Even at issue number 21 of zweikommasieben, it remains challenging to identify a common theme among the different contributions gathered in a magazine. What is the “thing” to which we have dedicated ourselves issue after issue?

Over the years, it has become clear that the “thing” that continues to captivate us is in flux, as are its possible definitions. Various contributions to the current issue of this magazine attest to this permanent development, too. And whatever our “thing” might be called or actually might be, the following has become clearer in the recent past: the boundaries separating different artistic practices have been dissolving more and more. Also this second assertion seems to be present again in the interviews and texts present in zweikommasieben #21.

The contributions in the current issue hint a third unifying characteristic of our “thing”: in the context of the developments and the cross-disciplinary thinking, music does not figure largely anymore. More often than not, it is a starting point and stimulus for further thinking rather than anything else. This assertion might seem contradictory coming from a magazine that claims to be devoted to the documentation of contemporary music and sounds. Yet, it does not seem to be problematic for the artists appearing. It no longer seems necessary to have an answer to the question, what function music fulfils within our “thing.” Or what else it might be about. Rather, the nature of our “thing” reveals itself in the work and the talk—and, so we hope, in the act of reading.

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