Final Presentation

Today we had our final presentation with the tutors and with representatives from Intern magazine. We showcased our prototype magazine and talked about our ideas.

The presentation did not go well at all. We were very unprepared for the presentation, and blundered our way through. I think we explained our idea really badly, leaving Intern with the impression that the information within the magazine is completely made up, despite us spending a lot of time fact checking all of our sources before including information into the publication.

The feedback we received from Intern was that we should look at exploring the dark side of the web for inspiration and information regarding the topic we’ve chosen for this first issue. They also made the point that, as the intention of our magazine is to spread our message to as many people as possible, we should have looked at creating our magazine as a digital publication. Although we had done a lot of sourcing from Wikileaks, I hadn’t considered either of these options before.

Final Magazine

This is the final bound edition of the first issue of Black Market magazine. We have tried to collate the best of the work produced in the workshop this week, along with written work that we have produced since.

The magazine showcases the best of everybody’s working style, combining a serious document aesthetic on some pages with a cut and paste aesthetic on others.

Magazine Layouts

Here are some of the magazine layouts that I contributed to the final design of the magazine. I want my pages to look like they could have been pulled directly from a government dossier about the issue we’re looking at. 

Kickstarter Video

This is the video we made for our project. We filmed our footage in an upstairs space in university and in our workshop, and pulled news footage from YouTube. The workshop footage was filmed by friends of Toms who study film. Tom and Amber then saw over the direction and editing of the video.

Workshop

We finally had our workshop tonight. For the past few weeks, we’ve been working hard at organising everything from invitations to workspace to briefs to decoration and this is how it turned out.

We decorated the room with pictures and information about the global surveillance scandal to give people something to work from.

We opened the workshop with a video of an anonymous figure (Lee in a mask) introducing people to the event, and inspiring rebellion amongst the people there. We then introduced the three briefs that were taped in envelopes to the wall, for people to choose from and let people loose to do as they wished. We didn’t want to be too pushy about the work being produced, but we were there to assist anybody who was finding it difficult to work.

   Although I think the event went well and looked very professional, I was a little disappointed in the number of people that turned up to the event. I think it did teach me a lesson about organising something like this. The feedback we seemed to get from a lot of people before the event was that they would have come if it weren’t on a Friday night, as they already had plans. The MMU/UoM Varsity football match was also held tonight, which a large portion of the student population attended, meaning less people were available for our workshop. Another thing I was disappointed in was that I found that a lot of people at the workshop seemed reluctant to work on the briefs that were set for the workshop and we ended up with a lot of work that wasn’t as serious as I was hoping for.

Workshop Briefs

I want the workshop to be a fun, engaging experience for the people who turn up, so I’ve worked on creating three briefs relating to our topic. I’ve worked hard to make briefs that would produce very different content for the magazine, giving it a lot of depth and diversity and keep it engaging to an audience.

Black Market Flag

In preparation for our workshop, I wanted to make some flags to hang in the venue. I want to make the workshop look like an underground meeting place. The kind of event that could start a revolution. So I decided to screen print these flags onto torn black fabric to make a bold statement.

I want to fill the event space with pages of information strewn on the walls, to give people inspiration for things to write about or create art about. I think that we’re also going to get some art supplies and more information to fill the tables for people to work with.

Finished Invitations

Here are the final designs for invitations to our content creation event that I have made. The solution I have come up with to make the secret message easy to find is to cut holes into the envelopes showing the hidden information. The intention is to show the readers that there is a hidden message in there, and to make it look as though it has already been deciphered. Hopefully this interests people enough to look into the envelopes themselves.

Lee and I have spent a large part of today and this evening handing these envelopes out to students, and leaving them around university and so far, the feedback we have received about them has been positive and enthusiastic. We’ve also looked at handing them out to tutors from other art courses, to distribute to their students.

Venue – Final Decision

Today we made a final decision on where we would be holding our Workshop. We concluded that Kraak Gallery and Revolution are too impractical for people to get to, especially for first years, also we can’t realistically inform people of the event as they leave uni, or pass the venue. The Anthony Burgess Foundation, whilst being a good venue, with all the things that we would need to make it a success, the cost is just too steep. Brunswick mill was both too small and too far away despite us liking the exterior appearance, therefore that was also ruled out.

This left us with the Salutation and Meeting Room 6. Both had tonnes of positives, so it was basically a toss up between the two. In the end we have gone for Meeting Room 6 in the union, having not been able to contact the person in charge of booking the Salutation to get it booked and sorted. We are extremely happy with our venue, and feel like it has everything that we are looking for. Now we are working towards setting up a great event, which really explores our subject matter.

Logo Development

This week I had a crack at developing the logo a little further because, although I love the thought that we put into it, I think it still looks a little bit lacking. This is what I have come up with. The thought process behind it is essentially the same. The black star represents the five fingers of a workers hand and the five continents of the world coming together at one point. I’ve also incorporated the name of our group in morse code into the logo. The development of the logo isinspired by the logos of official government bodies. These are all of my developments for the logo. I’ve tried to make it look more official than the original. The group as a whole preferred the simple star with morse code circle to the bigger one that featured our group’s mantra, so we went with that one.