MU - MUDEC United
MU – MUDEC United is the annual publication of the Museum of Cultures in Milan, dedicated to exploring the themes addressed in the exhibitions organized by the museum. The fourth issue of MU, “Snow Crash”, to be released in May 2026, opens up to the theme of snow, considered through the possibility of its extinction, its biomorphic transformation, and its resonance within both the collective and individual spheres.
The issue takes its title from Neal Stephenson’s 1994 novel of the same name, which described, far more accurately than could have been imagined at the time the state of the world today. “As if the 1990s were,” explains Carlo Antonelli, editorial director of MU, “a terrain in which the transformations of the human condition were – certainly not by chance – hidden beneath a blanket of snow that later melted after 9/11. The new climatic era, with the disappearance of snow and the shrinking of glaciers, is only a starting point. And the Lynchian ‘television snow’ of the last century has become the visual snow (‘snow vision,’ technically speaking) now affecting the residual clarity of our eyesight, saturated by the millions of images that have flooded our eyes for decades up to the present day. Science fiction books and films were the only ones capable of understanding the real future scenario, as usual. Everyone eventually reached the conclusion that, deep down, we no longer want to fully understand what is happening. After all, we enjoy remaining in this cognitive fog (‘brain fog,’ or therefore ‘snow fog’), and we are beginning to love this sort of snow-covered brain. It is a mode of survival, for as long as possible.
Hence the two covers, both intentionally connected to the art of the 1980s and 1990s, which is strongly present throughout the issue: Snowman (1987/2016) by Peter Fischli and David Weiss, the snowman preserved under a glass case; and Fin de Siècle (1990) by General Idea, a masterpiece on the extinction of the LGBTQ+ community.”
The issue also includes contributions by: Chiara Barzini, Andrew Berardini, Björk, Mark Borthwick (with a special project), AA Bronson, Tommaso Calarco, Federico Campagna, Pierpaolo Caputo, Abby Chen, Massimo De Carlo, Elena Filipovic, Peter Fischli, Elisa Giuliano, David Hammons, Tim Ingold, Katya Inozemtseva, Saodat Ismailova, Summer Mei-Ling Lee, Andrea Lissoni, Ari Marcopoulos (with a special project), Chus Martinez, Alessandro Oldani, Philippe Parreno, Telmo Pievani, Paola Pivi, Sara Rizzo, Edoardo Sanguineti, Chiharu Shiota, Andrea Staid, Neal Stephenson, Bruce Sterling, Patricia Urquiola, and Enrico Vanzina.
MU, under the editorial direction of Carlo Antonelli, is designed by Studio FM Milano and published by Alla Carta.
MU – MUDEC United is the magazine of the Museo delle Culture, in English, which is available both at MUDEC Design Store and internationally in major bookstores and museum bookshops.
According to its style, the third issue of the magazine ‘MU – MUDEC United’ features contributions relating to the exhibition ‘Travelogue: Stories of Travel, Migration and Diasporas’, crossing the boundaries of the exhibition through additional content on subterranean and underwater travels.
The new issue of MU proposes a journey through discoveries and visions from all places and times, relating the worlds beneath the Earth’s surface as the only areas unaffected by overtourism. Thus, MU sets out on a journey that also symbolises our future, particularly with regard to our remarkable oceanic resources, which far surpass those of extra-orbital planets. This subject is at the heart of the work of photographers, philosophers and filmmakers, as well as scientists and geopolitical experts.
The magazine features contributions from renowned authors, artists and researchers from around the world. Among them are: Carlo Antonelli, Andrew Berardini, Luca Caminati, Lisetta Carmi, Mariana Castillo Deball, Fernando Castrillón, Emanuele Coccia, Michelangelo Frammartino, Yervant Gianikian and Angela Ricci Lucchi, Global Armour, Luca Guadagnino, Mariangela Gualtieri, Katya Inozemtseva, Brian R. Jacobson, Joan Jonas, Nicholas Korody, Michel Lamy & Nico Vascellari, Armin Linke, Andrea Lissoni, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Adrian Paci, Antonio Perazzi, Sara Rizzo and Natália Trejbalová.
MU, under the editorial direction of Carlo Antonelli, is designed by Studio FM Milano and published by Alla Carta.
The second issue of the magazine ‘MU – MUDEC United’ – according to its editorial code – proposes articles related to the exhibition ‘Exposure. Art, culture, fashion in and out of the showcase’ and its programme, accompanied by in-depth articles with a transversal slant on the theme of exhibiting and exhibiting oneself.
The second issue tells a wide range of stories that revolve around a fundamental theme of life, starting with that of the museum, namely desire and what it entails: stories of theft (if we also think of the cinema), of non-return, of glass that separates and blocks circulations or conversations between living beings, of expositions and subtractions of (and from) the self, of precious objects and digital subjects that show off, to arrive at the phantasmagoria of fashion.
The second issue of MU is the “showcase“: an incubator of thoughts and forms that changes according to the theme being narrated, and in this case becomes a kind of precious treasure chest of “extravagance”, designed to reflect and make us reflect on the way human beings position themselves in relation to the world; a world/earth that in turn is enveloped by a curtain-window (the atmosphere) that does not contain an increasingly opaque and overly boiling air, and that exposes us too much – our own fault – to the risk of our own demise.
‘MU – MUDEC United’ includes contributions from valuable contributors from the world of art, writing and research in numerous places around the planet: Andreas Angelikadis, Paul Basu, Federico Campagna, Mariuccia Casadio, Lorenzo Castore, Rachaporn Choochuey, Theo Eshetu, Alex Foti, Marco Giusti, Guido Guerzoni, Wissal Houbabi, Katya Inozemtseva, Arto Lindsay, Kit Mackintosh, Wayne Modest, Giuseppe Ricupero, Sara Rizzo, Tobias Rees and others.
MU, under the editorial direction of Carlo Antonelli, is designed by Studio FM Milano and distributed by the publishing house NERO.
Mudec United, while providing plentiful information about the exhibition it aligns with, is neither a catalog, nor a pure magazine, but a third object, born out of the generative process of ideas (visual first and foremost) that come out of the Museum and open it to the world.
The first issue, inspired by the exhibition Rainbow. Colors and Wonders Among Myths, Arts, and Science, on view through July 2, 2023, includes contributions from the worlds of arts, writing, and research-among others: Lanier Graham, Katia Inozemtseva, Tarek Elhaik, Giorgio Bardelli, Giorgio Chiozzi, Michela Podestà & Stefano Scali, Maria Loh, Federico Campagna, Romi Crawford, Ruangrupa, Elisa Giuliano + Zairong Xiang, Masha Salazkina, Luca Caminati, Medina Dugger, Federico Ercoli, Maddalena Novati, Gabriela Del Castillo, Miltos Manetas, Achille Filipponi, Terry Riley, Cory Arcangel, Norma Jeane, Emi Fontana, Porpora Marcasciano, Jordan Anderson, Nadeesha Uyangoda, Luca Guadagnino, Sara Rizzo, Carolina Orsini, Fabio Peri, Agnese Maccari, Simonetta Roncaglia.
Mudec United is agile without losing scientific depth. It starts from a respect for cultural traditions, an awareness of the necessary and continuous work of removing colonial prisons (including linguistic ones) and the struggle against their appropriation. It takes a step further, toward languages in the making, especially those arising from the new, second and third generations inhabiting the globe, starting with the city from which it originates.
MU, under the editorial direction of Carlo Antonelli, is designed by Studio FM Milano and distributed by the publishing house NERO.
