Dead Format: A Risograph Exhibition

Overview

Every format, medium and type of technology has its day. Some persist, but many pass by in blink-or-you'll-miss-it fashion. If you've got a landline handset clogging up your cupboard or an old cathode ray tube television in your spare room, then you know what we're talking about.

Others enjoy a revival years after their initial heyday, or are adapted for a new purpose. Take the risograph, for example. The '80s high-speed digital machine was designed and marketed as a cheaper photocopier, then received a second lease on life when it became the duplication and printing method of choice of zine publishers and artists.

If it sounds like the type of format quite a few of the folks who line Junky Comics' shelves would use, well, that's because it is. In fact, the West End store is paying tribute to the humble riso with Junky, Murdoch, Niqui Toldi, Phoebe Paradise, Sam McKenzie, Stef Roselli and Philip Dearest's interpretations of and experimentations with dying media. The exhibition isn't called Dead Format for no reason.