Since my childhood I have been fascinated by magazines. I waited patiently for three-month old copies of Smash Hits, NME, No.1 and others to arrive from London. I read my grandmother's copies of New Idea, Woman's Day and the then weekly The Australian Women's Weekly. At the service station I worked at part-time I would read all about cars and flip the pages of the already well-flicked girly magazines.
Over the years I have had various addictions to numerous magazines. Music and interiors magazines were my most favourite, possibly because I wanted to sing (I can't) and be an architect (I'm not) when I grew up. I bought Home Beautiful for its house plans which I would recreate and amend with my Lego. On the home front I adored Nest and while sad to see it cease publication, I was happy it bowed out gracefully unlike another old favourite, The Face. The World of Interiors is another magazine I look out for regularly, and I think many of us have had a crush on Wallpaper* at some point.
So what is Flipfactor?
Flipfactor is a blog edited and produced by artist David Wills. It supports Keepsake (working title) a large-scale art work that categorises thousands upon thousands of magazines pages into colour-coded filing cabinets. The work is currently in production. To get an idea of just how many magazines are involved see Flip-ability on Turnstile.
Flipfactor and Keepsake consider the history of magazines delving into the archives to reveal similarities and differences between titles along with the role of photographic imagery in our image saturated society.
