Thursday, December 10, 2015

OUGD601 / Context Of Practice / Practical Brief / Critique

Context Of Practice 3 Practical Critique

Thursday 10th December

Proposal:















Feedback / Advice / Comments:

"Introduce 'sections' when presenting content i.e FASHION - ARTS - PAINT"

I agree with this comment however to what extent sections are introduced is to be considered, too many 'sections' may create a UI similar to that of Buzzfeed.

"Use the platform for secondary sourced content - allow consumers to curate content from other publishers to get in print i.e Allow a consumer to choose an article from i-D and 2 articles from DAZED."

A pathway previously considered, this use of secondary content would diversify the platform at the discretion of the platforms intent; NO SPONSORED OPINIONS - granting consumers the choice of other publishers' content disqualifies any unique selling point of the platform however if I were to sell the idea of the strategy itself - no harm would come to the brand but would no longer be a unique attribute.

"Allow archived content so a consumer can curate an article from, let's say 6 months ago, no other magazines do that!"

Most definitely a possibility to do so, however the print costs may be considerable although if the archived article was the same format as the current print run, no difference would be made.


Wednesday, December 9, 2015

OUGD601 / Context Of Practice / Practical / Synthesis

Through an investigation of the affect the development of print technologies have had upon the publishing of counter culture, I deduced several results that are to directly inform DIET.


  • Print can survive as a medium of publishing if it’s ethereal attributes are exaggerated and are championed, just as vinyl has.
  • Content within print can no longer keep up to digital in the publishing of news, current events. Print media has to be of great depth, looking at timely, slower overarching issues.
  • The use of print on demand services transcends the risks found with the traditional print and sell model. 
  • To compensate for higher cover prices, the ethereal attractions of print have to be exaggerated.
  • Online content and Print content are to be kept exclusive to the medium in order to sustain income streams. Digital content can be used as a tool to attract traffic.
  • To allow a consumer to produce, interact with their content (curate) places the individual in the position of a Prosumer, this process reduces the chance of disenfranchisement with a publication as a stronger connection with the customer is made.
  • Advertising reflects compromise within publishing, to sustain print without advertisements, alternatives to the traditional methods are to be explored, a conscious approach of advertising, selecting brands that share similar ethos through advertorials and product placement.
  • Counter culture publishing holds a visual language, which is constantly reacting against the mainstream media; content, art and editorial directions are to be aimed to sit within the underground and constantly adapted to stay so.
  • Adaption and change to contemporary means of media consumption, social medias platforms and print / distribution technologies are to be welcomed to in order stay in the margins, the edge, the attractive.
  • The curation of content and association is to be tiredly considered in order maintain a true brand identity.
  • Embracing a straight to consumer distribution route dismisses costs taken by publishers and sellers.
  • Don’t do an NME.


Thursday, December 3, 2015

OUGD601 / Context Of Practice / Chapter Plan Revised

To what extent have technologies influenced the publishing of counter culture?


Deconstructed:

Technologies = Tools to print, distribute, communicate and connect.

Publishing = Production / Distribution / Content

Counter Culture = Subcultures, against and variants of mainstream media.

Introduction

-       Publishing as a tool (disregard publishing without agenda)
-       Defining Counter Culture / Sub Culture / Publishing
-       Production and Content – Aesthetic and commodification of subculture.
-       Methodology:  Context – Ideology – Technology – Resources – Visual Communication
-       Counter Culture within commercial environment?


Publishing – Gutenberg to Instagram

How has publishing been democratized? Why?

-       Technologies affect upon publishing Production / Distribution / Content
-       Technologies affect upon society and culture through publishing
-       The change in consumption methods due to technologies
-       Production, Content and distribution.

Hypothesis:

The publishing process has been democratized with accessibility, no longer an expensive technology, the ability to publish cannot be exclusive due to finance.



Publishing As A Reflection Of Context

How is publishing used to communicate agenda? Why?

-       Why Visual communication instead of audial etc?
-       Music and Visual communication
-       Prosumer / Designer as Author
-       The contemporary publishing market
-       Growing consciousness and intellectual state of culture.
-       Renaissance
-       Industrial Revolution
-       Modern to Postmodern

Hypothesis:

Publishing is a tool that can communicate agenda. Print has granted the common a voice, to transcend the limitations oral communication applies.


Counter Cultures - More than style

How has agenda been commoditized? Why?

The translation of context and ideology into visual communication
(counter cultural)
-       Social, Political and Ethical agenda within publishing
-       Necessity is the mother of invention
-       Commodification within forms of visual communication.
-       The reflection of counter culture in other visual forms, Fashion – Appearance
-       Culture Capital
-       Everyone can be a designer / Bedroom / DIY
-       Modern to Postmodern meaning of style

Hypothesis:

Agenda as a commodity. Underground becomes Overground. Forever changing relationship adhering to use / appropriation / time - remix.



The Contemporary Blur

How is it best to communicate agenda now? Why?

-       Postmodernity
-       Online counter culture campaigns
-       Future of publishing of counter culture

Hypothesis:

Where does the future of communicating agenda lie? How is the best to do so? Mergence of print and digital platforms - grant a consumer personalisation.



Conclusion


OUGD601 / Context Of Practice / Quote Sheet

Eisenstein

“That something rather like a knowledge explosion was experienced in the sixteenth century has often been suggested, in connection with the Northern Renaissance if not with the advent of prining” (Eisenstein, 1980, p72)

“The desire to master original tounges and an encyclopedic urge to comprehend every part of creation were manifested in the middle ages” (Eisenstein, 1980, p73)

“Which revolutionized all forms of learning” p1

“the printer’s workshop attracted diverse talents in a way that was conducive to cross fertilization of all kinds..” p76

“that one should not think only about new forms of enlightenment when considering the effects of printing on scholarship. New forms of mystification were encouraged as well” p78

“with the disappearance of variegated bookhands, styles of lettering became more sharply polarized into two distinct groups of typefonts: ‘Gothic’ and ‘Roman’.” P83

“A fuller recognition of diversity was indeed a concomitant of standardization. Sixteenth-century publications not only spread identical fashions but also encouraged the collection of diverse ones. Books illustrating diverse costumes, worn throughout the world, were studied by artists and engravers and duplicated in so many contexts that stereotypes of regional dress styles were developed. They acquired a paper life for all enternity and may be recognized even now on dolls, in operas, or at costume balls” p84 Mention the spread of information due to print, the creation of stereotypes as print originiating in one plac travelled to another with it’s cultural signifiers (was this the beginning of cultural signifier’s or the best tool to transport such) Eternal paper life – transcending time and space.

“One might consider the emergence of a new sense of individualism as a by-product of the new forms of standardization. The more standardized the type, indeed the more compelling the sense of an idiosyncratic personal self” p84 Relate this relationship to culture / counter culture, fighting against the standard to exaggerate idiosyncrasy. Print enabled pop culture and counter culture –

“Repeated encounters with identical images of couples, representing three social groups: noble, burgher, peasant wearing distinctive costumes and set against distinctive regional landscapes probably encouraged a sharpened sense of class- divisions and regional groupings. At the same time the circulation of royal portraits and engravings of royal entries made it possible for reigning dynast to impress a personal presence in a way upon the consciousness of all subjects” p84 Mention the creation of stereotypes and celebrity with the use of pictorial statements, how print was used as a tool to create pop culture and subsequent counter culture.

“The individual features of emperors and kings were not sufficiently detailed when stamped on coins for their faces to be recognized when they travelled incognito. But a portrait engraved on paper money enabled an alert Frenchman to recognize and halt Louis XVI at Varennes”  p85 The detail not applicable from print created the celebrity, for an image to be sufficiently translated in enough detail to have enough likeness to the real figure.

“To those of us who think in terms of later divisions of labour, the repertoire of roles undertaken by early printers seems so large as to be almost inconceivable. A scholar-printer himself might serve not only as a publisher and bookseller but as indexer-abridger-lexicographer-chronicler. Whatever roles he performed, decisions about standards to be adopted when processing texts for publication could not be avoided. Suitable type styles had to be selected or designed and house conventions – relating to orthography, punctuation, abbreviation and the like – had to be determined” p87 The printer acted more than a printer, an all-rounder – printer as auteur, very relatable to contemporary means of desktop publishing, the contemporary publishing can assume all roles of production just as these once did.

“Insofar as such decisions entailed consultation with the professors and physicians, print dealers, painters, translators, librarians and other learned men, it is not surprising that printers’ workshops served as cultural centers in several towns or that the most advanced work in scholarship and science during the sixteenth century seemed to gravitate away from older halls and academic precints” p87 Refer to these cultural hubs – Letters of men – regardless of social and political affiliations, these hubs merged people who would not usually associate – Printers as cultural centers – relate to the new hubs of social platforms.

“Abraham Ortelius likened his Theatrum to a ‘well furnished shoppe’ which was so arranged that readers could easily find whatever instruments they might want to obtain” p88 Relate this to Graphic Design and the manner which is similar to Modernist principles. Recognition of Graphic Design.

“Working for more than twenty years, beginning with his early botanical studies, he (Conrad Gesner) continued to collect an immense mass of information relating to the animal kingdom. Making excerpts from books consulted from his universal bibliography, enisting the help of some fifty correspondents in different regions,soliciting drawings, copying woodcuts and always acknowledging his sources with care, he finally produced the first edition of his celebrated four-volume text supplemented by three volumes of illustrations which won him postmomous fame as the ‘father of Zoology’. Fisher comments Gesner’s enormous labors were all the more remarkable because they were undertaken without being commissioned and represented the voluntary work of a lay scholar who had no special patron or institution to spur him on… Yet it is also significant that he did receive unflagging encouragement and help from flouring printing firms” p98 Mention this as one of the first ‘independent’ publication in which there was no commercial agenda but the translation of passion into print. Also mention the significant encouragement in a contemporary environment, the befriending of printers has always been beneficial for the aspiring author.

“The natural sciences and the library sciences which Gesner helped to found were capable of un-limited expansion. They entailed an open-ended indefinitely continuous process. The term ‘feed-back’ is ugly and much over-used, yet it does help to define the difference between data-collection before and after the communications shift. After printing, large-scale data-collection did become subject to new forms of feed-back which had not been possible in the age of scribes.” P111 Discuss the possibilities post print of feedback, ‘open source’ works continuously added to and edited – similar to the contemporary technology which enabled Wikipedia – with print, knowledge expanded as great numbers of contributors could discuss, refer and quote one other while transcending georgraphy, contributors from around the world could discuss topics such as botanics here. Edited editions and the constant adding, refining of works enabled a true-er work.

“Of all the new features introduced by the duplicative powers of print, preservation is possibly the most important”p113 The preservation of print allowed knowledge to transcend time much easier, “Succesive generations could build on the work left by sixteenth century polymaths instead of trying to retrieve scattered fragments of it”p113. This created an additive knowledge process in which every generation since has become more knowledgable? Refer to archives, contemporary blogs and the online acces to information anywhere but anyone, open source

“Preservation could be achieved by using abundant supplies of paper rather than scarce and costly skin. “p114 The cheaper, faster duplication enabled by print resulted in better conservation of information, therefore knowledge could transcend the limitations of the physical and time. Relate to:

“It seems in character for Jefferson to stress the democratizing aspect of the preservative powers of print which secured precious documents not by putting them under lock and key but by removing them from chests and vaults and duplicating them for all to see. The notion that valuable data could be preserved best by being made public, rather than by being kept secret, ran counter to tradition, led to clashes with new censors, and was central both to early-modern science and to enlightenment thought” p116

“The duplication of vernacular primers and translations contributed in other ways to nationalism. A ‘mother’s tounge’ learned ‘naturally’ at home would be reinforced by inculcation of a homogenized print-made language mastered while still young, when learning to read.” P118 Printers curating work from different regions soon began to standardize language, subsequently leading to nationalisms and regional dialect. Compare this to contemporary use of online talk by youth cultures – 'lol' etc

“By 1500, legal fictions were already being devised to accommodate the patenting of inventions and the assignment of literary properties” p120 The rise of copyright as individualism developed, this was to make independent publishing more profitable, the developing of writing as business.

“Cheaper writing materials encouraged the separate recording of lives and correspondence. Not paper mills but printing presses, however, made it possible to preserve personal ephemera intact” p121 Relate to the rise of self – independent publishing, the dissemination of print hierarchy resulted in such.

"It was the transition from public readings to secluded reading that was realized as a catalyst for un-savoury material “ A fairly sleazy ‘popular’ culture, based on the mass production of antiquated vernacular medieval romances, was this produced well before the steam press and mass literacy movements of the nineteenth century. Yet the bulk of this output was consumed by a medieval hearing public, separated by a vast physcological gulf from their contemporaries who belonged to an early-modern reading one.” Similiarly the secluded new environment allowed by individual reading gave room for Pornography “ Pornography as well as piety assumed new forms. Book reading did not stop short with guides to godly living or practical manual and texts, any more than printers stopped short at producing them”

“the pulpit was ultimately displaced by the periodical press and the dictum ’ p131 nothing sacred’ came to characterize the journalist’s career” This transition from oral delivery to a public group to a secularized, individual print delivery of information allowed room for greater partaking in broader topics, the term ‘is nothing sacred’ is particurly relevant in contemporary journalism in which the absurd and taboo content has been embraced by many media platforms as unique selling points of their editorial direction.

“The monthly gazette was succeeded by the weekly and finally by the daily paper” p131 The rise of news, opinion and culture content signified the rise of democratization, growing number of sources, editors and journalists broadened the once narrow minded media of the church. Enlightenment and the age of knowledge placed the consumer and the not the editor in a position of censor, the everyday man now had to choose what to read, in contrary to being directed to read and believe.

“But even while communcal solidarity was diminished, vicarious participation in more distant events was also enhance; and even while local ties were loosened, links to larger collective units were being forged” 132 Eventually leading to globalization and nationalistion, the transition to print created has created global communities in which geography does not restrict communication, similar interests between men half a world apart can now be discussed.

“a reading public was not only more dispersed; it was also more atomistic and individualistic than a hearing one…To be sure, bookshops, coffee houses, reading rooms provided new kinds of communal gathering places… the reception of printed messages in any place still required temporary isolation – just as it does in a library reading room now” p132 – The new temporary isolation is portable, laptops and heaphones have transcending the environment in which, to an extent, anywhere can now be a place of temporary isolation. The new medium is the screen and the new environment is anywhere.

Print offered a “silent, impersonal medium of interchange” (Eisenstein 1979 p133) the ideal tool to communicate content that, without anonymity or live reaction, as oral delivery does, the content can become unorthodox without instant reaction. This point is developed by Mcluhan “phonetic culture endows men with the means of repressing their feelings and emotions when engaged in action. To act without reacting, without involvement, is the peculiar advantage of Western literate man” (1964, p86). Phonetic and the subsequent print culture allowed extension of discourse as the “auditory sense, unlike the cool and neutral eye, is hyper-esthetic and delicate and all-inclusive” (Mcluhan, ibid.)

“As book markets expanded and divisions of labor increased, feminine readers were increasingly differentiated from masculine ones, and children were supplied with reading matter different from their parents.” This division of printed material in adherence to target audience from the eighteenth century onwards was to be refined into the contemporary classifications of printed material we have now. “A distinctive ‘youth culture’ that was somewhat incongruous with the ‘family’ came into being. So, too, did a distinctive feminist movement. The rise of a specifically feminine reading public represents an aspect of the age-old battle between the sexes that has yet to be fully explored. Such developments however, did not really crystalize until the last century, after both typography and schooling underwent new transformations.”

 “They were carriers of a ‘spirit of capitalism’ for the simple reason that they were capitalist themselves. If they deserve to be singled out among contemporary entrepreneurs, it is because they were temporarily in command of the nascent communications industry and played a key role in reshaping cultural products and conveying ideas.” P385


A Social History of the Media Asa Briggs and Peter Burke

“The concept ‘public opinion’ appeared in the late eighteenth century, while a concern with the ‘masses’ can be traced from the early nineteenth century onwards, at the time when newspapers… were helping to fashion national consciousness by making people aware of their fellow readers” p1
The nationalization and globalization created by print.

“The fact that printing arrived so late in Russia also suggests that print was not an independent agent, and that the print revolution did not depend on technology alone. Printing required favorable social and cultural conditions in order to spread, and Russia’s lack of literate laity was a serious obstacle to the rise of print culture” p 14 Against Technological determinism / Favourable conditions – did print help in creating these conditions else where before? Why particularly was it Russia that did not have such social and cultural conditions?

“the lateral effects of print – making knowledge accessible to a wider audience – and its vertical or cumulative effects – enabling later generations to build on the intellectual work of earlier ones” p16 Lord Acton paraphrased in ‘On study of History’ (1895) lecture. This backs up the idea of additive knowledge and democratization.Such books were too expensive and too technical to appeal to more than a tiny minority of the population, but printed matter also came in cheaper and simpler forms such as ‘chapbooks’, often illustrated, though the illustrations were sometimes taken over from earlier books and had little to do with the text. Chapbooks were booklets which were sold by ‘Chapmen’ or pedlars in most parts of early modern Europe, and in some regions in the nineteenth and even twentieth centuries as well. Since the 1960’s historians have been studying French chapbooks – the ‘Blue Library’ (Bibliotheque Bleue), as they are called, referring to the fact that the booklets were bound in the coarse blue paper used for wrapping sugar”  p18 Refer to this alternate form of publication, the original zines? Print for the masses due to cost. Mentioned the blue paper derived from necessity of cheap materials, appropriating the paper used for wrapping sugar can relate to the earliest zines in which materials were appropriated. ‘Too technical’ relates to content – the content was now applicable for uneducated peasants

“The most common subjects of these booklets were lives of the saints and romances of chivalry, leading some historians to the conclusion that the literature was escapist, or even a form of tranquilizer, and also that it represented the diffusion downwards to artisans and peasants of cultural models created by and for the clergy and the nobility” p18 mention the idea that reading and looking at printed matter was used as an route of escapement, to transcend the real life into a presumably better place. This intoxication of reading can relate to “Few studies of the literature of the era fail to cite relevant passages from Marlowe or Rabelais indicating how it felt to become inotxicated by reading and how bookish knowledge was regarded as if it were a magic elixir conferring new powers with every draught”(Eisenstein, 1979, p72) The two passages concur to praise the act of reading more than simply a consumption of information but a route to transcend reality into spirituality, escapism from the stuggles of life or a creative ascent.

“It might be more realistic to view print, like new media in later centuries (television, for example), as a catalyst, assisting social changes rather than originating them. In the eighteenth century, the production of trade cards reflected an increase in trade more than the stimulus of ephemeral printing. Eisenstein views print in relative isolation.”p19 Against technological determinism, relate to the internet as a contemporary catalyst – was internet a catalyst or supply a response to the vast amount of knowledge – maybe not a catalyst – what was similar to the internet[KW1] ?


“…print technology did not stand still after Gutenberg. The Dutch printer Willem Blaeu improved the design of the wooden press in the seventeenth century. Large presses were introduced in order to print maps. The Stanhope iron hand press (1804) doubled the normal rate of production, while Koenig’s steam press (1814) quadrupled the productivity of the Stanhope.” SPEED OF PRINTING

One of the “first major ideological conflict in which printed matter played a major role” (Briggs and Burke,2009, p62) was the renaissance, as the democratization of knowledge spread, notably related to the bible in this instance, a resemblance of counter culture emerged. Martin Luther, a professor and friar had become critical of the Italian church, mainly its commercialization and elitist nature. Luther had set out to disseminate the church in his belief  “that everyone had direct access to god without clerical mediation” (ibid.) The debates between the church elites of the time consequential lead to the need of public support, “usually for practical reasons” rather than to adhere to them, printed pamphlets and debates were used as tool to communicate these agendas in order to communicate to a large demographic. This distribution of media would subsequently lead to “an important contribution to the rise of critical thought and of public opinion”. The embracing of self-awareness that would subsequently lead to the empowering of the individual and the rise of independent publishing, as a tool to communicate counter culture.

The ‘Index of prohibited books’ was a selection of publications deemed unfit by the Catholic Church. This selection would contain materials the church felt satirical, unorthodox and any other with an agenda contradicting their own. This act of censoring could be seen as act of control in order to sustain their own following and not for the ‘forbidden’ writings to create questioning within the individual or of the church itself. This act of censoring has adapted alongside new technologies and mediums of creativity, print, art, theatre, radio, television, internet have all been subject to censorship for political, social and ethical agendas.

The rise of publishing as an act of business, instead of the controlling nature in which the church had previously embraced created the market for print which is still prosperous today: “One important consequence of the invention of printing was the close involvement of entrepreneurs in the process of spreading of knowledge.” (p45) in conjunction with this rise of profit making, advertising was to develop within print. The rise of advertising within print appeared in the fifteenth century when “ pages at the front and back of books advertised other works sold by the same printer or book seller (later distinctions between printer, publisher and book-seller were not yet drawn in this period”p45

A sign of the developing industry of printed publications is evident in the great rise of advertisements within London: “ around 1650, a newspaper would carry about six advertisements on the average; 100 years later, it would carry around fifty.” P45 The embracing of advertisements would cheapen the sale price and subsequently appeal to a great audience.

With the developing business attributes of publishing came the rise of copyright, intellectual property and individualism, editors and journalists.  “the rise of the idea of intellectual property was a response both to the spread of printing and the emergence of consumer society. Yet some sense of literary ownership goes back to the fifteenth century, if not before, for there were humanists who accused one another of theft or plagiarism while themselves claiming to practice creative imititation”p46 “This was a slightly unusual form of plagiarism, since it involved stealing a character rather than a text, or stealing someone else’s name for one’s own work in order to cash in on his reputation”p45. Link to aueter, self-indulgence projects, self and independent publishing. Commoditizing of leisure and interests and the

“This explosion of printed matter was the context for the famous debate about the freedom of the press in which the Puritan poet John Milton took part, publishing his Areopagiticia (1644), an attack on the Long Parliament’s Press Ordinance and a defense of the ‘freedom of unlicensed printing’, criticizing censorship of all kinds on a variety of general grounds , not least that independent men should be free to choose. He associated censorship with Catholicism, noting that the popes had ’extended their domination over men’s eyes’ by inventing ‘the new Purgatory of an Index’”. P74

The Designer as Author

“, scientific texts, at least until after the Renaissance, demanded an author’s name as validation. By the eighteenth century, however, Foucault asserts, the situation had reversed: literature was authored and science had become the product of anonymous objectivity. Once authors began to be punished for their writing – that is, when a text could be transgressive – the link between the author and the text was firmly established.”

“Katherine McCoy’s prescient image of designers moving beyond problem-solving and by ‘authoring additional content and a self-conscious critique of the message … adopting roles associated with art and literature’ has as often as not been misconstrued”

“The dark implications of Barthes’ theory, note Ellen Lupton and J. Abbott Miller, were fashioned into ‘a romantic theory of self expression’”

“By the 1970s Design had begun to discard the scientific approach that had held sway for decades, exemplified by the rationalist ideology that preached strict adherence to an eternal grid.”

“The idea of a decentred message does not necessarily sit well in a professional relationship in which the client is paying the designer to convey specific information or emotions… . The ever-present pressure of technology and electronic communication only muddies the water further.”

“It is perhaps not surprising that Barthes’ ‘The Death of the Author’ was written in Paris in 1968, the year students joined workers on the barricades in a general strike and the western world flirted with real social revolution. The call for the overthrow of authority in the form of the author in favour of the reader – i.e. the masses – had a real resonance in 1968”

“This poetic / practical opposition is resolved in two examples of design production: the artist’s book and activist design. The artist’s book offers a form of design authorship from which function has been fully exorcised. The artist’s book, in general, is concrete, self-referential and allows for a range of visual experiments without the burden of fulfilling mundane commercial tasks.” – The attraction of self publishing for a designer.

“Perhaps the graphic author is one that writes and publishes material about design – Joseph Muller-Brockmann or Rudy VanderLans, Paul Rand or Erik Spiekermann, William Morris or Neville Brody, Robin Kinross or Ellen Lupton. The entrepreneurial arm of authorship affords the possibility of a personal voice and wide distribution. Most split the activities into three discreet actions: editing, writing and designing. Even as their own clients, the design remains the vehicle of the written thought”

“The rejection of the role of the facilitator and call to ‘transcend’ traditional production imply that the authored design holds some higher, purer purpose. The amplification of the personal voice legitimises design as equal to more traditional privileged forms of authorship.”

The Third Wave – Alvin Toffler

“In short, while face to face information exchange was open to all, the newer systems used for carrying information beyond the confines of a family or village were essentially closed and used for purposes of social or political control. They were, in effect, weapons of the elite” (Toffler, 1980, p47) USE TO AGREE WITH EISENSTEIN

“The post office was an invention quite as imaginative and socially useful as the cotton gin or the spinning jenny and, to an extent forgotten today, it elicited rhapsodic enthusiasm” p47 Mention in technological determinism

~ Mention Tofflin’s wedge and Eisenstein / Mcluhan’s 'crevice' ~

“The two halves of human life that the Second Wave split apart were production and consumption. We are accustomed, for example, to think of ourselves as producers or consumers. This wasn’t true. Until the Industrial revolution, the vast bulk of all of the food, goods, and services produced by the human race was consumed by the producers themselves, their families, or a tiny elite who managed to scrape off the surplus of their own use.” (Tofflin, 1980, p51)
  
“As more and more people adopt the appearance of Punk, they have less and less of an idea of its content. The critical message of Punk has a number of targets including classism, sexism, racism, and authoritarianism… When ‘Punks’ adopt the form or style without attention to the critical message of the Punk movement, people’s assumptions remain unchallenged; the seeds of the Punk movement’s own destruction are sown” (O’Hara, 1999, p46)

Production / Distribution aspects of zines in the 70’s

“Like most fanzines they were short lived, had small circulations (by professional magazine standards), and had a very amateurish (again, by glossy magazine standards) approach to publishing. Fanzines should not be confused with magazines that have glossy covers, full color pages, and high budgets. Most fanzines are done on copy machines and stapled together without page numbers, copyrights or chances of making money. To be a fanzine editor all one needs is an urge to express her own opinion, ideas or thoughts and access to a cheap copy machine. Fanzines are sold primarily throught he mail, as stores will seldom carry products with such a small profit margin and so small an audience. By the time the two fanzines mentioned earlier folded, they had already influenced enough people to begin a network of locally based fanzines that would soon connect a worldwide Punk network.” (O’Hara, 1999, p64)

“Flipside came out of Whittier, cost a quarter and featured a nasty, trashy, authentically teenage look at the scene and its fans.” (Lee, C cited in Belsito and Davis, 1984, p18)



“Major distributors and chain stores have started to accept zines for sale and display on news racks all over America. For many zines this is a fantastic chance to reach a larger audience or for the kid living in Hicktown, PA, the opportunity to meet underground culture. The negative side being that zines oftern feel the pressure to become more ‘proffesional’ or mainstream in order to gain mass acceptance. There is certainly a huge glut of carbon copy Punker zines on the market taking up shelf space at Tower records. Proffesionally designed and made up entirely of ads, reviews, and boring interviews, these losers show none of the creativity or heart of their rougher, more passionate predecessors.”[KW5] (Belsito and Davis, 1984, p69) Imitators have arisen in the shadow of the original zines, simulators raping the platform to make money by featuring ads etc. Mention the saturation of the market and give an U.K examples I.D DAZED. Mention the dilution of Punk within the magazine, how it lost its original values, did it adapt to a commercial more palatable content in order to survive or was it a reflection of the death of PUNK? Mention MMR and Profane Existence as examples of agenda within zines, embracing the toolto communicate and agenda in the hope of change.



“Early in the development of what we call civilization a few folks realized that they could live easily and grow rich by making other people work for them, Yjese people used cunning or brute force to institute themselves as chieftains, shamans, kings or priests. Through threats and superstition they kept people in line. Now and then their subjects would revolt and they would either grant enough reform to placate them or be replaced by a new ruler. Such is the nature of government. (Felix, ‘Proffesor Felix’s Very Short History of Anarchism,’ Profane existence #1, Dec. 1989, 13) cited in Belsito and Davis, 1984, p72


“He proposes that it is within these liberated spaces that ‘ordinary people’ can be considered as makers of cultural meaning. Producers are simultaneously creators and documenters of what McLaughlin terms ‘vernacular theory’. That is, ‘the practices of those who lack cultural power and who speak critical language grounded in local concerns, not the language spoken by academic knowledge elites.” (Sabin and Triggs, 2004, p33)

“The increase in numbers of such independently produced publications since the 1970’s can be seen reflecting the growing underground resistance to the establishment of a hegemonic (capitalist) culture” (Sabin and Triggs, 2004, p34)

Production is fast and cheap allowing for ideas to be quicky circulated. Distribution is diverse, and is oftern liberated from othordox networks: this is reflected not just the use of mail order and in specialist book and music shops, but aso in the growth of networks created for the world wide web.”  (Sabin and Triggs, 2004, p34)

“Alternative comics and fanzines are ‘virtual’ meeting spaces where producers and readers unite in ‘communities of dissent’.” (Sabin and Triggs, 2004, p35)

Content-wise, stratergies are often employed which are in some ways politically subversive. These include theft og mainstream imagery, the ignoring of libel and copyright law, illicit production (e.g. on photocopiers at work), as well as the use of conventional literary techniques such as satire and parody.” (Sabin and Triggs, 2004, p34)

The concept of ‘authenticity’ must likewise be expunged from the postmodern vocabulary. The all-encompassing power of the contemporary mass media has ensured that there can no longer be a sanctuary for the original, ‘pure’, creative moment of subcultural innovation that proceded the onset of the contaminating process of commercialization, commodification and diffusion” (Muggleton, 2000, p45)