I am submitting a zine called this family too as part of the final project as I have included images and references from this work in the overall project, why is there an astronaut in a field of flowers, demonstrating the entangled approach I was aiming to explore. The zine also aims to investigate the deep and seismic structural change we are currently living through. In addition, preparing this zine ended up being a useful practice for the following project.
You can read about the journey in A2 reconfigured and another post which I wrote for the OCA blog.
/(email) Zine – text again is good, in parts really good. A really really useful productive exercise and I can see why you did it. Really good end product, definitely professional standard quality. Images are ultimately a WIP and could be progressed into something more mature if you wanted to.
It looks like you are making a lot of progress in a really short amount of time it’s actually quite frightening to see how much shit you get through!
(email – ex OCA) The first thing I thought was about text and (visual) image. With text we naturally, sub-consciously, often without regard start at the first word top left and read from left to right, top to bottom. I thought of this in respect of the visual images that came after the text, about how difficult it is to interrupt that structural, taught, cultural position. It is different – albeit maybe only directionally – in other written languages.
And also about how the process of reading (the words) from front to back, another construct, delivers the context by which the visual images work with this reader; how they might, or might not, resonate with this reader… I felt “positioned” by the text. I knew where to start by the construct of who I am, the position of the text, the way the text was placed told me where the work began. It’s start.
The images, perhaps by design, perhaps as a product of the process, are soft. And I think that lack of didacticism works – even with the agency of the text ringing in my ears. I could sense a tension about where the images sat on the page(s). The continued resistance to engage with a traditional form, to ensure that I, as a viewer, would have to look in order to see.
Did you edit this by yourself, or did you work with someone? Either way I’d be interested in the thought processes.
(email) Thanks again for sending the zine to me – it’s soo good to see an idea come to fruition. The text and images do work well together and I ws particularly struck by the linkage between “Both mummies lay still. …….” On the bottom on one page followed on the next page by the photograph of the elderly lady waving.
(message) Interesting without a title on the cover. I like the image on the inside cover too. The text reads well and is nicely spaced making it easier to read and digest. I like the mix of image sizes and layouts. It has one of my favourite images in it although I prefer that image in colour./I’m sitting here now trying to workout the significance of the Virgin Mary and the two mummies./
(email – non OCA) I was left kind of wanting to find out more about this place you visited for your research. I thoroughly enjoyed reading and looking at your work. I wish it was a big book to be able to see those great images. I thought [it] was a very honest exploration of family and religion perhaps?, and motherhood with some pictorial references that reminded me a bit of the suffering of the ‘madre Dolorosa’ that griefs for the flesh of his son.
Yesterday I said to someone I know, I do hope I at least the money back I’ve paid out for the production of the zines. He said – you will over time, and don’t underestimate the value of having done it in the first place. What I’ve learned in the process will be beneficial to the final project and beyond – and I was reminded that some aspects precede the final module – SYP. For that reason, I am jotting down some figures and practicalities here.
Proof
£38 – this seemed costly and added a significant amount – but I was very glad to have done it. Even though, I’m still not even sure the images will be tonally-corrected to my satisfaction – seeing the way the spreads behaved and interacted, where the staples were, what was in the middle, the white spaces peaking through the middle was all very valuable. I made changes to layout and sequence prompted by the proof.
Zines
When I first approached ExWhyZed, I asked for a slightly thicker cover, they suggested thinking about using the same paper to keep costs low. I also asked for a quote for 25 which was so marginally less expensive that 50 that it seemed daft not to go for the higher figure. If I’d thought I could have sold 100, that would have been even more economical.
A5 booklets, Self Cover 90gsm, Uncoated
Black print throughout
Trimmed, collated, wire stitched
= £102
Postage
2nd class 65p / 1st class 76p per item
Envelopes
£6 for 50 black envelopes. I thought about a plastic inner wrapper/bag (I have some A3 ones already to selling prints at an art fair a few years ago which have come in handy with assessment submissions) but then thought – no to plastic – so saves on the cost of such bags as well.
Upgrading my website so it can receive money and orders
I looked at various options. I could have done this through WordProcess which theoretically looked cheaper but I’d have needed to pay a whole year upfront and with Squarespace, I can downgrade my monthly sub anytime. I could also have simply sent people my PayPal address but there is something a bit ‘not right’ about that method. Rather than £13 PCM it’s now £25, not ideal, but still much cheaper than previous websites. At some point, I wonder if I’ll delete the SmugMug site – will see what happens after this lockdown. I do like keeping the two strands sperate and SmugMug is super-inexpensive. I guess it depends on if I continue to see ‘art’ as something that can indeed be sold. (My mum suggested doing a zine like this every quarter – I pointed out I’d need to be aiming for more than a couple of hundred ££s quarter to live on!)
Now that I have this commerce facility, I should think about adding other items. But one step at a time and I really need to be careful about what I put there.
Ways I could have done this cheaper
I could have printed and handmade the zines myself. Although this might seem an obvious one, the cost time and labour would have completely outweighed the benefits of having it printed professionally. However, I will probably offer individual prints and may do those myself – I trust the black and white printing of this Canon but not colour for now. I also know someone who works at a university print room who could have done this at a fraction of the cost although I’m not sure if she’s able to do more than the occasional one off prints.
Thanks to Rob (within the OCA) and Nicola Morely for their advice about setting up the commerce aspect of my site.
Online galleries
I have been sent several standard letters asking me if I want to submit my work to galleries. I tested the water by filling out one such application and was accepted although I’ve not added anything yet. Nor do I know if I will with that particular one but it’s good to know I get offered and accepted and will pursue this avenue in a little while when things have settled into a new routine here. I still have one sick child and we’re following the term dates so are ‘on holiday’ right now, plus I’ve got admin for the part-time day job so everything has to be done in a measured and timely way. Let’s see how things pan out.
Finally, I’ve made it through to the second round for something I submitted work for – will say more if and when it progresses. (Was a good bit of news last week, in the midst of all this sadness).
Converted whole doc. to greyscale in Adobe preflight, thanks to ExWHyZed showing me how to.
Noticed the darks losing some white again. Must go back to a couple of images and lighten further.
I have adjusted the text and added an image to the inside of the front cover.
Made some further minor adjustments after friend subbed and others made final comments.
Spread No. 18 needs adjusting as its corresponding page spread No. 9 has white on the edges and it peeks through. Need to resolve. May do by putting it in the same sized frames. Have learned sometimes, sequence dictated in part by practicalities.
Seeing the proof has been very helpful. There are several things I need to adjust:
Sequence – I’ve shifted the images so the center spread is now a single image, full-bleed. The way it was before, the right-hand side was blank, so that when you turned to two pages later, you came to a dark double-spread, full-bleed which was interrupted by a slight bit of the middle spread’s whiteness peeking through. I think the double spread in the center will be best and it also solves that very slight intrusion. I’m not sure I’ll catch all of these but would prefer to: if there’s a double-page spread then the corresponding printed page earlier or later in the book needs to be dark. The centre one is fine now – it’s the football posts (before it was the eye looking up). I’ve not noticed it anywhere else. There are three full-bleed double-page spreads to watch out for.
Sequence, I am looking again at the sequence, having shifted things as above, some other pairings might have been lost and will need addressing. Currently, it’s like this – after shifting the centre.
I need to address what to do with the text. I have tried it on the first two pages but then the book had to shrink from its original size – it’s now a standard A5. So it didn’t fit as was and I spread the text over three pages, (actual page numbers, not spreads as numbered above) P5 – text only, P6 image and text, P8 had a tiny piece of text and image on right-hand side page – waving goodbye or hello) But then that seemed messy and I squeezed it in so back to P5, and P6. But I am not satisfied with the layout and am looking at other options.
P2 is blank – inside cover, but the back inside cover isn’t – due to the page limit. I think that means P2 should have a small image on it or maybe solve the problem of the text and try to have it on the inside cover with less blank space. I mentioned this yesterday and everyone said, no, keep the inside cover blank – but I am not certain. As the inside back cover has print on it, I feel the inside front should too. The alternative is to remove a spread and free up space in the book of 40 pages (limit with this stapled book from ExWhyZed) and have blank inside covers at both ends but this is a zine, not a book so print on the inner covers is fine.
Some of the images, as I knew, need to be lightened but the difference on the screen and paper is quite stark so I have asked if there is a print profile for this particular paper – I didn’t see one before – but I’d like to be more certain of the how the darks are going to behave. I’m sure they must have these but there was no mention of them, perhaps they want to keep things easy for people or perhaps I just missed the bleeding obvious, as is my wont. Am waiting to hear.
Hazel and Rob talked about the difficulties of progressing with SYP now that we are all in lockdown and everything has been shut. Both are in a kind of limbo and I look forward to seeing how they find ways to do what they need to do through these extremely challenging times.
I discussed where I was with the zine and how BOW A4 had taken a slight back seat for a while. Some useful questions were asked and they will be helpful to document as my answers summarise where I’m at and what the work is attempting to explore.
I mentioned I was planning to order 50 copies of the zine and try to sell them as I need to find ways to bring in some kind of income. As we were discussing SYP, it became clear I was inadvertently tackling elements of that module (see item 2). I had looked at some callouts – Inside Out are doing one but you get paid £80 only – and that’s if they choose your work. They might not even choose mine. This way, all the profits come back to me. Since people are keen to help artists and self-employed people at this time, I hope I am not being unrealistic about people buying them. I had asked for a quote for 25 as that seemed a manageable amount to sell but when the figures came back it just seemed more sensible and economical to order 50. Of course, if we had access to a normal uni print room we might all do this much more economically but I am very impressed with ExWhyZed so far.
I talked about how pleased I was with tutor Jayne’s comments – ‘Your zine content and layout does a great job of presenting complex ideas in a creative way that’s both sophisticated and accessible’ (TV Padlet, 2020) because that was my intention exactly. To make something accessible that would stand the biggest chance of being sold while also managing to maintain something of my (complex) underlying themes (an SYP discussion point apparently). It’s why I went with this black and white aesthetic which people without PhDs in photography enjoy.
I suggested a cost of £7 – we all agreed £7.50 would be a good figure to cover postage and the cost of the proof.
Doug asked me a very good question which I need to be able to answer clearly and succinctly. How does the zine fit with the overall BOW work?
My answer –
i. The zine includes creative writing and image. It was only after Ruth was so encouraging about the writing when initially submitting A2 that I had the confidence to pursue a creative writing/image path. So this is the first step in that direction. (see an earlier post about how I came to use these particular images with this writing.) Also – this article about ‘art writing’ will be useful to reference in my submission, especially with the later project.
ii. The underlying themes feed both works, the zine (A2) and the book (A4/5) – i.e. systems change as seen through linguistic and image signification/structural reality. I hope the statement at the back of the zine hints at this – also on my website
iii. I was glad when Michael pointed out how relevant this was to the current situation – I explained, that is why I am not rushing to make work about COVID-19. There is a lot of noise and it just seems for me the best thing to do is try to stay focused on my work and keep going, let the world filter through as I always do. I am already making work about systems change, morphology, the chaos – autopoiesis. There is a really good and relevant passage in Capra’s Systems View of Life which describes how systems do this – I will make some time to find it and post here later.
Rob has offered to help me figure how to get the sales facility up and running on my site which I am grateful for. I think I might need to upgrade my Squarespace subscription though.
The zine arrived while I was on the hangout. I’m so glad I ordered a proof for more reasons than just checking out the tone. I will discuss these in a separate post. Tomorrow’s ‘me’ time will be about making tonal adjustments to a few images and moving some text about.
Learned a lot about printing with bleed using ExWHyZed guidelines. I hope it is correct. Will see – added 3cm margin beyond he page at first and wondered why it needed such a big margin of error – doh! Caught my mistake and it now has the suggested 3mm. (Artwork has been verified as all good except for a colour cast – see below)
There are also some minor changes to text and sequence, plus the other changes I mentioned before.
I am learning a lot printing this and glad to be doing it with this A2 before embarking on A5. I should have taken each image into photoshop and converted it to black and white rather than just doing it in Lightroom – there is a green cast that I started noticing yesterday as I got it ready and look in Adobe. The whole file will be converted and I have ordered a proof. I will adjust the contrast on darker images once I can see what ones could do with some lighting. I suspect I know which ones but it will be good to see. I’ll need to add a £ to the cost to cover the cost of the proof, but I think its worth it. It will still be low for people.
I have shared the Zine and had some helpful comments and answers via email and on Padlet following a hangout session to my questions as detailed earlier on the blog. Huge thanks for all the people who were able to make suggestions.
I am now trying to look at the sequencing again and have moved verse to front and blurb to the back. I need to cut as have 40 pages max for a zine with ExWhyZed who will print a very small run which I am going to try and sell online.
On the intro, I think the shorter intro might be served better if it was just the last paragraph i.e. even shorter than your ‘shorter’ option, though with an added sentence that “places” it. Along the lines of “…made in early 2020 in Italy by a native South African domiciled in England – or some such, that alludes to the narratives you explain more explicitly.
I too wondered about the images in the book, wondering about the sizing, I thought perhaps being too big. But then I’m not sure about the overall sizing of the book, and I think that will be critical. I don’t think there is a temporal theme going on, which I like a lot, perhaps this is more important when you realise your introduction text more completely. And as for the “Made in China” concern, don’t be concerned, it’ll “spin” your reader and not necessarily in the direction you think.
Really liked the images. Useful comment about the postcard book- I may follow up for my work.
I too loved the images. Agree the fish image is over-dark, also with swapping the text and the poem. Given the nature of the work is there any way to make the poem less linear too? (good idea)
It did occur to me that with everything going on. Trump’s appallingness over the ‘Kung Flu’ will probably be largely forgotten so I wouldn’t worry about it. I think that image works brilliantly as is.
I’m sorry I missed the first part of your presentation due to the problems I was having with audio – the sound just disappeared!
I’m very interested int he way you aligned the images – the separation between 10 and 11 and then the placing together of 12 and 13 – would love to know your decision-making process.
As I said, I found looking at the images placed me in a more solemn and meditative space – reinforced by your choice of mono. I agree with comments about the importance of not having a title so that the viewer can enter the mood
I very much like your zine and believe you should stay ‘true’ and leave the ‘made in China’ as it is. You have inspired me to research Cartesian theory thank
(Hangout tutor) Your zine content and layout does a great job of presenting complex ideas in a creative way that’s both sophisticated and accessible. The zine format carries the work really well.I recommend investing in a copy of McLuhan & Fiore’s ‘War & Peace in the Global Village’ book, as well as ‘The Global Village’ (McLuhan & Powers) – you won’t regret it! For your CS research you might find it interesting to research Heidegger’s theories around ‘Being and Time’, and Foucault’s ‘This is Not a Pipe’ – is a great little book on phenomenology and how the meaning we take from what we see is subjectively preconditioned (so kind of of Cartesian). Finally, Karl Marx’s interpretation of ‘technological determinism may be be of interest, too
I have a quote for printing and now need to look again at the images. I have also been looking at the intro/statement about the work taking some feedback from John into account.
As well as providing evidence of my experience producing a zine, this project should not be viewed as a separate appendage, but rather part of an ongoing discussion/exploration addressing deep and seismic structural changes in Western society. My inquiry looks at the move away from a Cartesian view of reality towards one that is more rhizome-like, I have cross-pollinated the work with images that appear in the zine and again in the later BOW publication, as well as taken a frame from a film I edited while making this work, shown at a group show facilitated by pic london (an OCA Blog post about it can be seen here).
This image appears in this family too and why is there an astronaut in a field of flowers
22/03/2020
I am submitting a zine which includes black and white images and text for A2. It will be roughly A5 (dependant on what options are available to me at this time).
Background
After submitting final DI&C work to Pic London, I was pleased to have it accepted. I was put in a group with five other artists and we worked across time and distance using the internet, following three workshops, on a group project. I was in Italy for much of that time.
Three strands of work emerged for me and I had to make choices about what I did with what.
i. a film made with found footage inspired by conversations that had taken place between all of us in person and via FB messenger.
ii. a sequence of colour images taken with flash (which I personally prefer compared to the black and white ones)
iii. another sequence of images I rendered black and white in LR – it suits the mood best, sombre – see below
As well, I wrote something which was inspired by my time in Italy and the conversations I had with the other artists and how the project made me feel, included in the Pic London show, then point ii. above which I’m not submitting.
The inclusion of the text is an important step for me – and shows development in further work where text plays such a big role. Text has long been critical in my work but the creative rather then essay-like style is a step in a new direction.
At the moment, I am NOT submitting each of these elements for the OCA. Just the Zine but including background information to show how it came about. I have chosen to do this as it shows steps towards the development of the anthology I’m creating for my main submission – i.e. creative text and image in book form.
While all of this was going on, Trump’s government was on shutdown and the tragedy of Brexit being argued about. There were fires, dreadful heatwaves and fascism was showing its ugly face in more and more places.
BOW Assignment 2 original
There was so much work coming out of this collaboration and not all it sat well together. I ended up submitting the writing and the coloured images (see above) to my tutor for A2. I like them but after some time, I felt they were not sitting with the writing as well as they might. I played around with the black and white images and decided they should be valued and put them on my website. A little while later I started thinking about putting them in a zine format. And shared an early example on this blog. This week I have written the introduction and reset the text.
After chatting about the work yesterday with the TV group, I have decided several things
The cover will simply be an image, no title or other text.
I am thinking of moving the intro to the back or elsewhere – need to experiment – to break with linear convention. In A4, I am opting for a very strict structure that follows traditional anthology inside of which the signifiers will be allowed to rit and party. But here the signifiers are less chaotic so there may be room for containing structure to be more flexible.
Questions
Please compare intro texts and let me know which is stronger. The short one in the PDF doesn’t give away too much but maybe it needs more.
Does the longer text spoonfeed people?
It’s currently called This Family Too. This links to This Family – my very first assessment project – which linked to Family of Man. I have the book still. But I think it might be better called On The Edge of the Village
Finally – I am concerned about the image with the swimming ring. It is plastic made in China and says so in text on it – the sequence and edit was made before Trump started spouting his shite, and for me referenced shifts re the West’s global consumerism and the East’s increasing power. Like the later (currently A4) work, this project looks at entanglement – time, culture, waves, intra-action of phenomena, walls – manmade and natural. We discussed this at length yesterday – people reassured me, it did not seem like I was suggesting Trumpian xenophobia, although I could choose to clone out the Made in China to be safe, which I had considered. But we also discussed dangers of self-censorship. I recall Rachal Maclean saying when she made her film pre-Scottish referendum that both sides of the debate assumed her film was on their side due to its ambiguity. If my own work can contain an element of that ambiguity, that would be good. But if it just seems like an accusation I will need to remove the wording at the very least. I’d like to know what others think, please.
This project emerged while working on a collaborative project titled A rumour reached the village. While the poem was included in the resulting exhibition, these particular images were not. These various manifestations were made when I visited my mother in Ferentillo, Italy, for the duration of the summer school holidays in 2019. While there, it was impossible not to consider the political uncertaintyaffecting Europe, along with increasing levels of tension and fascism being witnessed globally.
The United Kingdom’s transitional exit period officially began in January 2020. By March, all of Europe was in lockdown due to the Coronavirus pandemic. Italy has, at the time of writing, been one of the most severely affected outside of China. The UK was one of the last European countries to introduce severe restrictions on movement and social interaction but looks to be heading in the same direction as Italy in terms of loss.
The village of Ferentillo consists of two wards, each with their own crumbling, medieval hilltop castle built for observation, protection and a place from which to call the alarm in case of danger. It is known for its museum beneath the crypt of the Church of Santo Stefano, where naturally-mummified bodies are displayed in glass cases. Some bodies are nearly four centuries old, the youngest is from the nineteenth century. The preserved inhabitants include birds and animals, villagers and visitor’s from afar, including China.
The work is made to acknowledge the fragility and ingenuity ofhumankind, and the entanglement of past, present and future, as well as financial, cultural and organic systems. It emphasises the fleeting moments of ourpersonal experiences; and celebrates, as well asrecognises, that which is greater than the individual. It focuses on cultural structures and natural phenomena, growth, and the vastness of existence. It is the third project I have made in the area.
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