Video Art Zine // Open Call for Submissions

Forum Gigs
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Hey Everyone!
I wandered into this weird, wonderful world of video synthesis from a background in print media, through a fascination with various input and output processes that can be used to transform textures, movements, and photographs into something new, hybrid, and surprising. Sound familiar?

I run a Risograph print ship called Cache Printing Services, which produces posters, fliers, zines and whatnot for artists & designers around Detroit, MI, USA. I sometimes initiate publishing projects of my own under the name Print Cache, set up tables at book fairs, and that kind of thing. A few years ago I got into modular audio as a hobby, and while I was trying to link that back to visual art, I stumbled across all this and decided it was the next logical step to dive and give it a try.

Now, I’m looking to connect the circle by producing a zine that highlights what people are doing in the video art community. I’m thinking mainly image based, or text within the image, if that’s your thing. The approximate specs would be: 24-36 pages, size A5/half-letter (A4/letter spreads), 1-4 Riso colors per page, full bleed, staple binding, in edition of around 100 copies. To kick things off, I’m sending out this open call for submissions with the hopes of making a pilot issue, linked below.

VIDEO ART ZINE // OPEN CALL // REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS

The final timeline, page count, and edition size of the pilot issue are dependent on interest and submissions. If you are interested in participating, please don’t hesitate to respond! You would not be committing to anything by sending in images &/or ideas, and nothing will be published or publicized without your expressed consent, which I will contact people about later. I’m happy to answer all general questions in the LZX Community Forum, but if you have a specific question, about this or some other tangent, please feel free to reach out personally.

Shout out to @meudiademorte for posting some fabulous Riso work(!) on the LZX Facebook group page that helped me break the ice and reach out to y’all about this idea that I’ve been daydreaming about for far too long now.

Thanks for checking it out!
Jeff

UPDATE: I’m happy to say that enough submissions came in so there is now enough for two issues of the zine! I’m going to start playing around with things and reach back out to everyone for feedback before anything goes to print. Thanks to everyone who took a moment to send something in! I’ll be in touch soon. Cheers!

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wow! sounds very interesting.
I’ll look at the open call tomorrow :slight_smile:

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Definitely will be submitting some things. This is a wonderful idea and is exactly what the community needs!

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Nice to see you are doing a zine! Will send you something!

You can find the mentioned prints here

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@meudiademorte your prints from Drucken3000 are tight, I just bought one!

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Oh! I forgot to mention, no special image preparation is required. I’m planning on doing the color separations myself, so unless you want to do them, you don’t have to!

If you’re capturing in SD, that’s perfect for now. I want it to be as easy to send stuff in as possible. That’s also because, if I get a bunch of hi-res files, my Google Drive is going to fill up quick! :sweat_smile:

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@jevergreen i have unlimites space on Google drive can. If it Helps you i can do a groupfolder for the project

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I will for sure get some stuff put together for this
I know where my still zones are at

I’d like to make new ones but it was a pretty specific patch that was getting me


these kinds of stills

this is such a cool idea

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I love playing off the inherent format of books, and am totally into how this still already looks like facing pages. That’s my first thought–YES!

This is going off on a bit of a tangent, but I’d like to share some of my thought process here. My second thought is about the inherent format of video, and how it relates to that of books, notably aspect ratio and sync. I’m going to have to settle on some physical dimensions that make sense in relation to both the video world (aspect ratio) and the print world (common paper and envelope sizes, postal categories, etc). I added a question on the submission form asking folks if cropping or letterbox is preferred, as needed.

With a little more thought this morning, a very likely final size will be 6" x 8" (3:2 spreads), because it fits between 16:9 and 4:3. Pages that are 8" x 9" (16:9 spreads) is another possibility, which would be super cool, though it would require twice as much paper, larger envelopes, and a higher shipping cost. It can start to add up quick.

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Quick note about copyright, all submissions need to be composed of fully original content, use material that is copyright free, or have explicit permission to use copyrighted content. It’s just a liability thing that I need to watch out for as a publisher. Yeah, ‘fair use’ is a thing, but if there is any gray area, I’m probably going to play it on the safe side. Thanks for understanding!

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So that would be
15,24 x 20,32 CM (6’ x 8’)
or
20,32 X 22,86 CM (8’ x 9’)

right? I guess I can scale it to inch too, in PS. I’m just not so fluent in that measuring type :slight_smile:

I mostly work with 4:3 .

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Oh, right, and PAL standards. We could just talk in pixels instead of inches or metric.

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cool. My submission is send!
here is one of the frames:

Sequence 01_1
Sequence 01_1720×576 318 KB

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ps: did you post your Open Call at https://scanlines.xyz/ too?
if not, it is a good place to post it!

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Would you be interested in (abstract-ish) comics that incorporate or maybe are processed through video synthesizers? Or are you hoping for 100% synthesized images?

I’m fairly new to video synthesis but I’m particularly interested in figuring out how to integrate synthesized images with more narrative stuff. It hadn’t occurred to me to try and play with still images but this could be exactly the motivation to figure out how to integrate synthesizers into my goofy workflows/come to terms with the possibilities/limitations, etc…

At the risk of being too self indulgent, I was thinking something like this comic but with synthesized images? Or reprocessing line work and trying to colorize it with a synth? Brain gears are turning :thinking:

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@reverselandfill Good suggestion, done!
There are some really great video textures in the work you sent in. (Printer thoughts: I’m excited by the challenge–some unusual rasterization may be in order to keep the subtle details. Also, thinking about how to get some of those colors which are typically out of gamut for subtractive color mixture.)

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@Fuzzy_Pause I have to admit, I am aiming for mainly electrically generated images. Hard to know where to draw the line, though, since there are many people who use hybrid approaches. I dig mixed media illustration stuff, though.

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@jevergreen Makes sense! The thought of an entirely abstract synthesized zine is an awesome one (especially in a riso print). Not sure if I’m coming up with interesting enough purely electronic images just yet to submit anything but I’ll certainly keep following this project with great interest.

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@jevergreen
Hi!
I tried uploading pics on your form but they would not upload.

I sent you an email with frames and info.
Thanks!

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@SPIKE You’re right, I see your info, but no images. I did get your e-mail, though, so that works. Someone else uploaded a few hours after you, so it’s hard to know what the issue was. Anyway, it’s all good!

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