Just spotted this being advertised on the weekly mailing listing for Volcanic Tongue, an experimental music boutique based on Argyle Street (not far from Jim Lambie's studio to use a familiar reference point) - it's an insider's guide and map to Glasgow's interesting buildings, attractions and curiosities published by Herb Lester Associates. Selling for about £3, A Glasgow Companion includes parks, pubs, restaurants, record shops, galleries, architecture and places to hangout amongst its 50 entries and is presented as a folded A3 poster lithoprinted on recycled paper. I've not got a copy of it myself, just thought I'd share it as a curious product...
Speaking of independent publications and kind of in contrast to the above, an artist friend I know called Jasia Little recently put together within the space of a couple of months an online blog and quarterly magazine called Anti-Body. The first issue, spanning over 200 pages (!), includes a number of interviews with creative friends specialising in painting, photography and fashion alongside accompanying photos of their work, plus some reviews of other exhibitions around West Yorkshire. It's free to read here. In addition she's also started producing a photocopied zine called Point Art Zine between herself and another artist called Eleanor - already they've produced two issues within the space of a month which they've handed out for free at local music festivals. Back issues are being posted online once their limited run of physical copies run out. She's currently been doing all this between working on her dissertation as she starts her final year studying Fine Art at Bradford College too - inspiring company and not dissimilar to where some of us were around the same time in our education...
As for us? Well, I'm glad that a new Manifesto is about to come together and that there's also plans for a video project, but I'm thinking (rather than actually doing, of course!) that we should have a bit more going on, both as a collective and as individuals. So far we've only had the loose-form project Manifesto keeping us together - a one person project that other people contribute to. The changing editor/curator role keeps it fresh but the zine has never been a serious part of what we can do, merely an occasional by-product (in a way, much like the idea of a collective). We're all completely different to each other and working together is difficult at times - we can critique, encourage and motivate each other's individual projects and ideas, but we can't always rely on others to assist or be involved in our own projects (after all it only takes one slightly resistant contributor to a project to hold it back indefinitely). We're driven by our own preoccupations and obsessions, yet still immaturely in constant need of reassurance and acceptance - do you agree with me?
So how should the collective exist then? Are we very simply a group of names listed on the left hand side of a website, or a team working together? Are we autocratic? Democratic? Laissez-faire? Paternalistic? Do we assign group projects together that are led individually, or individual projects led by groups? Are projects open-invite only or curated? Do we even have to decide anything at all?
Which brings me onto future Black Swan publications - even if it's just a sole online publication with texts/interviews from us all and a few pictures (like Anti-Body) rather than a physical object (like A Glasgow Companion), I think we need to get back onto doing this. But how to do it? Would you prefer there to be a sole editor of a project who receive submissions from others who then decides the final presentation? Should we each work together in some way or another throughout all the processes, or each assign ourselves a role (one person layouts, another person binds/prints the publication)? Should we just do our own thing as individuals, and then maybe stick all the entries together in a [figurative] box at a set time in the year?
Right now - and I'm feeling selfish when I say this, although in a way I'm only being realistic from past experience - I'm thinking the latter. I'll just get on with my own Black Swan project and do it myself. Set my own rules, projects and deadlines and just share the end result. When will that happen? Oh, whenever I feel like it...
John
Stimulating as always, thanks for posting John.
ReplyDeleteThe structure and function of the collective is purely a critical support network at the moment (which is sometimes lacking in criticality!) To designate some kind of managerial, or role specific, system is impossible as, like you say, we rarely work together or toward the same goal. This may change in the future if we find some way of allowing us all to work together on something we all want... In a strange idilic world.
As for publications - if you want to start one - then lets talk! Do we need something new or could the Almanac (really love that name) be just this kind of publishing? It doesn't have to be limited to our work, we could allot a set number of pages each to be used on whatever we want. With the overall design done by Jen D cause she's is very good at it. That would limit editing to spelling, grammar etc, rather than taste or aesthetic judgements, and would also provide a very broad content range (consistent with an almanac!) including contemporary art and cultural theory, diverse practical work, interviews, as well as graphic design, and fashion (from looking at our group.) Have to say, I'd buy that for a dollar!
Of course we have to do a bit of pricing up to figure out the number of pages, size and everything... Any thoughts on that? anyone?
Anyway... realistically, yes we should all be doing our own thing, but that really is not a bad thing - quite the contrary in fact.
It's best to get the content done first - we can fantasize about the object, printing costs etc later.
ReplyDeleteI think the best thing if we're thinking about individual publications is to not jump into the deep end right away. There's a learning curve to these things which we all may want to revisit just to get us refreshed. Baby steps...
As a very basic idea for starters, I would say that we could all each produce a two-sided postcard or even business card to begin with. It's a uniform template (image one side, text/blank on the other), it's not too ambitious and they're cheap to produce and easy to distribute. Best of all, it's a very basic sort of edition! Some of you may already have made some but others will not - I haven't got a business card for example.
After that we can slowly work our way up to more ambitious projects where production effort exceeds the content, e.g. buttons, t-shirt designs, posters, mixtapes, 16 page zines, videos, exhibitions etc.
Maybe one way to get away from the curated-by-so-and-so idea is for us to post proposals or projects onto the blog anonymously - usually we forget to sign our names anyway so it wouldn't be much different to what we're used to!
Ye-es. I'm not quite sure what the point of this would be, unless you want to set up a line of nick-nack tourist trinkets for metropolitan youths in waistcoats, which I suppose is as good a place to start as any. I never find business cards particularly useful, they tend to sit about forever till you actually want one at which point you realise you've left them at home. Somehow I've got by just tell people things if they're interested. Where is the content in a collection of disparate postcard images, buttons, t-shirts? Are you talking about brand content rather than critical content? I can't quite see what the motivation is here.
ReplyDeleteWe did manage to make a degree catalogue which was quite nice, I don't see why we couldn't make another thing in magazine/booklet form with a broader content. And we could always leave it as a PDF if production is seen to be too difficult.
I don't think there is much to be gained from online anonymity apart from confusion. Unless the entire project remained on the internet, someone would have to collate the physical things which requires people knowing who/where they are. But I do agree that the issue of authorship is... unfortunate.
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ReplyDeleteFrom the off this blog was given no real specific intention of style or content because we didnt know or intend to have one. The site was giving no rules other then to be a space that would be its own untamed unknowable animal that we unleashed on ourselves and others to fill that hole of separation. A symbol of our striving commitment of our want and need to continue to be involved in a creative environment.
ReplyDeleteMoving to Glasgow has been an eye opener. Its been amazing to be in a place where so much is consistently going on and it has been wonderful to be back in a location closer to many of you, making it possible to see and be in a more regular and longer contact.
The last year of uni I tasted, for a period of time, a moment where more often then not all I was ever thinking, doing or wanting to talk about was involved with art. It produced times of certainty and uncertainty and like so many good things that you get to experience I was aware I would soon loose it but I was positive this was something I didn't want to give up for long.
Moving to a new place where you have nowhere to full back on close by and in a new environment where a full time job is the only way of keeping you in that location isn't an easy place to be just getting by on your means, let alone taking your 'free time' to concern yourself with non-monetary things. But this past month especially, I have been starting to get back that excitement and thirst that I felt in the last year at uni and I sure as hell don't wont to let it go.
I have often worried that I may not have a particularly strong grasp of the written language (those times of fun, naughty, rebellious school time antics taking my attention away from certain useful studies has come back and bitten me firmly on the buttocks) and have felt that maybe my strength has been more in the immediate realm of reaction in reality then a critical response of the written word.
But anyway enough about me and more about us!
This isn't a social call get it!
I guess if you've been able to make it through all that waffle I'm saying fuck yes to getting this publication underway. I really like the idea of it being an almanac and it being a space of the collective and the individual and like this site has only the rules we each want from it within our own spaces. Like Mike says - maybe this is the only rule proscribed to it - by giving us a certain amount of pages (2 - 4?) limits the amount of content and makes it manageable.
I'm also aware that we are not a group of 30 who have student loans and time on our hands to rustle up and fundraise hundreds of pounds to make something to the scale of the catalogue. Maybe it could be something substantial to hold in our own hands later on but the idea of it being a pdf I just love. The internet is a beast that offers unlimited interaction from anywhere and everywhere and at times gives better quality visuals for a cheaper price then print. We shouldn't ignore what current technologies at our disposal have to offer.
Also this idea of anonymity must be possible if someone wanted to take away the issue of authorship. How easy is it to set up an email site that can be used to collate information and how easy would it be to prescribe a manual from said email for a show/anything to all involved in it. Something not to unlike the descriptions given to the drawer of a Sol LeWitt installation?
Goodnight and apologies for the residue of my previous removed posts,
Kit
For the record, I was going to mention us each producing a 16 page zine as a starting point or us, but then for some reason I thought I'd simplify/dumb it down to the postcard format. Either way it doesn;t take much to turn them into publications - just some staples or some bound string to form a spine...
ReplyDeleteHmm, yes, my line "where production effort exceeds the content" on second glance lead fairly well to what amounted to a list of throwaway objects as a substitute for actual work. I guess the point I was making more was that these are familiar products that come in standard shapes and sizes, and each succeeding object I mentioned grew in scale and ergo, ambition. (Yup, I'm discussing finished products even though I clearly stated content was more important at this stage, ha!) There's no harm in doing them on the side if you're bored or ever fancy doing a bit of the ne' temporary con art malarkey - and hey, postcards, badges, t-shirts and the other mentioned objects have all played important parts in contemporary art history... perhaps we could take it even further - Black Swan Collective ballpoint pens?
I figured the anonymous factor would be more for semi-official Black Swan Collective proposals of sorts - open calls for basic projects as outlined above that were only done through the blog. Making decisions on everyone else's benefit could lead to similar concerns as before though...
I knew I should have just stuck to getting on with my own projects instead of talking about them, heh!
I see where your coming from. I don't think this is a case of either or, no reason we can't have a couple projects running! I was just pushing the Almanac because I'd like to see it underway soon and I believe each individual in the group is capable of producing some amazing content for it.
ReplyDeleteCan we do an edition where we each choose the most kitch and mass-produced item we can think of and emblazon the black swan on it and a design? Could be quite a nice little collection.
Anonymity would certainly be a good idea when black swan has a group project open to public submissions (apart from with manifesto, cause that has editors.) It would seem more professional probably. But within the group - unless it forms part of the concept of the work, like a Lewitt thang - I would prefer to know whose ideas and thinking is in it, not to proscribe some copyright, just so that we know whose interested in what etc.
I hope that last sentence was a joke! It's always useful to talk about projects! and lots has come out of this.
By the way, I'm all up for the Almanac and it seems as good a place as any for us all to start/resume arty business. I guess we should let everyone else know, it's hard to register sometimes if people have read these unless they comment.
ReplyDeleteHas anyone heard of the collective Black Dogs? I see uncanny similarities between us and them - and they've produced Almanacs too! http://www.black-dogs.org/
The Almanac is happening.
ReplyDeleteI'll post something on facebook about it to everyone to see if we can get more contact from people that way.
Mike the idea of the kitsch objects, is that something like a collective collage that would be planted throughout the almanac? I like the idea of having something that breaks up the individual and brings an element of cohesion to the collective. Reminds me of the Paul Chan collages in Chronology by Daniel Birnbaum.
Black dogs looks good and shows what can be achieved. Lets hope the swan can experience the longevity of the dog!