Editorial

Welcome to the pilot issue of Cyclictone, a new collaborative digital magazine that blends writing and the visual arts. To set the mood for this issue, the colour tone selected from the swatch of our imagination is Unfathomable Black, and the theme is Alter Ego.

Taking up the colour and theme as their inspiration, we have asked our contributors to take a torch into the dark labyrinthine caves of the alter ego, and search out the most interesting material they could find.

From an etymological film-noir style investigation of the word doppelganger to an account of how writers are working behind the scenes in the social media, they have worked together to bring critical and insightful views on the life and culture that surround us.

Apart

ART: CHRISTIAN ANDERSSON

The Brighton Belles

CONCEPT: SUSANA RODRIGUEZ

Anonymous Dreams

ART: ENI TURKESHI ~ WORDS: ANONYMOUS

All we have is tucked inside our heads

WORDS: ELEN SHUTE ~ ART: EMMA PETTERSSON

If the uncensored version of your identity exists only inside your head, and nobody else knows your inner workings, does that mean that everyone is essentially an island?

Homunculus

WORDS: JAMES RIESEN ~ ART: EDUARDO BARBOSA

Writers are challenged by social media. Not only are there now numerous immediate platforms on which we have to make what we say unique, there is also the compulsion to say something all of the time – because there are so many people doing the same thing. Making a mark online is difficult from more than the financial perspective, where anything you write can be found on ten blogs and a hundred messageboards – better, delivered and researched with passion, scholastically flawless and immediately published. The profusion of outlets means that people have had to up their games.

Doppelganger, is that you?

WORDS: EDUARDO BARBOSA ~ ART: MONICA SANTOS

A lexical crime has been committed. Double has disappeared without a trace, and a strange look-alike character named Doppelganger has taken on his identity. So uncanny is the likeness that few have noticed anything is amiss, and he walks among us with impunity.

Ammunition For A Dialogue

ART: HUGO SANTOS ~ WORDS: ELEN SHUTE