Futuristika Magazine @ Colophon 2009
Colophon is a biennial symposium for magazine makers, experts, advertisers, readers and all creatives involved in the world of the independent magazine. The on-going project aims to build a database of magazines and a network of organizations and people from all over the world. 
This international event celebrates excellence and innovation, and promotes exchanges between key players within independent magazine industry.
Launched in 2007, Colophon – International Magazine Symposium will be held for the second time in Luxembourg in 2009. Hosting exhibitions, talks, workshops, parties, events and one-off publications, with a far more expansive programme, with more magazines and more attendees the second event will be far bigger and more ambitious than the first, Colophon2007.
In short, it is the place to be for every single person involved in magazines. A journey into the magazine world, a gathering of magazine lovers, Colophon2009 offers a promising experience with the ultimate goal of positioning Luxembourg as an essential destination for creative industries.
Futuristika, the magazine of extraordinary topics, joined Colophon in September 2008. Here is the “little” interview; Colophon asks, our editor in chief Baris Yarsel answers. Our magazine recently became a Media Partner and is proud to be one of 150 international magazines supporting Colophon. We will present our magazine in Colophon2009 – International Magazine Symposium, March 2009 in Luxembourg.
During Colophon2009, the expanded events will take over the entire capital city. The highlight of the programme will be the Colophon2009 Symposium, held 13-15th March 2009, and based at Casino Luxembourg – Forum for Contemporary Art.
Around 3,000 magazine lovers are expected, looking forward to have a chance to discover innovative insights from world wide known names; illustrators, photgraphers, art directors, publishers, writers, editors, consultants, journalists, academics, during conferences, panel discussions, unique interviews.
Exhibitions, talks, events, experimental workshops and one-off publications will create an inspiring space for exchange and creativity.
Ten additional exhibitions will create a magazine trail through the City of Luxembourg, with routes featuring special installations by ten specially selected independent magazines.
Museums, cinema, art galleries, shops, restaurants and cafes will join the trail and participate in hosting the event’s attendees, stimulating the city’s economy, tourism and culture.
Be a part of it!
To join Colophon2009, get your Flash Pass here. Travel tips for the participants are here.
View the online directory here. Read the interviews here.
Browse the partners here. Join in the International Magazine Survey here.
To support Colophon, take a banner for your blog/website here. For more information contact via here.
Curators
Colophon2009 is produced by Mike Koedinger in collaboration with Casino Luxembourg – Forum for Contemporary Art. Jeremy Leslie and Andrew Losowsky are the other curators.
Mike Koedinger is the founder and co-curator of Colophon, as well as the publisher of the book We Love Magazines. Luxembourg ‘s leading independent publisher runs a publishing media group dedicated to producing high quality magazines, corporate publications, guides and events for Luxembourg. With seven publications to his name, an advertising management company, a studio for editorial design and numerous events and websites, his group monitors the pulse of popular culture and society in the greater Luxembourg region. For more info go to here and here.
Jeremy Leslie, the co-founder of Colophon, is Executive Creative Director at the John Brown Group, the UKs leading customer publishing agency. Previously he ran his own studio working for clients including Blitz magazine and The Guardian newspaper, and spent three years as group art director at Time Out. Leslie is a passionate advocate of editorial design, regularly contributing to the creative press and design conferences on the subject. He has written two books about magazine design: Issues (2000) and magCulture (2003), and designed the book We Love Magazines. He is deputy chairman of the newly formed Editorial Design Organisation in London, and a member of the executive committee of D&AD. He also maintains an outstanding blog about magazine design called magculture.
Andrew Losowsky, for four years, was editorial director of Le Cool publishing, based in Barcelona, overseeing the creation of their Weird and Wonderful Guidebooks to Barcelona, Amsterdam, London, Lisbon and Madrid, as well as the remarkable, award-winning inflight magazine Ling. A passionate commentator on magazines, design and unusual ways of telling stories, Losowsky has written for the Wall Street Journal, the Guardian, the Times of London and Grafik among many other publications. He edited the book We Love Magazines, and his collection of short stories, ‘The Doorbells of Florence’, will be published in Spring 2009 by Chronicle Books. He currently lives in the USA, and writes about magazine issues at losowsky/magtastic.
Publications
There are 2 wonderful publications by Colophon, both essential additions for any magazine collection.
We Love Magazines
As an accompaniment to the Colophon2007 magazine symposium, the book We Love Magazines was created. In keeping with the independent spirit of the magazines featured in the book, the book was published with ten slightly different covers; all having the same title graphic and background photo but featuring ten different drawings in blue foil block by Mio Matsumoto.
The drawings portrayed ten different readers, each representing one of the ten contributing magazines. These were ten pioneering, independent magazines and they have created their own chapters for the book. The magazines were: Carl*s Cars (Norway), Coupe (Canada), Frame (The Netherlands), Omagiu (Romania), Rojo (Spain), S-magazine (Denmark), Shift! (Germany), Streets/Fruits/Tune (Japan), thisisamagazine.com (Italy) and Yummy (France).
The book had sections such as; amazing moments in magazine history, the stories behind successful covers, insider hints from advertising specialists, magazines we miss, new magazines, etc. More over, it also had the most comprehensive directory ever compiled of 1,100 titles and contact details of independent magazines ever printed.
We are looking forward to the 2009 issue. We Love Magazines is an essential read for anyone with a passion for print. When you buy your Flash Pass to Colophon2009, a copy of We Love Magazines 2 is included in the price.
Colophound
Colophound is also an essential addition to every magazine collection. The Colophon magazine, edited by Andrew Losowsky, designed by Luis Mendo and Suzanne Hertogs, s filled with contributions from attendees of the symposiums, thoughts about the future of magazines, and objects left over from the event that have found a new home.
You can order the magazine “Colophound” for 5 € (Europe delivery) or 10 € (worldwide delivery).
Colophon2007 Guest Book
“The fair is amazing and gives us a lot of inspiration”
FRAME magazine, Amsterdam
“Colophon changed my life…”
Stéphanie Dumont, Carl*s Cars, Oslo
“The venue, organisation and construction of the seminars, conferences, etc: excellent”
Karen, Karen magazine, London
“We really enjoyed the friendly atmosphere of the symposium and the beautiful city of Luxembourg”
B EAST magazine, Tallinn
“The whole event has been a great success and I have met so many lovely and interesting people”
Malin Persson, Designer, London
“Good work – you guys rocked our hearts”
Lars Harmsen, Slanted magazine and blog, Karlsruhe
“The only bad thing about colophon was that my bag was too heavy”
Luis Mendo, Art Director, Amsterdam
“What a truly fantastic event: Brilliantly conceptualised, meticulously planned and clinically executed”
Ravi Pathare, MagNation, New Zealand
“One of the best summits I’ve ever attended”
Samir “Mr Magazine” Husni, Missisippi
“Thank you so much for everything”
Yummy magazine, Paris
“I had a beautiful time in Luxembourg, Colophon was truly great”
Miha, Designer, Bucharest
Futuristika Mag Art Attack!
The Land of the Blind
That which survives
Of the land
Night walkers
Nature and concrete
In between
Escape
Dreams of flight
City of prophets
The 1st International Roaming Biennial of Tehran, Berlin 20 Nov.2008 – 7 Dec. 2008 Urban Jealousy in Berlin.
“International Roaming Biennial of Tehran, curated and organized by Amirali Ghasemi and Serhat Koksal, chose Istanbul as its first station. The idea of this independent, low-budget exhibition started out both as a critique of the situation in Tehran, and of the international “biennialization” and ”gentrification” process. Featured works by artists from different countries from all around the world, selected from an open submission call, which has had an overwhelming response. Berlin is its 2nd station.
The theme of this biennial is URBAN JEALOUSY. A Jalousie * (“jealousy” in French) is a window that one can see through but not be seen; barriers that allow us to observe the world without being invited to the table. Iranian artists are given an understanding of what goes on in the world without being offered a single opportunity to communicate their thoughts -outside of our very own jalousie window: a rigid ethnic frame within an extremely politicized context. Of all the huge urban areas around the world, Tehran stands out as a different kind of Megalopolis. It boasts one of the most dynamic art scenes in the Middle East even as the city itself deals with a rudimentary public transport system, an exploding population crisis, and an ever-increasing sprawl of mass housing; An unsightly city of experimental architecture that swallows entire villages and towns without offering them any sort of public services.
Despite its complicated urban situation -which according to experts has already spiraled out of control -artists’ societies in Tehran continue to hold numerous biennials in semi-tribal fashion. A great number of these events are government-sponsored projects whose outlook and also their premises can shift 180 degrees from one year to the next. Each community has its own set of ceremonies, as a result of which, any sense of solidarity among the artists is lost. The Tehran Visual Arts Festival, The Calligraphy Biennial, The Sculpture Biennial, The Cartoon Biennial, The Painting Biennial of the Islamic World, The Graphic Design Biennial, The Children’s Books Illustration Biennial, The Painting Biennial, The Poster Biennial, The Poster Biennial of the Islamic World… The list is endless.
Although the legendary “TEHRAN BIENNIAL” goes back 50 years, not a single one of the above-mentioned events can be considered a biennial by prevailing and accepted international standards”. An arts society recently published a call to boycott the upcoming Painting Biennial in order to demand a professionally curated exhibition, protesting the open call process and a “jury” they deemed unacceptable. It seems impossible to have a proper Tehran biennial in Tehran, so our sprawling city and its elitist art scene remain excluded from the highly competitive art market in the region despite being surrounded from all sides by lucrative biennials and auctions. We may have great artists living and working in Iran, but we don’t have a chance to share the profits.
Tehran, as one may suppose, does not seem interested in presenting itself as a desirable destination for cultural tourism, by playing it ‘cool’ like other global cities, or scramble to be hip by coughing up the membership dues to be in the international art market. So, to jumpstart the process, and after a long discussion with my friend, Serhat Koksal — a critic of the global biennialization process -we decided to curate a ‘mini’, on the move, Tehran biennial. To not only stop complaining about the current situation but to benefit from the advantages of it. An independent, low- budget, traveling exhibition which can be presented almost anywhere. We will travel like nomads, carrying artwork, objects, texts, and whatever, in a package no bigger than a medium-sized suitcase, preferably weighing less than 20 Kg., so it can be carried on any cheap flight. Urban Jealousy will end its journey in May 2010, but Tehran’s Roaming Biennial will carry on.”
In this context, Futuristika Magazine joins the 1st. International Roaming Biennial of Tehran at its second station; Berlin, peeping through the “jalousie” and looking at the cities of Turkey. Photographs taken by Pınar Ilkiz in different Turkish towns are manipulated by the digital artist Lawrence Roberts. The poster designs are finalized by the art director Fatih Gül after the editing of texts prepared accordingly by Ipek Yarsel and Barış Yarsel.
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