View source for BLAST

[[File:Blast.jpg|thumb|BLAST]]
The following is a theoretical study of ''BLAST'' magazine conducted through digital means and techniques. 
==Introduction==
''BLAST'' was a literary magazine concerning an artistic and social movement called "Vorticism" that was published about a month before World War I began. Wyndham Lewis and Ezra Pound, authors of ''BLAST'', were the founders for the Vorticist movement. ''BLAST'' was, essentially, the birth of Vorticism, as this magazine is where the Vorticist Manifesto was first solidified and made publicly known.

In our exploration of ''BLAST'', we aimed to understand how the outbreak of World War I made the second issue of the magazine different from the first.

The concepts that most captured our interest were the inclusions and uses of the words "war", "art", and "man". How did the beginning of World War 1 impact the publication and how does the altered usage of these words articulate the resulting differences?

We have observed that the war drained the magazine of most of its unique energy and replaced it with more a informative portrayal of the articles, while still maintaining the abstract style of the publication in at least one aspect.

==Timeline==
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==Text Mining==

Words of Interest: '''Art''', '''Man''', '''War'''


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<iframe style='width: 50%; height: 400px' src='//voyant-tools.org/?query=art&query=man&query=war&bins=2&corpus=a7e3b8f379f4b6754df836680bea55a6&view=Trends'></iframe>
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The usage of the word "art" is fairly stable, which makes sense considering the purpose of the journal is to advocate for a new style of art. Meanwhile, the mention of "war" increases between issues. blast 2 is reflecting on the atrocities of war     
Particularly interesting is the fact that the usage of the word "man" goes down. At its prime, Vorticism was a nationalistic movement that embraced the power of man to create. The decrease in the word usage suggests some sort of despondence; the empowerment of the authors to create an artistic revolution of sorts may have dwindled.

==Close Reading==
The art in the first publication of ''BLAST'' is more literal due to the fact the text is the art. The formatting of the words on the page often emphasize the written word or make a point of their own.
Reading ''BLAST'' 1 is more pleasing compared to ''BLAST'' 2 with the standard, two column nightmare. However, the actual photos in ''BLAST'' 2 are more abstract and better to look at then the actual words.

==Conclusion==
Through exploring ''BLAST'' magazine in its different issues, we have been able to conclude that the outbreak of World War did impact the nature of the publication. The themes used in the magazine were directly taken from the social effects of the time. We observed differences as the initial issue utilized most of its abstract nature in the words while the second issue used it in the cover and reverted to a more traditional layout for the text. 

The use of the word "war" was found to demonstrate...

Additionally, we wonder what may have occurred if the war had not occurred so soon after the initial publication of the magazine. Would the nature of the 2nd issue have still changed or would it have been a near duplicate of the original? Would the first have had such a strong expression of the aim of Vorticism? These things may be true due to our discovery of the enormous impact World War 1 had on this publication.