Early Posters

Much of Scratch My Nose’s early posters are either undocumented or only partially documented. SMN explored a number of visual possibilities with a limited budget which included making posters through the early ‘Billboard’ computer program. This was done by taking a slow scanning photograph with a film camera and the subject moving in front of the camera to make a manipulated portrait (see ‘SMN – Earlobes Billboard). Using the Billboard program you could make the image as large as you wanted for one-off posters. SMN honed in on this beautiful aesthetic for these early posters with their large rectangular pixilation and basic font for added text.

The other low budget method employed by SMN was their handmade photocopied posters. One of the more poignant poster series from SMN was the handmade photocopied A3 posters ‘Lost or Found’ where audiences were confronted with images of transsexuals and drag queens. There were eight SMN posters as part of the ‘Lost or Found’ campaign which were wrapped around pole posters not unlike a ‘Room to Let’ or punk band poster. The poster series confronted the AIDS issue which in the late 1980’s was the subject of major public debate in Australia - sometimes in a positive and informed manner and at other times in a misinformed and prejudiced manner. In whatever form, it also gave rise to the voice for the conservative religious right. SMN reflected this public debate by presenting it in a humorous way - that the gay community were human and that they also ‘read page 13 of Dick Smith’s catalogue’. Unfortunately nearly all documentation from this series has disappeared.