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.”
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] ?
“Old and new media can and do coexist and that
different media may compete with or echo one another as well as complement one
another. Changes in the media system also need to be related to changes in the transportation
system, the movement of goods and people in space, whether by land or water
(river, canal and sea). The communication of messages is a part of the system
of physical communication” Relate to the contemporary relation of digital and
print publishing, they do coexist although fears that print would die are
unlikely to happen. Relate the physical translation of the internet – wires
cables laptops, actual access to a computer – how rare is this, is the internet
the ultimate [KW2] democratization – how
many people do not have access to a computer / internet.
“…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)
“Flipside has since
become les and less concerned with Punk and is now mostly a ‘new music’
magazine with the original editors offering little input to the magazine”
(Belsito and Davis, 1984, p19)[KW3]
“As far as an
‘alternative’, and as a fanzine, which by definition is done by individuals, I
feel that the zine should be a reflection of what those individuals want.” (Tim
Yohannon, MRR #49, June 1997) [KW4]
“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.
“When it comes to
choosing a political ideology, Punks are primarily anarchists. There are few
who promote the continuation of any form of capitalism and communism. This is
not to say that all Punks are well read in the history and theory of anarchism,
but most do share a belief formed around the anarchist principles of having no
official government or rulers, and valuing individual freedom and
responsibility (who doesn’t).” (Belsito and Davis, 1984, p72)[KW7]
“Unlike other youth or
bourgeois counter-cultures, Punks reject communicsm and the left wing of
traditional democratic governments as well as capitalism” [KW8] pg72
“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)
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