That it sounds as if tucked in the inner of the inner-wave caught by the inner-breeze touching my knees at the ocean. That it sounds like a gigantic cave with sprites, in a forest rife with insect wings gleaming in warm light. That it sounds like the interlude to a video game, in one of those down-time moments where you buzz with rest and freshness and calm. That it sounds as if oil-painted, or in an anime, or from an exoplanet.
Akoya Books doesn’t act as a bookstore, but it is one. They want to be something like a chapter in a novel, where nothing really happens but everything does. A stoppage point, but not a blockage. A gallery, but only post-digital, but also existing IRL, because being with other people is still important. They want to, with Trust Magazine, “progressively and collectively analyze the concept of contemporary art in an atemporal context while showcasing requested artworks, essays, poetry, interviews and other engagements in wider contemporary discourses as a response of a chosen topic. The topic of discussion changes in every issue.” In other words, they are defined by how amorphous and ever-changing they are. Headquartered in Italy by Federica Cornelli, they want to work with artists from across genres from around the world to produce a vision of what’s happening to us because of our online lives. The question they ask, is this: if Time is what we all have in common, then how do others experience Time and how can that experience inspire you?
Call their compilations sonic sculptures. Call them a form of world-building. What’s refreshing about them: they feel like they’re not praising digitality or demonizing it either. For them, it’s part of how we exist. The more we accept that, then the more we can be mindful about how it influences our thoughts and actions. Listen to Otro’s “Guadosalam” above, a cover from a song from Final Fantasy X.
More about: Akoya Books, Otro
