what has publishing become? where is it going?
The evolution of contemporary art magazines is markedly entwined with ongoing developments in digital publishing. The way in which audiences consume art media today is an intricate activity that concerns a number of issues including the junction of text and images, copyright, accessibility and the human eye-brain system. Indeed, it feels assuredly natural for contemporary art magazines to publish online as a means of responding to technological advancements and possibilities - such as Web 2.0 - while disseminating their content with breadth and conviction.
Questions surrounding the nature and future of art magazines are as painfully cliched as they are important; and it is clear that digital publishing demands constant reconfiguration. Orin Gat discusses the manner in which IOS and other handheld devices allow for images to be embedded in “a variety of formats: slideshows, moving images, animated GIFS” and so on and so forth. It would appear that utilizing the vertical (or horizontal) scroll while maintaining the history and dignity of print, is symbolic of the greater balancing act of art publishing; one that requires constant editorial and cultural recalibration. According to East of Borneo editor Thomas Lawson, art magazines have, “a purposefully old-school attitude to the idea of the art journal as something deliberately out of time”. East of Borneo, along with other publications such as Mousse, South as a State of Mind, Flash Art and Flaneur (to name a few), strive to embrace the benefits of online media while incorporating certain strengths of traditional print publishing.
Slowness and temporality are, for example, two associated traits of traditional arts publishing that warrant consideration as digital publishing moves forward. However, through embracing user and reader contributions - on top of their own editorial line and agenda - publications such as East of Borneo etc are able to “develop depth over time as material accrues”, allowing them to work towards “becoming substantial repositories of information and interpretation”. As beautiful as this strategy sounds, such notions are probably excessively idealistic and egalitarian at this point in time, as they glaze over some of the key complexities of art publishing today. As an interested party, however, I find the serial tension and confusion that engulfs contemporary art publishing to be richly attractive.
