Hello World!
The medium is the message. The problem is the platform...
As we wade/surf/drown through this current doom-level polycrisis, here I am making another blog! After various botched attempts at finding a home to think through things, Iāve ended up here on this cozy little platform, Bear. With no tracking, no GUI, no graphics, no followers, and blessedly no notifications. Coupled with are.na, this finally feels like a pretty good way to do the work.
But what is the work?
The title of this blog is drawn from Saul Williamsā verses on the 2002 Blackalicious track Release (Iāve transcribed them as the first post here). I used Saulās words in the first issue of one of the first zines I put out, Four Minutes to Midnight, in 2004. That zine was part of/the result of my MA thesis in graphic design at the London College of Printing. At the time the Iraq war was raging and the anti-globalization movement felt vital and growing, the internet was still in its early utopian days, and graphic design was (somewhat) pushing back against its own commodification with typographic gymnastics and lofty manifestos. And I was being taught by a crew of older UK punk mentors, one of whom frequently wore an amazing āI love my AK-47 t-shirtā (RIP Ian). My thesis work attempted to apply David Bohmās theory of dialogue to the practice of typographic design in the form of a series of zines. How could design facilitate and represent dialogue, share/shape a collective voice, push back against the squares? I started the project focusing on typography, but realised a little too late that I was actually struggling through a process of community organizing/facilitation. And only much later I recognized that what I was really working on was the activity of publishing. As Bretonās quote states āOne publishes to find comrades.ā
20 years on, and ten after the end of Four Minutes to Midnight, Saulās verses resonate even more strongly (weāll probably come back to that in a bit). Iām now teaching in design at Concordia University in Montreal/TiohtiĆ :ke, and once again thinking about publishing. I suppose I never really stopped thinking about it, but now itās officially āresearchā with all that that entails. Iām deeply guided by Paul Soulellisā work on publishing as a practice and his concept of urgentcraft. I'm grateful to and inspired by my own publisher, Freek Lomme at Set Margins' Press and how he is navigating the industry. I recently received Kathy Fergusonās Letterpress Revolution: The Politics of Anarchist Print Culture in the mail and look forward to digging into it. Iām intrigued by the recent(ish) global proliferation of art book fairs and graphic designās recurring identity crisis, especially now as a teacher. But Iām also thinking about (in no particular order):
- Fascism
- Palestine
- Hong Kong
- Fonts
- Risograph printing
- Mutual Aid
- Lateral Violence
- Pedagogy
- Anxiety
- Tai Chi
- Talking about the weather
- Mushrooms (non-psychedelic)
- Etc.
Hopefully, this will be a place for all this.