(Image: http://zedequalszee.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/orgasm-addict.jpg)
Loud Flash - British Punk on Paper was an exhibition of british punk posters, flyers and ephemera, exhibited next to other printed matter of 1977, including the Queen's jubilee, as well as far-right propaganda from the National Front. The task for the day was to consider common signifiers throughout punk imagery, as well as considering how the language used could connect with historical movements of the 20th Century. Below are the initial notes I compiled from the day:
'Common signifiers - photographs of bands usually form the main part of images, confrontational, use of newspaper style photographs, sense of violence, or anger - revolution. Imagery of guns or riots in a cut and paste style follows through in text almost in the style of ransom notes. A common language of unconventionality and disregard to formality, although interestingly, in some of the posters (such as 'orgasm addict', above) an educated formality remains.
Dada and Surrealist influences in the use of collage - clash of colour - vibrancy and bold statement.
Very deliberate references to other revolutionary movements, such as the aesthetics of the may '68 riots.'
(Image: http://www.aworldtowin.net/images/images330/laLutteContinue.JPG)
(Image: http://www.amiright.com/album-cover-themes/images/album-Tom-Robinson-Band-Power-in-the-Darkness2-lps.jpg)
Above is just one example of how Punk referenced both situationist imagery and aesthetics in its approach to visual language.
What surprised me the most perhaps about the exhibition was the willingness of Punk's visual aspects to pick and choose from movements across the 20th Century in its treatment of image and text, yet what stopped it from initially becoming a simple pastiche was the context it was applied to: although treated in a surrealist way for example, the images used were of the 1970s so the effect became all the more pertinent by harnessing the connotations of a way of treating image and text but applying it to such a specific context. In this way, it could be argued that Punk was, in its prime, a Situationist force, using the idea of lived experience to comment directly on its own context and place in time.