GEN3_”In the contemporary context, where we live under the dominance of an incessant, global flow of digital images, THE-ICONOMIST© appropriates, reconfigures, and presents this visual universe, creating a space for pause, reflection, and critique.”
POINT OF NO RETURN_”Every-little-thing that brought us here. At first glance, nothing makes sense. A whirlwind of shapes, materials, and disconnected functions. It’s necessary to stop. Look. Listen. It’s necessary to see with attention. Is this everything we’ve produced so far?”
VOL.II — ISSUE Nº6
Nº 6 — To consume/To waste. The ICONOMIST Issue 6 presents itself as a visual and textual essay examining the scars of a society sickened by late capitalism. Inspired by the seminal texts Junkspace by Rem Koolhaas and Infraordinary by Georges Perec, this edition not only observes but dissects neglected spaces, accumulated waste, and the traces of a world collapsing under the weight of its own excesses. Through a curated selection of images oscillating between the documentary and the interpretative, readers are led through scenarios ranging from the dazzling and hyper-artificial universe of fast food, or “junk food,” to landfills and waste dumps, where the shine of consumption is replaced by neglect. Abandoned commercial spaces and vacant lots emerge as silent symbols of the failure of an infinite progress promise. The pages also portray human vulnerability: houses destroyed by natural disasters, waste pickers scavenging for what remains, and devastated landscapes that denounce systemic indifference to the environment and marginalized populations. Among the selected texts, authors such as Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, Jean-Paul Fargier, Stanley Brouwn, Byung-Chul Han, Walter de Maria, Siri Hustvedt and others, help build the conceptual framework of this edition. In the interplay of combinations proposed by the edition, the concept of “still life” is subverted. Here, it is not about representing the silent order of inanimate objects but revealing urban chaos and the desacralization of the everyday. It is a still life that lives—and decays—in territories contaminated by ambition, inequality, and neglect. This edition is a call to see what is invisible or too uncomfortable to be noticed. It is a portrait not only of a world in decline but of a civilization that insists on ignoring the signs of collapse while indulging in excess—even of images.
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VOL.I — ULTRA-PROCESSED
Nº 4 — To ask/To Answer/To refuse. Introducing THE ICONOMIST’s latest thematic dossier. For the edition that closes the first of four editions of the magazine, we embarked on the world of interviews and questionnaires. What is a photograph? What is photography? What is an image? In addition to these questions, we also took inspiration from Proust’s questionnaire and JG Ballard’s short story “Answers to a Questionnaire”, a list made up only of answers to unknown questions. In addition, we also present selected texts by Lucas Samaras and his 1978 Auto-Interview, Marlene Dumas, Thomas Hirschhorn and others.
48 pages, 21x28cm, saddle-stitch binding, with shipping worldwide.
Nº 3 — To catalogue. Introducing THE ICONOMIST’s latest thematic dossier. This edition takes inspiration from art magazines and catalogues to curate a collection of images that provoke and question our relationship with artwork documentation in the age of artificial intelligence. All the clichés of the art world are represented, the artist’s studio, the the gallery, the white walls, the compositions, the descriptions. We are excited to present a selection of proposals of artworks that are now part of the #theiconomist collection, with complete descriptions and speculations on their materiality. As a complement to this visual content, we have also included selected (and inspiring) texts from authors such as Boris Groys, Hito Steyerl, Georges Didi-Huberman, Man Ray, and more. The film Concrete Lache (2010), which Mark Leckey created about the Milton Keynes Gallery, will be on view in our website in the STREAMING section, which will be updated weekly with new videos and films.
44 pages, 21x28cm, saddle-stitch binding, with shipping worldwide.
Nº2 — To wear. THE ICONOMIST’s new thematic dossier is out. At first glance, a fashion magazine, or something other than a style magazine, with models and their looks made of improbable mixtures, speculations around accumulation and consumption. How to wear images? How to wear what’s left of an exhausted world? Artificial armor, mountains of plastic and synthetic fabric. It is impossible to dive, it is impossible to find anything. Use what you have, that’s it. After collecting, it’s time to wear. To assemble a body of materials. To turn the material into an extension of the body and to rely on a possibility of protection. Change everything at any moment. It may look like a fashion magazine, but it is a survival manual. The issue also includes selected excerpts by authors such as Judith Butler, Emanuelle Coccia, and Georges Bataille as well as collages of text made from reviews of fashion shows and news. A process of rethinking the verb to wear in a world in the process of depletion, in terms of image and environment.
44 pages, 21x28cm, saddle-stitch binding, with shipping worldwide.
Nº1 — To collect. We are happy to present the first thematic dossier of THE ICONOMIST. We explore the world of collecting and the people who do it. We look at the phenomenon of collecting from a variety of perspectives. All images in the issue were generated through artificial intelligence, as well as some texts, interviews, and short stories. The issue also includes selected texts by Susan Sontag, Emmanuel Levinas and Sergei Eisenstein. What are the limits of a collection? From garbage collectors to art collectors, from compulsive hoarders to collectors of weapons of mass destruction, the accumulators of power. The informal collectors, the professional collectors.
48 pages, 21x28cm, saddle-stitch binding, with shipping worldwide.
“DOCUMENTS”
ACCIDENT & EMERGENCY_This zine presents a visual essay on the aesthetics of ruin and the relentless force of collapse, bringing together appropriated images of crashes, fires, and rollovers—where twisted metal and flames dance in the wake of destruction. Amid charred wreckage and distorted forms, a landscape of chaos and beauty emerges, a vestige of the moment when everything fell apart.
13x20cm, 48 pages, saddle stitched binding. Shipping worldwide.
Buy in print $15
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EYES OF NEPTUNE_This zine explores the iconography of the god of the seas, Neptune/Poseidon, in his duality between creation and destruction. Lord of the waters, storms and earthquakes, Neptune rules the uncontrollable flow of nature, symbolizing both the abundance of the oceans and their devastating wrath. Between tides, floods and changes, this zine investigates the mythological force that shapes lands, myths and destiny.
13x20cm, 48 pages, saddle stitched binding. Shipping worldwide.
$15 USD Buy in print
B IS BATHROOM_This zine is a continuation of our series started with the publication “Kitchen 9×9” and presents a narrative of images related to the most intimate place in a house and all its peculiarities.
KITCHEN 9X9. This zine takes as its starting point a collection of images of kitchens found on the internet; a kitchen set in a television studio, people with kitchen as their surname, kitchens throughout history, works of art depicting kitchens and other representations.
13x20cm, 48 pages, saddle stitched binding. Shipping worldwide.
$15 USD Buy in print
25TH NOVEMBER_This zine is part of the 365 series, made from images related to or taken on a specific day of the year. The only restriction is that images taken or related to the current year are forbidden.
“EXTRAS”
They say that the face is the mirror of the soul. They say that images generated by artificial intelligence have no soul, they are like mirages. MIRROR:MIRAGES presents forty-three mysterious artificially generated faces accompanied by excerpts from the short story “The Mirror”, written by Guimarães Rosa, one of the greatest authors of Brazilian literature. In this short story, Rosa explores the relationship between the reflected image and the true essence of the individual, between the visible exterior and the hidden interior. Her narrative invites us to reflect on the human soul, identity and self-perception at a time when technology is constantly redefining these concepts. These faces, although without a soul of their own, evoke a range of emotions and reflections, provoking us to look beyond superficiality.
STAYNONSTOP is a photobook consisting of a selection of 130 images generated by artificial intelligence. The images are accompanied by fragments of artists’ texts from different sources. The name of the book comes from a reflection on how addictive these image production processes through artificial intelligence can be, like everything these days. By placing these images in confrontation with the text fragments, we try to force new readings and the creation of new contexts different from the ones used to generate the images.
138 pages, 19×19 cm, softcover and perfect-bound. Shipping worldwide.
“Taking its name from economist Gilson Schwartz’s 2006 neologism ‘Iconomy’ while also nodding to longstanding news weekly The Economist, THE-ICONOMIST questions our relationship with images in this era of image saturation with each issue using verbs as its themes.” — MAGCULTURE
“THE-ICONOMIST’s latest issue is hectic and “suffocating” in its use of online image banks. The magazine has never really operated within the requirements of a conventional magazine. This isn’t just because the issues don’t have any advertisements or an ISBN number, or even that it doesn’t have a website that can be indexed by Google. The magazine defies a traditional editorial approach at every turn.After its first four issues’ focus on AI-generated visuals, the magazine has returned with its fifth edition — a printed exploration of surveillance in the digital age.” — ELLIS TREE, It’s Nice That
THE-ICONOMIST is a third generation research project, an artist’s magazine and observatory founded in 2021.
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