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 Level: J.V. Martin and the Situationist International (Sternberg Press S.À.R.L., 2014) and Crisis to Insurrection (Minor Compositions, 2015). He has two forthcoming books in English from Zero Books: "After the Great Refusal" and "Trump's Counter-Revolution".

He has published articles about anti-capitalist activism, the revolutionary tradition, and the Situationist International, in journals such as e-flux journal, Multitudes, Rethinking Marxism, Texte zur Kunst, and Third Text. He has co-edited Totalitarian Art and Modernity (Aarhus University Press, 2010, co-edited with Jacob Wamberg), Expect Everything Fear Nothing: The Situationist Movement in Scandinavia and Elsewhere (Autonomedia, 2011, co-edited with Jakob Jakobsen), and Cosmonauts of the Future: Texts from the Situationist Movement in Scandinavia and Elsewhere (Autonomedia, 2015, co-edited with Jakob Jakobsen).

Other recent activities include the exhibition “This World We Must Leave” (made in collaboration with Jakob Jakobsen) at Kunsthall Oslo, Dec. 2016-Jan-2017).

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 Erika becomes infatuated with one her students, the reasonably talented but ultimately basic (to use contemporary parlance) fuckboy Walter Klemmer. Walters own warped sexuality, albeit warped by patriarchal normativity, suddenly presents Erika with the possibility of making her fantasies part of the all too horrendous reality she had always thought herself above. In the end though, Erika has to deal with the actual pain of the pain she has, until now, only desired.

And here to discuss the book are And here to talk about the book scholar of female despair in Literature, Sheri Hellberg, brand new ark volunteer Charlie Cassarino, and as always, the inimitable, Giovanna Alesandro, and your host is Macon Holt

You can read Macon's review of the book here http://arkbooks.dk/the-piano-teacher-by-elfriede-jelinek-ark-audio-book-club-review/

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.