DIT Digital
Zines
In weeks 9 & 10, we we will ask whether the various DIY productions of punk constitute a recognisably distinct aesthetic. In short, is punk art? However, we will also be situating this aesthetic in its various social situations: to what extent was an identifiable style vital in the constitution of punk and post-punk networks?
In this first session, we will focus on fanzines and graphic art as a typical expression of the DIY ethos, and a significant factor in its dissemination through networks of affinity and identification. We will also look at how the fanzine ethos transferred into commercial media through 1980s magazines such as BLITZ, The Face and i-D. In the second week we make our own zines in groups inspired by the module, informed by the secondary reading. Students have already engaged with Zines earlier in the module via Matt Worley's work on Oi! in our earlier week on Race. This has become an important part of the culture of the module. Students have responded positively to the 'playful', 'childlike' experience of sitting together with scissors and glue. They've enjoyed responding to issues in their lives, inspired by academic work, but in a new form. It has been an important way of building the sense of community in the group.
We then 'layer' the zines with digital content using handheld AR apps trained by the Sussex Humanities Lab who have housed our workshops for the last two years. The first year we used the AR content to send a 'thank you' message to artist Rachael House who had worked with us and shared her zine collection. The following year students attempted to reflect on the process of making their own zine digitally (this was less successful technologically). This year we will spend more time embedding the technology and training in the course and hope to have someone from TEL on hand to do the actual filming and tagging to the images so that the students can focus on content and analysis.
The intellectual rationale for the task is to think about DIY cultures beyond the analogue virtual divide, and this also extends to discussion of archives both physical and digital.
We have a collection of online zine archives collected on a Padlet
We have found this template for Zines very useful
Reading List
Primary sources
Sideburns, 1, January 1977
Sniffin' Glue, 7, 1977 (part 1), (part 2)
Sniffin Glue, 12, 1977, (part 1), (part 2), (part 3)- note that p.12 (The Only Ones' drummer holding an iPod) and p.14 (spitting punk on New Wave compilation cover wears a PiL badge) have been altered by the editor of the "Essential Ephemera: (UK Punk Literature & Images 1976-1984)" blog for a now completed competition
Sunday Mirra, 2, 1977
Adrian Shaughnessy, "Interview with Neville Brody" in How To Be a Graphic Designer Without Losing Your Soul (Laurence King Publishing, 2005), pp.28-29
There are lots of collections of zines online, from formal archives and from personal collections. For example this blog entry on Open Culture lists several North American archives, including the digital Solidarity! Revolutionary Center and Radical Library.
Or the Venice Punk Museum has on online listing of UK fanzines.
Frank J. Wilson, "The Face Magazine – The First 50 Issues" in Hand in Glove: Lifestyle - blog posting with cover scans for the first 50 issues
International Times Archive includes the original counter-cultural publications and the later attempts to regenerate it in the 1980s and 90s.
Key reading
Robert Garnett, "Too low to be low: art pop and the Sex Pistols" in Roger Sabin (ed.), Punk Rock, So What? The Cultural Legacy of Punk (Routledge, 1999), pp.17-30
Michelle Liptrot, "Punk belongs to the Punx not business men!: British DIY punk as a form of cultural resistance" in The Subcultures Network, Fight Back: Punk, Politics and Resistance(Manchester University Press, 2014), pp.232-251
Teal Triggs, "Scissors and glue: punk fanzines and the creation of a DIY aesthetic", Journal of Design History, 19.1, 2006, 69-83
Laura Cofield & Lucy Robinson, "The Opposite of the Band: Fangrrrling Feminism" , Textual Practice, 2016
Wider Reading
Popular music fanzines: genre, aesthetics, and the 'democratic conversation' - Chris Atton 10/2010
The photocopied self: perzines, self-construction, and the postmodern identity crisis - Steve Bailey, Anita Michel 2004
Punk Press: Rebel Rock in the Underground Press, 1968-1980 - Vincent Bernière, Mariel Primois, Anthony F. Roberts 2013
Burn Collector - Al Burian 2013
Chapter 4 "Brought to you by Girl Power: Riot Grrrl's networked media economy" & Chapter 6 "Grrrl Zines: exploring identity, transforming girls' written culture" - Mary Celeste Kearney
Stealing All Transmissions: a Secret History of The Clash - Randall Doane 2016
Chapter 1 "Zines" - Stephen Duncombe
Zines - Stephen Duncombe
“We ARE the Revolution”: Riot Grrrl press, girl empowerment, and DIY self-publishing - Kevin Dunn, May Summer Farnsworth 03/2012
Written in the mud: (proto)zine-making and autonomous media at the Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp - Anna Feigenbaum 02/2013
A Punk Rock Flashback - Lee Gibson 201Punk zines: 'symbols of defiance' from the print to the digital age - Matt Grimes, Tim Wall 201
‘A fanzine of record’: Merseysound and mapping Liverpool’s post-punk popular musicscapes - Brett Lashua, Sara Cohen 08/09/2011
'I like Hate and I hate everything else': the influence of punk on comics - Guy Lawley
Below Critical Radar: Fanzines and Alternative Comics from 1976 to Now - Roger Sabin, Teal Triggs2004
Music zines - Amy Spencer
Cool Places: Geographies of Youth Cultures 1998 Chapter 6
Fanzines - Teal Triggs 2010
Punk, politics and British (fan)zines, 1976-84: 'While the world was dying, did you wonder why?' - Matthew Worley 01/04/2015
The Photocopied Self - Steve Bailey, Anita Michel
Music fanzine collecting as capital accumulation - Ciarán Ryan 01/11/2015
AR
Inspired by our earlier work with Scarlet+ (See Unit 6). We worked with TEL to develop a 'how to' guide for augmented realities. Tellingly our original app Junio is no longer available, a reminder of the problems with using Beta and developing apps. A similar problem has occured with Thinglink which is no longer easy to embed in Powerpoint.
At the moment students are advised to download the Aurasma app on itunes or on Googleplay and familiarise themselves with the app before the workshop
We have also produced a simple and more advanced downloadable guide.
Rachael House
Rachael is a feminist artist and zine maker. We had collaborated together on a previous project'Feminists come in waves', and at Rachael House's Feminist Disco.