Welcome to the opening of tablezine.com - the virtual home for a new kind of publication - the table cloth-magazine.
In the future, we’ll be b/logging the evolution of this new format from rough concept (now) to public debut (Summer 07).
Now then, formal introductions out of the way….
“Let’s get it started” - MC Hammer
The tablezine is a gut reaction to two trends - one coming down, one going up.
On the down side is the well documented, much discussed decline of circulation and ad revenue in print. From the US to France to Brazil to New Zealand, newspapers and magazines are bleeding readers, as more and more people abandon them for the more immediate and communal pleasures of the internet. As new media multiply, it’s getting harder and harder for magazines and newspapers to get attention. The business of selling words to readers and selling readers to advertisers, which has sustained their role in society, is falling apart.
Our feeling is that the decline of print isn’t necessarily something to be lamented. As much as we might love them at their best, the magazine and newspaper are dated. They are products of the 17th century; they’re too rigid for the 21st. To regain its place, print needs to become at once less passive and more accommodating: as magazine makers, we need to find ways to fit into the public’s increasingly limited free time. We have to steal time.
How do we steal time? To try to answer this we did what any good thief would do, we cased the area. We looked around daily life for the easiest target - the activities with largest supplies of unguarded moments. Our search exposed the second, upward trend: the increasing expenditure and social importance of eating out.
We put 1 & 1 together and came up with the tablezine, a new, social form of magazine that encourages public discussion and returns print to the center of daily life.
Great. And?
As a first experiment in the new format, we’re producing “桌志/Eat Up” - the world’s first tablezine. The first issue will be “China’s Appetite,” a survey of China’s increasing consumption (of water, cement, manhole covers, pigs, mercury, mobiles, etc.) and its effects on the environment locally and globally. This probably also takes some explaining, but I’ve written too much already. Let’s switch over to visual-mode….
Overview:
China’s growth is a matter of national pride and international awe.
In the last 20 years, millions of people have lifted themselves from poverty and are now living The Chinese Dream.
But it comes with a cost.
As China adopts the wasteful, resource-dependent model of growth developed by the West, the pressure on the world’s resources is becoming drastic.
globalforestwatch.org
Natural resources and wild animals are disappearing to feed China’s growing “appetite”.
Underview:
At the same time, China’s boom brings longer work days and less time to read and talk about important issues.
Meals have taken on extra importance as our work and social lives merge.
The dinner table is an unexplored medium for education and communication.
In response, we propose “桌志/Eat up” - the world’s first table cloth-magazine.
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The theme will of “tablezine” will be China’s Appetite. It will look at the growing cost of development, from the personal to global level, and what we can do to improve the situation.
“桌志/Eat up” will be launched in June to coincide with “Get It Louder,” an arts and media festival that will be held in Guangzhou, Shanghai, Beijing, and Chengdu throughout the summer of 2007.
In all cities, Get It Louder will be held in a shopping mall, with free access to all visitors.
“桌志/Eat up” will interact with the venues: tables in the mall restaurants and food courts will become exhibition spaces.
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The ultimate goal is to provoke conversation among the visitors. To start a conversation on the growth and environment and “Get It Louder”.
