Notes on the emerging wisdom of zines

Zines, in their current form, emerged from science fiction fan magazines (fanzines) in the 1930s, says Google: which is always whitewashing everything. The term “fanzine,” it says, was first used by sci-fi fans to describe and discuss their self-published works. The invention of the Xerox machine in 1944 further facilitated zines, making it easier and cheaper to produce and distribute them….

But zines are so much more. Pinted zines soon became a means to circumvent censorship and facilitate self-publishing. By their very nature, zines are independently produced, non-commercial publications and handmade. They remind me of the artists in the Soviet Union who would install their artworks in suitcases, to meet secretly behind closed doors and discuss politics – and political action.

Zines matter- they are a powerful tool for community building, invitations to events and actions and groups, a platform for sharing information, personal stories, and art, allowing marginalised voices to meet each other, be heard and foster meaningful connections. Within BIPOC groups, Zines are way of organising for social justice, providing a space for resistance and the sharing of alternative narratives.

How can a PDF format amplify the networked nature of the zine? How can embedded links be used in the zine as a way to bring it away from the form of pamphlet into a physical representation of network- where the design is only a gateway to individual voices.

I imagine the pages photocopied and used as fly posters, posters appearing in Osaka, Mumbai, Rotterdam… much like the Sticker project I ran years ago…A self printed piece of paper with instructions on how to fold, to unfold possibilities; and notes in the margins…unfolding to more secret messages.

Spatializing Knowledge: Giulio Camillo’s Theatre of Memory (1519-1544)

I was a student when Robert Lenkiewicz lent me a book called The Art of Memory. He had the largest private library in Britain. I had written a letter to him, wishing to visit. A week later I received a postcard with text typed on a manual typewriter.

“Be at my studio this Friday at 2pm. We shall see how serious you are”

I wish he were alive now. He would read me Christopher Marlowe and Goethe out aloud, with imaginary voices to match, lend me Kurt Weill records. Robert had Jewish heritage but was most definitely not a Zionist. He introduced me to Brecht and poly-amoury. I did not have an intimate relationship with him but he did give me a large handmade book with wooden covers. One he gave to the women he saw. A thick book an assistant made in biblical proportions. He wanted me to write my inner most thoughts in it and leave the book in his library. Even though I was flattered, I remember thinking it was voyeuristic powerplay. Looking back, the idea of that book is the diametric opposite of a zine.

A message appears on Discord: “I just finished a book that mentioned the memory theatre extensively called “Occult features of anarchism” by Erica Legalisse. The Frances Yates book was mentioned in it.

I imagine the PDF zine as a networked lexicon…
A living visual thesaurus linking out to contributors.

The memory theatre in Yate’s book was made of wood but it was a mnemonic device, a mental structure used to store information for later recall. 

You open the drawer “mother” and “sister” and daughter open automatically. The most famous example is Giulio Camillo‘s Theatre of Memory, a Renaissance-era concept designed to hold all human knowledge. I think he was trying to design a computer. 

It’s a “palace of the mind” – like Sherlock Holmes – but it physical form, where images are placed in specific locations to trigger memory associations.

PDF and Hyperlinks in digital zine – pretty lofi in today’s world. But it can still be a memory theatre, utilising hyperlinks. Hyperlinks are revolutionary by nature. Before Meta took over and destroyed Instagram, hyperlinks were not blocked, and information flowed naturally across times, itineraries and geographies. Posts were chronological and you could view a city in realtime through a thousand lenses.

How to think about the zine as a spatial network? Can the zine have a provenance as users/ readers add new hyperlinks to the zine and then disseminate it? A lofi manual blockchain if you will. How can we use watermarks and hidden QR codes to evade surveillance? The hyperlink is revolutionary in this way. It’s what the Internet was meant to be- a crowd source mass categorisation of free flowing ideas and shared experiences. Hyperlinks can be added by users like provenence- lofi blockchain.

Memory theatres utilise spatial relationships to organise information. By mentally constructing a building or space, one can associate specific pieces of knowledge/ fragments of “touch”- traces of “presence” with different “locations” and users within that space.

And how can the FORM and design of the zine communicate the sender/s? Who are they in a non-heirarchical co-creative network? The thing about “democracy” – it takes time.

Non-heirarchy: In my experience the only people I know who truly understand working on a non-heirarchical way are groups of women- Polish women who sing together whilst making Perogis in a village hall. Black disabled feminist women who practice mutual aid out of necessity. Families of women taking care of a newborn. Anyone who uses the words non-heirarchical usually has not yet the experience of non-heirarchy. Non-heirarchy cannot be a flirtation of an ideal, as it is born out of necessity- the sharing of labour and resources. White fragility puts brakes on non-heirarchy.

How can the zine be a physical object that people can print themselves? What is the incentive to print it?

To play more with spatial shifting, and use it as a way to hold diverse elements (not a literal frame, but the architecture of the zine if you like…)

The role of narrator/ as co-sender of the zine. “Narrator’s notes are in the footnotes and the margins…” Yuval can you take on the role of the comic narrator of tragedy, writing in the margins? What visual method expresses this narrator’s voice? What is the frame of the network, as “holding space” for individual contributions? I started to think about old Japanese comedy Shunga paintings/ illustrated books (erotic or not) I saw once there was a little man in the corner making comments! A narrator character, or cartoon storyteller:: When cinema first came, there was a narrator stood on the stage next to the silent film doing a running commentary to the audience! Standing off the to the side, in the margins….

Graphic design language as sender: I thought about the visual technique of 3 layered perspective in Chinese & Japanese art and how you can “stitch” diverse elements together using a natural element like gold clouds… A river, rocks and cloud and/or Mycelia networks and/or Compost/soil/shoots are mentioned in intro text and can be visual methods: The memory theatre of today is bio-organic, dynamic, full of movement… . :

I also imagined the literal graphic representation of the memory theatre rooms, like the see through rooms in the paintings of the Tales of the Genji.

Colour palette: The two tone really caught my eye too. The brown green looked even more fresh than the indigo I thought…. But it should work in B&W…

Visual islands: another graphic technique: to put each contributions on a tiny island/ cloud. The zine as landscape- as weather within a landscape. I think this playfulness could be interesting from a graphic design perspective, I think of botanical illustrations where animals like this little frog (imagine a contributed piece) are placed on a tiny island/ cloud/ rock…

Sweetness without the fibre. Interesting graphics helps us digest heavy ideas. The fibre can in the footnotes, so we are not misunderstood, e.g. post-humanism is deep ecology and interbeing not cyborgs and transhumanism. Let the footnotes/ index at the back of the Telephone Book do the work.

The notion of PLAY in co-creative zine-making. Concrete poetry is freedom to share, hyperlink, play. “Asobi” (遊び) is a Japanese word that generally means play or pastime, spend time or even game. “Come to my house and “asobi” could be translated as Hang Out. It is the act of having fun. “asobi ni iku” (遊びに行く) In Edo period Japan this was of course connect to the floating world / red light district where “Asobi” meant seeing “performers of the arts” (Gei-sha), particularly women, who engaged in rituals, music, and sometimes more sensual relationships. Anything interesting is sensual, with sweetness– (poetic correctness as Yuval says)….and seductive.

Origami zine pages: To shift from the 2D to 3D and back again as if slipping into the dreamlike state of a Borges story, or de Chirico painting, as “Frame”landscape to slot in texts and contributions. To be invited to a link to a clean and beautifully designed landing page- little explanation. And instructions on how to print out and fold the paper to reveal the hidden message. Playful.

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