Simulacrum, Turfdraagsterpad 9, Amsterdam (2024)

09/06/2024

PHANTOMS

A phantom is an ethereal, otherworldly figure, existing on the fringes of our reality, always in the back of our minds. It is a shadow that lives in the corner of our eye and at the margins of language, ever-displaced. A palimpsest presence hinging on our imaginations, flickering in and out of existence, yet always haunting, (un)settling, and speaking to whomever dares to speak back and whomever tries to capture its name. Phantom, phantasm, spectre,ghost, all disjointing time and space, entangling here and there (and) now and then, past and future. Phantoms tend to linger and seep into the present, shaping our current lives and cultural landscapes. What is haunted, what are we haunted by, and can we haunt them back?

The PHANTOMS issue is available to buy via our website. Or find us in one of the bookstores on the last slide.

03/06/2024

SIMULACRUM X UITKIJK: SOLARIS (ANDREI TARKOVSKY)

Thursday 6 June 20:30 (English subtitles)

Because our last planned screening at De Uitkijk sadly couldn’t go through, we have picked a new date!
Join us on Thursday the 6th of June to explore the delusions that haunt us, during the celebration of Simulacrum’s second issue of this year on the theme of ‘Phantoms’! In this edition, authors search for the fantasies, false presences, and ghosts they have encountered or still hope to encounter. Questions addressed by this issue include, but are not limited to: how do memories and histories delegitimised by official information circuits circulate? How can art help us to create a “third way” to relate to heritages that have been hegemonically erased? What is the relevance of Hauntology, and terms such as phantom, phantasma, and spectre, for contemporary research in (and through) the arts?

In Tarkovsky’s masterpiece ‘Solaris’ (1972) we are taken to a place far above the earth where nothing is what it seems. A psychologist, Kris Kelvin, is sent to a space station near the planet Solaris to investigate the death of a doctor and the strange behaviour of the astronauts there. During his investigation, he is confronted with several unexplainable events, including the sudden appearance of his deceased wife. The planet turns out to contain some kind of cosmic intelligence, which mysteriously brings repressed memories and obsessions to life.

Before the film starts one of our editors will give a short introduction, the film starts at 8:30 PM. See you there!

31/05/2024

SIMULACRUM X UITKIJK: SOLARIS (ANDREI TARKOVSKY)

Wednesday 5 June 20:30 (English subtitles)

Because our last planned screening at De Uitkijk sadly couldn’t go through, we have picked a new date!
Join us on Wednesday the 5th of June to explore the delusions that haunt us, during the celebration of Simulacrum’s second issue of this year on the theme of ‘Phantoms’! In this edition, authors search for the fantasies, false presences, and ghosts they have encountered or still hope to encounter. Questions addressed by this issue include, but are not limited to: how do memories and histories delegitimised by official information circuits circulate? How can art help us to create a “third way” to relate to heritages that have been hegemonically erased? What is the relevance of Hauntology, and terms such as phantom, phantasma, and spectre, for contemporary research in (and through) the arts?

In Tarkovsky’s masterpiece ‘Solaris’ (1972) we are taken to a place far above the earth where nothing is what it seems. A psychologist, Kris Kelvin, is sent to a space station near the planet Solaris to investigate the death of a doctor and the strange behaviour of the astronauts there. During his investigation, he is confronted with several unexplainable events, including the sudden appearance of his deceased wife. The planet turns out to contain some kind of cosmic intelligence, which mysteriously brings repressed memories and obsessions to life.

Before the film starts one of our editors will give a short introduction, the film starts at 8:30 PM. See you there!

20/05/2024

Nieuwe vacature redacteur!

Houd je van schrijven en heb je het komende jaar zin om een nieuwe uitdaging aan te gaan? Als redacteur van Simulacrum werk je in een team van bevlogen studenten aan een tijdschrift dat vier keer per jaar uitkomt.

Wil je mee kunnen bepalen waar een nummer van Simulacrum over gaat? Houd je van Jan van Eyck of Diane Arbus, maar sta je ook open voor hedendaagse theorie en performances? Wil je de artikelen van medestudenten, kunstenaars, curatoren en academici samen met de redactie naar het hoogst mogelijke niveau tillen maar ook zelf stukken schrijven? Solliciteer dan nu!

Stuur vóór 17 juni een e-mail naar [email protected] met een motivatie, eventueel CV en een stuk dat je recent hebt geschreven. Ervaring is niet vereist, veel enthousiasme en betrokkenheid wel!

* Fluency in Dutch is preferred for this role

Credits: Cy Twombly

20/05/2024

Nieuwe vacature redacteur!

Houd je van schrijven en heb je het komende jaar zin om een nieuwe uitdaging aan te gaan? Als redacteur van Simulacrum werk je in een team van bevlogen studenten aan een tijdschrift dat vier keer per jaar uitkomt.

Wil je mee kunnen bepalen waar een nummer van Simulacrum over gaat? Houd je van Jan van Eyck of Diane Arbus, maar sta je ook open voor hedendaagse theorie en performances? Wil je de artikelen van medestudenten, kunstenaars, curatoren en academici samen met de redactie naar het hoogst mogelijke niveau tillen maar ook zelf stukken schrijven? Solliciteer dan nu!

Stuur vóór 17 juni een e-mail naar [email protected] met een motivatie, eventueel CV en een stuk dat je recent hebt geschreven. Ervaring is niet vereist, veel enthousiasme en betrokkenheid wel!

* Fluency in Dutch is preferred for this role

17/05/2024

OPEN CALL GRADUATES 2024

Are you graduating this year from a Dutch art academy? Then apply for our open call for your graduation work to get featured on our website and Instagram.

Send two images, a 150 word description of your work and a 50 word bio to [email protected]

The deadline for this open call is the 17th of June
For more information about the open call, check out our website! 💥

15/05/2024

SUMMER SALE

Now that the sun is out, it is time for some new summer reads. Take a look at all the amazing old issues we still have available on our website and use the code SIMUSALE24 to get 15% off on all issues from before 2024. This code is valid until the end of June.

The issues: The Divine, Mimesis, Nightmare, Food, Myths, Sound, Fe**sh and many more can be found on our website ⛱️🪻🍊

10/05/2024

We, as editors of Simulacrum, stand in complete support of the current student struggle that bravely stands up for justice for Palestine. The UvA has sadly shown utter disdain towards their very own students and staff by sending police, ME and bulldozers, to violently break the protests down. The disappointment we feel over all of this will, however, not break our spirits: free Palestine!
ALL EYES ON RAFAH 🇵🇸

30/04/2024

BORDERS 
Borders are deeply rooted entities. Even when borders apply to conflict elsewhere, they can affect us personally and concern us on a daily basis.

When we chose the theme of borders as new editors of Simulacrum this summer, we could not have foreseen the scale on which borders would be reconsidered at the time of publication. Boundaries are linked to our formation of identity, contain an everyday complexity, and are anything but superficial - a border can be unfolded thoroughly.

We think it is important that this issue gives writers and artists a platform to continue to explore and question borders. Borders appear in different forms in this issue: the authors approach the theme in a theoretical way, or, instead, from a very personal experience. Within different worlds, we question them from a distance or, on the contrary, from the inside. We want to understand what a border does, where it lies and how it came to be.

The BORDERS issue is still available on our website. Or find us in one of the bookstores on the last slide.

14/01/2024

The concept of "use" intricately weaves itself into our relationship with the world around us. From the everyday tasks of making our beds, going to work, to cutting our vegetables: the utilisation of objects and activities provides us with a tangibility to the sense of their nature - it gives us a relation to things.

We are looking for authors and artists exploring the theme: “What’s the use?”, to explore the multifaceted layers of how usefulness in art defines our relationships with our existence around us. The deadline for this C4P is February 23. Submissions and questions can be sent by email to [email protected]. Please attach articles (of up to 2000 words) as .doc or .docx and visual contributions as .pdf. The instructions for authors can be found on our website.

Read the open call in the link in our bio for more information!!

1 - Brian Eno lecturing at MoMA on October 23, 1990 as part of a performance series organised by RoseLee Goldberg for “High/Low”.
https://greg.org/archive/2022/11/15/did-brian-eno-really-piss-in-duchamps-fountain.html.
2 - Exhibition view: Museum of Arte Útil. Archives Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven. Photo: Peter Cox, Eindhoven.
3 - Red and Blue Chair (1917) - Gerrit Rietveld
4 - Coffee and Tea Set - Marianne Brandt, 1924

08/11/2023

CALL FOR PAPERS: PHANTOM

A phantom is an ethereal, otherworldly figure, existing on the fringes of our reality, always in the back of our minds. It is a shadow that lives in the corner of our eye and at the margins of language, ever-displaced. A palimpsest presence hinging on our imaginations, flickering in and out of existence, yet always haunting, (un)settling, and speaking to whomever dares to speak back, and whomever tries to capture its name. Phantom, phantasm, spectre, ghost, all disjointing time and space, entangling here and there (and) now and then, past and future. Phantoms tend to linger and seep into the present, shaping our current lives and cultural landscapes. What is haunted, what are we haunted by, and can we haunt them back?

In this edition of Simulacrum, we invite you to gather whatever is at hand to think with us about the unknowable and unnamable phantasms, phantoms, spectres, and ghosts whose traces you may have encountered - or still hope to. Questions addressed by this issue include, but are not limited to: how do memories and histories delegitimised by official information circuits circulate? How can art help us to create a “third way” to relate to heritages that have been hegemonically erased? What is the relevance of Hauntology, and terms such as phantom, phantasma, and spectre, for contemporary research in (and through) the arts?

***Please read the full open call through our link in bio for more information!

*** The deadline for this open call is 19 December 2023.

Image credits:
1- Menashe Kadishman. Shalechet, 2001.
2- Installation view of Denilson Baniwa at the 35th Bienal de São Paulo – Choreographies of the impossible © Levi Fanan / Fundação Bienal de São Paulo.

[jrg. 32, nr. 2]

13/02/2023

Open call: MIMESIS

In theatre, dance performance, and other performing arts, the notion of mimesis has been of importance for several centuries. Like in ancient Greek tragedies, the actor on stage mimics relatable daily scenes to pass on a morale in everyday life. According to what John Martin proposed in the 1960s with his highly criticised theory of inner mimicry, a ‘passive’ audience member can have the experience of dancing just by watching a performer dance. Spectators of documentary film oftentimes attempt to separate the veracity of events from the staged scenes. In this context, musing on contemporary mimetic qualities also leads to insights on the frail distinction between fiction and reality, between subject and object. What knowledge can we obtain by imitating a situation, for instance in the re-enactment of historical events? And how can these imitations transform our socio-political reality, as proposed in the performances of Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed?

Simulacrum is calling for papers (2.000 words max.) and art submissions which playfully expand our understanding of mimesis in the arts beyond realistic representation and explore the contemporary potential of this concept from ancient times. Find the full open call through the link in bio.

***Submissions and further inquiries can be written to [email protected]. For visual contributions, please note that Simulacrum is printed in duotone.

The deadline for this open call is February 19th, 2023.

Image credits:

07/02/2023

On Monday February 13th at 9pm, we continue celebrating the launch of WATER, Simulacrum’s first edition of 2023, through a screening of Mati Diop’s film Atlantique (2019) at

"In this supernatural feature debut by filmmaker Mati Diop, we see endless symbolism in the Atlantic Ocean that participates as a silent protagonist in the narrative of the film. In addition, Atlantique highlights the political aspects of water in the context of migration issues and the growing gap between rich and poor in the Senegalese capital: a relevant angle that contributes to the reflections on the countless directions of water in Simulacrum's most recent issue."

More information through the link in bio.

01/02/2023

Sip, Steep, and Sample: launching WATER

Join us this Saturday to celebrate the launch of WATER, Simulacrum's first issue of 2023, through a “liquid performance tasting” hosted by artists' collective Brackish in the Glass House of Zone2Source in the Amstelpark, Amsterdam.

💧 Date: Sat, 4 February 2023, 17:00 – 19:00 CET

💧 Location: 4 Amstelpark 1083 HZ Amsterdam

💧Tickets: €5, or €10 for a ticket + copy of WATER. Link in bio.

22/01/2023

Launch event WATER: save the date!

Join us to celebrate the launch of WATER, Simulacrum's first issue of 2023, through a wonderful liquid performance by in the Glass House of in the Amstelpark, Amsterdam.

💧Date: Saturday, February 4th, 2023. 17:00 – 20:00 CET

💧Location: 4 Amstelpark 1083 HZ, Amsterdam

💧Tickets: €5, or €10 for a ticket + copy of WATER. Link in bio.

Image credits:

22/01/2023

Launch event WATER: save the date!

Join us to celebrate the launch of the WATER, Simulacrum's first issue of 2023, through a wonderful liquid performance by in the Glass House of in the Amstelpark, Amsterdam.

💧Date: Sat, 4 February 2023, 17:00 – 20:00 CET

💧Location: Zone2Source 4 Amstelpark 1083 HZ Amsterdam

💧Tickets: €5, or €10 for a ticket + copy of WATER.

For more information, follow the link in bio.

Image credits:

19/01/2023

WATER is finally out and on its way to our dear authors, subscribers, and associated bookshops.

Already available for orders on Simulacrum’s web-shop (link in bio).

✨💧✨💧✨💧✨💧

12/01/2023

Open call: MIMESIS

Our earliest learning steps are of mimetic nature: it is by example that we learn to bring a spoon of food to our mouth, or to unite the palms of both our hands to clap. The people and things around us at in our early years constitute the origin of our habits, ticks and expressions. Once we become self-sufficient beings, the act of imitation carries out oftentimes just as unconsciously: your smiling, sneezing, or yawning can elicit my smiling, sneezing, or yawning. But next to these small gestures, imitation can also be a fundamental transmitter of artistic skills, crafts, language, and traditions. What alternative theories on mimesis can offer us tools with which to understand systems of passing on cultural and embodied knowledge in the arts?

Simulacrum is calling for papers (2.000 words max.) and art submissions which playfully expand our understanding of mimesis in the arts beyond realistic representation and explore the contemporary potential of this concept from ancient times.

***Submissions and further inquiries can be written to [email protected]. For visual contributions, please note that Simulacrum is printed in duotone.

The deadline for this open call is February 19th, 2023.

25/11/2022

Some shots from the .magazine X Q&A, moderated by our editor with director of 'Foragers' (2022).
Despite Israeli occupation's attempts at alienating Palestinians from their land through bans and nature-protection laws, in 'Foragers' the tradition of foraging for akkoub and za'atar remains an unwavering act of repair that ties Palestinians to their land: "I am nature... Nature is me".

20/11/2022

Open call: RE[KIN]DLING

Simulacrum is looking for *scholarly* contributions. In particular, for this open call, we encourage you to send in essays, exhibition reviews, close readings and/or short academic texts whose research heart pulsates close to questions such as: what does it mean to cut ties with inherited systems of knowledge? how can making oddkin help us imagine new futures? how does making kin beyond anthropocentrism decolonise our metaphors and reverse the vertical hierarchy between North and South? how to step back, and facilitate rather - than authorise - interactions with materials?

Since more than thirty years Simulacrum strives to offer a platform that can encourage the publication of early career work by graduate and undergraduate students interested in culture and the arts. Let yourself be inspired and send us your work! max 2000 words, deadline: December 15th.

In slideshow:
1- Ana Mendieta. Rites and Symbols of Initiation, 1978.
2- Pinar Yoldas. An Ecosystem of Excess, 2014.
3- Otobong Nkanga. The Eco-Psychologist’s Soul. Landversation Series, 2014.
4- Rebecca Mayo. Porous Borders, Impermeable Boundaries, 2017.

02/11/2022

Open call: RE[KIN]DLING

“If there ever was a time for fire in the belly and a radical politics of hope, it is now,” said Mike Davis. What rituals revive a belly-fire gone extinguished? What words conjure lost hope? And how to (re)kindle one’s own relationship to craft, when even that’s lost? No more notes, no more verses, no more strokes. Re(kindle) as survival, not of the fittest but of the soft. Re(kin)dle as: I hold you in my arms or hold me when I want. Re(kind)le as I am a child again, again hurt, again growing out of shoes. Again growing into becoming-with each other, finding (kin) in (odd) places.

***Simulacrum's new OPEN CALL is out and we invite you to think with us about REKINDLING for our upcoming issue. Articles of 2000 words maximum can be submitted to [email protected]. Would you rather write a column, an interview, fiction, poetry, or do you know an artist whose work fits within this theme? Please email us.

The deadline for this open call is December 15th, 2022.

16/10/2022

Presenting: The documenta issue

In an echo of ruangrupa’s January 2019 proposal for documenta fifteen, in which the collective clearly outlines its goals as being that of building a global network of institutions and initiatives capable of outlasting this documenta edition, the documenta issue brought to you by Simulacrum hopes to position itself as one of the many available tools in understanding lumbung. Pointing to lumbung as one mechanism among a richness of practices for collective sustainable thinking in the field of arts & culture, we approach documenta fifteen as both a situated event within documenta history, and as a collaborative experiment in the sharing of knowledge and resources.

***Edited and curated by Marta Pagliuca Pelacani and Niels Noot***

***Available through Simulacrum’s webshop***

06/10/2022

Simulacrum Magazine x Motto Berlin

Simulacrum is an arts and culture magazine based in Amsterdam, NL. For more than thirty years, it functions as an accessible and high-quality publication platform for students and experts from various fields to publish together under one theme. Simulacrum is a quarterly thematic publishing project that aims at fostering transdisciplinary connections among contributions that explore both historical and contemporary perspectives of the European cultural landscape.

On the 14th of October Simulacrum is coming to Motto Berlin to celebrate the publication issue of the magazine’s 30th anniversary, het Reflectienummer. For this special issue the editors of Simulacrum delved into the archives and asked authors to reflect on their submissions, ranging from volume 1 (1992) to 29 (2020). These reflections offer us insight into the way in which art, culture and historiography have changed over the course of almost 30 years. However, the eleven reflections bundled in this issue do not only refer to the past. Reflection is an exercise with an eye to the future; it is a moment of standing still, on how it was, how it is, and how it could be.

Continuing this exercise of reflection, editors Mirna Vrdoljak and Kenneth Geurts will hold a discussion on the blurring of boundaries across disciplines in the humanities, and the magazine’s role in adequately responding to the reciprocal influence between the academic and artistic sphere. Bearing in mind the magazine’s primary focus on art historical research thirty years ago, what can we learn from the contributions of het Reflectienummer? We will speak from our own experience with the diverging range of submissions in the past decade, as well as the questions that arise with the use of new media platforms and digital modes of archiving. There will also be a moment to introduce Simulacrum’s freshly printed autumnal newspaper on documenta xv, The documenta Issue.

18.30 Introduction to Simulacrum + talk at Motto Berlin (Skalitzer Str. 68), followed by drinks.

27/09/2022

New limited edition of Simulacrum tote bags illustrated by .zaenck

40 units available now through Simulacrum’s webshop.

[link in bio]

✨🧳✨

22/09/2022

Open call: WATER

to water:
1. the (human) provision of water to (other) organisms
2. the movement through which one’s eyes become filled with tears, overflowing invisible components (water, oils, salt) and an array of (unspoken?) emotions onto the surface of one’s body.
Such watery motions, perhaps accompanied by flows of saliva, sweat, and other types of mucus, fluidly defy the barrier between the “inside” and “outside” of an organism.
Biofluids may evaporate into the atmosphere,
be wiped by the hands of a loved one, or,
as proposed by the artist Lygia Clark in Anthropophagic Slobber (1973), form threads of saliva to be deposited onto other bodies in a symbiotic gesture.

Symbiotic gesture. Critical commentary. Non-Anthropocentric knowledge…

We invite you to think with us:
What is (to) water?

***Simulacrum’s new open call is out and the theme is WATER. Visual arts, essays, poetry, and fiction are welcome. The word limit is 2.000. More information on our website through the link in bio.

The deadline for this open call is October 17th, 2022.

22/09/2022

to water

1. the (human) provision of water to (other) organisms

2. the movement through which one’s eyes become filled with tears, overflowing invisible components (water, oils, salt) and an array of (unspoken?) emotions onto the surface of one’s body.

Such watery motions, perhaps accompanied by flows of saliva, sweat, and other types of mucus, fluidly defy the barrier between the “inside” and “outside” of an organism.

Biofluids may evaporate into the atmosphere,

be wiped by the hands of a loved one, or,

as proposed by the artist Lygia Clark in Anthropophagic Slobber (1973), form threads of saliva to be deposited onto other bodies in a symbiotic gesture.

Symbiotic gesture. Critical commentary. Non-Anthropocentric knowledge…

We invite you to think with us:
what is water, and what is “to water”?

***Simulacrum’s new open call is out and the theme is WATER. All texts, visual and auditory art forms are welcome. More information on our website through the link in bio.

The deadline for this open call is October 17th, 2022.

18/09/2022

Flowing in a river. Stagnant in a pool. Sweet. Salty. Brackish. Thrashing and beating against the land. Expanded as ice, and floating on the seas. As the mist and dew that lies on the surface of the earth on a quiet autumn morning. Water has many forms. When safe and warm, these can have an unprecedented beauty, perhaps something sublime; the reflection of the sun on a lake; the appearance of a rainbow through the play between rain, clouds and light. At the same time, the plenitude and meaning of water is changing. With the rise of sea levels, the acidification of oceans, the increase of floodings and simultaneous desertification, water has become increasingly connected to the political. Drinking water has become a stock to invest in, while its distribution is faltering.

But what is water? Is water a thing? Or is water an element, a medium, or both? And what kind of political ecology would follow from traversing through these questions?

***Simulacrum’s new open call will soon be out and we invite you to think with us about (and ~with~) WATER.

Stay tuned: more news soon to drop💧

05/09/2022

we were at and it was such a treat 🍭 grateful to have met the minds behind some of our favorite publications out there - what a blast! thanks and see ya soon hamburg

04/09/2022

jaargang 30 moving to 31 🍃almost every year simulacrum breathes in and out, welcoming new members in its editorial board and saluting those traveling further. This year we decided to linger a while longer: before plunging ourselves in the four new publications, .magazine will be issuing a special autumn edition on 🍂 building upon strenuous field research in Kassel, we hope to offer a platform able to welcome a wide range of different contributions. got something to say about ? let us know via our DM section 💌

11/07/2022

Tonight at 9pm 🔥 The screening of HYENAS (1992) organized by .magazine and to celebrate the launch of 💭 in this adaptation of Dürrenmatt’s play ‘The Visit’ (1956), Dijbril Diop Mambéty tells an intimate and visually enchanting tale of love betrayed that reflects the impact of consumerism and neocolonialism on Senegal. Get your tickets via the link in bio ✨