Arkitip x X Arkitip No. 0053

The poet Ryunosuke Satoro said, "Individually, we are one drop. Together we are an ocean." This philosophy is the inspiration for this Arkitip issue - an exploration, celebration, commentary on the joys of collaboration through their own personal lens. People collaborate on many levels. It occurs in nature, technology, science, art, music and politics. For this issue, the Arkitip staff asked artists, technologists, writers and friends to show them a recent collaboration or to create something new. Creative work for this issue originated from New York, Los Angeles, Tokyo, San Francisco, Shanghai, Seattle, Paris, Miami, Cape Town and Portland.

History X: Tokyo in the 90s was in what seemed to be an eternal funk. As usual, it was the young people that offered hope and creative juice to society, thus a highly entrepreneurial subculture began to discover its own influence. These new creators and designers were born from a tight group of friends, so although they were perhaps competitors, they often joined forces to create new products and identities for the young. Only in Tokyo does consumerism have such spiritual power. Thus the emergence of double brands, where products were able to take on dual characteristics and unique personalities. Soon the "X" in Japan's subculture became a symbol of personal collaboration. A good collaboration starts with an inspired idea, a desire for unexpected results and mutual respect or pure love of another's work.

Featured collaborations: Gus Van Sant x Paige Powell, John Maeda x Becky Bermont, Aaron Koblin x Takashi Kawashima, Apolis Activism x Filson x Invisible Children, Bruce Wolf x Ying, Coleman x Goldkrand, Howie Pyro x Z-Trip, Jeremy Pelley x Fritz Mesenbrink x Mathew Foster, Lisa Chacón x Jared Lovejoy x Jason Harler, Matt Black x Alex Asher Daniel, Roman Alonso x Carlos Morera, Shawn Wolfe x Houston, Dong Wei x Huang Wei Don, Ambra Medda x Silvia Fendi, Yves Béhar x Ethan Imboden, Tom Sachs x Camilla Deterre. Editors + Creative Directors: Alex Calderwood & John C Jay. Producer + Editorial: Caterina deCarlo. Art Directors: Stephen Giem & John C Jay. Dimensions: 7.5 x 10 In. (19.5 x 25.4 cm), 96 pages + covers, four color offset printed, perfect bound. Silk screened poly bag with contributing collaborators. Hand packaged & numbered limited edition of 1500. Packaged with an hand-numbered print piece by John Maeda and Becky Bermont.