Output details

The Magazine : January

Mason’s project is the culmination of several years work on an illustrated novel which takes the form of a pastiched Victorian compendium or magazine. It is divided into twelve 'monthly' sections; in addition to offering a pastiche and a commentary on the literary styles of the nineteenth century, the work addresses technology and social attitudes in the period. It incorporates both an explicit and implied narrative through the medium of text and accompanying illustrations. Collage is the preferred technique, both in terms of text and image. Each illustration consists of hundreds of elements derived from a diverse range of Victorian publications, and in a similar fashion the stories that constitute the twelve issues of 'The Magazine' ultimately combine to produce a bigger picture. The book is a patchwork of different styles and approaches. Each story - like each illustration - can be taken on its own merits but taken as a whole they combine to tell a different story, of the (imaginary) staff who exist outside of the main narrative and who are (apparently) responsible for producing the work in question.

The project is part of an ongoing investigation through creative practice into ideas of serial artwork. An artist working in both animated film and on magazines, Mason works with the parallels between those forms and the serial nature of the Victorian illustrated magazine: how the whole is represented by the part, and how a great deal of the narrative takes place off the page or off screen.

Extracts from 'The Magazine' first appeared in 'Labyrinths: The Journal of Electronic Post Modernism' (University of Nottingham/Zoilus Press) In 2010, Mason was approached by The Caseroom Press and the Text and Sequential Narratives Research Group (Lincoln University) who expressed an interest in publishing the first two parts of the work in question.