Oil the Gears (E-Zine)

Oil the Gears is an E-zine about technology that is split into 3 components: The logical component "The History of Technology and its Enemies", the emotional component "Her Solution" and the documentation component "Technology and the Process of Making this Zine." The logical component "The History of Technology and its Enemies” is a feature article that discusses history and the absurdity of being against technological innovation in each historical era including the contemporary. The emotional component "Her Solution" is a short story that follows a woman soldier who has been through trauma in a war and is obsessed with finding the solution to ethics; she fights against robot discrimination and starts to develop an Artificial Super Intelligence; but will it give her the answer? The documentation component "Technology and the Process of Making this Zine” is about the process of making the zine and how I was suffering not only from heartbreak but a new diagnosis of type 1 diabetes that put me in the ER for three days. It discusses medical technology and a cure for type 1 diabetes and a possible cure for heartbreak through virtual reality. I decided to use a zine as a way to persuade those against technology because it can be easily printed. I feel that printed media is where Neo-Luddites would flock to, which is why I felt it was a good idea to use a medium that would be popular with them. The aesthetic of the zine tends to be based on ideologies. The shapes and patterns are tied in with our concepts of nature and industry, which is why I used primitive patterns for ancient technology and more structured shapes like squares for the later pages in the feature article. The colours for the majority of the zine are based on ideology: The dark blue representing Transhumanism, the browns and greens representing nature and Neo-Luddism, the light green for “Her Solution” representing a technological green that is reminiscent of a green screen and the blues for the end of the zine to again represent Transhumanism. The typewriter font was inspired by the Unabomber Ted Kaczynski who used a typewriter to write his manifesto. The use of the font was, again, to hook-in Neo-Luddites to read the zine. The intention of the zine was to make readers rebuke not only technophobic but anti-science sentiment as well. It is meant to make the readers hopeful of a Utopia that can be brought on by abolishing capitalism and the market system and replacing it with a communist society with the help of technology. The zine is also meant to help show readers the benefits of Transhumanism and persuade them to be Transhumanists. You can read the zine using this link: https://www.canva.com/design/DAE8eDwESR4/GCJRZPSmL6H7zAz5KBBkOQ/view?utm_content=DAE8eDwESR4&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link&utm_source=publishsharelink