A couple of years ago, Brian Hieggelke, the editor and publisher of Newcity, traveled to Brazil with his friend Ted Fishman, who was speaking at a summit on globalization. While he was there, Hieggelke realized a few things:
The more he thought about it, the less far-fetched it seemed. “As Newcity became more virtual,” he explains, “I realized we’ve become less tethered to space. You can do your work from anywhere in the world. At the summit on globalization [where Fishman was speaking], a lot of people were talking about globalization as an economic force. We started thinking, what about globalization as a cultural force? São Paulo seemed like a perfect place to test that idea.”
If all goes well, Newcity Brazil may branch out to cover visual arts in other countries, or perhaps other forms of art, such as music and dance, in Brazil. If it fails, he can chalk it up to a not-very-costly adventure.
