Future Fantasteek! Serial Zine

Future Fantasteek! (ISSN 2399-3022) brings together a trichotomy of investigation; art-zines and independent publishing; artist as social commentator and drawing as a means of immediate visual communication. The series explores obdurate boundaries between journalism and authorial illustration using satire to reflect notions of ‘Britishness’. The series can be read as a sequence, from just prior to the ‘credit crunch’ through to the ‘age of austerity’. The series is independently published as a limited edition art-zine, with one or two issues per year. The approach is experimental, incremental and reflective focussing on both the microcosm and macrocosm of living in the UK. Visual humour is developed throughout as a vehicle for change, combining techniques such as pastiché, parody and socratic irony. Typography and images are juxtaposed to create new narrative possibilities. Language is explored using different ‘voices’ such as anecdotal, colloquial or profane. This text is then translated into drawn commentaries on etiquette, politics and advertising. The ‘anxiety of the individual’ is a running theme throughout the series with many reoccurring protagonists and antagonists soliloquizing their notions of ‘Das Unheimliche’. The series also explores changing technologies with regard to notions of ‘the book’ with online versions of Future Fantasteek! available via a blog and online PDF reader (issuu and .swf) and more recently via Amazon Kindle.Issuu statistics recorded 20,989 plus online readers for Future Fantasteek! The aggregating blog – www.dampflat.blogspot.com is being recorded at regular intervals by the British Library as part of their ‘Web Archive Program’ (www.webarchive.org.uk.) The British Library select and invite participants in order to archive sites that represent aspects of UK documentary heritage and as a result, they will remain available to researchers in the future. Future Fantasteek! has been purchased by international bookarts and zine collections across the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Europe, Scotland and the UK (including Tate Britain, V&A Library, British Library, Getty Institute, The Met and Yale collection of British Art and Minnesota centre for the book). The first ten issues were exhibited in a touring show of international artists’ books collections (along with research sketchbooks) between March 2011- March 2012 at the following locations - University of the Arts London, LCC, London, UK : Centre for Fine Print Research, UWE, Bristol, UK : The Library, Hereford College of Arts, Hereford, UK : Stuart Hall Library, INIVA, Institute of International Visual Arts, London, UK : The Ministry of Books, University of Portsmouth, UK : Colorado College Special Collections, Colorado Springs, CO. USA. The Sallie Bingham Center, Duke University, Durham, NC. USA: Joan Flasch Collection, Art Institute of Chicago, IL. USA. The body of work is outputted via independent press art-zines mostly located in special collection s and libraries.Special editions/compilations are also included as are exhibition and participation in collaborative events/workshops.

Illustrated serial Art-Zine focussed on Britishness, humour and absurdity.
Series aggregates and traces shifts and patterns in UK life through social commentary and humour.

The zines in this series are held in many collections around the world including:
The V&A Museum, London, UK
Tate Britain,The Hyman Kreitman Research Centre, London, UK
Modern British Collections, The British Library, London, UK
Stuart Hall Library, INIVA (Institute of International Visual Arts), London, UK

Joan Flasch Artists’ Book Collection, Chicago, Illinois, USA
The MET, New York, USA
Artists' Books Collection, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, CA, USA
The Arthur and Mata Jaffe Collection, Boca Raton, Florida, USA
Rare Books, The Yale Centre for British Art, Connecticut, USA

For a full list visit:
http://futurefantasteek.blogspot.co.uk/p/in-collections.html