Unit X - College Four

Unit X - College Four - Zines - Simon Faulkner Lectures

The lecture that were put on by Simon Faulkner were very appealing to me. The topics brought up in his lectures were very interesting and really appealed to me.

The first part of the lectures; Zines as Counter Culture. The first point that I was interested in was the history of the zine and what the zine was actually used for. ‘The Situationist International’ (SI) was a group, formed by Guy Debord, who used the zine as a way to rebel against the norms of society. I really enjoyed learning about this side of the zine and seeing how it can be used in a way to convey a message to the people without using the idea of mass-production and ‘selling-out’ just for the message.

            Another point that I really enjoyed, focusing on the first part of the lecture, was the section about Laura Oldfield-Ford. Her zine, ‘The Savage Messiah’ and was very psychogeographical. It tracked Oldfield-Ford’s travels squatting around London during the 1990s, each issue was a different part of London. What I really liked about Oldfield-Ford’s zine was that it showed that you did not need a fancy production team or a wealth of machines to create a good zine, with good material and beautiful illustrations. She created her zine whilst on her travels.

            Finally, my favourite part of the lectures came from the second section of them, ‘Punk’s Messthetic’. These lectures focused on punk, its history, the movement, the fashion and the music. I cannot say how much I enjoyed this lecture. I was really interested in the zine ‘Sniffin Glue’ which was produced by Mark Perry from 1976-1977. This was the ultimate zine of punks. Perry was right in the middle of the punk generation and wrote first-hand about his experiences. It was the punk’s ultimate guide to being punk. With only a limited edition copies, and them being produced with a ‘kids typewriter and a felt-tip pen’ I was drawn to Perrys passion about his zine and the punk movement.