PhotoStatic 28: January 1988

http://psrf.detritus.net/volume/5/p28.html

Test Patterns for the Human Mind

The current issue was a momentous one in our history. It marked a decisive shift, away from individual works generally displayed one per page, toward attempts at more graphically complex layouts and a greater than ever before dependance on text for content.

The issue takes the unusual, if not unprecedented, form of two magazines in one — marking, at the same time, the début of a new “submagazine” called Retrofuturism, occupying the bottom inch-and-a-fraction of each and every page. (Originally, the plan was to have the new ’zine gradually replace the old one, while at the same time doing a cinematic-like ‘wipe’ up the page over a year’s worth of issues — this was abandoned when the challenge to make useful page layouts grew too difficult.)

Memorable works from this issue (the Tape-beatles’ page-bottoms notwithstanding), include a series of images and texts by Steve Harp entitled “Photographs within Photographs”; the short but richly ironic “The Magritte Flashcard” by R.K. Courtney; a splayed booklet by A1 Waste Paper Co. Ltd. called “U-Make it (no talent)”, which is a satire on the Tuyau daily ’zines appearing at the time; and all of this amply filled out by other, often equally interesting works, as well as the reviews, news, and opinions, as is par for this particular course.