Antikythera

Antikythera is a collective work that brings together our research interests, but also a more global anchoring with a network of emerging and active artists, theorists, activists and creators of the Brussels scene.

More specifically, Antikythera aims to bring together alternative thinking about media, the narratives they construct, and the narratives that construct them.

Under the large term that is media, we mean “any means of distribution, dissemination or interpersonal, mass or group communication of written, visual, audio or audiovisual works, documents or messages” (wikipedia definition, because it’s pretty cool and yes, sometimes we do like wikipedia).

The notion of media therefore covers a broad spectrum, which we certainly don’t intend to treat in its entirety, but by precise angles, and very often at the crossroads of marginal, alternative practices and thinking, DIY approaches and critical tactics.

Whether these media are contemporary or not, exploratory or problematic, concrete or speculative, they are, at the heart of the magazine, a ground of reflection and bear multiple political stakes.

Needless to say, media are in every mouth and at the core of our contemporary way of living, by their materiality, the power dynamics they convey but also by the narrative they thrive on. They are a large enough concept to separate ourselves from the easy shortcut that would be  media=bad, covering a large enough field of emerging contemporary thinking on the matter to use it as the theme for this first edition. 

Don’t worry, you don’t even have to be a nerd and to know the definition of an algorithm to read this printed object, as the question of transmission, and the passing on of this knowledge, is a crucial notion that is close to our hearts. We’ll be focusing on singular forms and links that break down the traditional divide between theory and practice, beyond so-called expert knowledge, between the underground and pop culture. These knowledge and practices combine personal and collective experience, autofiction, investigation and subjectivity.

In the face of the predominance of digital technology and the danger of some of its most visible actors (hi Meta.Musk), our aim in this transmission is to distance ourselves from the screens and favor a printed form, micro-published in an autonomous and local way. While multiple genocides are happening that we only perceive through medias, while research around gender/post-colonial studies are being censored, we attempt at our own small scale to provide a different approach to medias that shape our collective subsconscious. 

Ok enough words, what will you find in here? 

A condensation of different texts investigating media such as movies, tech, music, video games and soooo many others while examining how these media count, their capacity to act on reality, whether that reality is political and particularly palpable/material, abstract/fictional and poetic, or all at once.