Version Magazine
Editors: Gabriela Vanga,
Mircea Cantor and Ciprian Muresan
Contact: versionmagazine [at] yahoo.com www.versionmagazine.com
Image: Nedko loves Version
Version Magazine is an editing project initiated by the Romanian artists Gabriela Vanga, Mircea Cantor and Ciprian Muresan. Version Magazine started in 2001 as an artist initiative, an experimental platform outside the institutional framework. Its mission is to confront different social and political realities as well as geographical and historical contexts. Version Magazine provides an open field for discussions and debates, a creative space for artists, curators, scientists, architects, historians, anthropologists, and poets among others. The magazine aims at bridging a gap between art and other domains of creation. Version is a research laboratory for proposals and social hybridization. It stimulates the dialogue in the social-cultural climate by avoiding the usual divisions between categories/disciplines/fields as the crossover stereotype. The magazine is based on free contributions from artists and authors coming from different fields and a carte blanche is given to a new guest editor for each issue. 2000 copies of each issue are distributed free of charge on an international scale. The PDF version of each issue is also downloadable from the website www.versionmagazine.com
The latest number Version (0.4, coordinated by Gabriela Vanga, Mircea Cantor and Ciprian Muresan) takes off from the project Map of the World, made by VERSION magazine members in 2003, enjoying contributions from: Amy Cheung, Anna Daneri, Angela Detanico & Rafael Lain, Andreas Fogarasi, Yona Friedman, Ioan Godeanu, Amiel Grumberg, Dominic Hislop & Mikos Erhardt, Augustin Ioan, Nikola Jankovic, Martin Koepl, Adriana Lara, Laura Maritano, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Dan Perjovschi, Jean Yves Petiteau, Federico Rahola, Federica Rossi, Guy Rottier, Ovidiu Tichindeleanu, Roman Vasseur. Map of the World is a world map, printed and plasticized, fixed on metal boards. In contrast to an ordinary map, we erased the names of the countries and capitals and we left only the administrative borders. The capitals are stuck on magnetic support and they can be moved on the map’s surface. The idea took shape in 1999, when one of us lived in France and the others still in Romania, and in the middle of a chat we came up with this idea … what if Bucharest was in France? The main idea of this project was the desire of moving, of changing spaces, re-designing contexts, “territoires of contact” as Deleuze said. We tried to create a tool for dialogue, an “auxiliary” for debates, interventions or workshops linked to different issues such as globalization, cultural emigration, nomadism, tourist standardization, trajectory and different kinds of transgressions.
Version magazine no.5 will be launched at fall 2004 with Amiel Grumberg as guest editor. This issue will introduce a pluridisciplinary reflexion on street demonstrations, causes and consequences, individual and collective impacts, and persistence in the memory of several generations. This issue brings together authors from different horizons that develop a reflection on the historical, psychological, sociological and media impact of demonstrations. Texts, interviews, and visual contributions from artists, researchers and theoreticians aim at broadening the question at stake rather than trying to give proper responses.
Check for new online projects at www.versionmagazine.com
