Reviewed by Jacob Knowles-Smith Norman Mailer hated television. He distrusted email. He even hated plastic. Marshall McLuhan was probably right, to some extent, to suggest that Mailer had a Victorian attitude towards technology. Other critics, past and present, will probably find sympathy with Mailer’s assertion that man’s relationship with technology is some kind of Faustian […]
100 Artists’ Manifestos – From the Futurists to the Stuckists: Selected by Alex Danchev
Reviewed by Ben Granger 1. The purpose of politics is to inspire art. The only useful thing it has ever achieved When Marshall Brennan argued “The Manifesto is remarkable for its imaginative power… It is the first great modernist work of art”, he referred specifically to The Communist Manifesto of Marx and Engels. While the […]
Christopher Hitchens: Arguably (Atlantic Books)
Reviewed by Jacob Knowles-Smith The critic, wrote H.L. Mencken in his Prejudices, “makes the work of art live for the spectator; he makes the spectator live for the work of art”. If we take this as a fair and desirable definition of a critic; which, Mencken continues, results in “understanding, appreciation, [and] intelligent enjoyment”; then […]
Performance and the Art of Lesley Dill
Lesley Dill’s work begins with language and extends, through many shapes and forms, to the body and the community. Thyrza Nichols Goodeve’s essay ‘Words have Wings that Fly from the Mouths of Others’ (1, see footnotes below) first appeared in the catalogue for Dill’s 2009/2010 retrospective I Heard a Voice. Many thanks to the author […]
Essay: Wistfulness in These Strange Times
For philosophical counselor Andrew Taggart the pace, pressure and squeeze of contemporary life leaves no room for reflection. That necessary disquiet, however, may a more sustainable way to live This morning I awoke in a wistful mood. The birdsong coming through my bedroom window reminded me of something softer and higher but also, and less […]
Caitlin Moran: How To Be a Woman
Bible, manifesto, rant, autobiography, and instruction manual rolled into one. Reviewed by Vikki Littlemore Caitlin Moran’s How To Be a Woman, putting water on the fire of my own year-long hope, is far from a how-to guide to being anything. What it is, essentially, is a reminiscence of a woman’s life, told with an ingeniously […]
Red Heat: Alex Von Tunzelmann
Alex Von Tunzelmann serves up a thrilling take on the Cold War. Reviewed by Vikki Littlemore Notwithstanding the racy title, it’s possible for Alex Von Tunzelmann’s Red Heat, a substantially detailed account of politics in the Caribbean, to appear intimidatingly opaque, or Everest-like, to the non-expert reader. Halfway down the first page, however, the fear […]
On Curling Up In A Ball: Ronald Dworkin: Justice For Hedgehogs
Ronald Dworkin’s latest book attempts to engage with moral truths and the pursuit of a meaningful life. Jacob Knowles-Smith reviews No mention of Professor Dworkin’s latest work, Justice for Hedgehogs, can pass by without the following: “The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing”. So goes the old fable. The hedgehog, […]
The Design of Jonathan Walker’s Five Wounds
Five Wounds is something of a contemporary classic: a manuscript crossed with Kit Williams’ playful imagination, informed by the language of graphic novels. Although very much a book, in the tactile sense, it has half an eye on what a book might be in a digital era. Jonathan Walker, the author of Five Wounds shares […]
Charlie Hill: The Space Between Things
Reviewed by Declan Tan Charlie Hill’s debut novel seems already to have been pigeonholed as a love-story, a certainly tragic one, between its narrator, Arch (a character who has already made appearances on the independent literary scene) and Vee, the counterpoint to Arch’s solipsistic, inward-looking existence. Set in the early 1990s, the novel begins at […]
Positivism and its Discontents: A Sidebar to The Sokal Hoax
An appendix by Jonathan Reynolds, offering some background to the debates that gave rise to The Sokal Hoax For Spike readers who wish to grasp the basics of the modern argument which culminated in the controversy (full article here), a key term and concept to understand is positivism. A positivist stance encapsulates the furthest reach, […]
The Sokal Hoax Fifteen Years Later: A Philosophical Reading of the Controversy
In 1996, the physicist Alan Sokal perpetrated a hoax on the academic journal Social Text intended to text the intellectual rigor of postmodernist thinking. Jonathan Reynolds reassesses the affair Mixing metaphors, celebrating the 15-year anniversary of what still must be considered a total slam dunk in what was called the “science wars” or the “culture […]
The Shape of Sound: Shannon Novak
Sourav Roy interviews New Zealand artist Shannon Novak about the history of synesthesia and how his practice focuses on the relationship between sound, colour, form, time, and social context Just what shade of orange is a hemidemisemiquaver? If you could hear a Mondrian, what would it sound like? The works of Shannon Novak, an emerging […]
The Queerest Of The Queer: What It Means To Be A Queer Punk
Luke Velazquez on the singular experience of the queer punk scene, reflected in the work of sculptor Fernando Carpaneda In our society, people are expected to behave in a certain way. To grow up, go to school, work a soulless dead end job, squirt out a few kids for the good of the commonwealth and […]
A Copenhagen Interpretation: Letter from Denmark
A deceptive visit to the Danish capital brings Kevin Fitzgerald into the orbits of physics, philosophy, politics but no escritoire connected to Kierkegaard 1. In March of this year I was privy to certain communications divulging that the escritoire once owned by the Danish scholar Victor Emerita, famous for his literary collaborations with Søren Kierkegaard, […]
San Pedro on St. George’s Day: Letter From La Paz II
Declan Tan’s second ‘Letter from La Paz’ is a fictional account of a visit to Bolivia’s San Pedro prison “A pint a-Carling yeah and whatever you’re havin’,” a white-spit mouth, mine, chums out familiar to the bar girl. I’m pointing at the tap and reaching my hand out as it pours, my fingers snatching at […]
Route 36: Letter From La Paz
In the first of two ‘Letters from La Paz’, Declan Tan straightens a few myths about Bolivia’s Route 36, “the world’s first cocaine lounge” “Take it out of the bag,” one of them whispers, as a small mountain of Bolivian marching powder unfolds from the wrap. Forming peaks where it piles on the surface, the […]
Repackaged Misogyny: Natasha Walter: Living Dolls
Jacob Knowles-Smith considers whether gender politics have lost their direction and clout through the prism of two recent books Anyone who has even the briefest acquaintance with nightclubs in recent years will have seen girls dressed as Playboy bunnies in almost just their underwear, replete with stockings and suspenders, quite as frequently as one will […]
The IT Impact: Information Technology in the Developing World
Digital and mobile devices can bring huge improvements to the health and lives of the very poorest. Vanessa Zainzinger takes a look at the organisations attempting to bridge the technological divide Last month, the non-profit organisation Worldreader held a video contest. The first price was a trip, but instead of the five star hotel one […]
Spamazon: ebook Junk and Content Farms
As Google tackles the content farms gaming their system, the ebook platform has become the newest territory for ripp-off content. Vanessa Zainzinger talks to Mike Essex, author of an influential post on the topic, about the war on spam Mike Essex has really hit a nerve. One post on UK-based digital marketing agency Koozai’s blog […]
Reflections On An Omnivorous Visualization System: An Interview With Matthew Ritchie
This dialogue between Matthew Ritchie and Thyrza Nichols Goodeve first appeared in the catalogue for the artist’s exhibition Proposition Player, organized by Lynn M. Herbert, December 12, 2003-March 14, 2004, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston in association with Hatje Cantz Publications Many thanks to Thyrza Nichols Goodeve for permission to republish I always thought the best […]
Correspondence: The European Peripheral
A Letter from Malmö by Maria Tonini Some time ago, on a cold Saturday evening, a friend suggested to go and see Momus, the Scottish singer and provocateur, who was holding a gig in the tiny basement room of a popular bar. The room was really, really small, and I had not heard about the […]
Correspondence: Borrowed Memories of Tibet
A Letter to Lhasa by Tsering Norbu In exile you are bound in time with endless knots of history and fate to live in the distant memories of your land and people. Borrowed memories of vast expanses of green pastures where yaks and sheep grazed under the clear turquoise sky where cranes flew with the […]
Gender: Sexual Minorities In India: A Political Issue
A report on the changing nature of sexuality in India by Maria Tonini The status of sexual minorities in today’s India is in a state of transition after homosexual sex was decriminalised in 2009. While the legal judgment can be framed as a move towards a more inclusive and secular society where religious beliefs against […]
Giving and Taking: Arts Funding and Philanthropy
In the wake of this month’s funding announcements by the Arts Council of England, Joseph Spencer offer an American perspective on the philanthropic model for the arts As the arts in Britain undergo significant changes to their funding structures, debates are sparking up as to alternatives that could save the hundreds of galleries, orchestras, theater […]
