CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 12/21/2014

ALBUM

In a recent issue of KUNSTforum, Norway's leading art magazine, Mari Rustan interviews photographer Eline Mugaas, copublisher of the influential cult collage magazine ALBUM, the first ten issues of which have been gathered in an awesome new 430-page compendium by Primary Information. Mugaas explains, "ALBUM is a fanzine made by Elise Storsveen and me. It is made up of borrowed images that we have collected over many years from books and magazines. We had played around with the images making gifts for friends. Then we discovered that the architect space downstairs from my studio had a copy machine and they let us use it for cost. It’s all about who you sleep with."

What was appealing with the fanzine format and how does it change the work to publish it in a book instead?

"The great thing about the zine-format is that we could build the project, one issue at the time. Since we both have other projects that we work on individually, we were looking for something that had as many restrictions as possible. ALBUM is made with scissors, tape paper and a copy machine. It is structured around the restrictions. Its format is A4. It is 10-11 pages folded—that is how many pages the stapler can handle. All the images has been printed and mass distributed. They come from a vernacular image culture. We try to shy away from images done by artists, although it is not an absolute rule. We also stay away from looking for images on the Internet, but only to limit the amount of pictures. Working with the actual cut-outs we have to work with the image in the size it was printed, no enlarging. The only way to make it smaller is to cut something away. Then only thing we actually do, is to force the images to reveal a new narrative. It is an exercise in reading images, to recognize potential connections."