Reconstruction 5.1 (Winter 2005)

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Editorial / Davin Heckman

<1> A journal ought to have a life of its own. As a multi-volume entity, with a clear beginning but no ending, it is an accumulation. Each new submission attracts new readers. Some readers produce new submissions. Some readers join the editorial board. The point of origin has to allow for this change, or else its end is within arm's reach.

<2> Editing works with this in mind as an exercise in possibility; it trains one in a different kind of writing. The better editors seem to have no idea what a good idea is before they see it unfold -- they are gifted at being skillfully naive in their area of expertise -- they like to be surprised.

<3> At the microscopic level, a journal is written by individual contributors who are presumably experts in their field. On a macroscopic level, a journal is written by an editorial board that has yet to gain this experience. And a good journal, with perpetually astonished editors, is a book written without an end.

<4> The previous year at Reconstruction was marked by growth. An expanded editorial board saw new editorial policies. A steadily growing catalogue of new submissions has provoked a corresponding growth in our readership. As well, Volume 5, Issue 1 also brings a new "look."

<5> The idea of changing our interface was understood as inevitable from day one. Not because there was something wrong with the old one, but because it was hoped that our initial plan would prove inadequate. When the journal began, the hope was that it would surpass the limited vision of its origin.

<6> In re-reading our "Frequently Asked Questions" from Fall 2001, I feel like Matthew Wolf-Meyer and I were sufficiently naïve to have accomplished this objective. What we were on day one was much more limited than what we are now, but our hope was to be limitless. Now, with more maturity I think it is safe to say that we have a greater understanding of our limitations, but I still hope that the journal can is being written with no end in sight. Due to the skill and vision of our editorial board, we creep closer to realizing this goal each day.

<7> Like Juan Ponce de Leon in search of the fountain of youth, with each step closer to this elusive goal, I find myself a step closer to satisfaction. But, each day de Leon spent in search of his goal was another day further from the moment of his birth. As we grow into what I had hoped we would be, I find that we too have moved from this origin. It is becoming what it should be: a creature with a life of its own. Still, like de Leon, I find the possibilities of endlessness a bit too exciting to stop just now.

<8> And so we look different today. We have aged. But instead of looking old, we look new. And, unlike the human face, it is the visage of our origin that appears to be dated. In spite of the crispness and perpetually constructed nowness of data that that appears on screen with each electrical pulse, no matter when it was written, faithfully reconstructed images of the past now fade with their familiarity. They don't get tattered, turn yellow, or dull. Aging isn't communicated by change over time in the digital environment. Aging is communicated by staying the same over time. Online, in order to preserve our "youthfulness" as a journal, we had to mature, so to speak, into a contemporary interface.

<9> As a result, we have elected to preserve some artifacts to establish continuity with the past. In addition to our name, we have decided to stick with our use of "courier" font, itself an artifact of typewriter days. We have also kept our logo the same. Like a familiar pair of eyes, we hope that some continuity of aesthetic features will aid in identification of articles with the journal. But in a space of rapid-changes like the web, we hope the maturation of our image will suggest, as always, an engagement with the present and a commitment to the unforeseeable.

<10> Welcome to the fifth volume of Reconstruction.

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