08 – 25 APRIL 2016 Vol.2 No.1 FREE
Fiona Jardine, Maeve Redmond and Sophie Dyer with: Mary Dunbar, Maria Fusco, Georgia Horgan, Mairi MacKenzie, Anna McLauchlan, Neil McGuire, Mhari McMullan, and Lili Reynaud-Dewar. Produced by Panel for the seventh edition of Glasgow International.
Elida looked to the future
by FIONA JARDINE
THE PERSISTENCE OF TYPE was airport terminal. Silently, they stare at each presented as an exhibition and broad- other until he hands her the paperback sheet at Tramway in the summer of last thriller she’s dropped and stalks off. Pro- year, coinciding with the Glasgow run leptically, Warhol had used images of Liz of the National Theatre of Scotland’s (Jackie and Marilyn) in his iconic series of adaptation of Muriel Spark’s novel The portraits nearly a decade before meeting Driver’s Seat in the same venue. Paral- her in person for the fi rst time on Griffi ’s ibility precedes literacy and Renaissance tunities to explore Spark’s work within lels ran between our staging of an air- set. Reportedly, her fi rst words to him were centuries saw the clearance of visual the rhetoric of postmodernism, it is also a port waiting lounge, stuck permanently “So long as he doesn’t piss on the carpet.”1 space on the page – the dematerialisation text nuanced by the historical expression at 10 to two in a zone somewhere south of the text as object – in order to put of cultural values through the object-lan- of 1979, and the scenography of the As chance would have it (en route) in The written words to work democratically, guage of post-war consumerism. Stain-re- play which required a departure lounge Driver’s Seat, Lise has solicited the atten- effi ciently. 20th century fonts that refer- sistant fabrics – such a proud achievement and an airline cabin amongst the oth- tion of Bill, who purports to be the En- ence or replicate handwriting begin to pin for textile technologists and boon for the er sets. Taking advertising produced lightenment Leader of a macrobiotics cult: back rational delivery of meaning, aiming busy housewife – provoke moral outrage in principally by British Caledonian Air- “I’m your type”, he says to her. The phrase to work affectively on our emotions, (not Lise, who chooses to dress, nevertheless, in ways and Tennent's Lager between – a leitmotif in the novel – encapsulates unlike our airhostess, paid to suggest that ostentatiously garish ‘70s geometrics, (Liz 1960 and 1990 as our inspiration for the Spark’s dissociative wit and obsession for the duration of a transatlantic fl ight wore Valentino). She wants her clothes to exhibition, we had talked at length with the physical schisms writing requires. she might just be “your type”). testify to her state of grace, to register the about the changing roles for the ‘girl- On the page, it is as bold an affront to the scarlet split from her body as she leaves it next-door’ at this time. With the author as a piece of wood that laughs, cries Unsurprisingly for someone so wilfully en- behind. In fade-free, easy-clean, creaseless lure of foreign travel and glamour in and lies like a child might be to the carpen- gaged with crafting text, Spark employed slacks, Elida, our billboard scissor sister, mind, our Erica, our girl-next-door, ter in his workshop. At a typographical references to the diabolic mechanisation set her legs immodestly at fi ve to the hour aspired to escape the typing pool – level, the interplay between glyph and per- of words and the alienating effects of the and looked to the future. taking dictation nine-to-fi ve; and walk sona (two kinds of ‘character’) is relayed tools of communication more than once. the aisles as an airhostess, on parade most obviously in anthropomorphic and In The Comforters, her fi rst novel, Caroline as the lacquered apogee of slim, pliant erotic alphabets that combine bodies im- Rose is haunted by sounds apparently and patient service, smiling as she at- probably into letterforms. This performative generated by a Typing Ghost parroting tentively served drinks and fanned desire, seen by Max Brunisma to become her thoughts. She attempts to capture [1] Of Warhol's daschund, melon to businessmen and jet-setters. commonplace during the 1970s when it them on a Dictaphone, anticipat- Archie. Bob Colacello in Warhol: Liz (New York: Working for BCal, she was tartan smart, was fed by hippie appropriations of the ing the research of parapsychol- Gagosian, New York: 2011) wearing corporate cloth on the run- Kama Sutra and Tantrism, has stylistic ogists interested in E. V. p.11 [2] Steven Heller (ed.), ways of Barbados, Accra, Singapore, links to a time when words were to be seen P., auguring the kind of Sex Appeal: The Art of New York. in meditato rather than read.2 During the popular, technologically Allure in Graphic and Middle Ages, the ornate majescules of il- provoked anxieties that Advertising Design (New York: Allworth, 3 In The Driver’s Seat, Lise, Spark’s protag- luminated manuscripts housed labouring surfaced in Poltergeist. New York: 2000) p.46 onist, has quit her offi ce job and taken off monks and fantastical hybrids, all manner Similarly, if the notion [3] Electronic Voice for Italy, ostensibly on holiday. Aged 34, she of fornicators, beasts and acephalus babe- of ‘type’ in The Driver’s Phenomenon would have most likely been married off wyns engaged in dirty looks and defeca- Seat provides literary and retired from in-fl ight service had she tion. Peter Flötner’s transitional (16th critics with worked for an airline: the airhostess was century) alphabet graphically poses ‘M’ a particular a youthful, single lady. Guiseppe Patroni and ‘V’ sphincter fi rst, legs akimbo. Leg- set of oppor- Griffi ’s fi lm of the novel, released in 1974, starred Elizabeth Taylor in full bloom as Lise. The king of silk-screen seriality, Andy Warhol, makes a fl eeting cameo dressed in a cream suit to play an English aristocrat who encounters Liz/Lise in the
And you won't believe what happened next 1
by NEIL MCGUIRE
ONE / GENT, BELGIUM, 11 March 2016: Control is undermined by ambiguity, woman, a feminist newspaper, I tried to Walking across Friday Market Square choice and complexity because subjective incorporate the visual projection of the (Vrijdagmarkt), a display hoarding factors in the user become more effective egalitarian, collective form of small group catches my eye. It hangs part way down and the user is invited to participate. Par- process ... Publications designed in such the front of the largest building on the ticipation undermines control. The over- a way look different from the way square. Just above the banner advert, simplifi ed, the unremittingly serious, the our national publications look; at the top of the building facade, it reads emphatically ‘rational’ are the consistent this difference is much less the ‘Socialistische Werkersvereenigingen’ attitudes associated with work adopted result of creating another style (Socialist Workers Societies), in large by our major institutions and the men than of designing structures gold letters. and few women who inhabit them. In the which encourage other values.” circle of cause and effect, these attitudes It’s a huge banner and it can’t be missed. are reinforced and reproduced as they are The banner is both incongruous and eye- visually and physically extended in to our catching for the same reason; it features the environment.”5 large (and enlarged) cleavage of a woman [1] In response to The Persistence wearing a mustard coloured v-neck jumper. Three / Clay6, 2008: of Type event; ‘Catch Phrases, Catch Images’, Tramway The image is cropped from her chin at the “Communication tools don’t get socially (Glasgow, 21 June 2015). top of the frame, to just above her waist at interesting until they get technologically [2] Eurotrash was a 30-minute the bottom. Not speaking a word of Dutch, boring.” magazine-format programme in English, presented by Antoine the text at the bottom of the banner is de Caunes and Jean-Paul completely indecipherable to me. Four / The Economics of Distraction: Gaultier, and produced by Rapido Television. It was fi rst broadcast by Channel “What is the focus of the new image in- 4 in 1993. I instantly make several assumptions. The frastructure? Attention – It’s all designed [3] Following further research, it turns out that the banner is advertising some kind of het- for capturing, tracking, quantifying, ma- building is still occupied by Socialist Trade Union and Health Insurance organisations. eronormative male-orientated consumer nipulating, holding, buying, selling, and [4] Sheila Levrant de Bretteville; designer, product, using a kind of bawdy ‘Continental controlling attention” writes Bruce Mau educator and co-founder of the Feminist Studio Workshop at The Women’s Building, Los Angeles. European’ representation of sexuality, à in Lifestyle, his weighty monograph come [5]Taken from edited notes of a lecture fi rst la Eurotrash2. The building must also have manifesto come ‘catalogue raisonné’. given by Sheila Levrant de Bretteville at Hunter long since been taken over, and no-longer College, Autumn 1972. The copy of the text directly referenced here is a reprint from a corrupt PDF fi le has any connection to its original function, Five / Understood, and Accepted downloaded via Firefox 43.0.4 on 4 February 2016 ‘Ons Huis’3. My friend who spends a little Quickly7: - with thanks to @andrewbrash, @keithisworking, @benjamin_duvall and Karly Wildenhaus (and @ longer processing the visual signifi ers A contemporary media literacy would not evening_class). The full text can be read here: bit. notices something else – at the bottom of just be evident in an ability to ‘read’ any ly/1XrbOqJ the advert there are fi ve logos, and one says combination of text and image, but to re- [6] Clay Shirky, taken from Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations, (in English) ‘Equal Pay’. The image is turned verse-engineer the means (and the speed) (London: Allen Lane, 2008), p.105 against itself, and, perhaps, against me. of transmission, where everything, at its [7] Phrase taken, out of context, from Lucy R. core, is ‘digital’. We are hardwired to scan Lippard, The Pink Glass Swan – Selected Feminist Essays on Art, (New York: The New Press, 1995). 4 Two / Sheila , on the line from images, and seek out sequence and lines of It only recently struck me as notable that the copy California, 1972: connection, but in a world of heavily me- of the book that I own is typeset in the Perpetua font designed by Eric Gill. Gill’s relationship with “As I become more sensitive to those aspects diated messages we need to look through female members of his own family was allegedly of design which reinforce repressive atti- images, not across them.8 complex, to say the least. tudes and behavior, I increasingly ques- [8] For an interesting exploration of similar topics in a news media environment, see Maureen tion the desirability of simplicity and Six / Sheila, again: Mooren and Daniel van der Velden talking at clarity. The thrust to control almost in- “When I was asked by a group of women Walker Art Centre: bit.ly/1SMNG2I evitably operates through simplifi cation. artists to design a special issue of Every- 08 – 25 APRIL 2016 Vol.2 No.1 FREE
Lager Lovelies sition to my surroundings and as such rep- and the models pictured on them are at resented a form of rebellion. This was the odds with his lofty, Romantic vision, con- pursuit of glamour as resistance. As Carol ceived, in part, as an antidote to the unset- Dyhouse, author of Glamour: Women, His- tling horrors of contemporaneous urbani- tory and Feminism puts it, the desire for sation and industrialisation. by MAIRI MACKENZIE glamour can represent: However, the Romantics’ commitment “… “… an audacious refusal to be imprisoned to the development of the imagination as I FIND IT DIFFICULT to consider the to be my extremely unsophisticated by norms of class and gender … [a] defi - a realm of experience”;6 their fashioning Tennent’s ‘Lager Lovelies’1 with a dis- life. Images of the ‘Lovelies’ prompted ance rather than compliance, a boldness of glamour as a form of escape; and their passionate gaze. Although, obviously, a visceral response, one that I now which could be viewed as unfeminine. origins within the evolving economic and I was not the intended audience for recognise as a longing for escape, a Glamour could be seen as both risk and industrial infrastructure that gave rise these “delectable”2 models or the cans longing for glamour. They, along with self-assertion, or as a resource which to contemporary notions of glamour, all of lager they adorned, their images various pop stars, actors and fashion might be used by women, albeit on chime with the inception, marketing and were a constant and welcome presence designers, helped me to realise there what was often dangerous territory in reception of Tennent’s and the ‘Lager throughout my childhood. I viewed them was another world, distinct from the a persistently unequal society.4” Lovelies’. These cans embodied a curious in the same way as I did fashion spreads one I inhabited: a glamorous far away coming together of Scottishness, moderni- in Blue Jeans magazine, Madonna world, both literally and fi guratively. It amuses me to critique these ap- ty, longing and glamour. They were, in es- videos or posters of pop stars pulled proachable but fl ashy expressions of sence, a perfectly peculiar manifestation from Smash Hits. My wee sister and I Given the suggestive poses of the models Scottish glamour, given the origins of Romanticism. would regularly spend time in our back and the soft-focus, Vaseline-smeared nature of the word in ancient Celtic folk- porch – where my dad kept his beers – of the shots, it would be easy for a con- lore and the popularisation of the examining the image of each ‘Lovely’, temporary viewer to dismiss these images word5 by the arch-Romanticist and [1] The collective name given to the women whose choosing our favourites by name, hair- as tawdry or glamorous only in the soft- purveyor of a particularly enduring image appeared on cans of Tennent’s Lager between 1968 and 1991. Internationally they went by the title of 3 style and outfi t (mine was always Erica) pornographic sense of the word. And their form of nauseating Scottishness, ‘Tennent’s Girls’. and imagining how glamorous their use upon a widely- distributed, humble can Sir Walter Scott. With his fanci- [2] Charles Schofi eld and Anthony Kamm, Lager Lovelies: The Story Behind The Glamour, (Glasgow: lives must be. We admired them. We of lager found in homes and pubs across ful interpretation of Scottish history, Richard Drew, 1984), p. 24 wanted to be like them. Scotland could reinforce that assumption. Scott’s writing presented glamour as ide- [3] Erica Creer was a London based model and a However glamour is not the preserve of pursuit of it, from the alised, valiant, magical and picturesque ‘Lager Lovely’ between 1977-79. She worked as a catwalk, editorial and Page 3 model during her career. I am unsure how these cans would have the metropolis, it can be found in the most mundanity of my small town life, forms a and it is highly unlikely that he would rec- [4] Carol Dyhouse, Glamour: Women, History and appeared to a more sophisticated, worldly mundane of locales, and via the most com- part of my cultural biography. ognise the concept in an object as quotidi- Feminism, (London: Zed Books, 2011), pp. 3-4 audience but context is everything and mon of practices. Indeed, I would argue an as a can of Tennent’s lager. And, yes, at [5] For an etymology of glamour, see Stephen Grundle, Glamour: A History, (Oxford: Oxford within Stranraer in the late '70s and early that glamour requires the mundane as the The ‘Lager Lovelies’ fi rst glance these cans of lager University Press, 2008), pp. 35-38 '80s, these were exciting and glamorous and counterpoint from which it allures. With- helped to shape my [6] Grundle, Glamour: A History, p.35 stood in direct contrast to what I considered out it, glamour would be nothing. And the aspirations in oppo-
We drink and our landscape moves through us by ANNA MCLAUCHLAN
THE TENNENT CALEDONIAN or hill from Loch Katrine (also fed by other be pumped up Wellpark Brewery is located at Duke lochs) to two huge reservoirs at Milngavie from the river Street (number 161), between the centre (pronounced Mill-guy) eight miles from Clyde into the of Glasgow and the east end. Tennent’s the centre: a source that is then distributed higher areas red trade mark ‘T’ was formulated in across the city.12 This feat of engineering, of the city – a 1876 when the company made stouts fi rst operative in 1859, was updated in 2007 major justifi - and ales, servicing domestic needs and allegedly as a result of “an outbreak of cation for the a large export market, in particular to the stomach bug cryptosporidium” fi ve Loch Katrine India.1 The T is now synonymous with years earlier.13 scheme where Tennent’s lager, this iconic letter fi xed water just outside a building signifi es ‘pub’ and But, the update was required due to EU- rolled downhill.24 it is symbolic of decades of reverie, wide attempts to clean up and maintain Records indicate the Brewery sunk a num- alcoholism, and rampant misogyny.2 A water quality motivating Scottish legisla- ber of bore holes to source water to the reputation heightened by the arrival tion that “centralised provision of water back of the brewery, the site of the ‘Lady- [1] Ian Donnachie, ‘Hugh T Tennent’, in Dictionary [18] Ronnie Scott, Death of Tennent’s Super, a very strong lager services to Scottish Water from the previ- well’ in early maps.25 Artesian wells were of Scottish business biography 1860-1960: Volume 2 by Design: The true story of the Glasgow Necropolis. (4.5 units of alcohol in one can) associ- ous three regional East, West and North bored in 189026 and 191027 – with records Processing, Distribution, Services, ed. by Anthony (Edinburgh: Black & White Publishing Ltd., 2005), p.59. Slaven and Sydney Checkland (Aberdeen: Aberdeen [19] Ibid. 14 ated with problem drinking and home- water authorities.” It also enabled “Scot- indicating well water made up a consid- University Press, 1990), pp.70-71 (p.70). [20] James J. Berry, The Glasgow Necropolis: Heritage lessness.3 As a result of this ‘branding’ tish Water to undertake joint ventures erable part of their supply.28 At least one [2] For example in the association between a trail and historical account (no stated publisher, 1985), the brewery no longer makes Super with private sector companies” as part well was still operative in 1945,29 the water ‘separatist’ masculinity bolstered and maintained no pagination. through Tennent’s association with football as [21] Ibid. – but arguably the world’s largest of the ongoing mutualisation (a move- – clean but salty – was mixed with Loch examined in David W. Gutzke, ‘Tennent’s Lager, [22] Glasgow Water Works Bill 1853 Minutes of brewer, InBev, held onto Super during ment towards privatisation) of the water Katrine water.30 These wells were, and National Identity and Football in Scotland, 1960s–90s’, Evidence. Interrogation of the manager of the Glasgow Sport in History, 32:4, 550-567; Charles Schofi eld and 15 Water Works company (Mr David McKain – called and Tennent’s sale to the Ireland and UK supply. Loch Katrine’s plentiful source may still be, used as part of an emergen- Antony Kamm, Lager Lovelies: The Story Behind the examined by Mr Bellasis). Mitchell Library Archives based conglomerate C&C because the and the benefi ts of using gravity for water cy back-up water supply for the city and Glamour. (Glasgow: Richard Drew Publishing, 1984). Reference DWA 11/1/1, p.4. drink was highly profi table.4 transport meant that the wealthy area in the 1830-50s (although not at this site) [3] “Tennent’s Super is the super strength lager [23] Ibid. most commonly associated with street drinking. It is [24] Ibid. of Milngavie was deemed the only possi- were identifi ed as the sources of cholera colloquially referred to as ‘tramp juice’ (you may wish [25] Plan of the City of Glasgow, Gorbells and Caltoun, Tennent’s lager, as immortalised in a 2010 ble option for the update: vast concrete epidemics.31 to ‘google ‘Tennent’s Super’ to confi rm this) and there From an Actual Survey by John McArthur Surveyor in is a general acceptance amongst off-licences and small Glasgow. Engraved by Alex Baillie and James Lumsden advert, was inspired by Hugh Tennent’s holding tanks had to be submerged below retailers selling alcohol that the main consumers are MDCCLXXVIII (1778). 1881 trip to Bavaria and the 1885 release ground because of the capacity of the res- Alcohol begins to fi lter into your blood- people with alcohol problems.” Thames Reach, ‘“One [26] Journal of bore put down for water at Wellpark of “his own unique brew”5 under the guid- idents to complain.16 stream as soon as it touches the fi ne mem- can is all it takes” campaign briefi ng paper’, (Undated) Brewery, Glasgow, For Messrs. J. & R. Tennent,
I LOVE LEOS AND GORGEOUS softy K. Spacey has been on my radar by MHARI MCMULLAN since American Beauty (1999, dear readers!). So it is always with a degree of fi nger-licking that I light my Dip- I HAVE NOT ATTRIBUTED the quotes Remember to breathe. Allow the feeling to return to your body. tyques and settle down to catch up or snippets of conversation written in Exhale. You are light. Feel it move down with House of Cards. Last Friday, at this text but I have taken them word It is an exemplary performance. She is the arm to the hands, the palm, the fi n- the end of a relentlessly turgid week, for word and I hear them all spoken calm, composed and in control. A pose gers, wiggle the fi ngers, gently move them I sank into a tub full of rose-scented in your voices. There was an intimacy was held for a very long time. across the keyboard. foam and (visualising myself as the in her performance, the names and gorgeous Mena Suvari!) I binged on associated memories were a present And that was that. Hold your breath and read them quickly. episodes 46 through 48. Watching for those present. the season fi nale (Archimedes had I wouldn’t normally articulate that but I Words, poses, letters, connections, mo- his clock, I have a plug and a mixer When I write postcards to her I write a did it just then for effect. ments, Yoga, personal, lynx, larynx, peo- tap) I was titivated – 31 minutes in list of words, she is the only person I do ple, list, clock, names, poem, fragments, – by a seed planted by Frank Under- this to. It’s not a regular occurrence but it We smiled, we looked coconut water, laughter, shared, nerves, wood’s political rival Will Conway. has become a thing for me, a habit of two around, we excitement, Cluedo, composure, script, “Do you play video games?” he asks so far. I always mean to send postcards looked at her, cheek, memory, postcards, confession, and Kevin metaphorically raises an during a holiday but more often than not we all looked nostalgia, apology, love, perception, eyebrow. It transpires that Agar.io, they are written at the end or even at each other. joy, mat, Africa, smell, warmth, paper, the game in question, provides the the journey home. friends, posters, screens, fade, anecdote, perfect, multiplayer environment APPLAUSE Tennent’s, cold, sigh, command, class, for high-level operators like them Why are there so many mats? teacher, association, diary, foam, po- to immediately gratify their basest Is it audience participation That’s when you start to get the feelings of ems, Chinese whispers, people, exercise, political urges. Lordy! In Agar.io, I tonight? ecstatic bliss. healthy body, healthy mind, relaxation, could – in real, live, digital play – be conference. She’s not sure about it, they performance, voice, sweat, feeling(s). swallowed by some fabulous Kevin, She stood behind me and slowly removed all do something else as well as that but Actions speak louder than words. Exercise masquerading sneakily as colourful her layers. I could not tell if I was sitting at least the sun was shining down there. releases endorphins. How do you feel? blob. One careful manoeuvre later, I in the right place or the wrong place. A had downloaded the wildly successful yoga mat was laid out, sprayed with a fade Echoing the exhibition that surrounds us, Standing or sitting in a circle, small Remember to breathe. game to my iPad and thus began the through from red to black to green. There the performance is built up in layers: pub- groups talking. obsession that has taken me to Level was a faint smell of Lynx Africa. The per- lic, private, abstract and collaborative. [1] (Feldenkrais Method® www.feldenkrais.co.uk) 42 and a premium Candyskin. formance began. Postures are punctuated by people. Shared Thank you for coming. What are you col- stories and fond memories of people and lecting evidence for? Were you making Agar.io is a simple game of cell eat Were you at the fi rst one? I wasn’t but I places. Events and anecdotes. An apology notes for your own use? Malibu and cell. A tiny, round motile, customised heard about it – I’ll tell you after. from a long time ago, bring it forward Lynx. I was getting place memories from with a name and a non-standard skin, and pass it on. that, that shirt – Brighton. CKOne and you pop up on a boundless grey and Regular movement and maintaining a rou- a Smirnoff Ice. I’m going home, I’ve got white pitch, reminiscent of those '80s tine is said to improve powers of recollection. I think about the volume of my voice as I new pens and I want to try out a new Clinque ads. As ‘tir-nan-og’, ‘808’, write, I’m not sure I should be able to hear font. What would go with a Bacardi ‘gash-faced-Julie’ or ‘zeu$$’ (is that A series of movements, one posture fl ows it. This is not spoken word. It’s nothing Breezer? That was really great. you, Kevin??) you guzzle a rainbow of smoothly into the next and then a slowly spo- personal. Is everything personal? That’s what happens if you pick randomly proliferating dots gaining ken list of names while lying in savasana. foam off Tramway windows. See mass, avoiding the big girls – the Put a wild blueberry inside a wild raspber- you on… yeah, yeah defi nitely. Valkyries and M3thershitz – absorbing These were women’s names, was she list- ry and eat it. Wait, was that it? No I’m re- I think for me writing is about smaller snacks in a process of total ing the ‘Lager Lovelies’? I recalled our membering it wrong. She will want to edit feeling, not forcing. I’m really eclipse. Gradually, you become a big visit to the Tennent’s factory. The names this text, so that can be amended later. drunk. There’s always one. girl yourself and you realise speed is became familiar, these women were all False memory corrected. Lovely to see you. She’s on a inversely proportional to scale. present in the room. I was present. performance high. Because My defi nitive moment was steak dinners, you’re so tired. Are you Underwood points out “it’s a bit like Inhale. Bring your attention to your lungs, patron and lots of dancing. The singular saying you want me to running for President” but I am re- your torso, your belly. Coconut water. became plural. come? I like this. No, minded of the fruit-based cleansers thanks for having me. working hard on my dermis. Think He stands and reads from a folded piece Hello steak dinners and patron. virtual papin and bromelain (my go-to of paper. Slowly bring your enzymes) shrinking pores, munching Well done. awareness back away at dead skin cells, dirt and sebum. I like to drink Coconut Water. into the room. Pay Think Goop come to life as a jelly- It’s nothing personal. It’s everything per- attention to any like force-fi eld. The war I’m waging “Bringing this into our lives, we learn to sonal. new sensations takes place in the trenches life has move more freely, with greater ease, fl ex- you might be dug between my brows. In honour of ibility and grace. The Method can per- How did you hold that for so long? having – you my favourite time-delay primer, I call manently improve our posture, balance are warm, myself ‘nanoblur’ and slather argan and coordination, awakening our innate She calls upon another woman in the room r e l a x e d oil on my prune-like. Zeu$$ is my capacity for life-long vitality and continu- to read and recall. She remains seated and com- fi rst victim ; ) ing self-development.”[1] as she speaks. She is very attached to fortable. the names, the words, the places, and her I n h a l e Thinking about an experience at a recent voice attaches us to them too. deeply.
by MARIA FUSCO 08 – 25 APRIL 2016 Vol.2 No.1 FREE THE PERSISTENCE OF TYPE VOL. II
The Persistence of Type volume II. is a free broadsheet newspaper created for the seventh edition of Glasgow International.
The Persistence of Type was an exhibition that took place at Tramway in 2015. It used graphic design, installation and animation to consider the connections between ‘type’ as font; ‘type’ as fixed persona, and the pseudo-personalisation of women in historical advertising connected with the airline and brewing industries in Scotland. Volume II presents a collection of texts and images that review these themes to contemplate body and landscape; the figure as glyph; language, labour and reproduction; beauty and myth.
The newspaper is available at the An Arrangement of Polite, Industrious, following venues during Glasgow Agreeable and Obedient Letters International, 8 – 25 April 2016: GI HUB: South Block by GEORGIA HORGAN Tramway Transmission Gallery
THE ARRAIGNMENT OF LEWD, Idle, Hunt of the 17th century suggests a climate of land to a certain extent, both sexes main often described as a balanced, harmonious The Old Hairdressers Froward, and Unconstant Women by of misogyny more virulent and threat- relation of production was with the feudal body of type: when the design of the letters Platform Joseph Swetnam was published in 1615, ening than the feeble slurs from Swet- lord, who was the owner of any surplus pro- is discussed, the glyphs become an obedient, as part of a wave of political and reli- nam’s pamphlet. Scolding, brawling and duce farmed. With the advent of capitalism, pliant body. If the elegant serifs and even CCA gious pamphlets published in Britain crimes of a sexual or reproductive nature the third epoch, all labour power was kerning of roman text is the stamp of Glasgow Women’s Library known as the Pamphlet Wars. The were commonly associated with charges ‘freed’. As the male subject entered in patriarchal capitalism, then what might The Art School document describes what Swetnam – of witchcraft. The message to European to the waged-work relation, production the characteristics of a feminist typeface who was otherwise best known for his women was loud and clear; act or speak became entirely distinct from reproductive be? Freeform? Scattered? Impulsive? This Mono manuals on fencing – believed to be independently at your peril. work. Whereas in the previous epochs male surely plays too much into stereotypes of Glasgow Sculpture Studios the essentially sinful, deceiving and and female labour contributed equally to the wayward female described by Joseph worthless nature of women. Re-printed Even the most conservative historians the subsistence of the family, the male Swetnam; as Judith Butler suggests, a fem- Calton Burial Ground 15 times, the popular pamphlet ar- agree that this crisis in gender relations worker now exchanged his wage in return inist type or syntax would likely need to gues its position through a series of was influenced by the tumultuous social for the housewife’s unwaged reproductive test the limits of the thinkable itself.7 The Persistence of Type volume II. is misogynistic jokes and Biblical and and economic changes ushered in by the labour. In the eyes of capital, her sole produced by Panel in partnership with classical references, imploring “giddy- transition from feudalism to capitalism. purpose was to reproduce the male waged Fiona Jardine and Maeve Redmond. headed young men”1 to beware the wiles Autonomist feminist analysts like Leopol- worker, and her care a natural resource to All texts and artworks copyright the of deceitful and impure women.2 dina Fortunati and Silvia Federici argue be extorted.4 [1] Joseph Swetnam, The Arraignment of Lewd, contributors. Idle, Froward, and Unconstant Women (London: that the direct and aggressive subjugation Edward Allde for Thomas Archer, 1615), p.12 This publication was part of a larger trend of women was central to the enforcement of The transition to capitalism represents a [2] For instance, Swetnam writes “for I know women www.wearepanel.co.uk of misogynistic literature that appeared a free market economy. Binding women to major restructuring of society at every will bark more at me than Cerberus the two-head- ed dog did at Hercules . . . [Moses] also says that during the early modern period. Titles reproductive labour was the core concern level – something that could not happen as [women] were made of the rib of a man, and that such as The Parliament of Women (1646), of this societal shift; in order for industrial organically as many conservative histo- their froward nature shows; for a rib is a crooked thing, good for nothing else, and women are crooked The Cruell Shrew, or the Patient Man’s Woe capitalism to function, the female body had rians might have it. According to Silvia by nature”. Ibid. (date unknown, between 1601–40) and more to be transformed into a factory for the Federici, in her germinal book Caliban [3] D.E. Underdown, ‘The Taming of the Scold’ in famously John Ford’s ‘Tis a Pity She’s a production of new workers. and the Witch, the key tool used to disci- Order and Disorder in Early Modern England, eds. John Stevenson and Anthony Fletcher (Cambridge: Whore (1633) and William Shakespeare’s pline the female body into performing re- Cambridge University Press, 1985) The Taming of the Shrew (1593), all dealt In her influential work The Arcane of Repro- productive labour was the witch hunt. It is [4] Leopoldina Fortunati, The Arcane of Reproduc- tion, (New York: Autonomedia, 1996). It is also per- with the theme of scolding or disobedient duction, Leopoldina Fortunati describes perhaps unsurprising then that the Malleus haps unsurprising then, to reference Fiona Jardine’s women. The period also saw a dramatic rise how the gender divide deepened from Maleficarum, or the “Witches’ Hammer” essay ‘Caledonian Girls: A Picturesque’ from the in publication of advice manuals to wives antiquity in to the early modern period. was one of the first books to take full first edition of The Persistence of Type (broadsheet The Persistence of Type volume II. paper distributed as part of the exhibition at Tramway, and mothers such as The English Housewife Using Engel’s definition of the three forms advantage of the possibilities of dissemi- 2015) that women’s participation in production is generously supported by (1615) by Gervase Markham, which instruct- of slavery, which according to The Origin nation Gutenberg’s printing press had to during the twentieth century would be concentrated Creative Scotland and has been around forms of affective labour, such as working as ed women to be passive, obedient, and pious. of the Family distinguish the three major offer. With 20 editions published between an air hostess. created in association with epochs of civilisation, Fortunati outlines 1487 and 1520, and a further 16 printed [5] Jeffrey Burton Russel writes, “the swift prop- Glasgow International. Thank you Furthermore, court records from the period the development of the sexual division of between 1574 and 1669, the Malleus was agation of the witch hysteria by the press was the to Newspaper Club for printing. first evidence that Gutenberg had not liberated man show that this was more than a literary zeit- labour. The first is slavery, where there was one of the most widely distributed books of from original sin”, in Witchcraft in the Middle Ages, geist. The increased popularity of ducking a basic equality between men and women the 16th and 17th centuries.5 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1984), p.234 stools and charivari processions – bizarre as both are the property of the master; [6] Duncan Glen, Printing Type Designs: A New His- tory from Gutenberg to 2000 (Kirkcaldy: Akros, 2001) folkloric rough-music parades designed to any productive or reproductive work Is then perhaps, the transformation of the [7] “It would be a mistake to think that received publicly humiliate scolds, adulteresses and performed contributed to the master’s textur gothic script to the roman typeface grammar is the best vehicle for expressing radical views, given the constraints that grammar imposes prostitutes – show that the misogynistic holdings. The second epoch was feudalism, that dominates printed matter to this day, upon thought, indeed, upon the thinkable itself” climate was not just confined to books and where the male and female serfs were bound to the disciplining of the female – Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the plays.3 In addition to these more parochial ‘accessories to the land’ – although the body? Nicholas Jenson’s pioneering roman Subversion of Identity (London: Routledge, 1999), p.xviii-xix judicial trends, the Great European Witch male serf would be the owner of his strip typeface, designed in Venice in 14706, is
Sophie Dyer a designer engaged in com- at Glasgow University and was lecturer in in craft and design. Mhari graduated from mercial practice and design research. She Cultural and Historical Studies at London Central St Martins in 2003 and relocated is currently based in London and studies College of Fashion. Mairi’s current re- to Glasgow in 2007. She opened Welcome Saturday is an event and at the Centre for Research Architecture, search is concerned with the relationship Home in 2009 and is also a founding di- exhibition by Georgia Horgan Goldsmiths. between popular music and fashion; social rector of Collect Scotland CIC. Her work at the Abercromby Street histories of perfume; and the history of stems from a preoccupation with pattern. Burial Ground. As part of an Maria Fusco is a Belfast-born writer dressing up and going out in Glasgow. She on-going research project into based in Glasgow, working across fiction, is author of Dream Suits: The Wonderful Lili Reynaud-Dewar is a French installa- the intersections between criticism and theory. Her latest work, Mas- World of Nudie Cohn (Lannoo: 2011), Isms: tion and performance artist. She currently industrialisation and witch ter Rock, is a repertoire for a mountain, Understanding Fashion (A&C Black: 2009), lives and works in Grenoble and Geneva. hunting in 17th century Scotland, commissioned by Artangel and BBC Ra- and Perfume Was My Hobby: Histories of Expanding on her own biography, Lili creates Georgia’s event will explore the Fiona Jardine trained in Drawing and dio 4. Her books include: With A Bao A Scent in the Everyday (I.B. Tauris: forth- enigmatic works that disrupt the immedi- relationship between popular Painting at Duncan of Jordanstone College Qu Reading When Attitudes Become Form coming). In 2014 and 2015 Mairi pro- ate recognition and identification of periph- uprisings and the witch scare in of Art & Design in Dundee before under- (Los Angeles/Vancouver: New Documents, grammed, produced and curated Fashion eral sub-cultures, spectacularised through Scotland and further afield. taking an MFA at Glasgow School of Art 2013), and The Mechanical Copula (Berlin/ Cultures. their partial and fetishistic insertion as in the early 2000s. Her PhD research in the New York: Sternberg Press, 2011). She is exotic products into the mainstream. Her Social and Critical Theory cluster at the founder of The Happy Hypocrite, a jour- Anna McLauchlan studied Time Based performance works consider the fluid border University of Wolverhampton was con- nal for and about experimental writing, is Art in Dundee, served on the committee of between public and private space, and in so cerned with the functioning of artists' a Reader at University of Edinburgh and Glasgow’s Transmission Gallery and has doing, challenge established conventions Saturday signatures. She is interested in theories was Director of Art Writing at Goldsmiths, subsequently trained in environmental relating to the body, sexuality, power rela- of authenticity and authorship in art and University of London. mariafusco.net studies and hatha yoga. Anna is currently tions, and institutional spaces. Her work textile histories. She was born in Galash- a Lecturer in Human Geography at the has been exhibited internationally, and she Calton Burial Ground iels and teaches there in the School of Georgia Horgan is an artist and writer University of Leeds. has shown at the 12th Lyon Biennale 2013, 309 – 341 Abercromby Street Textiles & Design, Heriot-Watt University based in Glasgow. Her practise uses video, the Paris Triennial 2012, and the 5th Berlin Glasgow, G40 2DD as well as in Design History & Theory at performance, sculpture, appropriation and Neil McGuire runs design company After Biennial in 2008. Glasgow School of Art. collaboration to research how histories The News focusing on graphic and com- Fri 8 April – Mon 25 April are represented and politicised. Recent ex- munication projects. Neil also undertakes Panel is an independent curatorial practice Fri – Wed: 11AM – 6PM Maeve Redmond is a designer based in hibitions include Neo-Pagan-Bitch-Witch!, various research projects including Wealth led by Catriona Duffy and Lucy McEachan. Thurs: 11AM – 8PM Glasgow. She works primarily with art- at Evelyn Yard, London, and Machine Room, of the Commons and Offbrand, which explore Based in Glasgow, Scotland, Panel promotes ists, writers and cultural organisations. at Collective, Edinburgh. alternatives to centralised identity and design in relation to particular histories, Georgia Horgan Performance Redmond's practice is research driven and brand design. archives and collections through exhibitions, Calton Burial Ground often draws upon social and historical ref- Mairi MacKenzie is a fashion historian events and cultural projects. Fri 15 April, 7 – 9pm erences. She works across print, digital and curator based in Glasgow. She is Re- Mhari McMullan is a textile designer, wearepanel.co.uk FREE booking required and 3D media. Selected work available at search Fellow in Fashion and Textiles at curator and consultant. She works across maeveredmond.co.uk Glasgow School of Art, a visiting lecturer exhibitions, writing, retail and education