No, this 21C really is descended from the original 21C (which in turn was descended from a late-1980s newsletter released by Barry Jones's long defunct Committee for the Future). Alex Burns of disinfo.com gave me the whole turgid story once, but I forget the details.
Really? Hmm. They don't seem to mention their mythic origins in the "about" page.
"We are proposing the relaunch of the successful Australian magazine 21C."
Let me clarify this: After Gordon & Breach ended their funding for 21.C in early 1998, publisher/editor Ashley Crawford went onto a stint with the New York-based magazine Artbyte (amongst other projects) and I became Disinfo.com's editor at the invitation of cofounders Richard Metzger and Gary Baddeley. Crawford and I have continued discussing several potential magazine proposals, including a revamped 21.C. He wrote a proposal, and discussed it with DJ Spooky, Mark Dery, and several others. During this time DJ Spooky registered the domain 21cmagazine.com. The "about" page quotes from Crawford's proposal document. Roy Christopher, who edits FrontWheelDrive.com, also read the 21.C anthology "Transit Lounge", and became involved in the project. DJ Spooky and Roy Christopher have taken the project in a different direction---very much the mixology influence of their own work. It's a creative outlet with some interesting things to say, and we wish them good luck. But it's not a 'relaunch' in the classic sense of th
But it's not a 'relaunch' in the classic sense of the word, as different people are involved to the original team, and have their own vision. Another perspective is offered by Australian Foresight Institute professor Richard Slaughter in his essay "Lessons from the Australian Commission for the Future": http://www.foresightinternational.com.au/07resources/Lessons_of_CFF.pdf
hasn't been updated in six months either.. hopefully it doesn't fall into oblivion like the thresher http://www.thethresher.com/
otoh, blackboxmagazine looks promising!
http://www.blackboxmagazine.com/
and there's always bad subjects :)
http://eserver.org/bs/
Actually, it's not the same 21C. This one's been instigated by DJ Spooky. And I blogged it six months ago.
http://grudnuk.com/vm/arch/2002_07_17.html