestelund called Consumed Future Spewed Up as Present; Ravn, a Danish poet, initially was commissioned to write fictional descriptions of Hestelund’s leather and marble works but found herself writing related narratives, some of which were for objects that didn’t exist.) The resulting statements, numbered and sequenced out of order, make up the bulk of the book, which is arranged as a fragmentary bureaucratic report. Ravn uses the statements to sketch out working life on the ship and capture the agitation of the crew after it has started interacting with the objects. Reproducing the particular babble unique to workplace small talk, Ravn presents the employees as nervous chatterboxes who fill the room with whatever comes to mind: their love of shopping, crushes, cookies. In every statement, Ravn excises the interviewers’ questions and reactions, omissions that make the transcripts feel more like confessions than conversations. “You want to know why I like the incinerator?” asks the ship’s funeral director. “It’s the smell of burnt matter, it reminds me of mealtimes at home. The smell of meat and soil and blood.” Life on the Six Thousand Ship affects every employee differently, but robot and human alike sound both unhinged and detached, from their work and from themselves. The Employees fails to weave this ambient discontent into compelling storytelling despite its hints at social commentary. The gaze of the ship’s management, though built into the novel’s structure, lacks narrative weight. Management is so amorphous that the workers’ perspectives feel arbitrary and ungrounded. And the hierarchy of the ship is so ill-defined that even when mutiny brews, the stakes of the conflict remain vague. The elliptical writing doesn’t help either. Ravn’s denuded prose, though elegant, is short on world building. The book’s repetitive formatting, in turn, muffles the plot and obscures details as basic as whether workers are paid or if they have bills and debts. Empathizing with their plight is hard when their jobs are pure abstractions. The interactions between the employees and the objects yield the clearest insights about the state of labor on the ship. From Statement 042: “When our orbit around New Discovery brings us into the right position, the sun strikes the panorama room, filling it with warm and shimmering light, like luminous water. The big object then radiates from its place in the middle of the room. The fragrant liquid flows from every groove.” The object seems to scramble the speaker’s senses even as they speak about it with intimacy, a microcosm of the dissociation coursing through the staff as a whole. The workers of the Six Thousand Ship are gainfully employed, but their jobs leave them disoriented. The objects offer slight refuge, opening tiny, psychedelic portals to places unknown. But each trip seems to end where it began: at work. Where Ravn conceives of work as a sterile prison, Hiroko Oyamada depicts it as a spuming biome. She presents the immense workplace of her book’s titular factory as a material koan, reconfiguring its dimensions anytime it begins to feel graspable. Absurdly, the factory contains forests, a river, 24-hour bus service, dorms, and its own fauna, some of which might be unreal. Even the people familiar with its reach seem oblivious to its size. “There are all kinds of other food options around the factory,” a middle manager tells new hires during an orientation hike. “We have nearly a hundred cafeterias, and a decent number of restaurants, too. If you want, mark your map as we go,” he says. In casting the most mundane workplace details and interactions as abstruse and dreamlike, Oyamada makes work feel inescapable. The factory’s rhizomatic influence is particularly evident in the haphazard way it hires. Yoshio Furufue, a moss expert brought on to green-roof the factory, doesn’t even get interviewed for the position; he shows up to learn about the job and suddenly he works there. His recruitment is so seamless that it feels like he was already an employee. Another worker, Yoshiko Ushiyama, applies for a permanent position but is given a temp gig instead, one in which she’d be shredding documents up to seven and a half hours a day. Yoshiko is unable to tell whether the offer is better or worse, but she quickly resigns herself to her fate. “A job’s a job,” she thinks as she accepts the role. The discussion is emphatically not a negotiation; the factory acts and the world moves. The novel brims with these tiny, tense moments, highlighting the ways in which even fleeting aspects of labor are weighted and exhausting. As Yoshio, Yoshiko, and her brother—a former employee of the factory who is rehired as a proofreader—try to get their bearings, the ground continually shifts. Oyamada uses scale shrewdly, pirouetting from granular descriptions of the workers’ tasks to panoramic views of the seemingly ever-growing factory. In one scene, Yoshiko’s usually nap-prone brother gets agitated as he contemplates his employer’s opacity: “Corporate profiles, operating manuals, booklets for children, texts on everything from science to history … Who wrote this stuff? For what audience? To what end? Why does it need to be proofread at all? If these are all factory documents, what the hell is the factory?” The factory is inscrutable yet material, its very scale deflating workers’ sense of worth. Yoshiko’s brother sees no horizon to his work, and, by extension, to his life. If nothing he does matters to the company or to customers, why should it matter to him? Oyamada’s playful, jerky prose and brisk plotting keep the book buoyant despite its bleak air. Where Ravn snuffs out all the activity of a workplace, reducing it to an employer’s authoritative gaze and workers’ response, Oyamada ups the entropy: A renegade employee and creep known as the Forest Pantser lurks in the woods; the middle manager who interviews Yoshio and Yoshiko shows up to their workspaces, his duties a mystery to all; a hysterical document meticulously detailing the factory wildlife appears in a proofreading queue. The Factory was released in the U.S. shortly before the pandemic started, and The Employees earlier this year. Both were written before the pandemic and sidestep not just the anxieties of the past couple of years but also the preoccupations that many contemporary office novels have with company culture or career mobility. Both question the human costs of work, zooming in on the affects—despondence, alienation, indifference—that businesses produce alongside goods and services. Oyamada, especially, illustrates how multifaceted working life often is. In capturing the frictions between what jobs purport to be and what they are, The Factory offers a layered portrait of work that’s attuned to both employer power and the miasmic effect that jobs can have on our lives. Oyamada’s ecological interpretation of labor—an interdependent web of strangers, siblings, animals, and nature—feels especially suited to a future that will be precarious for workers as well as the environment. In her fantastical, unsparing world, life is what the factory makes of it.

The Parasitic Workplace

Zordix is a multinational development and publishing group that operates in the global games market. The company's main services include the creation, development, and publishing of video games, with a focus on delivering innovative and entertaining content. Zordix primarily sells to the gaming industry. It is based in Umea, Sweden.

Zordix

Zordix has today signed a new publishing contract with the Norwegian studio Ravn .

Zordix Publishing to release Ravn Studio's Captain Sabertooth and the Magical Diamond on Nintendo Switch in fall 2020

U.S. Navy

This collection includes startups developing autonomous ground robots, unmanned aerial vehicles, robotic arms, and underwater drones, among other robotic systems. This collection also includes companies developing operating systems and vision modules for robots.

Robotics

Aerospace & Space Tech

Loan

Ravn is a company focused on data management in the defense industry. The company's main service involves creating and delivering actionable edge data in real time, aiding in real-time decision making. The company primarily serves the defense industry. It was founded in 2017 and is based in San Francisco, California.

Name	Work History	Title	Status
Jake Bullock	U.S. Navy	Founder, Chief Executive Officer	Current
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Name	Jake Bullock	Subscribe to see more	Subscribe to see more	Subscribe to see more	Subscribe to see more
Work History	U.S. Navy	Subscribe to see more	Subscribe to see more	Subscribe to see more	Subscribe to see more
Title	Founder, Chief Executive Officer	Subscribe to see more	Subscribe to see more	Subscribe to see more	Subscribe to see more
Status	Current	Subscribe to see more	Subscribe to see more	Subscribe to see more	Subscribe to see more

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Ravn Management Team

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