Previously, I had always considered a Zine to be a "face book page" of the 70s/80s. It conveyed a small ammount of information, in a fanzine, or perzine format. This being true, was now not completely the case in the modern day, several decades on.
Key Topics We Discussed:
- The "do it yourself politics" of the zine creation
- Punk as an influencial genre towards Zines
- The "capitalist society" of buying and selling (how zines responded in groups)
- The ways that the produced work was for other fans
- How we percive the zine then and now
- Entrepreneurialism for Punks
- Making zines to sell
- Advertising and profits for part of the purpose of the zine
- An "escape attempt" for the fans of a particular subject or movement
- It's purpose being "progression"
- Xerox copiers being the means of mass production, using collage and mixing type to create a striking image
- The "copier technology" being used in a non "capitalist" way, like using their technology against them, etc
- "Escaping Control" through visual or text based means.
- Relations to other works and artists/ writers/scholars: Dimitri Kleiner - The Telekommunist Manifesto (for example)
- The idea of copying intelectual property
- Working against the control of ideas, influencing zine content
- The so called "politics of Production"
- The consumer becoming the producer
- The reader becoming a writer
- Taking hold of the means of production
- Inventing new modes of cultural production
- Bypassing copyright and the maker
- Punk DIY as an asthetic to creation of zines
- looking into particular zines of the era, and how they use most of the above to make a statement (like temporary hoarding in the last post)
- "Sniffin' Glue" an old zine of 76-77 as another example
- The crude style around most zines of the time, being accepted as a signature sign of creation
- Having minor commercial value, more about the statement it said.
- "Self expression" through a culturally rebelious publication format
- How self expression is tricky, and how breaking away from the cliche is a difficult thing to do, (a probably reason why the punk asthetic died down for abit)
- "Up yours" another 70s zine - notice the titles and names were to provoke a response in the reader, something normally referencing an semi illegal act, like drug use (sniffin' glue)
- Ripped and Torn - another example of a zine of the era
- The act of being passive when it comes to zine work. "you need to engage with the subject, in order to fully contribute and understand"
- Johnny Rotten's experiences with the genre (as said in temporary hoarding examples seen in the last post) and how he wanted to take part in the audience, and in the bands he watched, not sit in the distance, watching from far away
- The alienation of our life energy - making something with your own skills and sesslign yourself - the personal interaction
- How anthologies and Zines are similar
- Repurposing the societies and and cultures
- How plagerism is percived in the zine culture, and how it effects the purpose of the movement
- How DaDa infulenced the zine culture
- The idea of a "revolution of style"
Responses:
After discussing this wide range of topics, it's clearer to me that the zine culture seems to strongly be about rebelling against a particular form of generic work, or against some kind of government or genre.This may not be the case today with the punk movement dying down, however the zines themselves, from the examples I have researched so far, tend to be still trying to emulate that in the sense of a particular subject, such as making zines of TV programmes or personal traits or outings.
"This is my story and art, this is how you will see it, it goes against the normal way of drawing or writing because I want it to"
I feel like my zine submissions should try to emulate that somehow, maybe drawing or editing differently or conveying a different message within the given theme, to try and capture of of that old zine logic of the 70s.
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