Spike is a magazine for art and cultural criticism, mixing writing on themes urgent and forever unresolved, from “Web3” and “Vulnerability” to “Plants” and “Patriarchy.” Spike is visually splashy, by turns pushy, poetic, unexpected – and not shy to start an argument. Featuring literary luminaries like Nicolas Bourriaud, Jamieson Webster, Dean Kissick, McKenzie Wark, Joanna Walsh, and Jeppe Ugelvig, Spike has enjoyed a profound impact on art and its discourse in Europe and North America for two decades and counting. Founded in 2004 and still published by the artist Rita Vitorelli, Spike is one of the last remaining independent art magazines.

A digital subscription gives you access to the complete online archive of Spike Art Magazine since issue one, Autumn 2004 – that's 21 years, and 15.000 pages. 

Spike #87 – Everything’s Computer

Go on, admit it. There’s no longer a meaningful distinction between “real life” and life online, up to and including sitting around in the park. So why shouldn’t art reflect the furious, melancholic, psychedelic sensation that, even when we make our screens dark, we’ve all been permanently logged on? A new era deserves new aesthetics, but also fables, values, and protocols. Everything is interwoven. Everything’s computer.

Featuring Brian Droitcour on lore and NFTs; Marek Poliks & Roberto Alonso Trillo on exocapitalism; the godmother of internet girlhood, Ann Hirsch; locating the tech-feminist to tech-fascist spectrum with Anan Fries; a visual essay by Ruba Al-Sweel & Al Hassan Elwan; Gideon Jacobs defends useless images; Dena Yago on the second life of memes; Günseli Yalcinkaya foretells a neo-oral age; a primer on internet cinema with Dana Dawud; Gary Zhexi Zhang’s guide to Shenzhen, “China’s Silicon Valley”; and a never-miss backpage from Tea Hačić-Vlahović: “Underground communities prevail against odds. Like rats and nuclear bombs.” Plus! Our new lifestyle section, “LIFEMAXXING”