Ijusi#25

ijusi: issue #25 - The Ballpoint Pen Issue 4 th q ua rt er 2 0 1 0 contributing artists Roger Ballen Wade Barnes Rudi de Beer Danielle de Bruyn Johan de Lange Daniel du Plessis Rikus Ferreira Francois Fourie Byron Groper Richard Hart Megan Hodge Anton Kannemeyer Matthew Kay Warwick Kay Wilhelm Krüger David Lancashire Daniela Loureiro Travis Lyle Michael MacGarry Merwe Marchand le Roux Ian Marley Marianne Minny Richard Moir Karien Mulder Alastair Palmer Michelle Raap Jessica Rogers Andreas Schönfeldt Alex Sudheim Matri van den Heever Simon Villet Garth Walker Lorcan White Hougaard Winterbach

Published now and then by Mister Walker in Durban, South Africa as part of our ongoing commitment to excellence in South African graphic design

p u b l i sh er Mister Walker

e di t o ri a l o f f i c e

Garth Walker: P O Box 51289 Musgrave Road 4062 KwaZulu-Natal South Africa garth@misterwalker.net www.ijusi.com

ijusi Limited Edition Portfolio Number 1

i n a s s o c i at i o n wi t h t h e

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iJUSI wishes to acknowledge the generosity and commitment of SAPPI FINE PAPER in promoting South African graphic design

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COPYRIGHT © MISTER WALKER 2010 Reproduction in whole or in part of any contents of ijusi without prior written permission from the publisher is strictly prohibited. The publisher does not accept responsibility for images or statements expressed by contributors

cover : Garth Walker

The Pen is Mightier than the MS Word The ballpoint pen: diminutive cylindrical plastic ink repository. A lightning conductor of the mind.

But the skies are clear. No clouds. The weather report says no lightning due for days. Oh fuck. What the hell am I going to conduct? The page remains blank. I stare at it. It stares back at me. Its empty sneer says: “So are you gonna write something or what?” And I am afraid. I am very afraid...

The peal of fear has been resonating through the universe ever since the divine hammer hit the almighty gong of The Big Bang. The sentient species of planet Earth are fundamentally defined by fear: from the first coelacanth eaten by an ichthyosaurus to the 11 168 791st victim of crime, disease, famine or misfortune, we all basically exist in a state of abject terror.

Here in the good old R of SA fear is an essential ingredient of the collective mindset. It squats ominously on the shelf between some tins of Lucky Star and the Mrs. Balls chutney. From our soiled past to our sullied present, the most robust instinct passed from one generation to the next is that of fear. We’re a nation of high walls, razor wire, electric fences, attack dogs, armed response, violent townships, stoned suburbs and closed communities. It ain’t paradise but it’s our dystopia and we love it.

Although some prefer to avoid it completely, the climate of tumult and trauma in which we live is an intensely fertile one for the creative soul. For, as Marcuse observed, without conflict there can be no creativity. Just look at Europe. All the great conflicts have been resolved and society is floating upon a frictionless plateau. When fear has left the building creativity becomes redundant. Instead of devising innovative ways to slay the dragon or unseat the despot, the most vexing question facing the continental populace is that of whether the foie gras in the fridge should be for lunch or dinner.

For the creative individual, fear is a potent weapon which assumes the seemingly unimposing shape of the modest ballpoint pen. Yet, like any weapon, the damage it is capable of doing depends upon the hands that hold it. A high-powered rifle in the hands of an infant will be used as a teething ring while the same rifle in the hands of a trained sniper has the power to change the course of history.

So, in this, our 25th issue, we salute that most democratic and non-discriminating of weapons, the ballpoint pen. Unlike its more cumbersome predecessor, the dip pen, and its inherently leaky brother, fountain pen, traces of the ballpoint can be found everywhere from the crude porn of a toilet stall to the first tentative sketches of the blueprint for a shimmering skyscraper. Ballpoint pens are used every day to gouge into the soft wood of school desks; to perform amateur tracheotomies; to create strange and beautiful drawings and to pen the lyrics for the next feel-good hit of the summer.

For Simon & Garfunkel the words of the prophets may be written on the subway walls and tenement halls but we believe that the true magic of the age is to be found in our ballpoint scrawls.

Beauty, after all, is in the eye of the penholder.

Jessica Rogers

Johan de Lange

Richard Hart

Anton Kannemeyer

Matthew Kay

Hougaard Winterbach