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 that birthed an artistic and social movement called Vorticism. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyndham_Lewis Wyndham Lewis] and [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ezra_Pound Ezra Pound], the founders of the Vorticist movement, were also effectively the chief authors of the two-issue magazine. ''BLAST'' contained, among other piece of literature, an aggressive manifesto by Lewis "blasting" conventional British art and culture and proclaiming the Vorticist aesthetic: ‘The New Vortex plunges to the heart of the Present – we produce a New Living Abstraction’. Incidentally, World War I broke out roughly one month after the publication of the first issue. The cultural and political tensions that fueled Vorticism were now at a dangerous climax...how would this affect the heart of the movement?

In our exploration of ''BLAST'', we chose to examine both the rhetorical and visual aspects of the content and, in doing so, aimed to understand how the outbreak of World War I impacted the continuation of Vorticism.  

We believe that the outbreak of World War I is what caused the significant differences in the issues of ''BLAST'' and that, because of this, Vorticism remained an underlining factor in the magazine.

==Timeline==
Below is an interactive timeline delineating the events that are relevant to our discussion of ''Blast.'' 
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<iframe src='https://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/timeline3/latest/embed/index.html?source=1kO2EXFy5Vxr6FWRsz3TIhj6EyuiJOCrslrMlrKIIAYY&font=Default&lang=en&initial_zoom=2&height=650' width='100%' height='650' webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen allowfullscreen frameborder='0'></iframe>
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==Text Mining==

Visualization software from Voyant Tools was essential to our rhetorical analysis of ''BLAST.'' By examining and comparing the usage of words that are central to the content, we can make conclusions about how the authors' intent changed between issues.

We chose to utilize the Trends and Bubbleline widgets as they help to show the rise or decline of the use of our words of interest between issues. 

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 iframe src attribute below uses a relative protocol to better function with both
http and https sites, but if you're embedding this into a local web page (file protocol)
you should add an explicit protocol (https if you're using voyant-tools.org, otherwise
it depends on this server.
Feel free to change the height and width values or other styling below: -->
<iframe style='width: 50%; height: 400px' src='//voyant-tools.org/?query=art&query=man&query=war&docId=8b7f57d488a1ca6944b4cae7e41bfdc2&corpus=a7e3b8f379f4b6754df836680bea55a6&view=Bubblelines'></iframe>
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The usage of the word "art" is fairly consistent between the two issues, 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. This makes sense ''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. However, since the decrease is so slight, it could be noted that "man" is still a vital part of the magazine as it may be used to humanize the abstract art included. Overall, the further insight provided by these words helps to demonstrate the great impact of the war on the publication but also shows the continuation of the basic purpose of the authors.

==Close Reading==
===Visuals===
The art between the two issues of "Blast" helps define the emotions of Lewis from the effects of the war. ''Blast''I has a more flamboyant aesthetic look  resembling a vortex, which follows the Vorticism movement. You can see how it reflects the time and care Lewis spent working on it. The standard, two column nightmare of the second issue makes that one a lot easier to follow then the first, keeping the reader focused on the actual content. Even thought the actual art is more abstract, this style  is almost depressing to look at, but it makes sense because ''Blast'' II came out about a year into the war. Reading ''BLAST'' I is more pleasing compared to ''BLAST'' II, but the  second allows the reader to get a sense of the conflict the war has caused.

We decided to compare the first full articles of BLAST I and BLAST II in order to assess some of the differences in the magazines. This was decided based on the assumption that the authors, as artists, chose their introductory pieces to set up the tone and themes of the works. The very first full article in BLAST I is the Preliminary Vortex, which will not be considered as the first BLAST article, because it is almost an introduction to the Vorticist movement, rather than the journal and it has a different aesthetic than the majority of the other articles in the work. It is formatted in a rather straightforward manner with minimal use of excessive capitals or rearranging of space - something that is arguably the focus of BLAST I. 

The article that will be examined as the first BLAST I article is delineated with a square box and the number 1 in it on page 11. Visually, the article closely resembles the one that follows it, as seen here. The designers used different sizes of a stark font in bold, ranging from all capitals to lowercase across the page while playing with the words to create an overall image that resembles the vortex. Portions of the writing are also set up without following a full sentence structure, for example, “THE CURATE of “Eltham” BRITANNIC AESTHETE WILD NATURE CRANK DOMESTICATED POLICEMAN LONDON COLISEUM SOCIALIST-PLAYWRIGHT DALY’S MUSICAL COMEDY GAIETY CHORUS GIRL TONKS” (11). This string of words, in this context, makes little to no sense. Some of this is clarified a little bit in BLAST because of the way that the designers played with the space of the page. This is more the focus of the first publication meaning that, although there is featured vorticist art, the writing and the displays they are presented in are the art of much of BLAST. Although each page like this is different, almost every single page that uses this display method features an overall pattern indicative of a vortex or whirlwind shape that is created by manipulating the font size and orientation on the page as you can see with the example. This seems to be the artistic focal point, or uniqueness of BLAST, although there are plenty of other featured literary works that are not presented in the same manner and are important to the vorticist movement. 

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<img style="border:5px solid black" src="http://library.brown.edu/jpegs/1144596292968765.jpg" width="400" >
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===Tonal Shift===

The tone in the two magazines changes drastically from being militant to playing the role of the victim. This change was specifically due to Kaiser Wilhelm wanting "to space no Cubist prisoners, wounded or otherwise." Before the war the ''BLAST'' often used harsh language such as "Curse its (England) climate for sins and infections"

==Conclusion==
Through exploring the evolution of ''BLAST'' between issues, we have been able to conclude that the outbreak of World War I had a significant impact on the nature of the publication through the way it drained the magazine of most of its unique energy and replaced it with a more informative portrayal of the articles. However, the abstract style endorsed by the original Vorticists was still preserved in at least one aspect of the second issue: the cover.
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 to increase of war in the daily life of the people. "Art" demonstrated the continuous concentration on the original intent of the magazine through both issues. Also, "man" stays fairly constant and demonstrates how the authors consistently humanize the art included in the publication. 

Additionally, we ponder what content, visuals, etc. would encompass ''BLAST'' had the war and the tensions that preceded it had not occurred in the same time frame as the journals' publication. Since Vorticism was a nearly direct response to the war that was brewing, we wonder two things:

'''1. Would the first issue of ''BLAST'' have had such a strong expression of Vorticism?'''

'''2. Would the nature of the 2nd issue have still changed, or would it have been a near duplicate of the original?'''