the innermost issue
THE INNERMOST ISSUE
Notions of time and space are altered. A disease has spanned the globe, and its consequences are unprecedented. We are now living through a Global Pandemic crisis. Putting on hold the debate on borders as a physical and geographic limit and its implying crises of identity and conflict, countries now turn to fences and walls as a means to mitigate an inescapable/impending quandary common to all worldwide. It is no novelty that millennials and Gen Z are characterised by distancing and alienation, but the new order put in place by the pandemic has imposed a revival of the "bedroom generation" in the post-digital era. Everything is reduced to the display screen and the simulated reality within it.

A digital magazine entitled RIFE—initially created within the discipline of Editorial Design in the MA of Communication Design at the Fine-Arts Faculty of Lisbon—emerges as a response to the pandemic condition and its global effects on the individual, social, political, ambiental and cultural levels, raising questions surrounding what we know as our reality at this day in age. These questions are made and answered by designers. This is pertinent as we designers operate within our contexts, and in order to render ethical alternatives to realities presented, we must investigate and understand them. At this point in time, we are physically inhibited to circulate freely, so we turn to questioning how to circulate content digitally—not by option but by necessity—, thus revealing a doorway to cultural production in the digital world.

In moving forward at the constant rate of change of events worldwide, RIFE creates a path to escape the strenuous simulacra. We believe that it is through the abstraction of our personal feelings that a space for thought and expansion will be restored. But in order to do so, addressing the personal, the individual, is imperative—a sort of exorcism, like ripping off a plaster—and so we commence our journey with THE INNERMOST ISSUE.

The first issue thus deals with what constitutes the «inner» state, departing from what it is to be inside, indoors, isolated with one self. From personal perspectives, we begin to question the state of our reality through introspection and reflection on psychological and spacial levels.

Hiatus Collective.







We are HIATUS, a collective made of five designers based in Portugal moved by the contingency of contexts. We feel the urge to know how the current scenario of the global pandemic can help us define ourselves as designers by questioning what it is to partake in cultural production in a framework where remote connections are imperative and conventional sources of inspiration have been hindered. We also seek to investigate the phenomenon itself, through its rationalization in an attempt to define what kind of society we live in—not only currently but also looking forward from this experience. Hence, our approach is founded on the perception that the effects of this historic period we are living are not primarily a burden, but a terrain in which new ways of thinking and producing may come to light.

The name of the collective came about as a reflexion on the condition we are forced into. We, as graphic designers and most importantly as creatives, are few of the least affected in our daily production by working remotely due to the digitalization of our tools and our personal computers. However, as the pandemic revealed itself, regular daily operations were put on hold, indefinitely. And so did we. HIATUS in its definition—a break in continuity in a sequence or activity—represents the temporal space in which we came together as a collective in an attempt to counter the silence of being put dormant, thus rendering the collective as a productive force in idle times.



RIFE Magazine — Issue 1, The Innermost Issue

HIATUS COLLECTIVE, members
Beatriz Pinta
Mariana Cordeiro
Manuel Silva
Nádia Alexandre
Rafael Cavaquinho

Social Media Management
Beatriz Pinta 
Nádia Alexandre
Rafael Cavaquinho

Editorial Board
HIATUS COLLECTIVE

Project Orientation
Sofia Gonçalves

Operations Director
Nádia Alexandre

Creative Directors
HIATUS COLLECTIVE

Editing and Contents
HIATUS COLLECTIVE

Copy Editor
Beatriz Pinta

Webdesign
Mariana Cordeiro
Manuel Silva
Rafael Cavaquinho

Development
Mariana Cordeiro
Manuel Silva
Nádia Alexandre

Development Support
Rui Sampaio


DISCLAIMER
Collective HIATUS does not assume responsibility for the accuracy of all information. Reproduction of whole or in part of the published contents requires written permission from HIATUS.

RIFE Magazine believes in freedom of speech and thought thus, it does not exercise censorship on its contributors. Signed contributors do not necessarily represent the opinion of the collective HIATUS.

© 2020