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Recently in Australia, there has been much discussion about the expanding
network of independent publishing. This conversation has mostly been
amongst the independent publishers of zines, ezines and comics. They have
organised events to connect the diaspora of individuals who produce their
own publications, with the intention of creating an empowered community of
predominantly young, self-publishers. This goal was one of the principal
motivations behind The New Pollution, an
Australian zine and comic anthology which was published as part of the
LOUD Festival in 1998, and it is also an expressed intention of Jane
Curtis, the "coordinator person" of the exhibition currently touring
Australia -- Cutnpaste: A Selection of Australian Self-Publishing. While
these events have introduced many self-publishers to their
geographically distant contemporaries throughout the country, the shift
from publishing for an 'underground' community, to a wider audience in the
highly visible public sphere of government-funded publications, festivals
and exhibitions, has attracted a variety of criticisms from those
self-publishers uneasy about the consequences of such a move.
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According to the exhibition catalogue, Cutnpaste is "the first national
touring exhibition of australian zines, comics and ezines". For a period
of six months from 2 January to 3 July 1999, Cutnpaste is touring the
eastern states of Australia, displaying over a hundred examples of
self-published works at venues in capital cities and regional centres. In
Brisbane, the exhibition was held in a gallery space annexed to the main
entrance of the State Library, where it attracted the passing traffic of
library visitors. The entrance banner with its lower-case lettering, and
stark, black and white aeroplane and scissor icons anticipated the design
that permeates the exhibition. The zines and comics were hung on large
metal racks reminiscent of hills-hoists, and seats with replicas of
the plane and scissor imagery were placed haphazardly for reading comfort.
Ziplock bags, containing the materials zines are made of, such as toner
and glue sticks, were arranged to complement brief, printed explanations of the
zine-making process.
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The principal designer of Cutnpaste, Lisa Burnett, explains that the
choice of the minimalist design throughout the exhibition space is an
attempt to not circumscribe the way the zines and comics on display might
be received by audiences. Burnett and Curtis attempt to incorporate
concerns expressed to them by self-publishers into the realisation of
Cutnpaste, proposing that the publications be allowed to 'speak for
themselves', rather than be presented through any specific viewpoint which
might limit their interpretation, and potentially see them diminished or
trivialised. This regard for the writers' and artists' wishes is
admirable, however given that another stated aim of the exhibition is to
introduce zines, ezines and comics to an audience that would otherwise not
encounter them, it might have been more instructive to place the
publications firmly in the context of a gallery exhibition. This would
have been advantageous visually, and would have provided more commentary
throughout the gallery space for the uninitiated, but interested viewer.
In its current form the exhibition becomes a focus for the tensions that
are revealed when zines and comics are taken out of their original context
-- a network of publishers operating outside of legal boundaries -- into
another context where their creators risk prosecution for copyright
violations, and where a significant portion of the publications are
required to be cordoned behind warning tape and 18+ only signs.
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The dissonant chord struck in the exhibition between the conflicting
requirements of zine editors and those of the potential readers of zines
does not, however, render Cutnpaste irrelevant to either party. This note
of discord has the effect of situating the tour in a liminal space where
the demands of each party alters the experience of the other in productive
ways. Zine editors, who are anxious about the consequences of government-sanctioned
events like Cutnpaste and who most often articulate their
concerns in terms of an appropriation of underground culture by mainstream
organisations, can rest assured that neither marginalisation nor mediocrity
are the necessary outcomes of such exposure to a wider audience. Zines
and comics are media that do not lend themselves readily to exhibition,
and so the creation of what is essentially a touring library of zines,
complete with reading spaces, can be interpreted as an appropriate metaphor
for zines and comics themselves. In their unadulterated form, zines and
comics push at the confines of the exhibition space, revealing little to
those who wish to maintain their distance. Zines and comics demand to be
picked up and viewed intimately, inviting smudgy fingerprints upon the
usual codes of conduct in an art gallery.
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The incitement of participation, promoted in the physical space of the
gallery, is also encouraged in the tour's accompanying website.
At this site, designed by Jude Robinson
with Damien Frost, the ezine component of the tour is accessible. It was
disappointing upon a second visit to the Queensland State Library gallery
to notice the computer that was present at the opening had vanished for
the remainder of the exhibition, and it can only be hoped that this
problem doesn't affect the rest of the tour as the virtual Cutnpaste
gallery is an integral part of the overall exhibition. This gallery not
only provides the requisite technology to view the ezines, it offers
insight into many of the questions raised by the zines and comics in the
physical component of the exhibition. This website includes a series of
interviews with many of the contributing editors elaborating on their
motivations for self-publishing and aspects of the publishing process.
Contact addresses for the zine and comic editors are also available so
that copies of their publications might be ordered and viewed, and
feedback offered. An invitation to participate in the network of zines
and comics is also extended to potential contributors, editors and readers
with hints on zinetiquette, self-publishing techniques and links to an
Australian-based chat list. The website is able to provide an important
function, not easily resolved in the physical gallery space, by enabling a
consideration of zines, comics and ezines as cultural products which arise
out of a given social context. For curious parties, there are considered
reflections upon the impact of the first substantial gathering of this
generation of Australian self-publishers at the National
Young Writers' Festival in Newcastle, last year, and
hyper-text links to suggestions for further reading on the self-publishing
of zines, ezines and comics as a culturally and historically specific
phenomenon, by academics from Australia and the USA.
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Details
Cutnpaste: A Selection of Australian Self-Publishing.
Coordinator: Jane Curtis.
Designer: Lisa Burnett.
Tour dates:
2 Jan. - 16 Jan.: Bundaberg Arts Centre, Bundaberg
20 Jan. - 30 Jan.: The Lab, Townsville
5 Feb. - 18 Feb.: Macquarie Regional Library, Dubbo
24 Feb. - 20 Mar.: Newcastle Regional Museum, Newcastle
26 Mar. - 30 Apr.: Queensland State Library, Brisbane
7 May - 20 May: Well Connected Internet Café, Sydney
24 May - 5 June: The Binary Bar, Melbourne
9 June - 19 June: The Old Courthouse, Geelong
23 June - 3 July: Youth Arc, Hobart
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Bit 7
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Citation reference for this article
MLA style:
Kirsty Leishman. "Point and Click to 'Cutnpaste'." M/C Reviews 4 June 1999.
[your date of access] <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/reviews/events/cutnpaste.html>.
Chicago style:
Kirsty Leishman, "Point and Click to 'Cutnpaste'," M/C Reviews 4 June 1999,
<http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/reviews/events/cutnpaste.html> ([your date of access]).
APA style:
Kirsty Leishman. (1999) Point and click to 'Cutnpaste'. M/C Reviews 4 June 1999.
<http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/reviews/events/cutnpaste.html> ([your date of access]).
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![[image]](http://www.cutnpaste.va.com.au/exhibition/xgen.gif)