Not Out of Date, but Out of Time: The Materiality of Zines and Post-digital Memory Miloš Hroch Abstract HROCH, Miloš: Not Out of Date, but Out of Time: The Materiality of Zines and Post-digital Memory. The importance of zines – as documents of history and contemporary media – has recognisably increa- sed in the past decade, and not only media scholars but also historians are paying closer attention to this type of alternative media. We have witnessed both the building of zine archives – digital and physical – and zines being acknowledged as historical resources. Traditionally, zines have been studied from the discursive perspective of subcultures, identities, fan objects and musical genres; therefore, the material component has been overlooked or taken as a matter of course. But with the post-digital situation, the material is more visible and reminds us of the intertwined relationship of the discursive and the mate- rial. This paper argues for the possible contribution of media theory to historical research and calls for a deeper understanding of the materiality of zines and the material networks surrounding them as well as the research environment for historians. Keywords: zines, the material, the post-digital, archive, cultural memory, the post-digital memory, new materialism DOI: https://doi.org/10.31577/forhist.2020.14.1.2 Introduction ateriality has become increasingly important in the post-digital era. It cap- M - tures the reconfiguration of our media experience and our exclusive inte rest in the immaterial digital environment. In other words, the pivotal aspects- of our lives have already been digitised, but for different reasons we are1 returning- to analogue media and physical formats – sometimes with a paralysing nostal agia truly (or rather,post-digital as a symptommanner appear. of the 2slow cancellation of the future). Our expe rience is not limited to this, as novel ways of creatively revising older media in This approach breaks the cycle, namely it upsets the hegemony of digital immateriality and extends our perception beyond the blue screens and sets of discourses surrounding them to touch and intimacy. Not only media scholars but historians, too, could profit from this perspective. - One specific media form reveals the tactics and aesthetics behind the post-digi tal in the mostGhosts demonstrable of My Life: Writings sense: on Depression, the particular Hauntology partand Lost of Futures. print culture known 1 FISHER, Mark. London : ZeroNO-ISBN Books, on Self-publishing2014, p. 14. 2 BLAHA, Agnes – BOULANGER, Sylvie – CARRIÓN, Ulises – CELLA, Bernhard – FINDEISEN, Leo. Vienna : Salon für Kunstbuch, 2017. Forum Historiae, 2020, Vol. 14, No. 1: Fanzines in Historical and Interdisciplinary Perspective 18 - as zines. Zines can take“Zines various are noncommercial,forms and are produced nonprofessional, by different small-circulation social groups magazines(music subcultures, which their artists, creators fandoms). produce, The publish, simplest and distributedefinition, by as themselves.” offered by 3Ste Zi- phen Duncombe, is: - nes show the dynamics between the mainstream and the periphery, where prin- ted objects are the megaphones of resistance or are just produced by enthusiasts isdevoted described to the by stories Lucy Robinson: and adventures “This recent of popular interest culture. in zines Moreover, from producers they have (aca) re zinesterscently served and researchersas historical can documents. be understood This turningas a turn to to the the history textual written past to in try zines and make sense of the digital present. On the one hand, zines and digital social networks produce similar affective networks and identity work. But zines also haunt our digi- tal presents with the pull of the handmade, holdable, shareable objects.”4 Although the material components5 of zines – composed of the chaotic aesthetics, worn-out yellow pages, the traces of fading ink and distributed by hand-to-hand contact – are often mentioned and have been acknowledged by6 Such zine anresearchers, approach the role of the material has not been fully embraced. So far, it has only played the role of “the elephant in the room” or “humble servants”. - ignores the interdependent“Just relationship as Einstein discoveredbetween the a rippling,discourse flowing and the spacetime, material. whereThis article previously follows objects in the had footsteps just floated of Timothy in a void, Morton, Monet who discovered called for the a sensuous redisco spaciousnessvering of the ofmaterial: the canvas itself, just as later Tarkovsky was to discover the sensu- ous material of film stock.” 7 - With the massive process of digitising zine archives, a certain sense of loss is ex perienced. The digital immateriality only highlights the long-overlooked aspects of zines and, paradoxically, the material is more visible than ever. This paper calls for a deeper analysis, not only of zine content and zines as objects, but also of the- material networks surrounding them. With the building of physical zine archives (or archives of independent culture) there is a whole set of practical and ethi- cal questions concerning how to archive this history without stretching out the- material aspect of it. Moreover, the materiality of zines is also important for con temporary production and includes a history which is remediated only in the sim plest form of using this (at first sight) “anachronistic” media form. History is still with us and cannot be left behind. Notes from Underground: Zines and the Politics of Alternative Culture. Portland : 3 DUNCOMBE, Stephen. ipped, Torn andMicrocosm Cut: Pop, Publishing, Politics and 2008, Punk pp. Fanzines 10-11. from 1976. 4 ROBINSON, Lucy.Subculture: Zines and TheHistory: Meaning Zine ofas Style History. In THE SUBCULTURES NETWORK (eds.) R Reassembling the Social. An IntroductionManchester : toManchester Actor-Network-Theory. University Press, 2018, p. 40. 5 HEBDIGE, Dick. London : Routledge, 1979, p. 114. 6 LATOUR, Bruno. yperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology after the End of the World. Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2005, p. 73. 7 MORTON, Timothy. H Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press, 2013, p. 11. Miloš Hroch: Not Out of Date, but Out of Time: The Materiality of Zines and Post-digital Memory 19 This theoretical study presents a possible contribution of media theory and media- materialism for historical research on reflecting the constructing of present-day memory and the irreducible role of the materiality of historical sources. An ar gument is made for better understanding and analytical exploration of material which is not a passive entity in the process – but at the same time, there is a need to be cautious so as not to set aside the discursive. It is believed that justice can be done to the material by extending current and often used subcultural approaches- which would reveal new layers of this alternative media production. But before outlining this discursive-material theoretical model and sketching the possibi lities of post-digital memory for (zine) historians, there must be an explanation of the context of the post-digital, and useful approaches in zine research with Printreferences in the to Age the materialof Post-digital need to be contextualized. - Throughout the 1980s, we can see an absolute fascinationNeuromancer with virtual space, digi tal technologies and immateriality in popular culture. One of the most well-known and celebrated books of the cyberpunk genre is (1984) by William Gibson, which proposed the radical vision of a future where the world is ruled by corporations; computer hackers are the new heroes operating in cyberspace8 and a global computer network Matrix mediates consensual illusions. Cyberculture is a reference point, when speaking about the blurred lines“Cyberculture between the partiallymaterial lostand sightimmaterial. of the physicality In this sense, of digital Nathalie media Casemajor in the 1980s sees and the 1990s.” 1980s and 1990s as a vanishing point for the material world and physicality: 9 Cyberculture created the hegemony of digital as a discourse, and the massive expansion of the internet“(I)t andseems digital our media technologies are gradually in the disappearinglate 1990s and from 2000s view made while it at a thereality same – timeand mediainfluencing became our invisible,lives more as and Mark more Deuze in terms states of our in (real his respected and perceived) book control Media overLife: them and their control over us.”10 For at least the past two decades, the fields“nu- mericalof media representation, and communication modularity, studies automation, have been occupied variability by anddigital cultural immateriality. transco- ding.”Disciplines11 have been shaped and focused on the practices and principles of This focus has further stabilised12 the hegemony of the digital and shifted the focus in academic fields – which is illustrated by the fact that a whole new field of digital journalism has developed. As a result, the material structure of media has almost completely been forgotten. The way we consume art was radically changed by the streaming culture and digital economies/ecologies. But as a consequence, Neuromancer In Westminster Papers in8 GIBSON, Communication William. and Culture . New York : Ace, 1984. 9 CASEMAJOR, Nathalie.Media Life.Digital Materialisms: Frameworks for Digital Media Studies. The Language, 2015, of Vol.New 10, Media. No. 1, p. 5. 10 DEUZE, Mark. Cambridge : Polity,The 2012, Routledge p. 62. Handbook of Developments