Signal is an ongoing book series dedicated to documenting and sharing compelling graphics, art projects, and cultural movements of international resistance and liberation struggles. Artists and cultural workers have been at the center of upheavals and revolts the world over, from the painters and poets in the Paris Commune to the poster-makers and street-theatre performers of the Occupy movement. Signal brings these artists and their work to a new audience, digging deep through our common history to unearth their images and stories.
In the U.S. there is a tendency to focus only on the artworks produced within our shores or from English-speaking producers. Signal reaches beyond those bounds, bringing material produced the world over, translated from dozens of languages and collected from both the present and decades past. Although a full-color printed publication, Signal is not limited to the graphic arts. Within its pages you will find political posters and fine arts, comics and murals, street art, site-specific works, zines, art collectives, documentation of performances, and articles on the often-overlooked but essential roles all of these have played in struggles around the world.
Highlights of the fifth volume of Signal include:
- The Club de Grabado de Montevideo: Georgia Phillips-Amos unearths printmaking under dictatorship
- Three Print Collectives: Alec Dunn interviews Friends of Ibn Firnas, A3BC, and the Pangrok Sulap collective
- Survival by Sharing—Printing over Profit: Josh MacPhee interviews Paul Werner about the history of New York City's Come!Unity Press
- The Pyramid's Reign: Analyzing an enduring symbol of capitalism with Eric Triantafillou
- Empty Forms—Occupied Homes: Marc Herbst looks at the intersection between movement design and the struggle for housing in Barcelona
- Discs of the Gun: A trip through music and militancy in postwar Italy by Josh MacPhee
What People Are Saying
“If you are interested in the use of graphic art and communication in political struggles, don’t miss the latest issue of Signal.”
—Rick Poynor, Design Observer
“As a series, this is a great resource. Dunn and MacPhee are filling a void.”
—Printeresting.org
“Visually delectable and politically pointed.”
—Political Media Review
“Signal couldn’t have arrived at a better time to reassure those of us using visual culture to enter a political discourse.”
—Last Hours
About the Editors
Josh MacPhee is a designer, artist, activist, and archivist. He is a member of both the Justseeds Artists’ Cooperative (Justseeds.org) and the Occuprint collective (Occuprint.org). He is the coauthor of Signs of Change: Social Movement Cultures 1960s to Now, coeditor of Signal: A Journal of International Political Graphics & Culture, and cofounder of the Interference Archive, a public collection of cultural materials produced by social movements (InterferenceArchive.org).
Alec Dunn is an illustrator, amateur historian, and printer living in Pittsburgh. He has designed book and record covers, political graphics, and punk fliers. He coedits Signal: A Journal of International Political Graphics & Culture and has been a member of the Justseeds Artists’ Cooperative since it formed in 2007.