In an era where algorithms dictate taste and desire, where screens mediate experience, and where digitalization consumes the essence of art, magazines seem more relevant than ever — certainly more important than when I started Purple in 1992. I’m not the only one witnessing the rapid dissolution of reality: a world where artificial intelligence supplants creativity, where an endless stream of data replaces cultural depth, and where the tangibility of art vanishes into an immaterial void of simulation.
This Analog Issue of Purple is not about nostalgia. It’s about dissidence and optimism. It’s a magazine manifesto against the digital homogenization of culture, against the illusion that art can be reduced to data, and against the slow erosion of physical experience in every aspect of life — from fashion to sexuality to politics. It’s a defense and an illustration of the new relevance of the independent press, which is now…