Zines, zines, zines.

I was really excited when I discovered Teal Triggs was coming to speak to us, as during my dissertation research I had come across her name quite a lot, and her research work on fanzines. Also, I had received her “Fanzines” book as a gift, just a week before I discovered she was due to visit, which was even more exciting.

Fanzines is such a varied subject; and also very hard to define. Teal helped to explain what exactly makes a zine, and referenced a lot of really interesting pieces during the lecture. This was really helpful, as it is an area that I am looking into for my dissertation, and until now have been unsure as to what they actually are. More importantly, she spoke about the rise of the webzine which I am writing about as my dissertation topic. It was really helpful gaining first-hand insight into what the internet and online publishing will mean for the printed fanzine from someone who is so knowledgeable about the subject. I was pleased to discover that she had a similar viewpoint on the subject as me; that the internet will not mean that the future of print is dead, but more that it is a tool to help promote and distribute it. A really interesting and highly influential lecture.

Further to this, I recently purchased OWT creative's first zine, "Beginnings". The design group studied Design and Art direction (like me) at Manchester School of Art and have since set up the design collective in order to help young creatives in the North West and showcase some of Manchester's most exciting talent. The issue shows the five members of OWT's interpretation of the word Beginnings. Produced in a limited run, each 52 page zine has a hand-screened cover and centre spread as well as being numbered in its run of 100.

I loved their responses, collected in a beautifully compiled publication. They have since released issue two, so keep your eyes peeled for further work from them.

Your help is needed!

I am currently in the process of writing my dissertation on "the value of print in a digital world". I would greatly appreciate anyone's input to this topic so if you could follow the link below and complete my survey I would be very grateful!

"Click here to take part in: The Value of Print: A Survey"

Thank you!

chinese whispers

A series of photographs I have taken for a brief entitled "Static". The notion of 'noise' and interference with digital imagery has been explored through macro imagery, taken from my computer screen. Apart from cropping some of the images, none of the photographs have been digitally edited; the idea is to capture naturally occurring interference; such as the static, dust and fingerprints on the computer screen.

The images have been created by re-photographing previous images again and again; the method has caused the original photographs to become unrecognisable. Through no action, other than simply repeating this process, have the images been "interfered" with, be it through digital enhancement or otherwise, as I wanted to show how digital screens (including that of a camera) can cause these manipulations themselves.

This idea has come about through my research for my dissertation; in which I am exploring how traditional print / magazine design might be losing out to the increase in popularity and demand for digital versions of the same thing (for example, ebooks and webzines). Part of this research was into how image resolution, screen quality, lighting and electronic interference can affect the quality or output of the digital piece.

I'm quite pleased with the results so far. I will explore my idea further by incorporating scans of text also, to bring in another element to the piece. By doing this not only do I want to juxtapose text with image; but show how the internet can lose its grip on what is real in terms of reliability. In this day and age it is very difficult to discover webtexts that are accurate and not based solely on opinion. The internet is an amazing and vast source of information; but how much of it can we actually trust as being reliable? Any one with an internet connection can post, edit, copy - and 'interfere' - with texts from all over the world. This process can be repeated over and over, causing what is being presented to lose all originality - much like a game of chinese whispers.

From Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia: "anyone with Web access can edit Wikipedia, and this openness encourages inclusion of a tremendous amount of content. About 75,000 editors—from expert scholars to casual readers—regularly edit Wikipedia" - A somewhat scary thought! I'm looking forward to exploring this further.


N.B: This project has made me realise that I totally need to clean my laptop screen more.

CTRL/PRT.

Control | Print is a research project initiated by The Royal College of Art, exploring relationships in print between human intervention and digital automation. I discovered a piece about it in an old edition of Baseline, not only was I drawn to the content of the piece (it has some interesting reference points relating to my dissertation topic) but the art direction was beautiful.

"How we weave human intention into the predetermined language of digital tools is key to the way they are perceived as an influence on our creative landscape. From the perspective of the artist, photographer or designer adjusting to the digital environment has not simple been a matter of replacing old tools for new, it has required a significant change to the way individuals evolve their work.

For example, the ability to print, evaluate and print again allows the individual to enjoy a 'craftsman-like' awareness of the print-making process. ... For many artists, the continual ebb and flow of this digital and analogue relationship is a fundamental part of the working process. ... The distance between the virtual and the actual is only eradicated at the point where it all meets back in the analogue world of in on paper. It is an important moment when we decide to translate digital information into an analogue form as this is precisely when the significance of our actions become fixed. It seems that despite the fact that it is a virtual world in which much of this work is generated it is the desire to hold the finished creation in our hands or hang it on the wall that ensures ink and paper retains a key status."

Words: Russell Warren-Fisher, Baseline.

/PAPER

A nice little package arrived for me in the post today from the team at www.magculture.com/blog:

"One of the great things about running a blog is the instantaneous nature of content creation and publication. It is a complete contrast to print.

But the flip-side of that spontaneity  is the content disappears quickly too, and that's why this newspaper has been published - to highlight some of the material buried deep inside the magCulture archives."

- MagCulture.com

Folded.

For my dissertation, I have been researching how the printed page is evolving from paper to screen. With the development of the iPhone, the iPad and ebooks galore, will the page as we know it become redundant and obsolete? Poignantly, it's been revealed that design publication Grafik magazine is no more; due to the liquidation of its publishers, 'Adventures in Publishing'. I'm yet to find out the reasons for this break-down, but could this be a sign of things to come? A spokesperson from TeamGrafik assured its readers that the publication will still be available via its design blog online, but the question remains: is the print industry losing out to new technology? Interesting.