I met up with Tom this morning and he asked me if I was planning another zine. I told him about the idea behind Interfaces of Refusal, but actually I've got another idea. This one would be called something like Field Notes on Ambient Surveillance and cover the way in which, over the last couple of decades, surveillance has become normalised.
…https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJexWIySLvo
In her Mastodon post, where I came across this, Bonni Stachowiak calls herself a "dork" but I absolutely love that she went to the trouble of recording an unboxing video of my zine.
…Yesterday, I sent out all copies of CW-PUB-001: Field Notes on Productive Friction. I've decided that it's going to be the first zine in a three-part series, and I'm currently thinking that the second one will be entitled CW-PUB-002: Interfaces of Refusal.
…I'm delighted to say that I've sold all available copies of CW-PUB-001: Field Notes on Productive Friction. It was a limited edition, physical copy-only run of 50. There won't be any reprints. I've now updated the Cognitive Wallpaper website hinting at further zines, although I haven't decided what they'll be yet.
…Exciting! The final version of my first ever zine has arrived.
It's looking great and the tweaks that I've made after the test print have turned out perfectly.
I'm anticipating getting these into people's hands in early September. There'll only ever be 50 physical copies (no digital version) and there are currently 12* remaining.
…I'm back to work today so, in between client meetings, I've been working on doing the final edits to my zine Field Notes on Productive Friction.
A pocket guide to noticing the frictionless tools that remove your agency, containing eight patterns of capture, plus one self-administered audit. Making the case for reflection over convenience in a world of doomscrolling.
…
Team Belshaw is on holiday for a week. If you're still pretending to work, this is a great time for you to catch up on:
Yo dawg, I herd you like zines, so I put an zine in your zine https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iYAMYsWMM8
(I said I might do this...)
I returned from Lisbon last night to the test print of my first zine having been delivered while we’re away.
This morning I’ve had a good look at it and, although I’ve got a few tweaks to make for the final print, it’s turned out really nicely!
…I've just sent off my first-ever zine to the printer for a sample copy!
CW-PUB-001 / FNO-001: Field Notes on Productive Friction
(currently 23/50 copies remaining, there will be no digital version)
I woke up early this morning and an idea for a second zine just popped fully-formed into my head. It's weird how the subconscious works.
After a little bit of back-and-forth with my Little Robot Friend, I'm thinking of framing it as a "field guide for designing around the mind we actually have". That's in contrast to the ultra-rational one that we'll never achieve, nor would we actually want anyway.
…So I'm currently working on a 40-page zine on Productive Friction but if I was making a much smaller one I would absolutely be using this. In fact I still might use this and create a "zinette" (my term) to go with the main zine.
…You have to get everything correct before it goes off to get printed. My usual publishing flow involves an "oh shit" moment soon after hitting 'publish' but, because I usually publish on the web, I can fix it. Not so with printed matter.
…The above is a simple mindmap on the whiteboard in my home office, but it's been over 15 years since I created this large mindmap to help me with my doctoral thesis. I used XMind to create it, and I'm not entirely sure why I didn't for my zine on Productive Friction.
…Last night, having watched the Champions League final, I spent an enjoyable couple of hours trawling Are.na for links and other resources relevant to my upcoming zine: Field Notes on Productive Friction:
While I was browsing Are.na for resources related to Productive Friction, I came across the above image.
Which got me thinking: what if I shipped an SD card to people? What affordances would that have which would be different to, say a blog or a website? How would it be different to a paper-based zine? 🤔
…I came across this cool video from Rachel Bevan Baker showing an 'infinity book' via Warren Ellis (who obviously hasn't discovered the Substack Video & Audio Downloader).
Now this would be a cool way to make a zine...
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