Vol 2 No 2 | Spring 2021

Letters from the Editors

My role at Bait/Switch over the years has been hard to define succinctly. Semi-frequent contributor, short-lived podcast cohost, sounding board, guinea pig emeritus. During the topsy-turvy 2020, I doubled down on my dedication to art and artists, which expanded and streamlined my position at this project. That division of labor also allowed Bait/Switch to grow more than ever before, most recently culminating in this, our first foray into a print periodical.

Finding myself in the position of Art Director is somewhat of a dream come true for me. In a sense, I have worked my way up from entry level and am now helping to run the show, which is a pretty singular experience here. Now, not only am I able to submit art when we need a pinch-hitter, but I also get to recruit and corral the creators and ask them questions about how their brains work. Having watched the evolution of this wild beast, as well as having participated in so many ways, has put me in a unique position to understand the experience from all sides. While it can be hard to concisely explain the mechanics of Bait/Switch, from where I stand it’s simple and beautiful. It’s a game. And we document the players and their moves, because they are what actually make the game happen. Charades with no players is just a quiet living room with a cat sleeping on the back of a sofa. Not much to report. Our players do what they do, rub their imaginations together, and we geek out about the result and share it with the world.

Lu and I make a great team. They are the visionary, always looking to innovate, expand, improve, agitate. I’m the worrier, the practical one who asks questions about logistics and sniffs out potential obstacles. That dynamic has served us well and will continue to bring you a juicier, stranger, more interactive Bait/Switch this year and beyond. Let’s do this.

Cheers,

Happy Spring to our beloved community! I am beyond elated to be presenting this issue to you. Since the idea for Bait/Switch first appeared in a brainstorming session between me and the composer Kai-Ching Chang many years ago, becoming a print magazine has always felt like somewhat of a pipe dream. The fact that a physical object called Bait/Switch Magazine exists is further proof to me that anything is possible.

Through this marvelous interdisciplinary game of telephone, we have the experience of delivering prompts to artists. As I have said in the past, it often seems that Bait/Switch is also delivering prompts to me, as the Executive Director. Much like the other artists involved in this project, these prompts call on me to face my imposter syndrome, wade through the muck of self-doubt, and respond to the best of my ability with limited time. Putting together this print edition has been a massive challenge, and I feel honored to have been able to heed the call.

The theme of this edition is Emerge. All of the artworks in this collection touch on this theme in one way or another. Turtles coming out of their shells. Things growing. People coming into their own on many different levels. Patterns coming together out of the incessant noise of the universe. As always, this theme is a potent sign of the time. People everywhere are beginning to stir after the long pandemic year that sent so many of us into cocoons of some kind.

This edition also marks another exciting transition, with Cody taking on the role of Art Director and becoming the editor of the Cyan branch. This development has already allowed us to grow so much, and I am psyched to see where we’ll go next. The more voices, viewpoints, and modalities we can hold in this corpus, the more wondrous it becomes. To quote Nick Drake, I’ve never felt magic as crazy as this. And, I might add, that’s really saying something.

Stay strong, stay present, and stay awesome,

Map of Works in This Issue

Bait/Switch is an interdisciplinary exquisite corpse project. Every work is a creative response to a piece made by another artist. The project is divided into three branches- cyan, magenta and yellow. This map/diagram shows how the works in this issue fit together, and what came before. You can see the entire corpus on our maps page.