Before the web, MARK/SPACE travelled through the post. Contributors sent printed pages and objects; readers received an encounter with other people’s experiments, questions and imagined futures.
The beginnings · circa 1972–73
Charly Jungbauer recalls co-founding MARK/SPACE around 1972–73. His friend H. W. Targowski was the original instigator, and Rufus Camphausen joined soon afterwards. The founding period is a recollection, not an exact date established by these scans.
According to Jungbauer, the name came from an early description of digital technology: mark/space, 0/1. Communication was present in the name from the beginning. The surviving envelope for issue 2 is dated Winter 1974/75; the combined issue 3+4 is dated Spring/Summer 1975.
A publication made by its participants
The first editorial proposes an open exchange between people working across social, scientific and metaphysical experiments. It asks what might become possible when different fields of experience meet, and describes a publication with rotating editors.
The invitation for issue 2 makes participation practical: contributors were asked for 200 already-printed copies, sized to fit an envelope. Photographs, slides, records, comics and other reasonably flat objects were welcome. Contributions could use any language, an invented language, or no language at all.
The envelope was both a publication and a means of exchange. Its folds, handwritten names and individual edition markings remain part of the record.
The questions inside
The editorials place art, consciousness, communication with other species and alternative technology in the same conversation. The invitation for issue 2 asks for material on solar energy and wind power alongside cosmology and experimental ideas.
The writing also brings scientific inquiry together with speculation about extraterrestrial contact and psychic phenomena. These are historical expressions of the contributors’ interests and beliefs; preserving them does not establish their claims as fact.
Read from today, the emphasis on communication, other intelligences and planetary responsibility suggests a connection with ANACHRON’s continuing work. That connection is our present interpretation, distinct from the original editorial voice.
From paper to Anachron City
The later MARK/SPACE website organizes its material as Anachron City: a library, museum, galleries and other buildings provide entrances into a shared information environment. Its homepage lists thematic web installments beginning in July 1995 and displays a last-update date of 11 February 2002.
The original website remains accessible through the button above. It represents a later chapter of MARK/SPACE, following the paper exchange shown here. Its historical pages and links retain their own context.
What survives here
This selection contains eight photographs: covers, backs, two pages of the first editorial and an invitation for issue 2. It does not contain complete copies of the early editions. The first editorial mentions a newspaper article dated 31 May 1974, but the available photographs do not establish an exact publication date for issue 1.
The photographs come from Charly Jungbauer’s collection. Founding details are his recollections shared on 14 September 2026; issue dates and physical descriptions come from the photographed material. Further pages and memories can extend this account without replacing those distinctions.