Current: David Hockney Embracing Technology at the NGV

The Four Seasons, Woldgate Woods (Spring 2011, Summer 2010, Autumn 2010, Winter 2010), 36 digital videos synchronised and presented on 36 55-inch screens to compromise a single artwork, silent, 4 min 18 sec

David Hockney’s recent exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria displays his most modern works of art in a fresh and new way. Current is on display from November, 2016 until March, 2017 and includes works using video montage, acrylic, photographic drawings and iPad drawings amongst others.[i] Visiting the exhibition in early March, I was able to see how he had used modern technology to his advantage and I drew parallels between this embracement of technology and certain Futurist ideologies described by Elise Takehana in her article, Legitimizing The Artist: Avant-Garde Utopianism And Relational Aesthetics.[ii]

While his work wouldn’t be considered Futuristic in nature, many of the Futurists’ ideals can be applied to his newest creations, on display in Current. Most notably, the Futurists rejected traditional forms of media and instead sought to use the best and newest technologies they could find. In Current, the majority of works were created using screen media on iPads and iPhones. To display these works in the context of how they were created, numerous phones were set up within the exhibition with the screens rotating through his work. He also experimented using motion, stitching videos together to create a sort of collage, which was a step up from his previous works using photomontage. In particular, his work ‘The four seasons, Woldgate Woods’[iii] was incredible to experience. Set up on 36 55-inch screens, each work had nine videos depicting the same drive in a different season. It was overwhelming to see how much work had gone into it and using motion gave a different dimension to experiencing his work. Even artists who specialise in film and photographic direction seldom have the patience and ingenuity to create works like this.

As Takehana outlines, “the ultimate goal of Futurism was to break from the past, creating an enlivened future and a modern Italy that did not lean on its past accomplishments.”[ii] In essence, this is what Hockney applied in his own work. Rather than revisiting old subject matter and techniques, he completely reinvented himself as a modern artist. Hockney has been careful not to box himself in and stick to a single medium or subject matter. Perhaps this is why many people consider him to be one of the greatest artists of his generation; he is constantly changing and evolving and doesn’t simply settle for what is comfortable. Few artists can work in as many mediums as he has and appear to have mastered all of them; the quality of his work does not falter across a number of areas.

Overall, the exhibition was a fantastic demonstration of Hockney’s willingness to move away from traditional media that he has previously been associated with and instead dive headfirst into the new-age.

[i] Simon Maidment et al., David Hockney: Current, 1st ed. (National Gallery of Victoria, 2016).
[ii] Elise Takehana, “Legitimizing The Artist: Avant-Garde Utopianism And Relational Aesthetics”, Queen’s Journal of Visual and Material Culture, no. 2 (2009): 1-18.
[iii] The four seasons, Woldgate Woods (Spring 2011, Summer 2010, Autumn 2010, Winter 2010), 36 digital videos synchronised and presented on 36 55-inch screens to compromise a single artwork, silent, 4 min 18 sec.

The Zine as a Community-driven Publication: Is it sustainable?

Zines are the epitome of DIY publishing and as long as you have access to scissors, glue and a photocopier, anyone can produce their own. As a medium, they are inherently subversive; they’re self-produced so they don’t have to answer to anybody and their style is often strongly linked to a punk aesthetic.[i] As Michelle Kempson outlines in her article, ‘I sometimes Wonder Whether I’m an Outside’: Negotiating Belonging in Zine Subculture’, there is a sense of community that comes from participating in the creation and sharing of zines.[ii] You would not get into creating zines as a means to make a living… instead, people almost exclusively there to exchange time and creativity. People will give you something they’ve made in exchange for something of yours that they want to experience. The reward? Sharing your creativity with another group of people. Spending time on something that makes you feel something rather than payment at the end of it.

Take for instance, Rocket, which was an independently produced series of zines that circulated mainly around Melbourne for free around 2014 and 2015. The zine is printed almost like a collage on simple cartridge paper in black and white, which evokes feelings of old-school punk aesthetic. Their reasons for doing this are not just purely for aesthetics; by printing in the simplest manner possible using cheap printers means that costs are cut by a huge amount which is entirely necessary to sustain the publication.

The zine community is a fantastic way to inform and entertain people from a number of different subcultures. Their creators generally have a specific interest in a topic and can share that in a way that would not be possible in mainstream printing. But without the support of mainstream printing and advertising, keeping a free publication like Rocket running is extremely difficult. It is a sad reminder that nothing in this world is free. You would have to have funds in order to create content and distribute it using print media; even using the most basic of techniques still requires printing as a huge cost at the very least. By not charging anyone to cover this cost, the lifespan of a zine is generally quite short-lived, as seen with Rocket and the cost they incurred.

They turned to crowd-funding in order to make production and distribution possible, just as a lot of self-initiated projects rely on.[iii] They put their costs at $10,000 for 12 months of production which has since ended because it’s not something that can be sustainable. Presenting work that is subversive is unlikely to be backed by larger corporations and that means having to fund the project yourself. There was no mainstream advertising or sponsorship; instead, the zine focused on sharing creative talents amongst a range of different disciplines for free. Anything mentioned in the zine was there because the creators genuinely felt passionate about a particular band or artist.

While this independence is a necessary link to the form of the zine, it is also the downfall of its distribution. Trading zines for other publications or creative endeavours is a wonderful community initiative but it means that someone is always out of pocket for the printing of new content. Perhaps there needs to be a middle ground where zines must be charged a fee for the printing so a zine can continue to be sustainable. Until then, people will engage in this subculture of creating zines until they can no longer financially support it themselves. For now, we enjoy the passionate yet mostly short-lived lifespan of each zine and look at the positives; having a copy of a rarely printed piece of art that means you’re part of a community.

[i] Teal Triggs, “Scissors and Glue: Punk Fanzines and the Creation of a DIY Aesthetic.” 2006. United States: Oxford University, page 69-81

[ii] Michelle Kempson, “‘I Sometimes Wonder Whether I’M An Outsider’: Negotiating Belonging In Zine Subculture”, Sociology 49, no. 6 (2015): 1081-1095.

[iii] Emily Newbold, “Keep Rocket Free”, Pozible, last modified 2017, accessed April 5, 2017, https://pozible.com/project/185255.