Introduction
In the limited scope of this page, I do not intend to produce an exhaustive survey of online publications in Quebec. More modestly, I will profile four electronic journals, each of which has chosen to attend in its own way to what can only be called the "digital revolution."
CTHEORY
CTHEORY has been on line since 1991. However, it first appeared in print as The Canadian Journal of Political and Social Theory, founded at the University of Winnipeg, in 1976, and transferred to Concordia University, in Montreal, in 1981. Published in English only, CTHEORY is nonetheless an international magazine, with an editorial committee consisting of mainly North American and European intellectuals and artists, including French post-modernist thinker Jean Baudrillard (Paris), Bruce Sterling (Austin, U.K.), Sirius (San Francisco), Stelarc (Melbourne), Richard Kadrey (San Francisco), Timothy Murray(Ithaca/Cornell), Andrew Ross (New York), David Cook (Toronto), Sannon Bell (Downsview/York), Gad Horowitz (Toronto), Sharon Grace (San Francisco), Robert Adrian X (Vienna), and Michael Weinstein (Chicago), among others. The editors, Arthur (political science professor at Concordia University) and Marilouise Kroker, are known both as authors and as "post-modern" performers. CTHEORY publishes in-depth articles that focus mainly on theory, technology, and culture. Each online subscriber to CTHEORY receives the newly published articles by email. The last article to date (received on September 16 2001), is called Terrorism of Viral Power, by Arthur and Marilouise Kroker, and is about the terrorist events of September 11 in the United States.
The online presentation remains very simple, with unillustrated, black-on-white text; it resembles a university journal not only in appearance but in "content." Navigation is simple and straightforward; the home page presents readers with a list of all the articles published in CTHEORY, with title, author's name, and date of publication. These texts are grouped under headings: "Articles" (bringing together more purely theoretical reflections), "Event-Scenes" (critiques of events and contemporary cultural, social, and political phenomena), "Reviews" (critical coverage of recently published works), and then "Global Algorithms" and "30 Cyber-Days", each of which presents a collection of texts that appeared in 1996. In each section, all the articles are listed chronologically from the most recent. Note that one can run a keyword search on the body of texts already published (nearly 300 at this time).
At the top of the list, one finds the texts from the most recent thematic issue (May 9, 2001), entitled Tech Flesh, which deals with present, planned, and foreseen technology-induced transformations of the body, featuring articles on the "Promises and Perils of the Human Genome Project". An online multimedia version published by Cornell University's Electronic Publishing Program accompanies the Tech Flesh project. This version proposes a much more elaborate, multi-windowed presentation, with colours, images, and animated sequences. This project is the first that CTHEORY editors Arthur and Marilouise Kroker present in a series of online multimedia events. Entitled Digital Dirt, the latter brings together artists working with the electronic medium, new media designers, "hyperdance" performers (Marikki Hakola), digital musicians (Scanner, Steve Gibson, and David Kristian), videomakers (Lynn Hershman Leeson, Hannu Puttonen, Sasha Costanza-Chock, Brad Andalman, and Lewis Cohen), robotics visionaries, and theoreticians poets and artists of the "new body" ("fleshmatics") (Mez, Jason Lewis, Eugen Thacker), from the United States, Canada, Sweden, Finland, Japan, and the U.K.
Worth mentioning, among others, are bioinformatics(TM), a "hypermedia essay" by Eugene Thacker, as well as the following works: Cloh!neing God N Ange-Lz by Mez (mary-anne) Breeze; Machine Organs by Maria Miranda and Norie Neumark; Hearing Loss by Brad Todd (MobileGaze), a piece discussed in our Feature section; The Genomachine Project, a "hypertextual faction" by Robin Parmar; and Præternatural by Michele Barker.
N.B.
After I had written the above, CTHEORY revamped its interface (see image opposite) and changed its domain name from "www.ctheory.com" to www.ctheory.net. Launched on September 18, the new site, while visually more sophisticated, remains simple, the navigation straightforward, with bold colours and distinct headings. From the same home page, CTHEORY can now present links to its various productions: "ctheory.net", bringing together all the articles published in the review, which the reader can now search by article, text, author, and date; "ctheory books", devoted to the books published under the aegis of the review (not on line at the time of publishing this magazine); "ctheory multimedia", discussed earlier; and "ctheory digital archives" (not on line at the time of publishing this magazine).
Archée
Despite the presence of several renowned European thinkers, authors and artists on its editorial board, CTHEORY may be considered a typically North American journal, as evinced by its unilingual English presentation, the content of its articles, and contributors' names (often scholars and artists from the United States and English Canada). By contrast, one could say of Archée that it is more centred on Quebec and France and on what one may in some sense identify as the intellectual and cultural affinities between the two countries. Nevertheless, several North American authors recognized in the world of new media have also been interviewed or published in Archée (in French translation).
Founded in October 1997, Archée is an online French-language journal and is published 10 times a year. Pierre Robert, its founder, is still the editor and he authors many of its articles. The September 2001 issue has just come out with a new interface. Its visual aspect remains very simple, with touches of blue at the top of the page, black text on white background, and very few illustrations. The new issue presents a text by Olivier Long (who teaches visual arts and new technologies at Paris I, the Sorbonne) on "the archetypal nature of the imagination of conquest versus new technologies" (la nature archétypale de l'imaginaire de la conquête versus les nouvelles technologies). Previously published texts and interviews are grouped under four headings, each given an icon at the top of the page: "cyberart", "cyberculture", "entretiens" (interviews), and "théorie". One can also search the journal's archives by keyword.
As the journal's mission and philosophical statement explains: "In alchemy and classical physiology, archée [archaeous] signified both the central heat of the earth and the life principle. We believe the word perfectly reflects the current state of the world, an alchemical crucible in which old truths intertwine with the technocultural issues of the global village."
Archée has thus adopted the dual objective of promoting Web art and new media and furthering aesthetic and critical reflections on the issues and effects of this new technology on the contemporary world. Past contributors to Archée include Pierre Lévy, Hervé Fisher, Mouchette, Steve Dietz (Walker Art Center), Chantal Pontbriand (Parachute), Richard Barbeau, Alez Galloway (Rhizome.org), Gerfried Stocker (Ars Electronica), Éric Sadin (Éc/art S), Igor Grégory Chatonsky, Sylvie Parent (the CIAC's Magazine), Tom Drahos, ®TMark, Olia Lialina (Art Teleportacia), Louise Poissant (Groupe de Recherche en Arts Médiatiques), etc.
The articles proposed this year include, under "Cyberart", En réseau et hors du commerce by Johanne Chagnon (06/2001); Langage(s) du Net by Louis-José Lestocart (01/2001); in "Cyberculture", Tableau 4: Étude empirique sur les pratiques d'usage de dix musées virtuels (06/2001), the fourth installment of series published in Archée by Roxane Bernier, and Olivier Long's text, already mentioned; in "Entretiens", Ennemi de la nostalgie, victime du présent, critique du futur: un entretien avec Peter Lunenfeld, an interview with Peter Lunenfeld by Geert Lovink (01/2001); and in "théorie", Les Dispositifs Coopératifs, prospective 21e siècle by Jérôme Joy (04/2001) and Compte rendu. World philosophie de Pierre Lévy by Pierre Robert (12/2000).
On the subject of electronic journals, which concerns us here, I should also mention an article by Gérard Regimbeau: Les revues d'art contemporain entre imprimé et électronique: évolutions récentes (01/2001).
Mobile Gaze
MobileGaze stands out from the two journals discussed so far: first, it is the product of an artist collective, and second, it is (partly) bilingual. MobileGaze was founded in August 1999, in Montreal, by a collective comprising Brad Todd (see our discussion of his Hearing Loss in our Feature column), Valérie Lamontagne (her work, The Advice Bunny, is also discussed in Features), and Andrew Brouse. MobileGaze published its third issue in August 2001.
The magazine describes its mission and activities as follows:
MobileGaze showcases: digital and net.art; interviews with artists and cultural producers; critical writing about the Web; and live Webcast events with artists and art critics. Our aim is to expand the understanding and appreciation of digital art using emerging technologies as well as sensitize the public-at-large, both in Canada and internationally, to artistic activities on the Web. MobileGaze also serves as a network for artists and critics interested in exchanging ideas around new media production.
MobileGaze evidently intends to make a place for itself on the Net - a locus for the circulation and exchange of ideas, texts, images, and sound - both as a magazine and as a collective. This intention, like the site's format and visual appearance, help distinguish it from the more traditional print-oriented approach adopted by CTHEORY and Archée. MobileGaze does indeed look like the product of an artist collective, an artistic work or intervention in its own right, its content being less theoretical than aesthetic.
From the outset, one notices its polished, sophisticated visual aspect. MobileGaze knows how to use all the latest Web resources; animated sequences on its home page prominently display the image of the circle, ovular and globular, a circularity recalling that of the egg, the eye, the camera lens, and thus, the ocular mobility of its name. Navigation within the journal is essentially dynamic and visual. Next to the critical texts, MobileGaze presents audiovisual documents, and nearly all the many interviews presented in the review were produced in digital video.
In the three issues of the magazine that have appeared so far, documents are gathered under two headings, "text" and "video", represented by clickable icons. As far as content itself is concerned, one can mention (among others) the video interviews with artists from the most varied horizons: Daniel Canogar (Madrid), Isabel Chang (N.Y.), Alan Dunning (Calgary), Laiwan (Vancouver), [The User] (Montreal), Teo Spiller (Slovenia), Minerva Cuevas (Mexico) in the first issue; and Anne Baker (U.K.), Gregory Chatonsky (France), Daniel Dion (Quebec), Igor Stromajer (Slovenia), Melinda Rackham (Australia), Olia Lialina (Russia), and curator Sylvie Parent (Montreal) in the second. The second issue also includes reviews of two new media events: ISEA 2000 (Paris), and La Biennale de Montréal 2000.
As for the third and most recent edition, it presents video interviews with artists Anatonio Outòn (Mexico), Nikki Forest and Nancy Tobin (Montreal), Andra McCartney (Canada), a written interview (in both French and English) with the American artist duo Marek Walczak and Martin Wattenberg, accompanied by a commentary on their work, Data Dynamics, by Archée editor Pierre Robert, and, finally, a report on the Montreal exhibition Périphérique.
metal and flesh
Although this journal's home page displays the title in both French (chair et métal) and English, this presentation is a little misleading, as the two icons link to the same site map: metal and flesh, at least for the time being, is only partially bilingual, with most texts appearing in French, sometimes accompanied by an English version, and a few in English only. metal and flesh now counts three issues, the last one dating from spring 2001. It is edited by Ollivier Dyens, French Studies professor at Concordia University in Montreal.
From the start, metal and flesh defines itself (under ""process") not as a magazine, but as a "time and space" in which to "explore the structures and dynamics of human thoughts and emotions in the digital age," to examine human transformations by the machine. As stated in the same text: "[t]he human condition is changing radically. Intertwined with our machines, we are now evolving together as one. What are we becoming? Simulacra, androids, systems? Are we in the process of disappearing altogether? Can one still believe in the human condition today, without qualifying it as in-human, or a-human? This is what we will try to understand and investigate."
In that space, issue after issue, the texts and works presented in metal and flesh accumulate on a dark, stony, metal-coloured background, precisely rather "in-human" in its effect. Indeed, the menu gives one access to the names of authors that have published in the journal to date, and by clicking on the "text(e)s" icon, the visitor/reader has access to all the titles, which fan out in a constellation rather than as a list (the same goes for the "virtual" art works in the journal's "gallery", accessed from the "galerie/gallery" icon). It's worth mentioning that metal and flesh is also equipped with a search engine. True to its objective, such a presentation allows the review to distinguish itself from the print model, with its distinct issues. Visitors/readers therefore have the impression of partaking in an exploration rather than a reading, of delving into a space with intentionally blurred boundaries instead of leafing through the well-marked pages of a traditional journal.
As for content, one finds here amongst the "texts" the "essential" cyberculture authors, mainly Canadian and French, such as Hervé Fisher or Pierre Lévy (but including, one might add, American authors Nicholas Negroponte, of MIT, and the philosopher and activist Noam Chomsky, also of MIT, one of whose texts is published here, "Power in the Global Arena", first published in the New Left Review in 1998), French writers and intellectuals like Jacques Henric (familiar to Art Press and partner of Catherine Millet), Joël de Rosnay, and Alexandre Leupin; the Quebec artist and critic Richard Barbeau (see our "interview" in the present issue), and some of Ollivier Dyens' own texts and works. Among the other works proposed, worth mentioning are several VRML projects, including Tatlin's monument to the third international, by Oliver Hockenhull, Melinda Rackham's empyreanAlpha, slipstreammandromeda 1: syblil's leaves and breathing (both in Flash) by Christina McPhee, and Binche-poésie (Shockwave) by Yannick B. Gélinas.
Conclusion
To conclude, one may note the links that ceaselessly proliferate and extend between all these journals: the same names appearing again and again - intersections, exchanges, dynamism . . . - true to the virtual era. Thus, Ollivier Dyens, editor of metal and flesh, writes an article in Archée, where he is interviewed by Pierre Robert, while a contributor to Archée, Richard Barbeau, is found in turn in chair et métal. In metal and flesh's international honorary committee, one recognizes the names of CTHEORY's Arthur and Marilouise Kroker. And then a work by Brad Todd, from MobileGaze, is featured in CTHEORY, etc. (not to mention the appearance in our own magazine of Brad Todd and Valérie Lamontagne, from MobileGaze, and of Richard Barbeau). As we have seen, increasingly close-knit links connect all these magazines with the international scene.
One can see the formation of a network within (and about) the network - in other words, the creation of what one may call a meta-network; it is characterized by openness, movement, and exchange, and allows a reflection on the Web and its issues to benefit from many points of view, approaches, and sources of expertise, thus sustaining the development of a true cyberculture.
