<nettime> Call for Contributions – ELON: Magazine for Best Billionaires

[Flo Abgrund via nettime-l <nettime-l@lists.nettime.org>]

I am happy to share the Call for Submissions for the second issue of ELON: Magazine for Best Billionaires via this list.

---------------
Elon Magazine is seeking short essays and written contributions in addition to collage work for our second issue.
We are soliciting both written texts and original collage contributions from all disciplines, social fields, and activist networks exploring the Muskist and imperial billionaire reality in which we now find ourselves. We are looking for opinion columns, feature essays, photo essays, infographics, biographies and profiles, interviews, as well as satirical horoscopes, book reviews, advertisements, gear and product reviews, etc. Essentially, anything that makes a magazine an exciting assemblage of diverse interests somehow related to the world of tech billionaires. The second issue of the magazine will reject the corporate-driven and environmentally destructive reality of generative AI by embracing a human-centered approach. Issue no.2 of Elon Magazine will be illustrated exclusively with human-made collage work.
Elon Magazine (https://www.designboom.com/art/elon-magazine-surreal-imagery-investigative-research-musk-media-spectacles-gigacities-collective-08-26-2024/) is an experimental publishing endeavor rooted in Cultural Studies and Anthropology. While it is named after Elon Musk, and was originally focused on the hype-machine around Elon Musk, issue no.2 aims for a broader remit, concerned with all tech billionaires and financialized capitalism. This project started in 2022 as a creative and scholarly exploration of Musk’s cultural portfolio. We imagined it as a capacious inspection of the collateral affects surrounding his companies as well as his dystopian futuristic visions of a multiplanetary society. We did not buy into the hype and personality cult which staged Musk as a messianic figure, promising quick and easy solutions to climate change. We did not accept his turn toward authoritarian politics and DOGE destruction. Our magazine was designed to satirize, scrutinize, and deconstruct his empire.
Please review issue no.1 for an idea of our approach to scholarly satire (https://www.gigacitiescollective.net/elon)
Timeline
Stage 1, Proposal:
Choose a magazine section you want to contribute to: opinion column, feature essay, photo essay, infographic, biographies and profiles, interviews, as well as satirical horoscopes, book reviews, advertisements, gear and product reviews, etc.
Send a first idea or draft (written abstract or first design) to the editorial team (gigacities-collective@proton.me) by December 23, 2025.

Contributor bio (around 100 words) and contact information

Proposal (max. 500 words).

Stage 2, Invitation:

Before January 15th, 2026 we will respond to all proposals. Accepted proposals then enter into a discussion and planning phase.
Stage 3, Submission, Review and publication:

Later in the Spring of 2026 all final submissions will be due.
Submissions enter into an editorial review process and will be accepted, recommended for revision, or rejected for publication. We’ll share a publication agreement and prepare the magazine for publication. Note that this is a limited-run experimental publication and it will not be sold for profit. It will circulate for free as a PDF. Everyone who has published in it will receive a free printed copy and have the opportunity to order copies in advance (for the cost of printing and shipping).

Please don’t hesitate to contact the editorial team with questions: gigacities-collective@proton.me
Fine Print:
In the first issue we embraced generative AI to explore this emergent technology through a process we dubbed collaborative hallucination. The results were excitingly weird. Combining AI images with real reportage and analysis, the first issue provided a fascinating and troubling dive into humanity’s collective unconscious, processed through an artificial intelligence whose output was more inspired by a ketamine trip than a rational and planned expression of visual culture. The magazine is a cross-section of artistic, activist, and scholarly work drawing inspiration from the Situationist International, Neo-Dada, and the Yes Men, Mad Magazine, and Charlie Hebdo disguised as a high-gloss lifestyle magazine, such as “O,” Men’s Health, Vanity Fair, Rich Woman Magazine, Billionaire, or Entrepreneur.

The second issue of the magazine will reject the corporate-driven and environmentally destructive reality of generative AI by embracing a human-centered approach. Issue no.2 of Elon Magazine will be illustrated exclusively with human-made collage work. We draw our inspiration from collage artists like Hannah Höch, Ray Johnson, Wangechi Mutu, Karel Tiege, Barbara Kruger, Koji Nagai, Martha Rosler, John Baldessari, Man Ray, Kara Walker, and David Maljkovic.
Contributors may create their own visual work or may choose to collaborate with the editors on accompanying collages. Each page will have a digital footnote, allowing for author notes, references, and elaborations. If you only want to write, we will pair your writing with collage work. If you only want to create a collage, we will pair your work with writing. While we encourage the submission of complete works, we also welcome submissions that emerge in collaboration and conversation with the editors.
-- 
# distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
# <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
# collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
# more info: https://www.nettime.org
# contact: nettime-l-owner@lists.nettime.org