I am going to attempt to write something that is remotely useful to someone. There are several problems with this. I will list them. I am not good at writing about my work and so I write nonsense that gets me round the task at hand and that is probably why this entire web site is such a waste of time because it just goes on without purpose because every time I try to give it a purpose I fumble and spit. Also who could remotely useful writing be for? No one visit's this web site and Honestly... who cares? et cetera. Finally of course there is very little useful to say about the magazine without stating all of the things that I do not like the idea of stating, which are perhaps useful and interesting but they are, to a certain extent, private and only good for conversation, rather than some interesting facts (CN) about something that I have done. Oh. Never mind. I will try to write something and we will see how it comes out. Shoo.
Don't Bother magazine is this magazine that I print and design, in that order. I started it in 2004 I think. I started thinking about it during the winter holiday of my second year studying fine art. I had been doing a great deal of sitting around that year so far, and the previous year I suppose and I was at my parents' house wondering what I was studying fine art for and spending fifteen thousand pounds on and I thought that rather than treating the degree as a place to learn I should just use it for as much as I can get. So I decided to make a magazine. I have ideas lots of the time and I write them down and I started thinking about them in the context of a magazine, as a page in the magazine and it seemed like a good idea. I am constantly full of doubt and I was writing notes as I was thinking notes and I thought to myself that this is perhaps a bad idea, it will be a lot of work and I will give up after a few weeks, like with everything else. Then I wrote down on my notes DON'T BOTHER and it occured to me that that would make a fine title for the magazine. Line break.
So I carried on thinking about it and when I started the new term I began the printing of Don't Bother 001. The way that it worked was having an idea and then making it either by making a screen and printing it or printing it with a rubber stamp or a letter press and then just getting on with the next bit. I would try to use the space on the page appropriately by just putting something else in where it looked wrong. (this is all so needless) But anyway I printed as many copies as I could do. At the time I was working as a cleaner at a school and I had to be there at 4 until six so I always had to be done by then and it was a strange time. Wait, this needs to be on the page for 001. Sorry. I will start again under another reddish line with what I really ought to be writing. And I will copy this to the appropriate page.
Don't Bother magazine is this magazine that I print and design, in that order. I started it in 2004 I think. The purpose of the magazine, amongst other things, is to make me work on something substantial instead of just scratching around in a fallow field with my friends. The title is supposed to be inspiring in a "oh well don't fucking bother then." sort of way. It works. Sorry for swearing but it feels ever so slightly appropriate in the context.
So I try to print as much of it in a natural way, the suggestion being that photocopying is unnatural and I really do not like the process and the cost. I like using different papers, cheap ones, and that combined with the printing processes, screen printing, letterpress, rubber stamp, typewriter, pen, mean that you hold in your hands a textural object that will hopefully be slightly interesting to read and or look at. (Is this thing on?(Does anyone here speak english?))
The most important thing to say however about the magazine is that it was given away. (Don't Bother 004 will be given and sold but predominantly sold). I do not like the idea of making some art that you have to go to a book shop and pay for to ever see it, it seems completely pointless and it pains me to have to do it now. The problem is *see 004. This is hell. What more do you want to know?
Another point to mention is that I associate the Don't Bother with the writing of Nicholas Bourriaud and his Relational Aesthetics perhaps slightly in conjunction with Hakim Bey's Temporary Autonomous Zones. However the latter has only been relevant for the last few days since Martin mentioned it to me. I will try to write some more about this at a later date. Amongst other things.
Notable acceptions:
Once, I sent a copy of 002 two Variant Magazine and forgot about it, just like you will doubtless forget about me and then just now I did a search for "Don't Bother Magazine" and it came up with a page on the Variant web site for an article about zines by Mark Pawson and it mentions me... my name... and the magazine - in particular my blue (actually white) tac that is apparently a publishing first and damn see: here.