Danny

Marketers, creatives and brand professionals are invited to join us on 6th October to learn about Social Media, which has been projected as bigger for brands than advertising! Social Media consultants Educated Change will present the topic at this free evening reception in the Museum. Please email Anna to book a (limited) place. Seminar starts 6.30pm, drinks and museum visit from 6pm.

http://www.museumofbrands.com

Tuesday, 28 September 2010
Weiden and Kennedy – The Cole Building
…16 Hanbury Street (off Bricklane) – 2nd Floor, stairs only
6:30-8:30pm
Please RSVP: info@doxacollective.org / 07595917229

Speakers:

Joel Gethin Lewis (Co-Founder of Hellicar & Lewis, former Interaction Designer at United Visual Artists)
Ele Carpenter (media art curator, lecturer at Goldsmiths MFA Curating)
Francesca Bria (PhD Researcher, Imperial College, filmmaker and network activist)
Chair: David Rogerson (Digital and New Media Manager, Sound and Music)
Respondent: Yuk Hui (Co-Founder, DOXA)

In a time where the UK Budget is undergoing a mass overhaul with the depletion of public subsidies and the cutting of councils, what are the opportunities now in networked technology and collective working beyond ‘cost-efficiency savings’ and business exploitation for the development of culture, ideas and a thriving social ecology? In following an enriching first event in May, DOXA presents a second discussion ‘Futures in Collective Working’, which looks at not so much on the problems of the current cultural and economic system, but the new possibilities in forms of collective working including open source, crowd-sourcing and resource sharing. The discussion begins yet does end with digital technology and seeks to explore practices and models of work that can nourish, as well as, sustain creativity. ‘Futures in Collective Working’ brings together a diverse group speakers from backgrounds of media arts, the media industry and academia to look at various collaborative practices and emerging models to approach a renewed visions of culture for the future.

DOXA will soon publish the transcript from the first event ‘Re-imagining Culture’ that took place 18 May 2010 at A Foundation with speakers Sonya Dyer, John Kieffer and William Wong. Please check the website for its release: www.doxacollective.org

DOXA is an international collective of artists, theorists, designers, architects, engineers, etc. Through an on-going project on ‘Creative Space’, DOXA generates research through transdisciplinary dialogue and facilitates production through experimentation explore new possibilities for urban and cultural development. DOXA (δόξα): A common belief, as opposed to knowledge, doxa is associated with community, dialogue and truth.

Supported by Openvizor and Weiden and Kennedy

I’ll start off with a quick one on a panel talk I attended last night at D&AD called The Art of Fanzine. The session was chaired by Professor of Graphic Design, Teal Triggs, an event organized in conjunction with the launch of her new book, Fanzines – which I think WSA is going to get some copies in soon – Yes! Just in time for when the new students get in. The panel she chose consisted of Alex Zamora (Feverzine), Cathy Lomax (Arty and Garageland), Neil Boorman (Bonfire of Brands, Shoreditch Twat) and Laura Oldfield Ford (Savage Messiah).

The place was jammed even though the booze wasn’t free – so speaks for a pretty stellar cast of zinemakers, who talked about how they started their zines (all nearly ten years ago), who they worked with and how they distributed them. Cathy described the overlaps between punk culture and the student arts scene in the early naughties. Laura’s zine of intricate byro illustrations, what she calls “a visual psycho-geography” was inspired by her work with the Royal College of Art and of her walks through Dalston when she moved there 15 years ago. Boorman started his satirical zine as a club promoter for 333 and said Shoreditch Twat was initially a “glorified club listings” with lots of humourous cultural piss-takes of his customers – the popularity of his satirical writing caught the attention of Channel 4 who later developed a tv series out of the zine. Zamora, who works with designer Simon Whybray,  showed us how Feverzine grew its readership and networks through Myspace, Flickr, Twitter and Facebook.

All the speakers delivered an impassioned insight into the importance of ‘doing’ and of building communities, a formula that obviously works. Cathy and Laura are now successful publishers and artists in their own right have work at the ICA and the Tate while the current bios of Neil and Alex boast roles not only as journalists and writers, but also as brand and social media strategists.

Evidently, the distinctions are hard to draw; anyone interested in design, branding, advertising, writing, journalism, social media, art, youth culture should check out their work.