Rivista di Guerra Psichica (Psychic Warfare Journal )

The Luther Blissett Project was a collective experiment in cultural production active in Italy from 1994 through the late 1990s.

Conceived as a multiple identity and shared pseudonym, the name was adopted by a fluid network of artists, activists, writers, and media activists, who used it to sign actions, texts, and interventions in the fields of art, literature, and political communication. The operation functioned as a symbolic sabotage aimed at destabilizing the traditional idea of the author, media authority, and the logic of individual recognition. 

The name itself, inspired by the Jamaican-born English footballer Luther Blissett, became a collective mask: a real identity transformed into an ironic and political gesture. Notably, Blissett’s transfer to the Italian football club A.C. Milan in the 1980s had been considered largely unsuccessful a detail that added an extra layer of irony to the choice, turning an unremarkable sporting transaction into a symbol of cultural subversion.

The project operated on multiple levels: on one hand, it was a decentralized and diffuse narrative machine composed of media hoaxes, fake news, literary works (such as the novel Q, published in 1999), performances, and editorial projects; on the other hand, it engaged in an active reflection on the forms of cultural production and the possibilities for intervention in public space through hybrid, mimetic, and often parodic languages. The Luther Blissett Project was especially active in Bologna and Rome but extended beyond Italy’s borders. Lacking hierarchies or central organization, its strength lay in the multiplicity of participants, who acted autonomously and without coordination.

One of the most significant areas of the project was publishing. In addition to Q, pamphlets, magazines, self-produced materials, and pirate publications were created. Publishing became one of the privileged channels for disseminating ideas and practices, often through independent networks and alternative spaces such as self-managed bookstores, social centers, and neighborhood print shops. These publications were marked by hybrid forms, collage techniques, genre contamination, and the deconstruction of graphic conventions. Blissettian publishing was not just a vehicle for content, but also an aesthetic-political practice.

Within this context emerged the Rivista di Guerra Psichica ( 1995–1997), an independent publishing experiment closely aligned with the spirit of the project. Designed graphically by A. and C., with texts signed by future members of the Wu Ming collective, the journal represented a visual practice that was both autonomous and non-professional. The graphic designers involved were self-taught, driven more by a desire to experiment than by formal technical training. Their lack of expertise was not a provocative stance, but a concrete condition that proved fertile and generative.

The journals were assembled as chaotic collages, using found materials from books, magazines, archives, and photographs. Images (drawings, comics, photos, photo manipulations) were scanned, reworked, and laid out using software like Photostyler and Freehand, through a process of empirical learning. Even visual effects  such as vignetting  were achieved with rudimentary methods. The result was an irregular, imperfect, sometimes clumsy aesthetic: not as a theoretical choice, but as the natural effect of a practice free from the codes of professional design. This spontaneity echoed the aesthetics of many graphic materials from the antagonistic movements of the time.

A recurring symbolic element was the face of Luther Blissett, constructed by layering digitized images  anonymous faces, public figures, archival portraits  and also used in graphic objects such as fictitious postage stamps. Printing materials were chosen based on availability, with attention to cost and the sustainability of the project. The listed publisher, Grafton9, was not an official publishing house but an independent bookstore in Bologna on Via Paradiso, whose back room served as a workspace. In total, three issues of the Psychic Warfare Journal were published.

Bibliography:

Rivista di Guerra Psichica E Adunate Sediziose, Numero Zero, Aprile/Maggio 1995;

Rivista mondiale di guerra Psichica, Numero Uno - Due, Giugno/Settembre, 1995;

Rivista mondiale di guerra Psichica, Numero tre, Inverno, 1995;

Duccio Dogheria, Silvano Zingoni, Luther Blissett. Biografia di una guerra psichica, Stampa alternativa, 2024.

Interviews:

10/04/2025 A.A. - Graphic/Editorial designer of Luther Blissett Project