Jungle Juice, the print magazine by the French artists Magali Daniaux and Cédric Pigot in collaboration with Stephanie Boubli is not only a beautiful object for book lovers and fanzine fans, it’s a community, exhibitions, and parties. In contrast to increasingly immaterial digital lives, Jungle Juice emerged as personal passion and free, playful space for expression, each issue being an unchangeable snapshot of a community of artists, writers, photographers, and musicians. A talk with Magali Daniaux and Cédric Pigot
CH: Why a print magazine in the digital age?
Daniaux/Pigot: During the last giant failure of the reactors at the power plant, the whole world was plunged into darkness, and we finally ended up on a floral bench in the moonlight, reading the last issue of Jungle Juice. We have never been excited by the idea of creating an online magazine. Éditions Supernova was founded by three book lovers, micro publication and fanzine fans. Since we don’t belong to the press, we are not really concerned with digitalization. We don’t know if Jungle Juice is really a magazine; to us it’s more like a fanzine or a revue. It’s cheaply printed in black and white, but it has the thickness of a magazine. Everybody now reads the news on their laptop or tablet. We spend a lot of time on social networks, such as Facebook or Twitter. Jungle Juice allows you to be off the grid for a moment and it’s OK. An issue of Jungle Juice is a closed exercise in time. Once printed, you can’t modify or add to it; it’s done. We very much like this idea, each issue as an instantané. It’s another logic; instead of being in front of your laptop, you go to the post office very often to send orders, you meet bookshop owners who are passionate about their job. The distribution process is very interesting for Jungle Juice, especially the free parties and clubs. Stephanie Boubli (co-founder of Éditions Supernova and the main investor) always has some issues in her purse. It’s also a mano a mano process.
CH: When was the idea of Jungle Juice born? What was your desire for the magazine?
MD/CP: The idea of Jungle Juice was born at the same time that we decided to launch our publishing house. It was during winter, 2015. We were in our flat in Rue Vivienne in Paris. Stephanie Boubli was with us and also Manuela de Barros (author of the essay Magie et Technologie published at Éditions Supernova in October 2015). We remember that there was a very happy moment when we tried to find the name of the fanzine. Manuela proposed »Mou,« which means soft or spineless in French. We finally all agreed on Jungle Juice. It’s actually the name of a brand of very famous and strong poppers that sex shops sell under the counter. It smells like banana. Jungle Juice was born from the desire to publish some shorter forms, to unite our community around a project that can include everyone, and the opportunity to mix poetry, photographs, short stories, drawings, articles, interviews, and all kind of UFO matters that we particularly love.
CH: It’s a great mix of art, essays, provocative comics, and trashy horror. What is the mission or vision of Jungle Juice?
MD/CP: In fact, slow down, speed up, scratch, stalling and shifting are part of its many flavors. Jungle Juice is a legal print magazine, erotic, powerful, and challenging. It relaxes the body and thus facilitates pleasure. It stimulates our impulses and diffuses a feeling of intense heat.
CH: Who are the contributors? What are the topics?
MD/CP: Jungle Juice is released every three months, and we share the artistic direction with Stéphanie Boubli. In this way we ourselves handle an issue every six months, and it’s a good timing if you consider all the other activities we all do. When it’s our turn, we do the artistic direction and also the graphic design. Jungle Juice is the perfect pretext to meet authors and artists and plunge into their work. Contributors come from all over the world. We do not decide a theme for each issue, but we do choose the contributors. Then Jungle Juice is a free space; the contribution is up to the contributor. After receiving all the contributions, it’s our work to bring them into a dialogue with each other or not, to build the issue so it makes sense. We like the idea that our readers pass from one topic to another in a disrupted way. Some of the contributors are regulars, such as Yoshi with his night rubric; Pauline Nadrigny and her sharp Atelier d’écoute dedicated to music; poets such as Rosalie Bribes; or our photo novel ARÏ that reached its end in the last issue.
CH: So Jungle Juice is more than a magazine. It’s a community, it’s exhibitions, it’s also your pleasure and friends…
MD/CP: Yes, Jungle Juice boosts our pleasure and that of our contributors and readers, and the community grows. We celebrate each release by organizing an augmented wild hop. This could be an evening at Instants Chavires under the sign of sound poetry, an exhibition at Platform with some readings scheduled, live music, and jam sessions. Éditions Supernova’s community is also closely linked to electronic music, experimental, techno. Some of its fans are also musicians and furious dancers. Jungle Juice is indeed the happy part, friendly, lively, a direct mix of ideas and sensibilities of our publishing house. We’re thinking about setting up an event in Berlin for the release of the next issue, maybe at Motto bookshop.
CH: How is the magazine related to your work as artists?
MD/CP: Well, it’s not. That is the reason why we created it. It’s an other adventure that bring us lot of joy, new experiences, and new thrills. The core team of Éditions Supernova is small, and we all come from different backgrounds and thus complete each other perfectly. Beside the three of us, there is Anna Serra who is developing our sonic editions and the radio show, and Regis Glaas-Togawa our immensely talented graphic designer.