What is somethingdark?Beauty, they say, is in the eye of the beholder. We here at SomethingDark know what we like, and our appreciation of light and shadow is not what the corporate world and consumer society tell us we should like. We exist to explore creativity, intellect and modern society at their darker boundaries – an open space where art, photography, writing and cultural discourse converge with avant-garde eroticism, fashion… and a touch of something more ambiguous. If, like us, you are attracted by the Sirens of previously unimagined places, if you’re inclined towards the baroque recesses of the mind, a labyrinthine expanse that demands respect, then you’re in the right place. Or there’s McDonald’s. About usSomethingDark is a collaborative project developed by website designer and photographer, Chris Cook, and writer and editor Daryl Champion. The two met in August 2007 when Chris dabbled in fetishism as an extension of his interest in erotic photography; Daryl, then features editor and writer for the London-based, international magazine Skin Two (among others), was already familiar with that alternative world. A shared sense of aesthetics and dissatisfaction with contemporary webmagazines dealing with that unique space where fashion, eroticism, psychology and politics in photography, art and poignant writing overlap, led to the founding of SomethingDark in mid-2008. Our objectivesSomethingDark is a forum for established, rising and entirely new creative talent; our one obsessive constant is the quest for that sublime ground where vision and expertise intersect. We are interested in culture and the creative process, and the resultant meaning and transformative potential of both. Through creative and inquiring processes we seek to probe and understand the complex world around us, and to deal more comprehensively with issues the media–entertainment and popular culture industries spoon-feed to us in incoherent fragments or ignore altogether. SomethingDark is employing cutting-edge website design to combine a traditional print-magazine format with the interactivity and resources of the internet, and, in so doing, is pushing current technologies to their limit. Our goal is to achieve greater value-added functionality and to present the visitor with the best that both the worlds of print and internet have to offer. The result is an accessible magazine that is integrated and cohesive without compromising the dynamism of links both internally and to external sites. Readers and contributors alike continually find this innovative combination of form and function attractive. More detailed information about SDk is contained in the "more What is SDk?” downloadable PDF document, below. In this document we outline our philosophy, our approach to publishing, and details of the technicalities of our site development including a brief explanation of why we opted for HTML over Flash. For a detailed insight on why we chose to produce SDk as an HTML-based online publication and website, please go to our HTML vs. Flash page, or download the PDF below.
Contributing to SDkIf you are considering contributing to SDk, then please visit our Want to Contribute? page.
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