Tomato, mmm… skyscraper, I love you.

“…in the best instances, a double reflexivity is at work: a medium is (re)constituted in a recursive way that is nonetheless open to social content—in a way, moreover, that reminds us that “form” is often nothing but “content” that has become historically sedimented.”
– Hal Foster, This Funeral is for the Wrong Corpse

“Literature in the written sense represents the triumph of language over writing: the subversion of writing for purposes that have little or nothing to do with social and economic control.”
– Robert Bringhurst, The Solid Form of Language

Thinking through some things as I embark on the research and conception phase for the next issue of Four Minutes to Midnight, specifically around the materiality of texts. It’s all a little vague right now, but I feel I’m working towards something quite original and interesting. Here’s hoping. I’ll be documenting my process on here as I go…

Expozine 2012 poster by Simon Bossé

It’s that time of year again, the smell of toner is in the air and the copyshops are all a hustle. Expozine is taking place this weekend, and we’re really excited here at Four Minutes HQ. We’ve been working hard to organise the event and put the catalogue together, and things are crazy hectic right now, but this year’s festival promises to be a good one.

Unfortunately, we don’t have a new issue out, but John and I will still be pulling together a few smaller items for you, including a new “chapbook” of 2 poems, a rough-cut CD of music by John/Triangles, and a selection of prints I’ve produced over the last year (I’m very excited about the limited edition C.R.E.A.M. diptych). Of course, we’ll also have previous issues of Four Minutes for sale, including our special Expozine edition from last year!

The exhibitors list this year looks really impressive, and I can’t wait to discover everyone’s new creations and hang out with my fellow zinesters.

See you there!

Promiscuous Infrastructures are a strategy of resistance within a political and economic environment hostile to creativity. PI are about community building across practices, disciplines, categories and identities. PI are affectionate, trustworthy, anticapitalist, antiauthoritarian, experimental and fun.

Artivistic‘s Promiscuous Infrastructures project continues with a deep collaboration between Artivistic, Skol, and Fuse magazine. We’ve been working very hard over the last few months, as the guest editors for the next issue of Fuse; a special bilingual edition, that engages with the current social uprising in Québec against neoliberal austerity politics. The issue interweaves elements of the material culture and imagery of the strike, while presenting a broad-ranging analysis and contextualisation of the student-led movement. Beyond acting as a document of the strike, we wanted to look at the complex network of issues surrounding it, including a thorough historical critique of the university itself, reports from student struggles abroad, and the role of artistic practice as resistance.

More info here (including some great subscription deals!)

I’m pleased to present this very special guest post by Vancouver-based graphic designer Amy Novak, sharing a series of beautiful images from her collections. Enjoy…

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photo by Thien V.

With news of the cancellation of the Liberal tuition hike here in Québec today; a stunning victory after many months of mobilising and protest by students, and a rare (if nuanced…) victory for our social movements more generally, I thought I would post this image of the poster Sarah Boris designed (with my “art direction”), and I printed during our residency in Dundee.

I had the phrase bouncing around my head for many months, but never found an image/design to resolve it. The #GGI posters I designed were largely inspired by the desire to find a way to use it, ending up as a series of eight posters, yet none of which used the phrase “Coeur Rage”… It took the synchronicity of travelling to Dundee, and meeting with Sarah, for this design to emerge.

When I got back to Montréal, I used the poster at several street protests, and was often stopped by people wanting to take pictures of it. It certainly struck a chord with many people, and I’m very happy that Sarah and I managed to create this work, as a small contribution to the movement, to a summer of love and rage.

I was really excited to notice that my Gaza poster has been included in a post by Rick Poynor over at Design Observer about activist posters. Rick has long been a hero of mine for his longstanding and critical contribution to design writing, so needless to say, I’m honoured to be recognised by him here.

This poster was the initial trigger for the Imaging Apartheid project, which has recently been brought back to life with the hard work of the collective members. More on that very soon…

I’ve just returned from a wonderful 2 week trip to Dundee, Scotland — where I participated in Sarah Boris’s 48 Hour Splash project, and Porto, Portugal — where I kicked back and relaxed. Many thanks to Sarah (and Creative Scotland) for bringing me over there, to Dundee Contemporary Arts for hosting our project, and to Tamara for putting me up in Porto.

I’ll be posting more soon about the poster workshop, but for now, here are some photos documenting my too-short time abroad, edited with dbox’s “intsagrammy” photohsop actions, which I’ve been having a little too much fun playing around with of late.

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