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Project

“Wir publizieren” began in 2017 as a collaboration between the University of the Arts Bremen (HfK) and the Bern University of the Arts (HKB). Based on the HfK project “Under the Radar – Underground Zines and Self-Publications 1965–1975”, which, under the direction of Jan-Frederik Bandel and Tania Prill, had recently led to a highly acclaimed exhibition at the Weserburg Bremen in the premises of the Artists’ Publication LAB and an award-winning publication by the two together with Annette Gilbert at Spector Books, both universities wanted to continue on this thematic field. The “Archive of Independent Publishing AIP” which is based at the HfK in Bremen, was given a counterpart in Bern that manifested itself as an archive of serial independent publications since the 1960s with a focus on Switzerland.

This ”Archive of Swiss Independent Periodical Publishing ASIPP”, which was created not least thanks to numerous donations, contains magazines by young people, designers, artists and movers and shakers who were all looking for ways to express content without professional filters – e.g. without thinking about mediation, translation or target groups – is now located at the Zurich University of the Arts ZHdK. Both archives are members of the “International Network of Independent Publishing Archives INIPA”.

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Network

International Network of Independent Publishing Archives

Das «Archive of Swiss Independent Periodical Publishing ASIPP» ist Teil des International Network of Independent Publishing Archives.

Kooperationspartner

Archive of Swiss Independent Periodical Publishing (ASIPP), Zürcher Hochschule der Künste, ZHdK

Archive of Independent Publishing (AIP), Hochschule für Künste Bremen

Archiv für Alternativkultur, Institut für Europäische Ethnologie, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

Beschreibung der Kooperation

Die Kooperation ist aus der Tagung «Wir diskutieren» (Kunsthalle Bern, 16.–17. Januar 2020) im Rahmen der Ausstellung «Wir publizieren – Redaktion, Gestaltung, Produktion und Distribution unabhängiger Magazinformate in der Schweiz seit 1960» (Kunsthalle Bern, 20. Dezember 2019–2. Februar 2020) hervorgegangen. Die Tagung erörterte das Phänomen des unabhängigen Publizierens anhand von Vorträgen, Diskussionen und Interventionen. Förderung der Archivierung und Erforschung von historischer und zeitgenössischer Alternativkultur anhand derer Publikationen.
 

Förderung des Austausches über archivarische Strategien und Praxen unter den Kooperationspartnern und der öffentlichen Verbreitung von Beständen und Wissen, zum Beispiel in Form von Ausstellungen, Konferenzen und Workshops.
 

Koordination von Aktivitäten unter den Kooperationspartnern.
 

Gemeinsames Kommunikationsmittel und Kalender zur Kommunikation der Aktivitäten der Kooperationspartner.
 

Austausch über und Entwicklung einer Strategie für die Digitalisierung und Zugänglichmachung der Bestände.
 

Koordination der Zusammenarbeit und Entwicklung von Forschungsschwerpunkten mit internationalen Forschungsinstituten.

 

Archive of Independent Publishing (AIP)

Das Archive of Independent Publishing (AIP) ist eine Sammlung deutscher und internationaler Underground- und Selbstpublikationen, die seit 2018 an der HfK Bremen beheimatet ist. Der Bestand von Hunderten von Heften, Broschüren und Büchern, die grösstenteils aus dem Zeitraum 1965–1975 stammen, steht der Nutzung durch Forschende, Studierende und Interessierte offen, richtet sich aber vor allem an Design- und Typografiestudierende. Der Wert dieser – oft politisch, inhaltlich und gestalterisch gleichermassen wilden – Publikationen für die Geschichte sozialer Bewegungen, politischer Protestformen und alternativer Lebensmodelle um und seit 1968 liegt auf der Hand. Dem AIP geht es aber vordringlich um andere (bzw. weiterführende) Fragen: Welche Bedeutung kommt Medien, Kommunikation, Gestaltung in diesen Lebensmodellen zu? Welche Vorgeschichte unserer heutigen analogen, digitalen, postdigitalen Mediennutzung lässt sich mit diesen Publikationen erzählen? Welche Bruch- und Traditionslinien im Grafikdesign und im Mediendenken sind darin zugespitzter als anderswo zu erkennen? Auf wessen Schultern steht das heutige Independent Publishing? Was kann es von den Amateuren, Fantasten und Rebellen der 1960er, 1970er Jahre lernen? Wie politisch ist Gestaltung? Und welche sozialen Vorstellungen artikulieren sich in ihr?
Das AIP ist hervorgegangen aus der Sammlung von Jan-Frederik Bandel und dem Projekt «Unter dem Radar. Underground- und Selbstpublikationen 1965–1975», das von der HfK Bremen, der Freien Universität Berlin und dem Zentrum für Künstlerpublikationen (Weserburg Bremen) getragen wurde. Es wird koordiniert von Tania Prill. Bei Spector Books (Leipzig) ist 2017 der Band «Unter dem Radar/Under the Radar» erschienen, weitere Publikationen des AIP werden ebenfalls dort veröffentlicht.

Kontakt: mail@taniaprill.com

Archiv für Alternativkultur

Das Archiv für Alternativkultur am Institut für Europäische Ethnologie der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin wurde 1995 gegründet. Den Kern der Sammlung bildet der Nachlass des Literarischen Informationszentrums Josef Wintjes, der der Humboldt-Universität zu Forschungszwecken gestiftet wurde.

Das 1969 von Josef Wintjes (1947–1995) gegründete Informations- und Vertriebszentrum in Bottrop diente nicht nur dem Vertrieb von Alternativpresse, sondern verstand sich vor allem als Diskussionsforum für die unterschiedlichsten literarischen und politischen Gruppierungen. Wintjes und sein Informationszentrum verkörperten als Institution gleichzeitig auch die wichtigste Quelle der literarischen Alternativszene. Sein Archiv ist ein einzigartiges Beispiel kulturgeschichtlicher Dokumentation der Struktur und Geschichte einer Bewegung.

Die Bestand von literarischen, künstlerischen und politischen Archivmaterialien der neuen sozialen Bewegungen in Deutschland seit den 1960er Jahren umfasst Zeitungen und Zeitschriften, graue Literatur und Flugschriften sowie Dokumente wie Raubdrucke, Reader, Plakate, Flyer und grafische Darstellungen zur Alternativ- und Underground-Presse, zu alternativen Verlagen und Buchläden, zur Protestbewegung. Auch Teile der Privatsammlung von Henryk M. Broder, Bestände von Benno Käsmayrs MaroVerlag Augsburg oder Sammlungen von einzelnen Social Beat-Autor*innen sind dem Archiv in den letzten Jahren übertragen worden. Gleichzeitig verfügt das Archiv über eine Sammlung von Fotos, Video- und Tonkassetten.

Kontakt: anja.schwanhaeusser@uni-goettingen.de

 

Archive of Swiss Independent Periodical Publishing

Das Archive of Swiss Independent Periodical Publishing (ASIPP) vereint serielle Publikationsprojekte seit den 1960er Jahren mit Schwerpunkt Schweiz. Gesammelt werden Drucktechniken, Websites, Mailinglisten etc. Diese werden am Departemet für Kulturanalysen und Vermittlung der Zürcher Hochschule der Künste in Forschung und Lehre der Cultural Critique eingesetzt und einer interessierten und / oder forschenden Öffentlichkeit digital und physisch zugänglich gemacht.

Kontakt: asipp.contact@zhdk.ch

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Call

The “Archive of Swiss Independent Periodical Publishing ASIPP”, which is based at the Zurich University of the Arts ZHdK, is to be opened up with this call for those who would like to make a contribution to the history of independent magazine formats in Switzerland with personal, political, social or artistic publications.

What do we seek?

Independent serial publication projects since the 1960s with a focus on Switzerland (all printing techniques, websites, mailing lists, etc.).

What will happen to them?

The publications are reproduced digitally in as large a selection as possible, made publicly accessible and searchable.

The physical publications can be viewed at the ZHdK by prior arrangement. 

In collaboration with the Museum für Gestaltung Zurich, the preservation of fragile and valuable publications is to be ensured.

How to submit

The publications can be delivered to Zurich University of the Arts ZHdK, sent to us by e-mail or by post (any high shipping costs incurred can be paid after prior agreement).

Contact

Zürcher Hochschule der Künste
Departement für Kulturanalysen und Vermittlung / ASIPP
Pfingstweidstrasse 96 / PF
8031 Zürich
Schweiz

asipp.contact@zhdk.ch

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Exhibition

20 December 2019 – 2 February 2020
Opening: Thursday, 19 December 2019, 7 p.m.
Kunsthalle Bern, Helvetiaplatz 1, 3005 Bern

Wir publizieren

Editing, Design, Production and Distribution of Independent Swiss Magazines since 1960

The exhibition “Wir publizieren” is a collaborative project of the School of Art and Design at the Bern University of the Arts HKB in Switzerland, and of the Art and Design Department at the University of the Arts Bremen in Germany. It focuses on independent, collective practices in publishing, reproduction and distribution.

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The project is based on an archive of independent and mostly Swiss publications from the 1960s onwards, which has been created, curated and studied at HKB. The archive contains magazines produced and published by young people, designers, artists, and social agitators termed Bewegte, who explored ways of sharing their thoughts without applying any professional filters. Little consideration, if any, was given to target audiences or mainstream mediation and dissemination methods.

Featured in this exhibition are the archive’s current holdings of around 500 publications that range from art and culture to politics and social movements. Magazines and distribution structures, current research and early results are presented; two questions are explored: What evidence is there for an increased interest in print media? How have topics, approaches, aesthetics and attitudes changed in independent publishing since the 1960s – and why?

Within the framework of the exhibition, regular public talks are held with designers, artists, authors and editors of the publications from the collection, who explore questions of self-organisation, role assignments, orientation, distribution, financing, cooperation and self-empowerment. The dates are constantly updated under «Events».

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Events

16-17 January 2020
Kunsthalle Bern, Helvetiaplatz 1, 3005 Bern

We discuss

Conference as part of the exhibition “We publish”

“At the intersection of literature, art, design, technology, law, politics and economics there is a mixture of practices, processes and institutions in which the little-researched phenomenon of independent publishing takes place.” (Gilbert 2019) The one and a half day conference “We discuss” aims to discuss this phenomenon with the help of lectures, discussions and interventions. We ask ourselves the following questions: How can the interest in self-organised publishing as a political and social practice, and the resulting artefacts, be justified? How can these mostly complex and collective processes be archived and made accessible? What are the requirements for our behaviour today? And how can these be conveyed? The conference is taking place as part of the exhibition “We publish - editing, design, production and distribution of independent magazine formats in Switzerland since 1960” (Kunsthalle Bern, 20 December 2019 - 2 February 2020). Participation is open to the public and is free of charge. The contributions will be recorded on video and published on this website after the conference.
 

Thursday, 16 January 2020, 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm

Anti-Book: Crisis and Materiality in Political Self-Publishing

Lecture by Nicholas Thoburn (Lecturer in Sociology, University of Manchester) followed by a discussion (in English).
Introduction: Andreas Vogel, moderation: Lucie Kolb

This talk presents a communism of experimental self-publishing, a communism that shifts attention from the content of publishing to publishing’s many and various material forms. These experimental forms, I will argue, are traversed by crisis, wrought as they are from a social terrain coursing with hostile relations of gender, race, and class. The talk takes a ‘post-digital’ approach to publishing, exploring experimental practice from the standpoint of a publishing landscape thoroughly transformed by digital technology and informed by the rich traditions of artists’ publishing. Developing arguments from my Anti-Book, the talk keeps examples of publishing practice at the foreground. It focuses in particular on an anonymously published book of tweets from the 2015 Baltimore uprising against racial terror.

Nicholas Thoburn is Senior Lecturer in sociology at the University of Manchester. He is author of Anti-Book: On the Art and Politics of Radical Publishing (2016) and Deleuze, Marx and Politics (2003), and co-editor of Deleuze and Politics (2008), Objects and Materials (2014), and Franco Berardi’s After the Future (2011). He has published on political theory, media aesthetics, social movements, and architecture, and is on the editorial board of the cultural studies journal New Formations (2019).
 

Friday, 17 January 2020, 2:00 pm - 2:30 pm 

Irgendwie anders: Nötige Differenzierungen im Spannungsfeld von Anspruch und Wirklichkeit

Lecture by Annette Gilbert (literary scholar, Friedrich Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg) followed by a discussion (in German).
Introduction and moderation: Lucie Kolb

Slogans such as “The Book as Democratic Multiple”, “Publishing as Artistic Practice” or “The Page as Alternative Space” often carry the implicit conviction that independent, collective and/or artistic forms of publishing are so fundamentally different from other publishing, literary and art practices that they can have a liberating, even revolutionary effect on them. Publishing is not only designed as an alternative to the art world and literature, but also explicitly as an alternative to the common models of the book trade. The question is not only whether this promise can always be kept, but also whether this binary opposition can be opened at all.

Annette Gilbert is a literary scholar with a special interest in the mediality and materiality of literature, in phenomena in the border area between art and literature and in the changes in production, publication and distribution practices and the public in the post-digital age. Recent publications: In the blind spot of literature. Borderline cases of literary work since the 1950s (2018); Publishing as Artistic Practice (2016, ed.); Under The Radar. Underground- und Selbstpublikationen 1965–1975 (Underground and self-publications 1965–1975) (2016, ed. With Jan-Frederik Bandel and Tania Prill).
 

Friday, January 17, 2020, 2:30 - 3:30 pm

Archive des unabhängigen Publizierens

Roundtable with Jan-Frederik Bandel (Archive of Independent Publishing Bremen), Rolf Lindner (Archive for Alternative Culture Berlin), Anja Schwanhäußer (author) and Andreas Vogel (Head of the Department of Design and Art, Bern University of the Arts) (in German).
Introduction and moderation: Tania Prill

Three archives that are interwoven in different ways: The Archive of Swiss Independent Periodical Publishing (ASIPP) emerges from the book and exhibition project Projekt Unter den Radar, the core of which is the publications of the Archive of Independent Publishing (AIP). The AIP is a collection of German and international underground and self-publications that has been housed at the Bremen University of the Arts since 2018. Stilrevolte Underground – Die Alternativkultur als Agent der Postmoderne (Alternative Culture as an Agent of Postmodernism) by Anja Schwanhäusser is the first publication in an AIP book series at Spector Books. The book starts with the Archive for Alternative Culture. This estate of the Literary Information Center Josef Wintjes at the Institute for European Ethnology at the Humboldt University in Berlin is a collection of literary, artistic and political archive material from the new social movements in Germany since the 1960s.

The roundtable will discuss the thesis of the book Stilrevolte Underground, which is based on a complicity between subculture and postmodern capitalism. The focus is on the one hand on the publications that played an important role in the constitution of the underground scene, on the other hand on the infrastructures and social places on which independent publishing relies. How have the collaborative and collective work and the public generated by it changed today? And why are there still references to the historical underground these days?

Jan-Frederik Bandel, born in 1977, lives in Leipzig as a lecturer, literary scholar and translator. He studied German language and literature, history and philosophy in Hamburg and Baltimore, doctorate in Berlin. Since 2012, he has been a lecturer at the HfK Bremen. Various book publications, most recently Unter dem Radar. Underground and self-publications 1965–1975 (2017, ed. with Annette Gilbert and Tania Prill).

Rolf Lindner, Prof. i.R. for European Ethnology, Humboldt University Berlin. He was a fellow at the Cultural Studies Institute (KUWI) Essen, at the International Research Center for Cultural Studies Institute (IFK) Vienna and at the Popular Cultures Laboratory at the Institute for Social Anthropology and Empirical Cultural Studies (ISEK) at the University of Zurich. Monographs since 2000: The Hour of Cultural Studies (2000); Walks on the Wild Side. Eine Geschichte der Stadtforschung (2004); Die Entdeckung der Stadtkultur (2007, Neuauflage Campus Bibliothek Klassiker); Berlin, absolute Stadt (2016). (A history of urban research (2004); The discovery of urban culture (2007, new edition of the Campus Library classic); Berlin, absolute city (2016)).  

Anja Schwanhäußer is a research assistant at the Institute for Cultural Anthropology/European Ethnology at the University of Göttingen. She publishes on the topics of urban ethnology, underground and field research. She was artistically active at off-theaters and initiated the “HorseArt” group. She is currently researching the “little world” of pony farms in the Berlin suburbs. Current publication: Stilrevolte Underground: Applied Publishing Studies (2019).
 

Friday, 17 January 2020, 3:45 pm - 4:30 pm

Radical Publishing Practices Demand Radical Librarianship: Perspectives and Framing Under the Disguise of Neutrality

Lecture by Eva Weinmayr (artist, researcher and lecturer) followed by a discussion (in English).
Introduction and moderation: Lucie Kolb

The concept of the library seems to have gained much attention recently. On the one hand, we keep hearing about public library closures across the continent, on the other, we witness much energy and activism in the development and sustenance of shadow libraries, whether physical or online. After all, libraries are spaces that turn marketable goods into public goods. They provide free access to knowledge that would otherwise have to be purchased. However, libraries arguably are also disciplinary institutions. They determine what is validated and legitimised as relevant knowledge and secondly how this material is framed and represented in the catalogue, which as I will claim, constitutes itself a meaning-making structure. As library scholar Emily Drabinski points out, classification schemes «are socially produced and embedded structures, they are products of human labour that carry traces of all the intentional and unintentional racism, sexism, and classism of the workers who create them. It is not possible to do classification objectively. It is the nature of subject analysis to be subjective». Using the Library of Inclusions and Omissions as a starting point I will discuss the political nature of cataloguing and indexing and its implicit dilemma since each standard and category valorises some point of view and silences another.

Eva Weinmayr is an artist researcher and educator investigating the border crossings between contemporary art, radical education and institutional analysis by experimenting with modes of queer knowledge formation. She is co-founder of AND Publishing, a feminist publishing platform and collaborative practice based in London and conducts currently a PhD in Artistic Practice on the Micropolitics of Publishing at Valand Academy, University of Gothenburg.
 

Friday, 17 January 2020, 5:00 - 5:30 pm

Buchroutine

Lecture by Tine Melzer (lecturer, Bern University of the Arts) followed by a discussion (in German).
Introduction and moderation: Andreas Vogel

Tine Melzer talks about her practice as an author of autonomous book publications. “Being an artist means being a publicist,” said the Dutch book artist Jan Voss recently. She thinks he’s right. For her, self-empowerment and publication practice are part of artistic expression. Questions of control, audience and translation are of central importance. She uses the conventional form of the physical, printed book to materialize transitions between text and image, saying and showing, thinking and meaning. In teaching, too, she encourages students to work out printed versions of works, even if they are transdisciplinary, ephemeral, fragmentary or unfinished. That is why Melzer bundles each university seminar into final print publications, of which she shows a few examples.

Tine Melzer studied visual arts and philosophy in Amsterdam and received her doctorate in England. Her work combines language philosophy with visual means and autonomous publication formats. She is a lecturer at the Hochschule der Künste in Bern and researches aspects of image, text and transdisciplinary vocabulary.
 

Friday, 17 January 2020, 5:30 pm - 6:00 pm

Teaching Publishing

Lecture by Urs Lehni (graphic designer, editor and head of BA Visual Communication, Bern University of the Arts) and Olivier Lebrun (graphic designer and head of BA Graphic Design, ENSBA Lyon) followed by a discussion (in English).
Introduction and moderation: Robert Lzicar

Olivier Lebrun and Urs Lehni are both graphic designers, publishers and involved in art schools as head of a study course. So it stands to reason that they try to link these fields in their teaching in order to test different strategies for the mediation of publishing and to establish alternative models of the production and diffusion of content. In their input they will present some examples from their teaching, such as the magazine Revue Initiales (ENSBA Lyon), the book Bernard Chadebec: Intrus Sympatiques (HfG Karlsruhe) or the publication platform BookBoY (HfG Karlsruhe).

Olivier Lebrun produces editorial projects which focus on the links between content and container. He is the author of Stolen Works of Art (2010), the Pocket Companion to Books from The Simpsons serie (Rollo Press, 2012, 2013, Yellow Pages, 2018) and Bernard Chadebec, Intrus Sympathiques with Urs Lehni and students of the HfG Karlsruhe (Rollo Press, 2016). He’s coordinating the BA Graphic Design at ENSBA Lyon (FR).

Urs Lehni works as a graphic designer in Zurich and has headed the BA Visual Communication at HKB Bern since summer 2019. With his publishing project Rollo Press he has published around 60 titles since 2008 and in 2015 received the renowned Jan Tschichold Prize from the Federal Office of Culture.
 

Friday, 17 January 2020, 6:15 - 7:00 pm

Learning from Publishing

Roundtable with Lucie Kolb (artist and author), Tania Prill (graphic designer and professor of typography, Hochschule der Künste Bremen) and Robert Lzicar (designer, and head of MA Design, Hochschule der Künste Bern) (in German).
Introduction and moderation: Andreas Vogel

As part of “We publish”, various courses were held at the Hochschule der Künste Bern HKB and at the Hochschule der Künste Bremen, where students worked with the archive in various ways: Under the title “We publish: visits to the archive, guest lectures, discussions”, Lucie Kolb introduced the history of self-publishing; In the Y-Toolbox “Andere Öffentlichkeiten (Other Public Spheres)” she and the students examined how our language is often unconsciously based on professional or disciplinary conventions. In the seminar “We publish… now as a film…”, the students, led by Asli Serbest and Tania Prill, negotiated the relationship between the media of print and film, produced different connections, stories and translations between the two media and put them - in motion - in the room. In Robert Lzicar’s seminar on the history of visual communication, the students developed questions about the content, form, production and distribution of historical publications from the “We publish” collection, researched historical data, facts and relationships and answered them in the form of a story.

Based on the experiences from these courses, the roundtable will discuss how and what can be learned from dealing with publishing and those that have been published. What potential do publication projects have for the education and development of students? How can self-publications be researched? The roundtable would also like to contribute to the discussion about the nature of art schools, in which not only learning content but also questions about the organisation and the institutional framework are up for discussion.

Lucie Kolb is an artist, author and editor of Brand-New-Life magazine. In 2017 she completed her doctorate at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna on artistic publishing strategies since 1960 and researches at the Institute for Experimental Design and Media Cultures Basel in the “Institutions as a Way of Life” project funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) on the legacy of institutional criticism. In addition, she publishes regularly on self-publishing, training and art criticism, most recently the monograph “Studium, nicht Kritik” (2017).

Tania Prill is a graphic designer (Studio Tania Prill, Zurich) and heads the HfK master studio “School of Visual Combinations”. Recent publications: Unter dem Radar – Underground- und Selbstpublikationen 1965–1975 (Under the Radar - underground and self-publications 1965–1975) (2016, ed. With Annette Gilbert and Jan-Frederik Bandel),  Typografie als künstlerisches Ereignis(Typography as an Artistic Event) (2016, ed. with Michael Glasmeier), MONEY (2015, with Alberto Vieceli and Sebastian Cremers). Tania Prill was a professor of communication design at the Hochschule für Gestaltung Karlsruhe (HfG) and has been a professor of typography at the Hochschule der Künste Bremen (HfK) since 2010, where she coordinates the AIP archive of independent publishing.

Robert Lzicar is a designer, professor and researcher. He teaches design history at the HKB, heads the MA design and coordinates the design history research field. He organised the Mapping Graphic Design History symposium in Switzerland (2014), published a publication of the same name (2016, edited by Davide Fornari) and coordinates the research project Swiss Graphic Design and Typography Revisited, funded by the Sinergia program of the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF) (since October 2016).
 

Friday, 17 January 2020, 7:00 pm

Aperitif

Videos

Anti-Book: Crisis and Materiality in Political Self-Publishing
Lecture by Nicholas Thoburn (Lecturer in Sociology, University of Manchester).

Archive des unabhängigen Publizierens
Roundtable with Jan-Frederik Bandel (Archive of Independent Publishing Bremen), Rolf Lindner (Archive for Alternative Culture Berlin), Anja Schwanhäußer (author) and Andreas Vogel (Head of the Department of Design and Art, Bern University of the Arts), Moderation: Tania Prill

Radical Publishing Practices Demand Radical Librarianship: Perspectives and Framing Under the Disguise of Neutrality
Lecture by Eva Weinmayr (artist, researcher and lecturer).

Buchroutine
Lecture by Tine Melzer (lecturer, Bern University of the Arts).

Teaching Publishing
Lecture by Urs Lehni (graphic designer, editor and head of BA Visual Communication, Bern University of the Arts) and Olivier Lebrun (graphic designer and head of BA Graphic Design, ENSBA Lyon).

Learning from Publishing
Roundtable with Lucie Kolb (artist and author), Tania Prill (graphic designer and professor of typography, Hochschule der Künste Bremen) and Robert Lzicar (designer, and head of MA Design, Hochschule der Künste Bern).

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20 December – 02 February 2020
Kunsthalle Bern, Helvetiaplatz 1, 3005 Bern

Wir publizieren: Oral Histories

Public discussions with designers, artists, authors and publishers of the publications in the collection

As part of the exhibition, a series of public discussions will take place with designers, artists, authors and publishers of the publications in the collection. Questions of self-organisation, role assignments, orientation, distribution, financing, cooperation and self-empowerment will be discussed. The dates are constantly updated here.


Saturday, 21 December 2019, 11 am, 12 am

Discussion with Roland Fischbacher & David Basler (Strapazin).
Discussion with Roland Fischbacher (Fabrikzeitung).


Sunday, 22 December 2019, 03 am

Discussion with Judith Welter (Brand-New-Life).


Saturday, 28 December 2019, 10 am, 12 am, 02, 04 pm

Discussion with Flurina Rothenberger & Rahel Arnold (Nice).
Discussion with Oliver Kielmayer (We Are The Artists).
Discussion with Kaj Lehmann & Marc Schwegler (zweikommasieben).

Discussion with Wolfgang Bortlik (Alpenzeiger)


Saturday, 18 January 2020, 02 pm

Discussion with Christoph Schuler (Stilett).


Saturday, 25 January 2020, 11 am

Discussion with Michael Hiltbrunner (Wiggerflut, Romp, Pablo Gerusa).

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Seminars

«There is no place for the dissemination of knowledge associated with bookmaking and publishing in context. Art academies teach the design of books; universities of applied sciences teach booksellers how to sell books; German studies teaches how to edit texts. But where is publishing taught?»

Spector Books, Applied Publishing Studies, Sitterwerk, 10.5.2014

 

– Other publics

Lucie Kolb

The «Wir publizieren» project is building a collection of independent publications at the HKB. It contains magazines by artists, activists which are characterized by the search for a form, by expressing something without a professional filter and by not primarily thinking of mediation, translation or a specific target group when writing content. Thus the texts in magazines such as Hofnachrichten, Eisbrecher, Art Power and others are formally idiosyncratic and the choice of the subject sometimes surprising. Often our language in the descriptions of our work, essays, applications are unconsciously oriented to professional or disciplinary conventions. These conventions are shaped by certain notions of gender, social class, and ethnic background, which always produce specific exclusions. By reading and discussing contributions in independent publications and writing our own texts, we aim to raise awareness of such conventions and encourage people to find languages that can produce a different sociality than a market-determined public. The Y-Toolbox is conceived as a preparation for an exhibition on the subject of «publishing» in December 2019 at the Kunsthalle Bern.

Bern University of the Arts
Y toolbox
11.-15.11.2019

 

– Wir publizieren… now as a movie…

Tania Prill, Asli Serbest

The seminar will redefine the relationship between print and film media. It will produce different connections, stories and translations between the two media and – in space – set them in motion. The aim is to transform a series of underground publications for the Swiss exhibition into different media, i.e. to translate printed, drawn and bound paper objects into moving images. 

Translation does not only mean showing and archiving originals in video copies, but also the confrontation of both media. This confrontation can be chaotic, romantic, geometric, or (un-)symmetrical. It always maintains the visibility of both media. Translation relates publication and film; it can also bring in excluded and lost ideas, ways of thinking and perception. It can invent languages, develop hybrid constellations and experiment with unusual formations. Finally, translation will produce its own space, between magazine and film, with new and for new narrative modes. Although our seminar will focus on the concrete occasion of the Bern exhibition, it will also examine in an exemplary manner how books and printed publications could be curated and shown in exhibitions. 

University of the Arts Bremen
Seminar BA / Ma Integrated Design
Summer semester 2019

 

– Wir publizieren. Archive visits, guest lectures, discussions

Lucie Kolb

The focus is on the joint, self-organised publication of magazines. Whether in printed or digital form, the publication of periodicals is always a collective work because it combines different competencies such as writing, designing, distributing, and publishing. Publishing not only makes something public; it also forms groups as ties are established and friends and enemies are created. The magazine is therefore not just a place for the reproduction of images and texts but also a place for the production of social constructs. The workshop introduces the history of self-publication from this perspective. With a focus on Bern, we will look at various projects whose initiators have decided to circulate their content themselves. To this end, we will make excursions, for example visiting the archives of the Kunsthalle Bern and the Swiss National Library, where documents from the nonconformism, Fluxus, and anti-psychiatry movements can be found. We will sift through cases together, read and discuss – but also talk to people who now publish themselves – and ask about the motivations and visions associated with this practice.

Bern University of the Arts
Y Toolbox
15.-18.04.2019

 

– Wir publizieren. Seminar in History of Visual Communication

Robert Lzicar

We will deal with the content, form, production, and distribution of historical publications from the collection of «Wir publizieren». Students will select one of the magazines, research historical data, facts, and connections, develop a question out of their interest, answer it in the form of a story, and present it in words and pictures as a contribution to the exhibition at the Kunsthalle Bern at the end of 2019. This process will be enriched by inputs and discussions with guests from the project group, experts, and contemporary witnesses. The workshop will also contribute to critically rethinking contemporary forms of self-publication and placing them in a broader historical context, thus counteracting creative nostalgia and unconsidered appropriation of stylistic elements. 

Bern University of the Arts
Seminar in BA Visual Communication
Spring semester 2019

 

– We publish / Antichambre

Tania Prill, Paul Steinmann, Saskia van der Meer

The exhibition “Wir publizieren”, which shows a collection of independent, serial publications with a focus on Switzerland at the Kunsthalle Bern, is accompanied by the production “Wir publizieren im Antichambre” in the Bernese off-space of the same name. The production by students from the University of the Arts in Bremen uses cinematic sequences to record transformed elements of the Bern collection, simulates the printing process and offers points of contact with passers-by in Bern’s city center from 4.12.2019 to 5.1.2020.

Hochschule für Künste Bremen
Seminar im Bachelor / Master Integriertes Design
10.10.2019–5.1.2020

 

 

 

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Collection

The archive, which is based at the Zurich University of the Arts ZHdK, encompasses the fields of art, culture, politics and social movements, but is not limited to these. The focus is on self-commissioned projects that create social bonds, connections and spaces that favour the collective, and we want to collect and link not only magazines, but also knowledge about publishing, for example between underground publications, artists’ magazines, political magazines and post-digital projects. Our collection does not claim to be complete, but reflects the current state of our research.

The magazines in the “Archive of Swiss Periodical Publishing ASIPP” are stored, digitally reproduced and preserved at the ZHdK. However, the task of an archive is not passive, but dynamic. The archive creates context. Archiving therefore not only means obtaining objects, but also preserving existing links and creating new ones.

Further Swiss magazines can be viewed in Switzerland at the  Swiss Social Archiv, the Swiss National Library, at Infoladen Kasama or at Infoladen Bern in the Reitschule.

We are grateful for information, corrections and donations: asipp.contact@zhdk.ch.

You can find a preliminary list of our collection here.

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People

Tania Prill

is an internationally renowned communication designer based in Zurich and Bremen. In addition to commissioned work such as the corporate design for Kieler Woche (2022), she also works as an editor and realises her own projects, such as the publication MONEY (Edition Patrick Frey). From 2004-2010 she was Professor of Communication Design at the Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design. Since 2010, she has been Professor of Typography at the University of the Arts Bremen. The “Archive of Independent Publishing AIP” has been under her direction there since 2018. Her research and work focuses on independent publishing, artists’ books, collaborative practices in design and in the field of typography.

Andreas Vogel

An art historian with a doctorate in late-absolutist urban planning, curator, critic, text and cultural worker. Activities at various museums, including 1999/2000 as curator of the Kunstverein in Konstanz. From 2001–2015 he worked in different management positions at the F+F School for Art and Media Design in Zurich, from 2011 as its rector. He was Head of the Department of Design and Art and a member of the Executive Board at Bern University of the Arts from 2015-2021. Since 2021, he has been Director of the Department of Cultural Analysis and Mediation at Zurich University of the Arts ZHdK and a member of the Executive Board. Andreas Vogel was a member of the Art Commission of the City of Zurich from 2006 to 2014, a jury member of the Guggenheim Foundation from 2013 to 2018 and a member of the Board of Trustees of the Bern Design Foundation from 2016 to 2022.
andreasvogel

 

 

 

Former collaborators:

Franziska Bauer (Jan. 2018 – Jan. 2019)

Graphic designer, artist, self-publisher and gender-queer activist. She is part of the multimedia art collective ELAF. Among others, they held a four-part exhibition at Debatterie by thealit/Bremen Nov 2018 with variations on the topic of abjection. They are part of the Dynamic Archive Project launching in Summer 2019. Franziska Bauer is also co-editor, writer and graphic designer of the annual self-published, queer-feminist maga_zine Purple Scare.

Lukas Cvitak (Sep. 2019 – Jan. 2020)

studies Integrated Design, at the University of the Arts Bremen. He deals with interdisciplinary projects at the interface between design areas such as Moving Image, Graphics, Product and Installation Space.

Roland Fischbacher (June 2019 – Jan. 2020)

completed his training as a visual designer in Biel and Zurich. As a  designer, he has many years of experience in designing catalogs and posters, including for the Kulturzentrum Rote Fabrik Zürich, the Museum für Gestaltung, the Helmhaus and the Präsidialdepartement der Stadt Zürich. In the 1980s, he was a co-initiator of publications such as “Eisbrecher”, “Subito” and “Fabrikzeitung”. He is also co-editor of the comic publication “Strapazin”. From 1993, he was a lecturer in visual communication at Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts in the Department of Design & Art HsLu, where he also headed the Graphic Design course from 2002. Between September 2007 and July 2019, he was head of the Bachelor of Visual Communication program at Bern University of the Arts HKB.

Lucie Kolb (Nov. 2017 – Nov. 2021)

Artist, author and editor of the magazine Brand-New-Life. In 2017, she did her doctorate at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna in artistic publishing strategies since 1960. She works at the Institut für Experimentelles Design und Medienkulturen Basel in the research project «Institutions as a Way of Life» on the legacy of institutional critique, funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF). She publishes regularly on self-publishing, education, and art criticism, most recently the monograph «Study, Not Critique» (transversal texts 2018). 

Lara Kothe (Sep. 2017 – Jun. 2023)

She studied graphic design with a focus on editorial design and typography in Hamburg. In 2016 she published the award-winning book «das Lethe-Kompendium», which has been exhibited several times worldwide. In this book, she acted as editor, author, artist, curator, and graphic artist and devoted herself to publishing as an artistic practice. After stays in Amsterdam and Berlin, she now works in the studio of Bern University of the Arts in Switzerland. Since 2017, she has also been studying for her master’s in Design Research at Bern University of the Arts, where she is an associate researcher in the research project «Swiss Graphic Design and Typography Revisited» and researcher in the field of Design History. www.larakothe.com

Robert Lzicar (Apr. 2017 – Jun. 2023)

Designer, professor, and researcher. He is based at Bern University of the Arts, where he teaches design history, directs the MA Design course, and coordinates the Research Field Design History. He organised the symposium «Mapping Graphic Design History in Switzerland» (2014), edited a publication of the same name with Davide Fornari (Triest, 2016), and is co-coordinating the research project «Swiss Graphic Design and Typography Revisited», funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) Sinergia programme (since October 2016).

Tine Melzer (Feb. 2018 – Jan. 2020)

She studied Fine Arts and Philosophy in Amsterdam, received a studio scholarship at the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten, and earned her doctorate in England. She combines the philosophy of language with visual means and publishes books. From 2004 to 2009 she was a lecturer at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie Amsterdam and did regular exhibitions and publications at home and abroad. Since 2014 she has been a lecturer at Bern University of the Arts (Y Institute, Design, and Art: Fine Arts). www.tinemelzer.eu

Daniela Mirabella (Feb. 2018 – Jan. 2020)

She works as a freelance graphic designer at the Atelier Mirabella-Morganti in Zurich, mainly for clients from the cultural and educational sectors. She teaches in the Department of Design at Zurich University of the Arts and works there in the Graphic Design Collection of the Museum für Gestaltung. She has been studying for her master’s in Design Research at Bern University of the Arts since 2017.

Rejane Salzmann (Jan. 2018 – Jan. 2019)

Studies at the School of Visual Combinations, MA Studio Integrated Design, University of the Arts Bremen.

Studio Harris Blondman (Nov. 2018 – Jan. 2020 / since Nov. 2023)

The award-winning graphic design studio of Harry Bloch and Joris Landman. The Swiss-Dutch studio combines classic editorial and design knowledge with new media expertise and creative coding and works at the cutting edge of graphic tradition and digital experimentation. www.harrisblondman.nl

Saskia van der Meer (Sep. 2019 – Jan. 2020)

studied integrated design at the Hochschule für Künste Bremen with a focus on graphics and moving images. Since 2019 she has worked as a freelance graphic designer and teaches integrated design at the Hochschule für Künste Bremen.

 

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