And what should I be doing from now on? 
by Pedro Meyer

                      

If there is one thing that is clear to me is that almost everything around me is changing faster than I can process. This was not always the case. Let see, all of a sudden the entire world seems to have jumped over a financial abyss. It's not like at other times, when one would hear that an economic crisis took place in a specific country; or that of a continent, such as Asia or Latin America, for instance; or in a certain zone, like the euro. Now the entire planet is involved and it all happened in the batting of an eyelash.

This comes to bear because we have come to a point when we no longer are surprised by very much, be that, that the largest car manufacturer in the world, General Motors, has declared bankrupt, or because in Ireland the Catholic Church finds itself mired in yet another sex scandal as those that it has already had in many other parts of the world. We wake up one day, to find we have a world wide outbreak of influenza, or that all our savings are gone due to bank frauds.

But don't think that such frauds are local or on a small scale by some fast talking charlatan, these frauds originated at the very epicenter of world finance: Wall Street, and such abuse heralded by many of its major institutions. If one of the biggest banks in the world, Citibank, can collapse in a matter of a few months, there is little left to surprise us, of what is possible that can occur. [To put things in perspective when in 1995 Mexico, a country of 100 million people, got a bailout, it was to the tune of 20 billion dollars. While Citibank, has received 300 billion from US taxpayers so far, and this is only one bank and the full story has not even ended. — (references)] thus there is little left to surprise us of what might happen when even such erstwhile solid institutions thought to be there forever, simply go bust.

We wake up each day to the news of how new technologies are changing at an ever faster pace. The music industry, cinema, the printed press, publishing industry, television, etc. all without exception have seen their usual operations overturned and they have had to adapt in order to operate differently today.

Just imagine that amidst this ocean of uncertainty, we find ZoneZero after a decade and a half of existence. Aside the questionable merit of just surviving, which in this day and age is no small feat unto itself, when as we have seen literally thousands of online projects have come and gone with the passing of time, we also adapted and changed time and time again, not only the content but also the form in which it was presented. One thing remained constant however, our mission statement? "from analog to digital".

In making an internal review with our staff here at ZoneZero, of what we have accomplished over these years, we concluded that this stage of taking photography from analog to digital, has been mainly accomplished. We believe that ZoneZero did contribute to the dialogue and debate around this topic on a global scale. The question now is, what follows? Much as every young person has to deal with as they grow older, "what should I be doing from now on? "

We are in the process of changing the design yet again, and we would like to invite you to write and tell us your thoughts about where you would like ZoneZero to be heading towards. After all if ZoneZero is to be understood as a community, then such a decision has to involve all of our readers. Share with us your thoughts if you will, in what is our search to find that voice and destiny in these very turbulent and chaotic times.

Pedro Meyer
Mexico City, Coyoacán
June 2009.