MANDATE

KAPSULA Magazine was a network-driven publication dedicated to engaged, evaluative art writing. Entirely digital, the publication explored formats exclusive to web-based documents and strove to advance online art publishing through experimentation and collaboration.

Taking the democratized, dispersed nature of the Internet as its basis, KAPSULA offered an accessible platform for alternative formats such as poetic criticism, journaling, photo essays, short stories, annotations, field notes, and video projects—encouraging contributors to push the boundaries of texts and textuality.

KAPSULA Magazine was an online capsule collection—a compendium of curated content that provided hyperlinked reprieves from the (dis)associative malaise of the 2000-whatevers.

HISTORY

KAPSULA began like any good revolution should—from the embers of a fiery conversation in a grimy and pedestrian bar. In this case, the Red Room on Spadina, late February or early March 2013. Either way, it was still cold enough to be thankful that you were inside just about anywhere at all.

Three colleagues and alumni of OCAD University's Master of Fine Arts program sat and commiserated over many a drink—Caoimhe Morgan-Feir, Zach Pearl and Yoli Terzyiska. They were having a good old-fashioned conversation about ‘the man’ and the art world, and more specifically the lack of an art criticism publication in Canada that truly supported a critical standpoint.

At one point, the jagged aphorism, “There's nothing you can do about it,” was uttered. Then immediately afterward: "WHAT DO YOU MEAN THERE'S NOTHING WE CAN DO ABOUT IT?!" Eventually, after a smoke break in the bitter air (Caoimhe just getting a breath of fresh air) the three fiesty companions returned to the table. Through the occasional hiss of frost from someone opening the door, they envisioned a publication model that countered the-then dogmatic arena of Canadian art publishing. They rapped nostalgically about DIY publishing culture of the 1960s and 70s in Toronto—people making things for the sake of culture. They agreed that a listserv would be most appropriate, because they wanted to bring information straight to people's inboxes, and not institutionalize the website as a node of authority. They agreed that the publication should be digital with an analog feel, be free and accessible, both in terms of content and language. But, above all, it should foster critical, creative and even radical approaches to art criticism.

As the comrades made their way home that night, they wrestled with uncertainty..not about whether or not we they could create such a publication but could they sustain it? The answer would ultimately be a reluctant 'no’.

For the first 3 years, KAPSULA Magazine ran monthly, publishing an average of 12 issues and 1 special project per calendar year. Issues were delivered to subscribers’ inboxes as links to interactive PDFs. These 20-30 page documents included an average of 3 pieces that ranged from traditional essays and interviews to poetic criticism, fictocriticism, visual essays and field notes. Nearly every piece included some kind of interactive feature such as rollover image effects, hidden notes and captions, and/or hyperlinks to external content. Issues were also broken up into quarterly themes that, due to the rapid speed of the publishing cycle, allowed contributors to more or less explore contemporary issues as they were happening. Some themes of note included Crisis, Bad History, Art That Makes Us Angry, Longing, Animality & The End.

The publication was immensely successful at first—in year one (2013-14) the magazine garnered almost 1,000 subscribers and continued to add subscribers at a rate of 5-7% monthly for the first two years. This was quite the achievement at that time, when Canada was largely devoid of digital art publications.

As time went on, new blood came on board to make the magazine's operations more robust; Lindsay LeBlanc first joined the team in 2014, eventually replacing Caoimhe Morgan-Feir as Editor-In-Chief in 2015 and seeing the publication through to its conclusion; Sara England joined the team in 2015 to assist with marketing and communications, eventually turning her talents toward development and outreach during the latter half of the magazine's mandate; Lauren Fournier, Francisco-Fernando Granados, Katherine Dennis, Matthew Kyba and Nick White all offered excellent editorial input in their roles as consultants. Everyone who worked for the magazine worked for free, fuelled by pure passion and vision for a new kind of space for art criticism in Canada and abroad. However, like most robust machinery, KAPSULA Magazine’s monthly publication cycle proved to be too intense for the long run, and by the fall of 2016 the monthly model was put to rest.

In 2017, the publication pivoted to a new business model of partnering with arts and culture not-for-profits. This allowed for a slower and more thoughtful production schedule as well as an opportunity to act as a meaningful extension of different programs and initiatives. Between 2017 and 2019, KAPSULA acted as an interactive exhibition catalogue (SPACELESS PLACE), a companion piece to an artist residency (ANIMA CASA), a platform for poetic digital criticism (BORN DIGITAL), and a field manual for an arts conference (CRITICAL PATCH).

In Spring of 2019, staff agreed it was time to close up shop on the magazine end of things for the foreseeable future. However, the magazine's parenty company, KAPSULA PRESS, lives on and occasionally pops its head above the proverbial fence to survey the field.