Born Magazine Retires, Yet Continues to Inspire with Expansive Web Archive—Retrospective Pays Homage to 15 years of “Art + Literature, Together”

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 

Contact: Gabe Kean
Belle & Wissell, Co.
206 322 7908 x300
gabe@bwco.info

www.bornmagazine.org

Seattle, WA – September 17, 2013 – Born Magazine sprang to life in 1997, when the Internet was just beginning to unfurl as a cultural force and storytelling medium. After 15 years of publication, Born’s all-volunteer team of editors and curators has written the final chapter on the magazine’s web-based marriage of literature and poetry with visual and interactive arts.

But they are not closing the book. They leave for posterity “15 years of art + literature,” an archive of 419 projects developed for Born by more than 900 contributors at: www.bornmagazine.org

These include lauded interactive designers such as Erik Natzke and Joshua Davis, and a diverse slate of established and upcoming writers, including Edward Hirsch, Bruce Smith, Nick Flynn, and Monica Drake.

Born's new website

Born’s new website

The pioneering magazine was founded in the mid-90’s as a web-based ‘zine with traditional features and reviews, but quickly evolved into showcase interactive pieces. It helped set the standard for online publications and opened entirely new avenues of artistic collaboration.

“Born took the left-justified, typographically-constrained, mind-forged manacles of texts and made them visions, and gyres, and new architectures of color and shape and movement,” says poet Bruce Smith, recipient of the 2012 William Carlos Williams Award and Born contributor. “It made new dreams.”

Born’s story will also be captured in a hybrid multimedia/book project being developed in collaboration with magazine founder Gabe Kean’s Seattle-based design studio, Belle & Wissell. The book’s interactive preview was honored in the 2011 Communication Arts Interactive Design Annual and was a finalist in the 2011 SXSW Interactive Awards. The preview’s creative use of Adobe InDesign CS5 is an example of how Born has creatively leveraged technology to enable the highest levels of interactive art achievement.

Visit the book preview here: http://www.bornmagazine.org/bookpreview/

“Some of Born’s pieces were really amazing and groundbreaking because they showed the immense attention to detail you could bring to web-based interactivity,” says author and Communication Arts emerging media writer Joe Shepter. “It was hard for people to grasp the creative possibilities of the web back then, and Born was one of the earliest online publications to demonstrate its potential.”

Page from Born's interactive book title 417•903

Page from Born’s interactive book title 417•903

Born’s creators are showcasing its work as a collection to provide an ongoing resource for artists, writers, educators, and students who look to the magazine for study and inspiration. Though submissions will no longer be taken, Born’s staff expects the archive will continue to inspire new audiences.

ABOUT BORN

Founded in 1996, Born is an all-volunteer project that brings together writers, artists, and others from diverse fields to create storytelling artworks. Its name reflects the creative process nurtured by collaboration and the bringing together of traditional and new forms of art and literature, diverse media, and emerging technologies. As a non-profit organization, Born is dedicated to the emergence and continuing evolution of art forms that bring together different creative genres.

Its quarterly publication, Born Magazine, launched in 1997 and brought together creative writers and interactive artists to create experimental, media-rich literary arts experienced only through the web. The magazine retired in 2011, and in 2013 launched its complete online collection, available at www.bornmagazine.org. Born’s exhibit arm, Born Presents, was founded in 2005 and creates exhibits and special projects, including a hybrid multimedia/book retrospective of Born’s work that’s currently under development.

People admiring one of the works from Born's 2005 exhibition in Seattle "Help Wanted: Collaborations in Art"

People admiring one of the works from Born’s 2005 exhibition in Seattle “Help Wanted: Collaborations in Art”

 

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