Mudec United #4 – Snow Crash

MU – MUDEC United is the annual publication of the Museum of Cultures in Milan, dedicated to exploring the themes addressed in the exhibitions organized by the museum. The fourth issue of MU, “Snow Crash”, to be released in May 2026, opens up to the theme of snow, considered through the possibility of its extinction, its biomorphic transformation, and its resonance within both the collective and individual spheres.

The issue takes its title from Neal Stephenson’s 1994 novel of the same name, which described, far more accurately than could have been imagined at the time the state of the world today. “As if the 1990s were,” explains Carlo Antonelli, editorial director of MU, “a terrain in which the transformations of the human condition were – certainly not by chance – hidden beneath a blanket of snow that later melted after 9/11. The new climatic era, with the disappearance of snow and the shrinking of glaciers, is only a starting point. And the Lynchian ‘television snow’ of the last century has become the visual snow (‘snow vision,’ technically speaking) now affecting the residual clarity of our eyesight, saturated by the millions of images that have flooded our eyes for decades up to the present day. Science fiction books and films were the only ones capable of understanding the real future scenario, as usual. Everyone eventually reached the conclusion that, deep down, we no longer want to fully understand what is happening. After all, we enjoy remaining in this cognitive fog (‘brain fog,’ or therefore ‘snow fog’), and we are beginning to love this sort of snow-covered brain. It is a mode of survival, for as long as possible.

Hence the two covers, both intentionally connected to the art of the 1980s and 1990s, which is strongly present throughout the issue: Snowman (1987/2016) by Peter Fischli and David Weiss, the snowman preserved under a glass case; and Fin de Siècle (1990) by General Idea, a masterpiece on the extinction of the LGBTQ+ community.”

The issue also includes contributions by: Chiara Barzini, Andrew Berardini, Björk, Mark Borthwick (with a special project), AA Bronson, Tommaso Calarco, Federico Campagna, Pierpaolo Caputo, Abby Chen, Massimo De Carlo, Elena Filipovic, Peter Fischli, Elisa Giuliano, David Hammons, Tim Ingold, Katya Inozemtseva, Saodat Ismailova, Summer Mei-Ling Lee, Andrea Lissoni, Ari Marcopoulos (with a special project), Chus Martinez, Alessandro Oldani, Philippe Parreno, Telmo Pievani, Paola Pivi, Sara Rizzo, Edoardo Sanguineti, Chiharu Shiota, Andrea Staid, Neal Stephenson, Bruce Sterling, Patricia Urquiola, and Enrico Vanzina.