For those who are in desperate need of stimulation, this zine delivers \u2013 its visual language is razor-sharp and packed with colour, each page feels like a porno magazine that has vomited everywhere. Hattie calls it a \u201cfrenetic deluge\u201d, a collection of themes that circle the drain of \u201conline fatigue\u201d, a way to process an excessive amount of information in order to create meaning and seek comfort. \u201cOriginally the book was going to be called Visual Debris, which accounted for the initial chaos and lack of structure, but as some of the more \u201cmotivational\u201d themes and spreads started to appear I felt Visual Stimulation was a more fitting title, as it grew more intentional,\u201d says Hattie. The zine doubles as a tour through the graphic design history of stimulating media, with cut-outs that entice, seduce, eroticise. When stacked all together on the page, it\u2019s difficult not to see how predatory the sultry messaging and clamouring for attention is, often playing on the reader\u2019s insecurities \u2013 Hattie does very well in communicating the insidiousness of marketing and selling pleasure.<\/p>\n
Back when physical media \u201cwasn\u2019t so scarce\u201d, Hattie would cut and paste a lot more liberally, but now printed media is precious \u2013 Visual Stimulation requires a lot more than Hattie would ever be willing to destroy. Printing with Risograph meant Hattie could maintain the imperfect quality of something handmade and due to her dislike of digital work in her own practice, she wanted to make sure that the textural qualities of the work was a little bit out of her control. In a way, collage is a destructive process, something you can\u2019t get too attached to, a type of killing of context and rebirth through remixing. Here, Hattie shows how the preciousness of images are trampled by the need for short bursts of dopamine \u2013 the elements that came from books that would have been read forever are now cut up and ruined, becoming a commentary on what we do with art in order to get what we need for brief happiness.<\/p>\n
\u201cSensuality over sexuality was a theme that developed naturally over the course of the book\u2019s creation. In a current age of excess porn, intense headlines and shallow desires, I just wanted to create a little something that leaned into a deeper yearning, reclamation of power and curiosity,\u201d says Hattie, as she prepares for a second volume of Visual Stimulation. \u201cPleasure is important, but a pleasure that can last a lifetime is best, in my humble opinion.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For those who are in desperate need of stimulation, this zine delivers \u2013 its visual language is razor-sharp…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":257960,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[442,498,499,500,501,156,111,139,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-257959","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-artsdesign","12":"tag-design","13":"tag-entertainment","14":"tag-new-zealand","15":"tag-newzealand","16":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=257959"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257959\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/257960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=257959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=257959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}