Seizing the Media by The Immediasts
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The Faceless Networker
There's something about small bits of printed matter, ephemera and mail art that has always inspired me. Whether it's commercial, political or simply intriguing it's all too easily lost from history. This site is my attempt to catalogue and share the bits and pieces that I have collected over the years, before they disappear.
Inaugural post
It’s taken a long while but I’ve finally come around to the idea of archiving and displaying all the random bits of cultural fluff that I’ve collected, found, stolen or been given over the years. This journey started as the Faceless Networker back in the early nineties on a wave of political activism, art and above all networking. There was a resurgence in the idea that individuals could connect, share and work together to change the world, I know very 1968. People called it DIY culture and it was about personal publishing, zines, flyposters, mail art, sabotage and general localised grass roots stuff. It was about seizing the media, becoming the publisher, the author[ity] and changing the power balance between audience and media owner.
The thing is by the mid nineties the web had eclipsed this slow localised network that relied on people gathering, postal services and illegal broadcasting. The real action shifted online, newsgroups, bulletin boards, forums et al. The art and design community stuck with it but in reality the web had accelerated, mobilised and empowered a far more agile and reactive group of people who were publishing their views and ideas in a language and visual style that they chose. It was amateur, brutal, comical even, but it worked because it was real and it spoke to small groups of individuals with common interests.
Now we have web 2.0 and the social media revolution, which is essentially just the easy marketable and commodifiable terms for something thats been evolving for a long time. The systems and the technologies have come of age, we can all be publishers, authors, readers, actors and most importantly participants and do it as convincingly as any traditional media company.
This site is my attempt to archive some of the non digital things that have inspired me, which form part of the history of social media. Some of it is trash, some of it beautiful but it’s the attitude it reflects, the “I’ll make it myself” that counts. I’ll be adding posts when I can, mainly photos of the pieces and the occasional bit of writing which I feel is relevant. Some of it is “public domain”, some is “anti-copyright” and some is on very shaky ground. If any of it is yours let me know and I’ll credit you. Thanks to Dawdlr for inspiring me to dig this stuff out.
the faceless networker
