Hans Aarsman, Claudie de Cleen, Julian Germain, Erik Kessels, Hans van der Meer just collected and edited a new number of Useful Photography: Photography is especially useful when it is aimed at helping the unskilled take better photographs. Useful Photography #009 examines the world of photography manuals and celebrates the pictures used to help us understand our cameras, take better pictures and identify our disastrous mistakes. In this digital age, where mistakes in photography can be rectified in an instant, Useful Photography thought it high time to dedicate an issue to the photography manual; with images sourced from the days when manual also meant the type of camera you were operating. Every manner of what can go wrong, and how to correct it, is explored. Yet, aside from telling us how to correct the double-exposed, the poorly lit, the out of focus or the red of eye, the series within also allows us to see that mistakes – as defined by these helpful brochures – have a rare, never to be repeated beauty all of their own. Learn all about photography, or how dangerous pigeons look in extreme close up in the latest Useful Photography #009. See more pictures and order your copy for 25 Euro here.
New crazy stuff from the UK: GOOD VS EVIL is a comic/illustration/art magazine focused on horror and the weirdest art out there. “GOOD VS EVIL has no ego, no backers, no nothing - just an interest in alternative art.” You have to see it: More pictures, a video and you can buy your copy (of only 150) here.
Low, a great underground art magazine from Germany, just released their new issue: There are features about Polish poster art, the American rock poster artist Emek, the Chilean painter Victor Castillo, the Texan poster and sausage making design company Decoder Ring Design Concern, the lowbrow art gallery of Merry Karnowsky in Berlin, Urban Knitting by Magda Sayeg from the Knitta Please Collective and art toy creations by rock poster artists like Frank Kozik and Tara McPherson. Also inside the mag are “Canvas Stories” from Diederick Kraaijeveld (The Netherland), James Jean (USA), Andrea Offermann (Germany) and Mateo (USA/Germany). And the exclusive cover artwork is by American artist Dan Grzeca. See more pictures, all details and order your copy for only 6,30 Euro immediately here.
Peeping Tom was an award-winning British small press magazine in the 1990s, founded by David Bell and Stuart Hughes, and specialised in dark fantasy and horror - now a french collective arround Caroline Niémant and Stéphane Blanc refounded a new Peeping Tom magazine which aim is to promote emerging artists. And for this first issue Peeping Tom scouted talents through an unconventional open call for submissions, based on the traditional system of chain of letter: in order to be eligible, aside from being part of the Berlin art scene (the first publication dedicates itself to the great art community of Berlin), each applicant needed to forward the open call to one or several Berlin artists he (she) greatly admires. This system of chain letters placed each participant in the position of a curator/editor by proposing one or several artists. Peeping Tom believes that artists are the most exciting curators and wanted them to take part of the process of creation of this magazine. In total, Peeping Tom received more than 220 submissions and selected 53 artists to be part of this first publication. Get all details, see more pictures and participating artists and/or buy your copy of this amazing new magazine here.
der:die:das: is a brandnew monothematic magazine made in Zurich, which examines items, objects and various “things” from everyday life, trying to get to the bottom of their meaning to newly orchestrate them. der:die:das: calls for the new in everyday life and the ordinary in the novel and assembles the various perceptions of different disciplines in art and design by various artists, designers and authors in one magazine. According to the alphabet the things will be selected, dissected and analysed. The first issue started with the letter A for apple. Contributing artists are Sasha Haettenschweiler, Zürich; Saša Kohler, Basel; Sandi Kozjek, Zürich; Katharina Rippstein, Zürich; Shirana Shahbazi, Zürich; contributing photographers are Véronique Hoegger, Zürich and Flurina Rothenberger, Zürich; and the authors are Valérie Knoll, Zürich; Petra Pan, Berlin/Germany; Aline Rinderer, Basel. See more details, pictures or/and buy your copy here.
Turbochainsaw, the great bastard illustration zine from the UK, just released its new issue “Insane”, including works &y’s (USA), Andrés Brück (Argentina), Cat Lauigan (USA), Debbie Sharples (UK), Geoffrey Kayser (France), Alexander Binder (Germany), Masha Krasnova-Shabaeva (Russia), Conteleta (Spain), Mark (UK), Disco Floyd (USA), Daniel Swan (UK), Paul Dixon (UK), Rob Pybus (UK), Paul Bonnet (France), The Horror (UK), Bomba Massi (Italy). More details, more pictures and you can order your copy (there are only 150 copies) immediately for 7 Euro here.
A new magazine project from Berlin: Aufstieg und Fall (”rise and fall”). Released the 15th june and coming quarterly in a circulation of 10 000 copies to selected bookstores and kiosks this magazine celebrates “the exciting and often tragic rise and fall of life” and “the wild roller-coaster around every corner”. Chiefeditor Iván Aránega Tortosa explains in the editorial: “Aufstieg und Fall investigates the curious human behavior and extravagant details that lie under the headlines dominating the media and the conversations in the cue of the supermarket. As the old saying goes: what goes up must come down. True, but boring. Long before the information age, Flannery O‘Connor took it a step further and wrote ‘everything that rises must converge’. Life is and will be a journey and all what we see, hear and feel along the way come together and form who we are. People come and go, trends rise and fall, ideas heave and ho and the best we can do is hold on and enjoy the ride.”
The quality of the paper creates multiple orgasms, the pictures are amazing and very emotional (Frank Kalero is documentating the indish Holi Varanasi ritual and Casper Dalhoff photographed people with psychoses), also the illustrations of Herr Müller (who did also the cover artwork) are original and a facinating new visual approach. The layout (art director is Christian Schneider) is playful and stylish, but readable; and finally the texts: they are no revolution or will win a Pulitzer Prize, but they are very amusing and diversified (Ariadne von Schirach is writing about sleeping yourself to the top, there are last words from pilots before the crash, an interview with trend scout Jozo Juric). After all a great new launch! We hope that you´ll rise to the magazine heaven and are already curious about the next issue. More details, more pictures and you can order your copy for immediately 5,80 Euro here.
Dear Elmar Bambach, Julia Marquardt and Birgit Vogel, you dedicate each issue of your Magazin über Orte to a new place. The current issue is about the “Tatort” (crime scene). What inspired you?
The “crime scene” was a new aspect for the magazine. A place that is in principle defined after a happening, namely the action. And we wish to show a variety of places in our magazine.
Concentration camps, crimes, accidents, battlefields - this issue is very dark and sinister.
This is exactly what interested us. The last themes like “kitchen”, “park” or “desk” were not so clearly bonded with a certain association. The crime scene on the other hand is a place of a crime, a homicide; so definitely a negative thing. It was a challenge for us to make a multifaceted issue, with uncommon and unexpected perspectives.
Are you misanthropes? Or how did you came up with the idea to make a magazine only about places?
We are interested in places. Places are full of traces and they also tell many things about people. You can search for something, discover and find things there. Places as a theme suit to this way we see the magazine: a bit mysterious, often indirect and remote.
What does a place need that you dedicate it a whole issue?
We actually think that every place would work for a complete issue. For us the spectrum and the series of the magazine is more import and we choose places we are interested in. The borderline question appears every time: where does a place begin? And where does it ends? Is the “dream” also a place? Or the “flipside”? This are the questions we are faced up to. And it is important for us to answer them anew over and over.
The next issue is about “home”. Can you already tell us something about it?
“Home” is for us again a kind of enlargement of the term place. “Home” is mainly a personal feeling, an attachment to a familiar place. Concomitant it is also understood as homely and concrete, as your own four walls. We find this ambiguity interesting and both sides should be found. But the issue will surely tell more about the association as of the concrete place, in contrast to the issue “desk” or “kitchen”, that are also placed in a homely environment.
How long do you need for the production of the issue? How do you proceed?
As soon as one issue is released we begin working for the next one. We learn new things every time. The start is a soon as possible agreement of the new theme. Then we start with the research of already existing works that we can imagine in the issue. This phase is very important for us because only like this we can win a feeling about how the theme can work and where the hassle is. Crucial is for us if we can wangle the balance between the individual works. A kind of river should be generated, in which every work, equal if famous or not, short or long, should find it’s place and is presented in an adequate way. Decisive for the magazine is the choice and the combination. The issue is working if we are establishing a collective ambiance at the end and if the individual works do not appear isolated. This is our goal. To reach that we are testing a lot, we discuss about the choice and the order and work intensely on the layout. We are often firmly in the last weeks deciding which works are being shown in the issue. This process is very exhausting but also exciting and we are having lots of fun doing it. What is difficult is when we have to reject some authors, whose work we liked, but finally did not fit in the combination. We are making an effort to be as honest and fair as possible.
Who are your readers?
Many readers are surely coming from fields like photography, art, graphic design and literature. Others are interested in a certain issue or a place. And there is also an international interest because the magazine appears bilingually.
What are you favourite magazines?
Three examples: “Archivo”, “mono.kultur” and “The Purple Journal”.
What would be your wish for the magazine?
We would love to find more partners that we can enthuse for our magazine. It can only survive when we find people that can identify themselves with the concept and can also financially support us. We can imagine a collaboration bounded by the theme or also a long-term cooperation. We would love to work together with institutions and to accompany each issue with a discussion meeting or a workshop. And certainly we want to develop the magazine first of all.
And finally your statement to the media crisis: is print going to die? What will happen to magazines? Are we going to read in 2020 only with Kindles?
With the media crisis the realization of smaller projects, like our magazine, is becoming more difficult. Some things in the society are concomitant winning proportionality. Thereby the people are becoming more awake, more open and more sensitive. And maybe this social climate is a special chance for the acceptance of remote things and exceptional things. Probably the reading and the reading custom will really change a lot. Precisely classic print media like newspapers, where the more important thing is the actuality, will disappear more on the internet or they will be available through other electronic forms. But on the other hand there will also be a return. The haptic experience with paper and print will win some estimation. This will surely happen in an always smaller becoming niche, but the quality will further exist. Translation: Alexandra Bieber
Specialten-Co-Founder Fabio Sebastianelli founded together with Thorbjørn Ankerstjerne another superb DVD magazine: File #1. File is a bi-annual, large format newspaper-style magazine featuring over two hours of short films, music videos and interviews on DVD (with September, The Archive, Hearts Revolution, Rainbow Arabia, Thunderheist, Mississippi Witch, Lost & Found: Jim Lee, Planetarium of the Soul, Efterklang, Support, Cinematic Orchestra, Larytta, Dead Soul Brothers, Of Montreal, Autokratz, Roots Manuva, Eugene McGuinness, Beck, El Guincho, Soft Gun Lilly pt.1) and an exclusive limited print by Geoff McFetridge. Have a look inside - and reserve your copy for 12 Euro here.
