Ian & Stuart's Australian Mac: Not for Sale/Another.not.for.sale (Australia).iso/Dr. Doyle/Mediamatic

Text File | 1994-09-27 | 11KB | 199 lines

Mediamatic - Any World, Any Media, One Magazine!

The accelerating convergence of modern media has created a maelstrom in
which hype and relevance are difficult to distinguish. Located in the eye
of this maelstrom, Mediamatic's strong philosophical and historical roots
allow it to offer perspective on and participation in this digital 'third
culture' where art and technology merge.

Mediamatic publishes articles on media and art in simultaneous translation
(Dutch/English), distributed in Europe, Australasia, North America and
Japan. Each issue has a theme such as Panic, Architecture, and the Ear.
Whatever the subject, playfullness and freedom of thought are applied to
reveal unexpected insights, to foster the uncommon rather than the common.

The magazine's raw material is the text of theory: analysis, polemics,
experimental theory, speculations and sometimes pure fiction. Authors from
Europe, Japan and North America examine whatever theme through the filter
of Mediamatic's only assumption: that New Media are changing every facet of
human endeavour more rapidly than you can guess.

Mediamatic doesn't write about types of computers or chips, is no users'
journal, full of hard and software info. Instead, the magazine offers
thorough reflection on computopia from within. When we started using
'Morph', we demonstrated it, but we didn't explain how the programme works
or what you can do with it. Instead, we write about what it means that you
can do those sorts of things with computers. Mediamatic covers a social
area which is impelled by economics and technology, an area which is
embedded in society and is currently affected by explosive developments.
This is the speed which the visual arts have been lacking for the past 100
years. Precisely because of this speed, precisely because so many people
are wondering 'what's happening to us now?', reflection is urgently needed.


Recent issues have included articles about life in tele-media, the
philosophy of virtual space, Japanese youth trends, the archeology of
communication, how your first talking digital pet will look, the literary
science of computers and the ecology of information. Each issue also has a
worldwide calender of important events in the areas of art and media
(exhibitions, festivals and congresses) and reviews of books and other
software from the mainstream and margins of  publishing.

Mediamatic remains a cultural magazine and it raises such questions as
'What does all this imply, for us and for our culture?'.  The technological
revolution has far-reaching implications which simply have to be thought
about. People are beginning to speak a different language, to think in
different structures.

The six Dutch and one English editor have no homogeneous idea of what this
reflection should entail. From various worlds of thought (art history,
philosophy, evolutionary biology, political science and design), the
editors share only an interest in media - or rather, communication - and in
the debate surrounding it. Every issue involves a fight to come to some
sort of agreement, in fact, there are often heated discussions at the
weekly editorial meetings, occasionally attended by contributers from
abroad.

Mediamatic doesn't fit into any existing magazine category. This is a
disadvantage because it forces us to create our own market. If you find us,
it'll usually be among the visual-art journals, but it could just as easily
be somewhere else. It also creates a problem for new readers: when they
pick up the magazine, they don't immediately understand what it's about,
because it doesn't belong to a category they already know. We think it's a
meaningful and clear category ourselves, but precisely because we don't
belong to a fixed category, we find ourselves in a rather luxurious
position - one which we're still enjoying as much as ever: we can decide at
any moment that we find something worthwhile, without having to worry about
whether it fits into some pigeonhole or other.

The 'Mediamatic Foundation' remains entirely independent: we don't have to
account for anything to anyone and have no 'party line' to push. On the
other hand, thanks to the design and the distribution, you would think
there is a large publishing concern behind Mediamatic. We sometimes see
ourselves as a virtual publisher: we're sitting here around the table but
in some way or other, the magazine doesn't really exist.

Mediamatic was founded in 1986 as an organisation in the provincial
university town of Groningen in northern Holland which was involved in
media-art presentations. We did this for four years, until we felt the need
for a different audience, because it soon turned out that we developed more
quickly than the Groningen public. Because there was no magazine which
could serve as a platform for the media-art debate, we decided to start one
ourselves. We also wanted to publish material on the design of media
products, but it soon proved difficult to find enough people who really had
something to say on the subject. For three or four years, media art then
remained our main theme, until we began to notice that this was no longer
the most interesting area of visual art. Moreover, we had become fascinated
by other developments in the field of media and art. We therefore split the
word up and we've been writing about media and art ever since.

46or these first seven years of its existence, we worked without pay and
enjoyed a small subsidy from the Dutch Ministry of Welfare, Health and
Cultural Affairs. All those who contribute do it out of love for the
project. Now based in Amsterdam, Mediamatic has evolved into today's
sophisticated - even beautiful - quarterly on art and media and the changes
being wrought by techno-culture, hypermedia and virtuality.

A new and unique formula is having a designer (Willem Velthoven) as
editor-in-chief. "The design is an important element in the magazine, for
one simple reason: I always make it myself, and when I am sitting there
working late into the night, I want to get some fun out of it. The
aesthetic solution is always determined by the amount of text. The
designing editor could also scrap a few texts, but this never happens. This
design dictatorship never 'oppresses', except that it makes the
text-as-text come into full bloom. With the exception of one or two errors,
the text is never made unreadable. The design should rather be regarded as
an editorial component.

Mediamatic continues to search for human values, but in a less safe way.
Part of the values from which we work could be called nostalgic, for we
cannot imagine life in the next century as being human without these
values. Perhaps we don't discuss this issue at a metaphysical and
moralistic level, but it's certainly one our most fundamental and constant
concerns. The necessity of taking a standpoint - you either deal with it or
it deals with you - demands analysis. Unlike the postmodernists, we don't
let the world wash over us, we don't drift with the stream. After all, this
technology penetrates your mind - just think of the difference between
writing on a typewriter and on a computer. There comes a time when you're
indeed forced to deal with it, consciously or unconsciously.

Interactive Multimedia will be the most dynamic field of artistic and
business activity of the 90s. The network of Mediamatic writers and editors
has been doing, thinking and writing about multimedia and its constituent
parts (graphic design, video, text and sound) for up to a decade. Now that
pool of knowledge is available to anyone. The most recent project was to
organise the content of the highly-regarded Doors of Perception conference
on the design challenges of interactivity in Amsterdam, October 1993, for
the Dutch Design Institute.

The success of this first step away from publishing has prompted us to
begin the move from grant-aided hobby to fully-fledged commercial
proposition. New offices and new full-time staff have been recruited for
Mediamatic Interactive Publishing.  MMIP offers research, practical, and
strategic support at all levels of interactive and traditional publishing,
from graphic design and corporate image to copywriting and interactive
title development. MMIP is also developing its own interactive
publications.

Talk to us! Better still, let your computer talk to our computer:

Mediamatic On line, (MMOL: +31--6 4254) will offer direct communication
with the editors with your computer and modem. MMOL will also be an easy-to-use
cultural bulletin board that offers information about forthcoming numbers
and unabridged versions of MM articles, spaces for debating MM subjects, an
up-dated weekly calender, a data-base of useful addresses, and the
possibility of communication with other readers (and another  million
people) via access to Internet - the computer network-of-networks on which
the world's academic, technical and cultural communities meet. Hopefully available
from April (all going well). You'll automatically be notified when it's
up-and-running.

What others say about the magazine:

"A hyperintellectual art and media journal for the well read polyglot. It
is well-nigh inpenetrable without a thorough knowledge of Baudrillard,
Virilio, Bataille and Eco for starters..." Mondo 00, San Francisco.

"Mediamatic represents the high end of publications dealing with the media,
and few are as adventurous.A0Its design is busy but never repetitive, with
consideration given to the layout in terms of content...A cocktail of ideas
on the frosted coffeetable of present theory." Variant, Glasgow.

"It's anyone's guess what will happen in a future where advanced
interactive technology are commonplace. But the curious could do worse than
track down Mediamatic...at best, it will equip you for life in the 'fourth
world - the imanent techno-PoMo culture clash. At the very least it will
provide you with a clutch of smart new busswords that will last you well
into the 21st century" The Observer newspaper, London.

"Stimulating and useful...one of the few magazines that describe the
culture that no longer abides in museums, galleries or living roooms."A0NRC
newspaper, Rotterdam.

Subscription information:
Mediamatic can be hard to find; subscription is the only way of making sure
you get copies. Outside Holland the price is 75 Dutch guilders surface mail
 (credit card only) or 110 Dfl airmail (+ Dfl. for
companies/institutions).
There are a number of offers for back issues / subscriptions to MMOL.

Further info from [e-mail];
fax: [phone]

Mediamatic is a must not just for theory hackers, data dandys and internet
surfers but anyone concerned with the cultural impact of the computer
revolution. Marshall McLuhan believed man's information-processing
capacities are larger than we give credit: information overload leads to
pattern-recognition. Mediamatic writes about the patterns of the digital
society.


Mediamatic Magazine (MMm)
Mediamatic On Line (MMol)
Mediamatic Interactive Publishing (MMip)

phone: [phone]       fax:   [phone]
postbus 17490, 1001 JL  Amsterdam, the Netherlands