Ana Finel Honigman reports - Meta Magazine reflects on itself

 

Meta Magazine http://www.meta-magazine.com/ is a compelling cabinet de curiosités. The handsome on-line quarterly combines nerdy knowledge with a contagious intellectual curoisity. Here the Berlin-based editorial team - consisting of art and fashion photographer Rachel De Joode, her boyfriend Johannes Thumfart, and co-editors Emilie Bromberg, Hili Perlson, and Anja Wiesinger - deconstruct their motives for starting Meta.

Text: Ana Finel Honigman

Images: Bea Wagner

A Shaded View on Fashion: Why have you called the magazine "Meta"?

Emilie Bromberg: I am trying to remember exactly how the word came up, when Rachel and I began to discus it 2 years ago. In all honesty, I think we were on a metaphysical kick, as our original roster for perspective articles included some people like Saint Edith Stein - Orthodox Jewish-born Catholic nun turned saint, martyr and Auschwitz victim - and the members of the silent covenant of the Karmelitakloster outside of Berlin. Actually now that I remember it, we wanted to bring Veruschka to this cloister and do a photo shoot.; we even wrote a letter requesting to participate in a silent weekend. Naturally, it never panned out. Then we were delving into the concept of issues based on some zoom-in, macros/ microcosm thematic scheme that I can't explain anymore, though I could, in depth, back then. Then we were totally inspired by Mark Lombardi's sociogramish art and wanted to do a visualization of a thought, somehow, on-line....that was another idea which dissipated, but which I would like to shoot for someday. Regardless, then Rachel went to Paris and in the meantime all this nerd revival and reverence hit. And then it somehow lost momentum to do a smarty kind of project, as smart seems to have become really commoditisied really quickly, which is neither here nor there. But the others pick up the momentum and concretized our ideas a bit. Mainly, I want to present what I would read....

Rachel de Joode: I chose the word Meta because, to me, the word defines things that embrace more than the usual. The word expresses things happening underneath the surface, things that live on a "meta-level."

Johannes Thumfart: Being conceived as a cabinet de curiosites, Meta Magazine deals with all sorts of things.

Hili Perlson: I like the Internet. I love search engines. I adore the action of inserting a word or combination, pressing "enter" and seeing what cyberspace brings back to me from my quest. I even like searching for search engines. I have a growing collection of search engines. Finding the right search engine is half the search. With Meta, we created our own search engine. Its a meta-search-engine. It gathers the information that we're interested in and that we want people to have access to. Also, it is often forgotten that the word "magazine" itself means a "storehouse of information," not only a periodical publication.

Anja Wiesinger: To me, Meta is a keyword to phrase the current world, the time of rethinking modernity. Since the arts and sciences have arrived at a state of reflection, we're also questioning how to deal with the knowledge gathered already. We are concerned with how to value and archive it. We are thinking about the information about information. Since arts and sciences mutually learn from one another, mainly in the field of aesthetics, Meta wants to contribute from a highly subjective vantage point. That way, we can be and live as the multitude.

A Shaded View on Fashion: What is the referent that you are being self-referential about?

JT: Meta's self-referentiality refers to the lack of any further determination of that self-referentiality. It points towards a general unlimited opening to all possible references. On the other hand, Meta's opening is completely defined and even logical in its quest for objective beauty and truth. This universalist attitude is reflected in the allusion to pre-modern metaphysics, which the name obviously bears. One might say that we are looking for the Great Real after the great narratives. The Latin notion of a "post" (after) is therefore transformed into the Greek "meta" (also meaning "after.")

EB: I don't think it's good to explain anything too thoroughly as something usually gets lost in the verbal process. However, I will say that what has stuck for me, in terms of the name/ concept combination is the syntactical function of "meta" in reference to "beyond" or "behind" (or beneath, beside, before, bygone and between.) The point is that there is so much information out there, much it is appalling in its uselessness or atrocity. I hope that we can serve as one filter among many. We can monitor this flow. We can catch some things like a sieve and somehow rescue them from being caught up in the respective pools and webs. Plus to encourage a think and rethink is always good.

RdJ: If I understand your question correctly, then it is the sincerity or naturalness of information which Meta shines her light on. Meta in itself becomes a holistic one-piece collage of information about the images and things that humans do. It is occupied with the things that humans make, gather and tell each other. Meta is self-referential of itself.

 

A Shaded View on Fashion: Is there a theme or single quality that you see running through everything involved with Meta?

HP: Curiosity. Both in the sense of inquisitiveness and in the sense of the knowledge gained in being peculiar. And yes, fascination with the human condition, human experience and the things humans do and why they do them.

DJ: The human condition is an axis around which all Meta articles cluster. We present human life in its minutia and expansive forms. The articles extend from small details to the global, earthly, deep an shallow views of humanity.

A Shaded View on Fashion: Who contributes to Meta? 

RdJ: Our contributors are flower-wearing, cross-dressing, cave-diving, silent-hunting, mask-making, future-providing visual and entertaining beauties.