Vispo: The Problems Investigated / Imperfect images / Keeping it real (art on paper)

 

The Problems Investigated, RTomens, 2026

Perhaps imperfection is good even with respect to presenting artwork? Surely not. But yes, I have to convince myself it is so because my printer is kaput, which means no scanner either, which means you will have to make do with photos of my work for a while. So I look at a scanner, darkly, having shaken it about, sworn a lot and almost reached for the hammer. 

Presenting my work as an imperfect photo takes some getting used to but there is something about it that's good in another way. It's more 'real', yes? You can see that it's not a digital creation. You can see how it almost becomes shaded in the lower third. The left side edge also has a clearly visible shadow where it rises from the paper it's laid on. 

These days perhaps photographing work to put it online is the only way to prove it's physical existence, as opposed to it's digital one. Not that this should matter, really, yet the 'real' as it was before computers still has an allure, for me at least. Why? It's a very real memory, an attachment to times when everything was on paper. The other day as I walked through the very much developed King's Cross area I noted the very few old buildings left in tact near St Pancras Station. They sparked memories of going to the area to get my fanzine Xeroxed. It was a community facility, therefore very cheap. Sometimes Mark Pawson would be there. Or Stewart Home. 

That was the early 90s. Feels like a lifetime ago. For you, perhaps it's more than an actual lifetime ago. Memories now don't so much stack up as form a misty whirlwind of images which come in and go out of focus. Attaching dates to them becomes almost impossible. I've often considered what it would be like to be a witness in a murder case and have to recall what I was doing on a certain day. We've all seen films where witnesses are regarded with suspicion when they can't exactly remember their actions. Trust me, as you age, you can sympathise. I would struggle to remember what I was doing last Tuesday, never mind months ago.

I deliberately made a smaller piece in the form of The Problems Investigated because I thought it would be easier to photograph. Tomorrow I may try A4 size. The issue is trying to avoid too much blurring from camera shake, of course. 

Must go now because I'm still working on the poster for the upcoming William Burroughs 3-day event. I thought it was done but one of the organisers decided to make actual posters rather than just a image for online use, so problems ensued regarding the quality of the image for enlarging. Yes, sometimes work on paper can be a pain in the arse!

TTFN!

Vague Fanzines Book – Volume 1 – 1979-1984 Issues 1-15

 

A book of a fanzine might seem a bit...pretentious? Or presumptuous? Or self-aggrandising? Or what?

But OK, I'm not saying any of that. I'm glad to have the first 15 issues bound, thanks very much. Bound for glory, it was, in its lifetime and, of course, as time sprinkles dust on the Fanzine Era and its reputation grew to give it a Legendary status. 

Not that Vague is alone. It came at a time (1979) when zines had already bloomed (yes, like flowers in the dustbin of publishing) during the Punk era and since those days fanzines have become terribly....chic, dahling, so-o-o earthy...so real! Books on fanzines aside, few zines would merit a collection, or even have long enough runs to actually make one. My zine, Ego, wouldn't. Well, it would be a slim book.

I started collecting Vague in the late-80s, by which time it had grown in size and stature. Longer, deeper articles on the kind of sub-cultural topics that we were interested in, from terrorism to Situationism,  Psychic TV...even Jon Savage wrote for it. It retained a rawness, though. Or does it jut look that way compared to contemporary standards? At the time it looked very...'professional'.

Here are some of my collection from that era.

Rewind to the beginning and it's lots of handwritten headlines and even articles, some barely legible but who cares? It's as if even modern print technology cannot clarify what actually happened. In that sense, it mirrors memories of those distant days. Mine anyway.  

From the typical zine material and coverage (gigs, album reviews, opinion) to the later in-depth articles and themed issues, Vague's trip is worth (re)discovering. I look forward to the second volume. You can buy this collection here.