The first issue of Freespace Nieuwzuid. Discursieve machine voor cultuurkritiek en amusement.
Kessel-Lo and Nijmegen: vzw Kraftwerk and Vantilt Publishers, 1999-2000. Each issue is 64 pp, richly and wildly illustrated. 24.5 x 15 cm. Issue #1, black/white print. The three other issues printed in duotone: #2 blue #3 brown #4 green.
From the introduction to the first issue:
'Welcome to freespace Nieuwzuid, a discursive machine joyously moving through cultural space. A think tank previously known as "quarterly magazine" now converted into caravanserai for stateless essay writing. Dear members of the knowledge class: in these plainspoken times, Nieuwzuid looks the world in the eye releasing the text in its ing-form like a contrast agent, penetrating oil and antidote. Smart and crappy. LoTech and HiCrit. Criticism, analytics, ethics, and politics. If harmony is absent, the head-on collision isn't. Nieuwzuid is an intellectual solar viewer to be used at the first signs of mental confusion. It is not only the formally downgraded sequel to culture magazines De Vlaamse Gids and the legendary Plaza Real but also fifteen deniers, the essay as an intellectual dildo, a plum-colored tunic blouse with velvet applications, 5 UATA controllers, Daftendirekt, Stu Hall and Levinas printed in Juinen and Ljubljana. Knowledge through action. Enter at your own risk.'
Permanent Office: Dirk van Bastelaere, Erwin Jans, Patrick Peeters, Erik Spinoy, Eveline Vanfrausen. Design and production: Marien Frijns, Dirk van Bastelaere.