publishing
Printing Without A License
I knew about the role of printing and English coffee houses in germinating the seeds of the British Enlightenment, but today I learned about the 1662 Licensing Act "An Act for preventing the frequent Abuses in printing seditious treasonable and unlicensed Books and Pamphlets and for regulating of Printing and Printing Presses."
The Act expired in 1695, which allowed unlicensed printing presses to flourish, reduced the price of printing, eliminated government censorship, and opened the UK to books printed abroad.
Feels like the regulatory context is too often left out of our histories of innovation.
30 December 2020 | After Nineteen Eighty-Four
Towards an ironic history of George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, a book about pervasive surveillance and censorship under totalitarianism.
“An Egyptian college student carrying a copy of George Orwell’s novel ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ was arrested in Cairo, raising questions about free speech under the country’s government with President Abdel Fattah Sisi.”
“Thailand has suppressed the film of Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell’s classic novel of dictatorship and surveillance, in the latest effort to quash dissent after last month’s military coup. Members of a film club in the northern city of Chiang Mai cancelled a screening of the film in an art gallery after police intimidated organisers with suggestions that it violated the law. Nineteen Eighty-Four has become a symbol of peaceful opposition to General Prayuth Chan-ocha, who seized power from Thailand’s elected government last month after months of violent street demonstrations.”
“Police in Thailand yesterday arrested eight people for demonstrating against the nation's increasingly repressive military junta, including a man dragged away by undercover officers for reading a copy of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four.”
“In George Orwell’s ‘1984,’ government censors erase all traces of news articles embarrassing to Big Brother by sending them down an incineration chute called the ‘memory hole.’ On Friday, it was 1984 and another Orwell book, Animal Farm, that were dropped down the memory hole — by Amazon.com. In a move that angered customers and generated waves of online pique, Amazon remotely deleted some digital editions of the books from the Kindle devices of readers who had bought them.”
“The [CIA] also changed the ending of the movie version of ‘1984,’ disregarding Orwell’s specific instructions that the story not be altered. In the book, the protagonist, Winston Smith, is entirely defeated by the nightmarish totalitarian regime. In the very last line, Orwell writes of Winston, ‘He loved Big Brother.’ In the movie, Winston and his lover, Julia, are gunned down after Winston defiantly shouts: ‘Down with Big Brother!’”
“It was banned and burned in the U.S.S.R. under Stalin’s rule for its’ negative attitude toward communism, and reading it could’ve resulted in your arrest. It has also been banned and challenged in many U.S. schools. During the Cold War, a teacher in Wrenshall, Minnesota was fired for refusing to remove 1984 from his reading list. In 1981, it was challenged in Jackson County, Florida (for being pro-communism!).”
A is for Activist
As a parent, I’ve had a very hard time finding progressive children’s books for my toddler. Innosanto Nagara felt the same way, so he and the Design Action Collective decided to do something about it. They are designing a picture book for radical tots — a full-fledged, pro-social and environmental justice ABC book. I've backed this on Kickstarter and you should too!
Update: September 13, 2012. The book is funded and in production! You can order it now at aisforactivist.com
Social Design in frieze
The international art magazine frieze put social design on the cover of this month’s edition. The cover story is a roundtable discussion I participated in about design and social responsibility. It’s a fairly critical look, touching on ethics, design education, and public policy. Issue #138 is on the stands now, or you can read the discussion online here.
Decision Points
Decisions, decisions. True Crime or Science Fiction & Fantasy? Marketing & Advertising?
Where would you shelve George W. Bush’s memoir?
Breakdown Press has just published The Peace Posters, a 32-page broadsheet newspaper which unfolds to 30 posters — and is available for free. To obtain copies for bedroom walls, workplaces, street poles, community notice boards, shopfronts and schools, email [email protected] with your postal address and how many copies you wish to receive. The collection also includes one of my posters.
