Published by the zip collective
Art production outside the gallery system in the late '70s was probably most vigorous with "mail art", a global network of artists who exchanged images and texts on postcards, in letters, and in other packages through the post.
The artists used their own homes as studios, and exhibited in each other's. Much of the work was ephemeral, highly personal, and anarchic, featuring energetic uses of duplicating techniques. Photocopy art became a subset. Collage dominated.
By 1981 postal charges throughout the world prohibited the spread of mail art and meanwhile artists who wanted to make a "name" had entered the field, undermining the politics of anonymity which had rejected the "artist as personality" myth and focussed on the art.
Those artists wanting to experiment with ephemera with sound, image and text in "mail art"-style packages, yet still leery of the parochiality of the "art world", were forced to find alternative means of distribution. The Zip collective of artists - well known in music circles with their packages of audio cassettes, postcards, and booklets - found local record shops would sell the packages and local radio would play the music.
Zip's current product is a 52 page ZIP• EYE•EAR book featuring sets of double page works by Terry Murphy, Johnny Wilsteed, lrena Luckus, Matt Mawson, Tim Gruchy, Gary Warner, Jo Forsyth, and Judy Pfitzner. Still marketed through record shops, the book nevertheless must essentially be seen as a visual art package. A lot of attention has been given to the production, to weaving in the eye/ear theme, and to developing complex ways of corrupting and enhancing imagery.
Zip's Brisbane history runs parallel with much of the new experimental art discussed by Urszula