Catalogue Number
NMLH.2023.69.7
Object Name
Poster
Title
War Machine
Date
1972-1982
Description
The Poster Collective was a collective formed in 1971 at the Slade School of Art,  a group formed to initially produce posters in response to the miners strike and on the wars in both Vietnam and Ireland. It was formed on the basis of developing a coherent visual style, which addressed the political issues of the time. This included the armed struggles against colonialism in Africa, the struggle of women for equal rights and the continuing struggle against racism. The collective was active in the 70's and 80's, producing posters on a wide range of issues, including for educational purposes. The group was not-for-profit and used a variety of hand-printing techniques to create their posters. This poster is part of a set, 'Future Fictions', produced when the collective moved to the North London Polytechnic is a set of posters reflecting on technological development and leads us to address environmental issues of today. It's a black and white poster. The man on the picture is driving a
machine full of missiles. The top right corner of the poster says The course of the Second World War speeded up by decades the evolution of all kinds of electronic products and methods, as well as ushering in the development of the atomic bomb and the guided missile system. The term âIndustrial-Military Complex' was first used in the United States to describe the way in which the interests of the military and industry had become linked. Since the eve of W.W. Il there have been three total revolutions in military technology with almost complete changes of equipment with each. To facilitate this rapid process of innovation and obsolescence of technology something like half the world's scientists and technicians are now engaged in making or improving weapons at a cost of over $1,000 million a day. Increasingly the technological development within civil society evolves under the shadow of military technology.
