Letter to the Editor
By Alissa Firth-Eagland and Johan Lundh
Dear Björn Hegardt
We hope this note finds you well. We have really enjoyed the back issues of Fukt you gave to us when we met in Dale, Norway. In particular we liked the form and content of the latest iteration, number seven (2008).
We were quite excited to learn that Fukt has been invited to participate in the New York Art Book Fair to present a special edition. We were further intrigued when you mentioned that you were thinking about experimenting with a new paper stock and format. What an ideal opportunity to mull over about what magazine has been over the past ten years and what it could become in the future! We immediately came to think about a project we saw recently.
In November last year, a special edition of the New York Times mysteriously appeared on the streets of New York. Its headline, “Iraq War Ends,” introduced a collection of articles under the rubric of “All the News We Hope to Print,” an alteration of the paper of record’s actual motto, “All the News That’s Fit to Print.” According to the news, the imitation was so successful that many New Yorkers were perplexed. The paper was also backed up by a website that equally accurately mimicked the New York Times. Aside from the overtly expressed political messages, this New York Times Special Edition tells us that dissemination is everything today. Those who distribute set the agenda. It doesn’t matter what one broadcasts as long as it reaches an audience. Has the medium become the message in the society of the spectacle or is there an alternative way of viewing things?
Excerpt of text published in issue 7 1/2 of Fukt magazine (Berlin, DE), 2009.