‘Tomorrow is too late’, but perhaps today is already late: taking care of an increasingly sick world is now indispensable. In the environment that we live in, and that we are making increasingly inhospitable, even if belatedly understood there are ways to correct our carelessness and indifference, but they require more and more careful behaviour and to be practised with increasing urgency.
Such behaviours can also be pursued with the contribution of culture and science by directing ideas, suggestions, projects, and products. In particular, visual culture and graphic sciences must support research aimed at defining the most appropriate expressive ways to meet the needs, that is, the forms of an ‘emergency’ drawing characterized by content that cannot be deferred, at a small and large scale: from the denunciation of notoriously dramatic realities to the intuition of immediately applicable solutions.
On the one hand, the urgency could be the engine of representation and, on the other, the guarantee of its application speed. In both cases, the speed of the transition from the image to the communication or the intervention can be a stimulus to the realization of the result. ‘Urgent’ drawings have multiple declinations but a common potential: they quickly become actions and works, and, in a short time, they translate into operational choices the reflections on the present age and the programs conceived for the planet and humanity.
It is the unamendable reality of the world facts, dictated by nature or civilization, which imposes the urgencies that even drawing should confront itself with, through the interpretation and simulation of proposals pursuing the common good. We need to ask ourselves whether ‘urgent’ drawing requires or not the deepening, or simply the recovery, of theoretical areas and specific operational tools, even distant from the practices that ‘seasonally’ characterize field studies as a tradition of the school, as a technological novelty or other. There are few main issues. Among the visual models we are creating these days, how many respond to the current existential needs? How many adhere to the actual conditions of our lives? How many transmit truths as a way out of crises? How many respect those criteria of ‘adequacy’ and ‘opportunities’ capable of involving hearts and minds to commit themselves to shared progress?
THE JOURNAL ISSUE WELCOMES PAPERS BY INVITATION
THOSE WISHING TO PARTICIPATE IN THE CALL CAN FOLLOW THESE INSTRUCTIONS
July 24, 2023: abstract submission
Text in the author’s native language (maximum 2,000 characters including spaces and avoiding notes to the text), an image with caption and related credits. The Scientific Committee and the Editorial Board evaluate and select the proposals based on thematic importance and meaningful clarity criteria.
July 31, 2023: notification of the abstract acceptance (or rejection)
September 4, 2023: full paper submission (in the author’s native language)
Complete text with abstract and any notes (15,000‒30,000 characters including spaces), 8‒15 images with captions and related credits (one image every 2,000 characters) chosen for their specific expressive originality. The editorial review precedes the scientific one as a preliminary quality assessment. Then the papers are submitted to the double-blind peer review by recognized experts, who have the task of verifying the scientific contents.
September 25, 2023: notification of the paper reception (or non-reception) / request for additional notes
October 23, 2023: final paper submission (in English and the author’s native language)
Full text in the author’s native language updated on the basis of the results of the scientific review, text in English conforming to the definitive version in the mother tongue.
All the proposals have to be drawn up in compliance with the publishing standards and based on the text templates published both on the XYdigitale website and on the OJS platform, where the editorial and scientific review form is also available. All the proposals have to be submitted by using the OJS platform available here following the instructions for submission (you need to create an account if you do not have one already). If you have any problems, write to info@xydigitale.it.
CALL FOR THE COVER IMAGE – Deadline September 4, 2023
With obvious or allusive reference to the topic ‘Urgency Drawings’, the journal invites interested people to submit a proposal for the cover images (info@xydigitale.it). The Editorial Board will anonymously transmit all the submitted images to the Scientific Committee and the Scientific Review Committee. The image that receives the most preference will be published on the cover, while the others will be used on the journal pages. Each image (vertical .jpg, base 15 cm, 600 dpi, not exceeding 10 Mb) must be accompanied by an illustrative caption (.doc/.odt, about 500 characters) that includes the name of the proposer as well as the credits of the image (author, title, year, technique and references).
