Stereo was the independent publication initiative of a small group of designers and artists. In four years’ time (2004 – 2008) Stereo had formed fruitful collaborations with over 50 artists and designers in five publications and more than 20 exhibitions internationally. The printed magazine was sold in 17 shops in nine different countries spread over three continents (and of course, on our website). Stereo has also been featured in multiple books on independent publishing, such as The Last Magazine and We Make Magazines.
Stereo has addressed the magazine production process in The Magazine (2nd issue), lost ideologies in La Revolution, c’est chic (3rd issue), the open source and the internet in Remote Control (4th issue) and time and space in Non Stop (5th issue).
The magazine was published largely self-funded. With every issue it’s shape and size changed, editions were hand-numbered and the first 50 were released as special editions. These S.E.s were originally boxed with lots of extras like silkscreen prints, editioned art works, (audio) CDs, a T-shirt, etc.
Alongside the printed matter, Stereo has been involved with new media since its conception. We commissioned Media artist and Web developer Nick Koning (buro Duplex) to build an online sketchbook back in 2003/04, on which all members could log on, upload and position sketches, found images and texts.
I was cofounder (with Joris van Ballegooijen) and functioned as artdirector/coordinator. The project was a very fruitful research into collaborational and interdisciplinary design processes, and it evolved into a cross-media publishing project avant-la-lettre.
