More Cutting & Pasting & Retro

Further to the preceding post, regarding the aesthetic of the Blank Workshop/Moon Wiring Club in particular, & techniques of collage (visual & aural) & cut-&-paste, issues of nostalgia & retro more generally, all this provides the perfect opportunity to mention a much-loved, fairly recent work of art in the shape of Graham Rawle's graphic novel 'Woman's World'.

The book is such an involving, entertaining & amusing read & also a very engaging visual experience. Most definitely a work of graphic art, the entire text is composed of cuttings from women’s magazines of the 1950s - 60s in style (form & content, in terms of typefaces & the language used, which is both enlightening & quite hilarious in its pre-feminist way), all collaged together in such an inventive way to form a coherent (if peculiar!) narrative: the mind boggles at the amount of work involved, the sheer endeavour, in terms of research & physically compiling (cutting & pasting) it all, it really is an astonishing thing just to look at, let alone then read. But it is a good story too (form & content co-existing in equal, mutually-enriching partnership), fast paced & full of intriguing & surprising plot twists, taking one into another world, time & place, & someone else’s head & personalities altogether. Intensely poignant & human too: considering all, form & content, it's some achievement.

This is what it looks like, in terms of the cover image & also a selection of the text content, better to illustrate than try to explain, perhaps, so singular is the form & effect:



Again, the whole aesthetic is so vividly redolent of socio-cultural time & place, displaying in its retro stylings a quintessential Englishness, provincial, suburban, petit-bourgeois. One might consider too a certain Dada-punkiness to the cut & paste, 'ransom note' aesthetic, & recall Jamie Reid's graphic design that so suited the Sex Pistols' music - more art that suggests its Englishness & particular place in socio-cultural history as an indisputable matter of fact. There's also that atmosphere of the somewhat sinister, the surreal, & a delightful eccentricity that pervades the work & aesthetic of the Blank Workshop too.

It's also worth checking-out Graham Rawle's earlier 'Diary of an Amateur Photographer' for more of his retro collage aesthetic & collections of 'Lost Consonants' from his work in The Guardian for their batty humour, an unmissable weekly treat back in the day.