One of the most polished magazines to land on my desk this year is undoubtedly O.K. Failure, the second publication by O.K. Periodicals (based in Arnhem, NL). Dedicating an entire issue to mistakes, glitch culture and happy accidents, O.K. Failure explores the error as a "portal for creative discovery". The issue casts a very wide net and includes content on urban infrastructure, cartography, Tony Montana, Op art and revels in cataloging disasters and unrealized apocalypses. The tone is unapologetically Dutch and all manner of catastrophe (real world and artistic) are curated into the playful mix.

The issue also includes work by a solid crew of artists and designers including Beflix, Christel Ooms, Karl Klomp, Jodi, Battery Battery and about a half-dozen others. I've been tracking a number of these artists for a while and one of the highlights of the content (for me) was "Glitch Catch: In Search for the Unknown" which mixes some smart commentary on glitch art with micro-interviews with some of these folks. A standout moment:

Failure makes us and our technology human; without the ability to make mistakes we lose a sense of freedom. We need chance and error to develop and surprise ourselves with our own potential. Whereas oil-paint and other painting materials have remained the same for a long time, the advances in basic materials for glitch art are continuous. For this reason the glitch may be called a unique polymorphic art form. The visual vocabulary are constantly changing, as digital techniques develop and become more advanced.

A tip of the cap to William van Giessen, Bouwe van der Molen and Joost van der Steen of the O.K. Periodicals crew for a job well done as O.K. Failure is a lush, dynamic read from cover to cover. Two interesting design notes worth mentioning:

• The first third of the magazine has been exposed to multiple print errors making each copy unique
• Scattered throughout the publication are numerous thumbnail images with annotations referring to the "item ID" on the O.K. blog - this makes for an interesting synergy between the print and online presence of the same publication

You can get more info about O.K. Failure and order it here.

I remember hearing about the first issue of Junk Jet last year but the magazine slipped my mind until a recent post on Rhizome by Ceci Moss. Junk Jet, a self described "Fanzine for Electronics and Aesthetics" dedicated their second issue to exploring the theme of speculative architecture. Editors Asli Serbest and Mona Mahall frame "the speculative" as a pervasive presence that

haunts all systems of production, threatens them with the destruction of their order and with collapse. It continues to appear to all orthodoxies as artifice, as a black magic, which is to be unveiled, because it is somehow effective effective in an illusive, but absorbing way, which is characteristic to an occasion for a game and its stakes. It is not a rational process, but something that contradicts this frame, something that is recognized as irrational, as feverish, and that therefore is suspected to be dysfunctional, inhuman, or even monstrous.

This wild-eyed (perhaps even delirious) introduction frames a sprawling body of work by contributors which include Carsten Nicolai, Olia Lialina, Palace, JODI & Debel, Roomservices, a great interview with Annett Zinsmeister and many others. The included projects are not all explicitly architectural but each problematizes space, the city, production and representation in unique ways. Flipping through the issue is an almost kaleidoscopic experience as the scale and context of the work is extremely varied. That said, the programming is really quite excellent and the issue effortlessly weaves contemporary digital art into the fabled "architecture zine" context - something I definitely haven't seen before.

Some of the content I most enjoyed included:

• "Deformography: The Poetics of Cybridised Architecture" by Neil Spiller. Spiller uses this short essay to summarize the last two decades of his experimental architectural practice with loads of left field drawing
• Peter Mörtenböck and Helge Mooshammer contributed a concise index of network paradigms in both geopolitical and cultural contexts through an excerpt from their recent text Networked Cultures - Parallel Architectures and the Politics of Space
• Emanuel Andel and Christian Gützer's Shockbot Corejulio, a large format glitch printer, has been bookmarked for future investigation.

Junk Jet is most definitely a publication to keep an eye on - I hope they continue to explore "thematic" issues with such a strong emphasis on varied, multidisciplinary work.