This is a photo of my cell phone and the new issue of Apartamento Magazine. Towards the back of this “Everyday life interiors magazine” is an interview i did with Japanese designer Midori Araki called “Use Beyond Function.” Mr. Takeshi Homma shot the photos for this article; he is amiable man and amicable photographer.








I like the idea of Apartamento – a magazine which documents lived interiors (messy homes; rooms and spaces which people actually use and live inside of) as an alternative to the typically affected and sterile presentation of interiors in almost all other interior magazines. But there is a problem here, because even normal life can become an affectation. Im going to write about this briefly below.

There are lots of complex issues embedded into publications like Aparamento; what is an authentic version of “everyday life”, why is a magazine about real, authentic “everyday life” desirable, successful and most confusingly – fashionable? I recently read a paper from 1973 written by Dean MacCannell about the tourist desire for authenticity. He spelled out the process of tourists seeking “real experiences” when traveling. Reading through the paper made me think of Apartamento and other magazines which give readers access to “back regions” (haha) – the hidden “authentic” areas of foreign places – and how those versions of real life might eventually become staged. MacCannell’s 1973 paper makes me wonder about wider definitions of ‘tourist’. It seems ridiculous to think we would want to see a magazine about the mundane and messy aspects of “real life” (has real life become so foreign?), and it seems even more ridiculous to think that such a magazine could become fashionable. Something interesting is going on here, but I don’t really understand what it is. Shots of some key paragraphs from MacCannell’s paper:




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