Ark Audio

This Month, the Ark Audio Book Club discuss Ottessa Moshfegh's second novel, "My Year of Rest and Relaxation". The novel is the story of an attractive, wealthy young woman whose feelings of disaffection, alienation and nihilism, not to mention old fashioned familial trauma, are so overwhelming she decides she needs to sleep for a year. It's the end of the year 2000 in New York and unbeknownst to everyone, the world in which this makes sense is coming to an end. This month on the panel are Ebba Wester and Giovanna Alesandro with your host Macon Holt. They are spoiling from the start.

In the final ark audio book club of 2018, the Ark Audio Book Club Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard's advice on how to get out of a relationship without dumping anyone, "Repetition". But this short philosophical novella has so much more to say about the (im)possibility of consistency and identity in a world that is too interesting to stay the same. This month on the panel are Charlie Cassarino, Sheri Helberg, Macon Holt, and your host is Giovanna Alessandro

This month, the ark audio book club discuss Virginia Woolf's classic modernist novel of gender shifting, genre defying, identity questioning, time warping, language inventing and form defining, "Orlando: A Biography". Featuring Frederikke Nøhr Hemmingsen Josephine Lund Leviné and hosted by Macon Holt.

Here is the audio from our evening of conversation with art historian and cultural critic Mikkel Bolt Rasmussen to mark the release of his new collection of essays, "After the Great Refusal". "After the Great Refusal" offers a Western-Marxist reading of contemporary art focusing on the continued presence (or absence) of the avant-garde’s transgressive impulse. Taking art’s ability to contribute to a potential radical social transformation as its point of departure, Mikkel Bolt Rasmussen analyses the relationship between the current neoliberal hegemony and contemporary art, including relational aesthetics and interventionist art, new institutionalism and post-modern architecture. Mikkel Bolt Rassmusen is an art historian and cultural critic. He is Associate Professor at the Department of Arts and Cultural Studies, University of Copenhagen, and is co-editor of the journals K&K and Mr. Antipyrine. He is the author of many books in Danish and two previous books in English: Playmates and Playboys at a Higher Le

This month on the Ark Audio Book Club, we discuss the first novel in Rachel Cusk's Outline Trilogy, "Outline". This is a novel in 10 conversations between out narrator Faye, a recently divorced 50-something writer and those she meets on her trip to Greece to teach creative writing. Faye is almost absent from that narrative, the only real sense we have of her is how she assesses the narratives of those she speaks with, which may be more revealing than she intends it to be. This month features Charlie Cassarino, Sheri Helberg and Macon Holt with host Giovanna Alesandro.

This month on the Ark Audio Book Club we discussed the Nobel Prize-winning author Elfriede Jelinek’s disturbing 1983 novel of repression desire and violence, The Piano Teacher. The novel tells the story of Erika Kohut, a talented one-time concert pianist in Vienna who, due to a couple of key performance failures (although arguably the cause of these run deeper), has been relegated to a career as a piano teacher for elite students. Erika is in a codependent abusive relationship with her Mother, with whom she lives and shares a bed. Her Mother tries to control as much of Erika’s life as possible; from the clothes she buys and the hours she is allowed to be out of the house, to the complete prohibition on romantic relationships with men. But Erika sneaks out behind her mothers back to engage in acts of pornographic voyeurism, secretly harbouring sadomasochistic desires that, while they wouldn’t make the Marquis de Sade blush, are certainly enough for him to give Erika the time of day. Things begin to escalate as

On this episode of the Ark Audio book club, we talk about Gio's new favorite book: The Necrophiliac by Gabrielle Wittkop. Written in 1972 but not translated into English until 2011, it's a very short book about a necrophiliac in Paris. Only in France, right? By day he deals antiques and by night he digs up dead folks and does what necrophiliacs do…Around the table is Macon Holt, Ebba Wester, Neus Casanova Vico and, your host, Giovanna Alesandro

This month on the ark attempt to talk about Yoko Tawada's novel "Memoirs of a Polar Bear" but have real trouble doing so. And while none of them can recommend this books there are a bunch they'd like to recommend instead. Sarah would suggest "Lincoln on the Bardo" by George Saunders, Nina would recommend "Aristotle on Female Animals: A Study of the Generation of Animals" Sophia M. Connell Macon is reading the collected writings of Nick Land, "Fanged Numena" and Giovanna recommends "The Necrophiliac" by Gabrielle Wittkop, which is the book for next month.

Intro: Hello and welcome to the Ark Audio Review – the podcast where we talk about the Ark Book’s online literary and cultural journal. I am your co-host Nina Bang and in this mini episode we hope to wet your appetite ahead of the first installment of the upcoming street party Lyse Nætter a.k.a BRIGHT NIGHTS! Ebba Wester and I have interviewed Ditte Nesdam Madsen who is the co-founder of the new literary platform Terrapolis. Stay tuned for a weird and wonderful discussion about a new Donna Haraway inspired exhibition space for text-based art …

This month's theme on the Ark Audio Review is migration. Nina and Stine talk to Franek Korbanski about his interview with Polish co-founders and longtime director of The Borderland Foundation, Krzysztof Czyżewski. And Nina talks with Şilan Deniz Teyhani about her book recommendations ahead of the launch of Trampoline House's new journal, The T House Times.

Completing a run of three years, this month the Ark Audio Book Club crew have read "Torpor" by Chris Kraus, the final part of the "I Love Dick" Trilogy. Set in 1991, three years before the events of I Love Dick, Torpor follows Sylvie and Jarome, characters with names borrowed from Georges Perec’s Things: A Story of the 60s, which cannot be read as anything but pseudonyms for Chris and Sylvère, on an ill-fated journey to Romania in the vain hope that they can somehow adopt a baby, despite the fact that post-revolution, Romania has banned all adoption. The journey actually takes them to the heart of the compromises and traumas upon which their relationship is built, leaving them with no hope of a simple happily-ever-after together but maybe a stronger sense of how to go on living. Featuring Macon Holt, Sarah Ommannney, Neus Casanova Vico and Giovanna Alesandro. You can read Macon's review here http://arkbooks.dk/book-review-torpor-by-chris-kraus/

ark books is proud to present a conversation on sensing, listening and sound, based on the new book from, University of Copenhagen professor of musicology and sound studies, Holger Schulze, The Sonic Persona: An Anthropology of Sound. In The Sonic Persona, Holger Schulze undertakes a critical study of some of the most influential studies in sound since the 19th century in the natural sciences, the engineering sciences, and in media theory, confronting them with contemporary artistic practices, with experimental critique, and with disturbing sonic experiences. From Hermann von Helmholtz to Miley Cyrus, from FLUXUS to the Arab Spring, from Wavefield Synthesis to otoacoustic emissions, from premillennial clubculture to postdemocratic authoritarianism, from signal processing to human echolocation: This book presents a fundamental critique concerning recent sound theories and their anthropological concepts – and proposes an alternate, a more plastic, a visceral framework for research in the field of a cultural

This month on the Ark Audio Review, the team talk to Simon Fern about pigeons, Ebba talks about the new documentary "Dreaming Murakami", and Neus Casanova Vico talks about the new Ark Review column "Translation Tuesday", in which she and Sheri Helberg translate new Nordic literature into Spanish and English.

This month on the Ark Audio Review, the team talk to Simon Fern about pigeons, Ebba talks about the new documentary "Dreaming Murakami", and Neus Casanova Vico talks about the new Ark Review column "Translation Tuesday", in which she and Sheri Helberg translate new Nordic literature into Spanish and English.

Inherent Vice (2009) is a shaggy dog story about a hippy private investigator, Lawrence “Doc” Sportello, living in L.A. at the tail end of the 1960s (which I think could really mean up until 1974ish). One night, his “ex-old-lady”, Shasta Fay Hepworth, comes around looking for help to stop the kidnapping of the billionaire land developer she’s been having an affair with, Mickey Wolfmann. This sends Doc into a world of drug-fuelled conspiracies involving a cartel/dental syndicate/schooner called “The Golden Fang”, FBI and police corruption, Neo-Nazis and reactionary anti-hippy conservatives, junkies, prostitutes, mystics and an undead saxophonist. By the end of the novel, we are still left wondering what has transpired. Some characters are a little better off, others are worse… or worse. And we are uncomfortably left to ponder the remark of one character that “in the end, nothing really ends”. Featuring Franek Korbanski, Emilie Bang- Jensen, Sheri Helberg and hosted and produced by Macon Holt. Macon's "review"

Xenofeminism in Copenhagen thanks to the team from kbh læser. Also a big thanks to all our collaborators, Diann Bauer, Martin Hauberg-Lund, Rebecca W. B. Lund, Eksistensfilosofisk Akademi, Passive/Aggressive, Sorte Firkant for the venue and for the financial support from Nørrebro Lokaludvalg. For more info on XF and the video Diann plays in her presentation click this http://arkbooks.dk/what-is-xenofeminism/

In this bonus episode of the Ark Audio Review, Macon Holt interviews literary scholar Mikkel Frantzen about his thesis, "Going nowhere, slow­‐ scenes of depression in contemporary literature and culture". This was recroded back in December.

The Ark Audio Review returns with a brand new team, Nina Band, Anne Kristin Kristiansen and Ebba Wester. This month we are looking at the theme of this year's KBH Læser festival, Manifesto. With guests Simon Fern, Franek Korbanski, Macon Holt and Sheikha Gross.

If you think you are disqualified from listening to this tape, you are. Such is the nature of suspicion. You are judged by your words, and your words are themselves judged. Turn on, tune in and drop dead as Senyora Psicosi and her two callers (is she hearing double?) play a game that Jonathan Franzen is not invited to join.

Sheila Heti's intentionally "ugly" novel of creative anxiety and ethical quandary, "How Should a Person Be?" If this wets your whistle, you can hear more about the book tomorrow on the Ark Audio Book Club podcast, or just swing by the store and pick up a copy.