Taking zine culture into a dark new stratosphere with cuttingly raw portraits, prose, and anti-establishment approach to fashion – SORT (dropping today) is the latest in a string of mini-projects from the London based collective. Under the influence of Joseph Delaney of NOWNESS and stylist Matt King, its debut issue is a visual assortment of pierced meat, ripples of flesh and grainy CCTV inspired visuals. Moody, visceral and indifferent stares captured by Emma Gibney set the tone perfectly via surreal stills of its glazy-eyed models. We spoke to SORT’s team of diverse collaborators about the Zines inception,
“It covers a collection of different outputs–from fashion and photo zines to concrete objects. It's personal in the sense that it's a representation of our collective interests. It’s more about dispensing with an empty pursuit of 'beauty'; we'd rather show you an image of something ugly and you feel something, even if it is disgust.”
Definitely unapologetic in it’s representation of bare, untouched skin, SORT depicts its subjects without layers of makeup, but in a very up-close, human – but still gloomy – sort of way. Alongside the conjunction of photo-booth screenshots, stretched rib-cages and glistening needles there’s a underlying desire to step away from stereotypical artistic beauty. So what are the underlying messages and motivations for SORT?
“It's less about creating a particular atmosphere and more about exploring an alternative point of view. The portraits for instance are completely unretouched because seeing blemished skin is more interesting to us than something impossibly smooth you'd have to steal from a baby to really achieve. Models have spots too, who knew?”
Getting things started with a heavy dose of industrial, EBM and electro beats – SORT’s launch party gets underway tonight at The Victoria, 10pm.
