We encourage vivid, thoughtful, engaging, playful contributions in a variety of styles and formats. They can be pieces commissioned especially for this publication, or (excerpts from) existing work. Contributions should be concise and accessible to “generally curious characters”. They should inspire pro-active engagement with your subject of interest, and relate to one or more of the thematic routes.

A few questions about your contribution to consider

  • Is your contribution self-contained, yet conceptually open to different resonances?
  • What does your contribution offer to the reader? (E.g. generative potential, practicality, perspective, insight…)
  • Is your contribution sensitive to the demands it places on different readers (jargon, length, style…)?

Can you answer “yes” to at least one of the following questions

  • If it is about a specific project or work, can it be read in an active, engaged, ‘present continuous’ mode?
  • Does it give voice to an evocative memory or curious history?
  • Does it capture and value the unfinished, uncertain, unexpected, or unintended?
  • Does it provide hope and inspiration to those experiencing the complexities of the ‘near now’?
  • Is it playful, irreverent, beautiful, visionary, charismatic or irreal?

The following examples can give an idea of the types of contributions we're interested in. The suggested length should be taken as a guide for the printed materials. Longer contributions could be published online, with summaries or excerpts in print. For any clarification about these guidelines or if you have an idea for something that is not covered below, please contact the editors.

Drops of consciousness
Free-form but on-topic, more concise than stream-of-consciousness, more discursive than haiku, but with all the dazzling flashes of inspiration, speculation, and insight of both combined. (between 140 characters and 140 words)

Reflective articles or essays
Exploring their subject in considerable depth, these contributions should discuss and cite relevant sources where possible (scholarly or popular articles and books, films, novels, computer games…) but be written from an interdisciplinary perspective and with a lay audience in mind. (~up to 2000 words)

Interviews
Can be presented in a variety of ways - Q&A, group conversation, write-up of a dialogue, etc. (~up to 2000 words)

Fieldnotes
Studies of places, people and other beings, with observations and conclusions drawn from the study: this could be approached as a piece of investigative journalism or a guide book, but with more substance and depth. (from single line observations to around 1500 words)

Thought experiments
Evocative scenarios, speculative experiments, introspective questionnaires and other suggestions for the readers to imagine themselves into. (100~500 words)

How-tos
Recipes, instructions, manuals, guides, incantantions, formulas — clear, concise pieces providing practical advice about ways to do something. (anywhere from 1 to 500 words)

Case studies
Short illustrations of a specific situation (over a period of time) that can be used to distill and reflect on the process and/or results of particular interventions, experiments, projects, etc. (around 500 words)

Travelogues
Entertaining, intriguing and peculiar observations of journeys in the widest sense of the word. First-person and experiential, a travelogue could take the form of a diary, letters, blog posts, a comic book, a photo essay… (up to 1500 words)

Poems, stories, memoirs
Contributions in various languages are encouraged; could also be something collected (from a conversation, seen on a wall, found in an ancient scroll…). (up to 1500 words)

Communiqués/manifestos
These must be inflammatory and subversive, challenge the status quo, possess one or more strong visions, and contain a healthy dose of humour. (every word in service of the cause)

Testimonials
A tribute or an account of a memorable experience in, with or around FoAM that influenced your work and/or life in interesting ways. (up to 500 words)

Photo essays
Should be visually arresting with a well-developed compositional, thematic, or narrative quality. (optionally accompanied by text)

Visual contributions
Drawings, paintings, diagrams, illustrations, infographics, etc.

Multisensory contributions
Sound, audiovisual pieces, scents, objects, experiences.

Other (commissioned) pieces
We are open to other suggestions from contributors.

We use open formats, preferably text files (.txt) with UTF-8 encoding. If you require specific formatting or layout then .odt (Libreoffice Text), .org or latex are suitable.

Visual material such as photographs, images, diagrams can be in TIF, jpeg, pdf, eps or svg formats.

Audio material in flac or mp3 at 320k.

Video material in FFV1 or H.264 or H.265 format with mp4 or mkv container.

We encourage marginalia, footnotes and references.

Use numbered notes indicated by inline markers e.g. [fn:1] and collect the notes at the end of the document. These will be arranged during the design process.

If applicable, include bibliographic references and further reading. Please use numbered notes rather than inline citations and collect references together at the end of the document.

We prefer Chicago style formatting of references in plain text or bibtex.

Author Last Name, First Name. Book Title: Subtitle. Edition. Place of publication: Publisher, Year. DOI/URL.

The published work will be distributed as Creative Commons. You should hold copyright or authors rights to any original material, or be able to redistrubute material compatible with the terms of Creative Commons BY-SA Licence as detailed at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

  • anarchive/guidelines.txt
  • Last modified: 2021-09-03 12:00
  • by maja