Punk & Post-Punk - Online First

This study examines the role of fanzines, especially those using photocopying techniques, within Turkey’s punk subculture. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with fifteen punk fans conducted between 2022 and 2024, archival analysis, and field visits, the research analyzes their origins and roles in Turkey. Fanzines are examined as tools of communication, cultural production, and political resistance, exploring their evolution from anti-system artifacts to commodified objects in the digital age. The study investigates how the authoritarian environment following the 1980 Turkish coup d’état shaped fanzines as mechanisms of resistance, how processes of discovery fostered creativity, and how socio-economic dynamics enabled their spread beyond Istanbul. By addressing their cultural, artistic, and political significance, the research highlights the continued relevance of fanzines as anonymous, resistant mediums, contributing to the literature on youth subcultures and alternative publishing practices.

In this interview with Los Angeles performance artist Johanna Went, the artist talks with art historian Maria Elena Buszek about her path towards both performance art and the punk scene in the 1970s. They discuss the genesis of Went’s often gruesome, largely improvisational performances and lovingly crafted, sculptural costumes that were exhibited in the 2020 exhibition Passion Container at LA gallery The Box, feminist politics and what Went calls the ‘bloodlines’ of the LA punk scene.

The goal of this research is to determine what activities young actors in the punk scene view as forms of politicality that they either practise themselves or see among other actors in the punk scene in Zagreb. This research focuses on young people because of the marginalized position older people have put them in. Likewise, the attitudes of young people towards politics are sometimes seen as ‘apolitical’, describing mistrust towards politicians or dislike of political parties. Regardless of these (un)conscious barriers that are often placed before young people, we can see their different reactions: from accepting the political disinterest others expect of them to resisting their imposed marginal social status. Accordingly, we were interested in often unrecognized, alternative forms of politicality among young people. We focus on punk as an example of a subculture that revives political activity among young people. Analysing the collected data, we obtained descriptions of 39 practices, activities and political ideas – organized into seven categories – through which participants described their politicality or the politicality of that of other actors in the punk scene in Zagreb. This article will introduce the results of ethnographic research, during which 28 interviews were conducted with participants between 20 and 36 years of age. The field part of this research was conducted in fifteen months.

Originally an eight-piece jazz band (1974), briefly a sextet (1975) and ultimately a five-piece, Landscape performed anywhere and everywhere they could in and around London and then further afield, from art colleges to village fetes as well as pub and club venues. I’m not sure if I first saw them at The Nashville or The Music Machine, but in 1977 they were a welcome distraction from and contrast to the pub rock and recycled pub rock of punk.