New contents, new format

We’d already announced it and now it’s here! The revamp! And as publicised, we’re not just changing the format or the appearance of A*DESK, as it is a transformation that has arisen after reflecting on the contents we could offer on the web, what kinds of readings it demands and how we should communicate.

From now on the title page of A*DESK will encompass all the publications and projects that we are realizing.

To begin with the latter, under projects and training, you can find the projects and courses that we are carrying out. We’d like to highlight the new study programme at A*DESK that, also revamped, and led by Oriol Fontdevila, offers different itineraries: the possibility of following the whole programme as an annual course, several itineraries made up of workshops and seminars, or other more independent workshops and seminars.
But the most significant change is within the publications. On the one hand, we are strengthening the Highlights section of A*DESK that now houses the contents of art criticism, exhibitions, events, theatre, literature and film that were previously published in A*Magazine. While at the same time adding specific interpretations, highlights, news and videos. Highlights will be updated daily and so will respond rapidly to exhibitions and events with more immediate critiques, taking full advantage of the possibility of reacting immediately. Here, as you can see, we’ve also wanted to underline the importance of our collaborators. In this way A*DESK responds to the interest that it has always shown in highlighting the importance of opinion and the author.

Finally, the A*DESK Magazine becomes a biannual thematic magazine. To begin, we’re considering a subject that to us seems crucial: how to react within art and culture in the face of the new model of information and knowledge distribution that has been consolidated by the Internet. The Magazine will offer a slower rhythm of reflection, with longer articles and more contents. In fact the Magazine won’t just be available on the web of A*DESK, as we are also working on an amplified format for iPads and tablets.

Ultimately, we want to explain ourselves better, to be coherent with the rhythms made possible by the web, to think about the distance between contents that demand an immediate response and those that require more prolonged reflection, and, last but not least, to communicate our activities more effectively.

We start this new stage full of illusion, with a new team, hoping as ever to generate discussion and debate around critical culture. But times are hard and for this we are also searching for complicities: for our space in the district of Gracia in Barcelona to become a space open to collaborations; to develop new projects; and (nobody said it would be easy) we are also opening up the possibility of making donations to help promote the A*DESK project.

So let’s begin…