Habitat: The Underground

Thursday, March 17, 2011

WIRED Mag: Feb 2011 issue

When I glimpsed the headliner of the February 2011 issue of WIRED magazine on the shelf, I had a little quiver of excitement. The mention of anything "underworld" will do that for me.

But the quiver was momentary. As I bee-lined to the mag rack to further inspect, I fully assumed that the issue would be dedicated to, well, I don't know, graphic novel underworlds (perhaps a worthy thing to look into actually) or some random issue with the code name "underworld" that I had no clue about.

Lo and behold.

Lo and behold. The Feb. 2011 issue was really, indeed dedicated to real issues of the "underworld." Not just the physical underworld, my typical arena of focus, but societal underworlds too. Profiles of historic con artists of varying talents, some rather explicit deconstruction of drug trade secrets, a profile of the burgeoning cyber criminal "industry" in Romania and more.

Then there is the Q & A with photographer, Taryn Simon, whose work perhaps can be described as the result of pointing her lens directly on the subconscious of society.

And the piece by writer Erin Biba and photographer Christoph Morlinghaus which, to my mental delight, is focused on the physical underground and provides a nice spectrum of photos to virtually visit various undergrounds on the globe.

Underworld geeks, check it out.