Tank Magazine Podcast: Recent Episodes
Tank Magazine
A weekly podcast of arts, fashion, politics, science and literature from the pages, contributors and editors of Tank Magazine.
“Love is impossible as long as it is attached to physical, emotional and economic safety...”
In this week's TANK Podcast, Caroline Issa decodes Simone de Beauvoir's classic of feminist philosophy, The Second Sex. Assessing anthropology, history and biology, de Beauvoir illustrates the mechanisms of female oppression over two millennia.
“It's possible to be a feminist and a Freudian...”
In this week's TANK Podcast, Holly Stevenson and Rosie Gibbens discuss Hans Richter's seminal surrealist masterpiece Dreams that Money Can Buy, a dreamy and deeply strange dadaist romp directed by some of the luminaries of the 1940s avant garde.
“The East, in need of 'civilising', became a fertile ground for colonial ventures...”
In this week's TANK Podcast, Caroline Issa assesses Edward Said's enduring 1978 book Orientalism, a treatise into the imperialist attitudes underpinning Western conceptions of the East.
“What Not to Wear presented the bleak truth of fashion as something eternally wedged as somewhere between self-hate and self-worship...”
In this week's TANK Podcast, Dal Chodha reads from 'You gotta keep your head straight about clothes', a consideration of 'Cheap Chic', one of the first consumer guides to thrift shopping. Written in the 1970s, the acerbic advice given in the guide sees contemporary manifestations in the camp absurdity of 'What Not to Wear'.
“I lost my virginity to Hastings beach...”
In this week's TANK Podcast, director Andrew Kotting and flaneur John Rogers discuss Kotting's foundational film 'Gallivant', a psychogeographic romp across this strange island we call home. Made on a shoestring budget, 'Gallivant' follows Kotting, his grandmother Gladys and his disabled daughter Eden on a unique road trip across the coasts of Britain, meeting farmers, fishermen and folklore along the way.
“International law has become the exception rather than the rule in defining the actions of states today...”
In this week's TANK Podcast, Faisal Devji discusses the new geopolitical paradigm emerging in the wake of the Gaza conflict. This podcast was recorded in November 2023.
“Critical art is not the adversary of art financialisation; it is its essential alibi. The more radical the art, the better the alibi. Win-win.”
In this week's TANK podcast, Benjamin Bratton reads from his article “Not Right Now”, a critique on the art-making paradigm of subjectivity-as-format and the bloated art speak he christens “International Art English”.
“I am filled with a deep sense of well-being as I watch a hillside stone tumble down the slope and think of the other people or small animals who have watched the same stones over incalculable seasons.”
In this week's TANK Podcast, Jan-Peter Westad reads “Above the Clouds of Endagin”, taken from the Winter 2023 issue of TANK. In the piece, Westad pays a visit to the Kulm hotel in St. Moritz, Switzerland, high in the Alps and where Friedrich Nietzsche arrived at his theory of eternal recurrence.
“These are the ways I like mustard: scraped onto bread to save a boring sandwich; slapped onto salt beef; a scoop on the side of my plate, to be swiped at with a sausage; as the basis for a hearty, wine-filled sauce.”
In this week's TANK Podcast, Hester van Hensbergen reads from her piece “Spice up your life”, a paean to the joys of mustard and its storied history in the city of Dijon.
“Oh well, he thinks, at least I drank and laughed. Oh well, he thinks, at least I did a little bit of fucking, and it was good.”
In this week's TANK podcast, A.K. Blakemore reads from “The Glutton”, her vivid, disquieting depiction of Tarrare, a French peasant famed for his insatiable hunger.
“People should not be deterred or afraid, because their rights are heavily protected by legislation...”
In this week's TANK Podcast, Giovanni Fassina, executive director of the European Legal Support Centre, discusses how to ensure your rights are being protected while protesting.
“As far as wealth is inextricable with social organisation, it will infuse the individual on the very essential level on his sense of self...”
In this week's TANK podcast, Caroline Issa reads and decodes Thorstein Veblen's The Theory of the Leisure Class, a treatise on consumerism and the emergent concept of conspicuous consumption.
“I'm interested in a form of something almost like exhaustion...”
In this week's TANK Podcast, Stephanie Sy-Quia speaks to poet Bhanu Kapil on the siren call of the archive and the rituals that inform writing.
“It's about talent, first and foremost...”
In this week's TANK podcast, Arnaud Carrez, Senior Vice President of Cartier discusses the jewellery maison's proud heritage and recent artistic collaborations.
“You have a sense of vibration when you use cardboard...”
In this week's TANK Podcast, artist Eva Jospin discusses her collaboration with the champagne house Ruinart as part of their Carte Blanche program, a series of artworks and immersive environments made entirely out of cardboard.
“Before her husband died and her house burned down, Bicycle Jenny worked at Crocker's, the slaughtering plant...”
In this week's TANK Podcast, Kathryn Scanlan reads from her haunting and vivid novel Kick the Latch, based on a series of interviews with Sonia, a horse trainer from Iowa.
“I wanted my melancholy atypical, non-conformist, kinky...”
In this week's TANK podcast, Anaheed Nersessian reads from her book Keats's Odes: A Lover's Discourse, both an exhaustive work of literary criticism and a love letter to the Romantic Poet.
“I couldn't believe she'd been that ill-tempered, so steadfast in her refusal to please people. Maybe I loved her after all...”
In this week's TANK podcast, Nicole Flattery reads from Nothing Special, her coming-of-age novel set in 1960s New York.
“The country is becoming a site of extremes...”
In this week's TANK podcast, Mohsen Mostafavi discusses his new book Sharing Tokyo, an erudite collection of essays on Tokyo as a shared architectural space.
“I found myself humming an Olivia Rodrigo song...”
Oscar-winning composer Justin Hurwitz discusses his nearly two-decade career composing alongside director Damien Chazelle. This interview was hosted at the 2023 Venice Film Festival, in collaboration with Cartier.
“People were admitted to asylums for politics, novel reading, hatred of spouse...”
In this week's TANK podcast, Micha Frazer-Carroll discusses her new book Mad World, published by Pluto Press. Mad World investigates the ways in which mental health goes beyond the personal, connected – sometimes obliquely – to systems of medicine, culture and capitalism. This talk was taken from a talk hosted by Pluto at the TANK Reading Rooms.
“The alignment of political actors has changed to a degree that it is now no longer possible to continue the liberal mode of Palestinian politics...”
In this week's TANK Podcast, recorded the day after Hamas launched their attack on Israel, Faisal Devji discusses the Palestine question in conjunction with wider geopolitical transformations.
“I wanted the title to make people feel something, and I wanted it to feel bad...”
Bratty, bright and magisterial, the new album by L'Rain (real name: Taja Cheek) I Killed Your Dog is a bold next step for the New York-based artist. With a faintly diabolical undertone that is perfectly attuned to our insurgent apocalypse, L'Rain continues to refine her artful blend of ambient, R&B and psychedelia, whilst introducing new shades of crunchy rock and wistful folk music. In this week's TANK Podcast, Matteo Pini spoke to L'Rain about early synthesisers, running out of time and the canicide of the album's title.
"Intelligences tend to have very narrow applications."
In this week's TANK podcast, AI researcher Ali Eslami speaks to Caroline Issa on the potentials and pitfalls of AI and the brave new world it will usher in.
“I wish to give freely or to sell...”
In this week's TANK podcast, Sophia Giovannitti reads from her book Working Girl, a frank account of her own experiences with sex work and the art marketplace. In the passage, she uses Marina Abramović's work as a jumping-off point for a wider consideration of bodily autonomy in the gig economy era.
“How are we to understand the similarity of aspiration which characterises both the refugees and the billionaires who were on the submersible?”
Welcome to the TANK podcast. In this week's episode, Oxford professor Faisal Devji reflects on the media reaction to two recent maritime accidents, and it tells us about Western perspectives on class, ethnicity and aspiration.
“The Chinese don't really need or want incursion on Indian territory...”
In this week's TANK podcast, Oxford professor Faisal Devji discusses Indian-American relations in the wake of Modi and Biden's recent meeting, and the impact it will have on Chinese diplomacy.
“Aestheticisation is a bid for the virtual to feel actual...”
In this week's TANK podcast, Matteo Pini reads an excerpt from his piece on BookTok, featured in the Summer Reader. The trend towards decorating books is nothing new, but on BookTok, readers take aestheticisation to a curious new level.
In this week's TANK podcast, Gboyega Odubanjo reads three poems from his forthcoming poetry collection Adam, which considers civic identity, gentrification and diasporic masculinities.
“The only way discontinuity happens is through the birth of an ego.”
In this week's TANK podcast, Gary Zhexi Zhang, Sougwen Chung and Asad Raza discuss the legacy of Gaia theory, synthetic intelligence and how technology inevitably decentres the human. This conversation was held at the As Above, So Below event hosted by Ignota Books at the Science Gallery, of which TANK was an official media partner.
“The whole of the living world is embedded in fluid networks of some kind of communication...”
In this week's TANK podcast, Gaia Vince, Edna Bonhomme, Daisy Hildyard and Merlin Sheldrake discuss the ways in which Gaia theory has influenced their respective practices. This conversation was held at the As Above, So Below event hosted by Ignota Books at the Science Gallery.
“The logic of the top-down bureaucratic structure that characterizes nation states is breaking down...”
In this week's TANK podcast, in the wake of the Wagner Group rebellion, Faisal Devji considers the increasing use of contractors and mercenaries within global conflict.
“If you're not having a nervous breakdown on this planet at the moment, you're mad...”
In this episode of the TANK podcast, Mark Rylance discussed his transatlantic upbringing, Jeremy Corbyn and his new role in Inland, a micro-budget debut feature directed by Fridtjof Ryder, who was only 20 at the time of production.
“The solution to our predicaments isn't finally finding the one perfect and truthful news source but realising that such a source is inside us all."
In this week's TANK podcast, Caroline Issa reads from the editor's letter of the 2023 Summer Reader, on the Iranian revolution, AI and why the centre is no longer holding.
“... the forest becomes an entity and an organism that is partly the mother, partly something else ...”
Fridtjof Ryder is the director of Inland, which recently saw a nationwide release. A bewitching fairy tale set in Ryder's homeland of Gloucester, the film was shot when the director was only 20. TANK assistant editor Nell Whittaker recently sat down with Ryder to discuss changeling myths and the limitations of English folklore.
"They don't like it that you, not just as a Black person, but a Black person with a certain kind of politics, occupies a certain kind of space. And the moment you get the adjective wrong then they're on you."
In this episode of the TANK podcast, Masoud Golsorkhi talks to Gary Younge about his new book Dispatches from the Diaspora, a collection of essays from Younge's 30-year career as a journalist and broadcaster.
"In the context of diminishing spaces for criticism, the soaring price of paper, and an incipient AI revolution, we have sought to understand the art and business of books."
For the first time since 2015, TANK has revamped the Summer Reader. In this week's podcast, our resident voiceover artist Tina explains why, and what to expect from the issue, available now in all good newsagents.
"Sanctions...refuse to distinguish between war and peace."
In this week's episode, we spoke again to Faisal Devji, a historian and professor at the University of Oxford, on why neutrality as a mode of international relations is making a most welcomed return.
"What happens in civil wars is they are never resolved..."
In this episode of the TANK podcast, we spoke again to Faisal Devji, a historian and professor at the University of Oxford, on why civil war has become the predominant form of conflict marring geopolitics today.
"Is it not ridiculous that where you went to school has an impact on people 20, 30 years down the line?"
As the gap in funding between state and private school pupils grows wider, the entrenchment of the private school system within British culture becomes ever incompatible with democracy. In this episode of the TANK podcast, editorial assistant Matteo Pini talks with Paul Turner of Integrate Private Schools, previously known as Abolish Eton. The pair discuss the movement's complicated relationship with the Labour Party and how private schools represent a continuation of the British colonial project.
"If craft is not literal reproduction, can it also change the nature of social reproduction? It's a big ask to expect a kitting needle to puncture a government..."
In this week's TANK podcast, Joanna Walsh reads from her piece "Craft in the digital age", which considers the myriad interweavings between craft, capitalism and modern technology.
"I may be able to trick some people into thinking I'm human..."
In this week's TANK podcast, Tina reads from our interview with our favourite robot overlord ChatGPT, discussing autonomy, how machine learning works and the murky future of AI.
"Science fiction fantasy allows for the kind of storytelling that can elaborate on and extrapolate from the increasingly bizarre reality we hold in common."
In this week's TANK podcast, Olivia Erlanger reads her piece 'The fantastic real', an account of how science fiction fantasy has influenced her artistic practice.
"Drunk client was getting slightly drunker than usual at one of our lunches when he decided that we had to go to one of the city's ritziest strip clubs..."
In this week's TANK podcast, Charlotte Shane reads from her memoir Prostitute Laundry, a thoughtful account of the pleasures and pains of sex work.
"Never before has what is most intimately one’s own been so readily available as the object of others’ knowledge."
Paul Franz reads from his piece "Yesterday this day's madness did prepare", which investigates the representation of time, memory and research in Terry Gilliam's 1995 sci-fi noir.
“It wasn’t all perfect in the 1960s, but there was a genuine debate about ideas”
Jeremy Corbyn on school, his vision for a National Education Service and the learning opportunities within industrial action.
"It is unadmitted grappling with the history of Empire that is informing the discourse and the narrative of the European Right, and not the story of fascism..."
Faisal Devji, a historian and professor at the University of Oxford, on the European Right, its relationship to colonialism and race, and its future on the political stage.
“In novels, very often we hear about an evening or an afternoon that changes the character’s life forever... actually, some of the big changes in life happen not suddenly, but very gradually.”
Geoff Dyer reads from The Last Days of Roger Federer: And Other Endings (Canongate, 2022), his paen to conclusions, endings and exits by way of Bob Dylan, Jean Rhys, Friedrich Nietzsche, J.M.W. Turner and the Disintegration Tapes.
“The demotion of movies comes at a time when the world, in reality, is cracking clean open and we are fast losing the shared traditions that included a common artistic language and art forms with a life-breath in them that came down through the generations.”
Justin E.H. Smith reads from his piece “We Don't Need Another Hero” from TANK’s entertainment issue. Read here.
“These days, it’s silly season all year round. The result is that access to reliable information, in our so-called “age of information”, is more contested than ever, and what’s more, clogged up by the detritus of often very entertaining distraction, one of the ideas successfully sent up by the film Don’t Look Up (2021), about the annihilation of humanity. Turns out that being functionally ignorant isn’t really blissful at all.”
Tina reads Masoud Golsorkhi's editor’s letter from the brand new entertainment issue, inspired by our contemporary predicament in which, as philosopher Byung-Chul Han says: “Reality itself appears to be an effect of entertainment.”
To see a full list of contents, head here, or buy your own copy from our online store.
We invited acclaimed literary translators Anton Hur and Bryan Karetnyk to discuss the art of translation: the unstable element of deception, the difference between working with living and long-gone writers, and what it feels like to live half-inside a language. This is part two of the conversation, so if you haven’t listened already, start with last week’s podcast.
We invited acclaimed literary translators Anton Hur and Bryan Karetnyk to discuss the art of translation: the unstable element of deception, the difference between working with living and long-gone writers, and what it feels like to live half-inside a language.
This is part one of Anton and Bryan's conversation – part two will be released next week.
Watch Bryan and Anton in conversation on TANKtv, and read more about Cursed Bunny and Deceit in our Summer Reader.
Thuận and Trà My Hickin read from Thuận's novel Chinatown, in a translation by Nguyễn An Lý. Thuận reads in Vietnamese and Trà My in English, providing a rare opportunity to hear the novel in two of Thuận's languages.
See last week's podcast, or this video on TANKtv, for a mediative interview with Thuận in which she discusses language, translation, and what you can say in French but not in Vietnamese.
Tice Cin interviews writer Thuận, alongside translator Trà My Hickin, about her new novel Chinatown. Thuận’s twelfth novel and the first to be translated into English, Chinatown takes place over the couple of hours that a mother and her son wait in a stopped Metro carriage. As she waits, she is assailed by recollections of her son’s father and their shared adolescence in Hanoi, her university years in Leningrad, and her life now in Paris and its suburbs. Tice and Thuận spoke about dreaming, walking, time and how the act of translating between Vietnamese, French and English affords new linguistic opportunity.
Pankaj Mishra reads from his exacting novel Run and Hide, a prescient and unflinching examination of globalisation at the level of the individual and the local. Enrolling in the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology will change Arun's life and send him wheeling from Delhi to New York to Tuscany, but how long can he and his friends live out this strange and extravagant lifestyle?
Read our interview with Pankaj here.
Fernanda Melchor reads from her ferocious novel Paradais, "a labyrinthine monologue on the banal violence of a modern-day teenager" (Virginie Despuentes). Then, translator Sophie Hughes reads from her translation of Fernanda's previous novel Hurricane Season – for which she "deserves a medal", according to the New Statesman, her translation "expertly capturing the novel’s lugubrious comedy and propulsive, high-octane scatology".
Read an extract of Paradais in the Summer Reader. Both books are published by Fitzcarraldo.
We invited publishing superstar Barbara Epler of New Directions to make a selection of books for our Summer Reader. She tells Tina about how she built her list and why every writer on it is a genius.
Read extracts from Barbara’s selections in the latest issue of the magazine.
Tina speaks to two of the Summer Reader's guest editors, Anthony Bird and Taylor Bradley of Honford Star. Showcasing the best in recent East Asian literature, their picks range from a series of short stories featuring a talking toilet golem, a ghost story delving into Japanese colonial history and a person with a gingko tree growing out of their thumb.
Read extracts from Anthony and Taylor’s selections in TANK’s Summer Reader, online or in in print.
Harald Voetmann reads from his novel Awake, in which Pliny the Elder – sleepless during the long nights of the Roman Empire – dictates his Natural History to his slave Diocles. In this extract, Pliny recalls the brutality and tenderness of his childhood.
Awake is out in the UK with Lolli Editions. You can read an extract from the novel in the Summer Reader.
“Bound by trends, other people’s wardrobes and CD collections are pretty predictable, but their bookcases are places of near-infinite possibility, where what’s implied by a copy of Wuthering Heights (1847) depends upon whether it’s shelved next to Wittgenstein’s Tractatus (1922), a weight-loss manual or Sun Tzu’s Art of War (c.400BC). What other people’s bookshelves never tell us, however, is the “why” behind each book. The “why” is about the roots of literacy, and these are often grubby, underground things.”
Tina reached back into the archive to find Tom Morton's "The Roots of Literacy", from our 5th anniversary issue in 2003, to celebrate the launch of our Summer Reader.
Head here to read the essay and to our online shop to buy your own copy of the 2022 Summer Reader.
Tank Magazine · 22.06 TANK Podcast
This week on the podcast, Patrick Galbraith reads from his book In Search of One Last Song: Britain's Disappearing Birds and the People Trying to Save Them (William Collins, 2022). A travelogue at once romantic, gonzo, and at turns very funny, the book sees Patrick travel all over the UK, from Orkney and the Western Isles to Yorkshire’s grouse moors and the Norfolk Broads, in the hope of encountering ten of our most endangered birds. Here, Patrick has come to Orkney on the trail of kittiwakes.
Head here to read Jan-Peter Westad’s interview with Patrick in our Summer Reader and to our online shop to buy your own copy.
Tank Magazine · Patrick Galbraith reads from his book In Search of One Last Song
Tina speaks to TikTok’s Jessie
This week on the podcast, Tina takes the reins and interviews Jessie, a fellow full-time reader who works for TikTok. The pair discuss their work, where they came from and an upcoming difficult choice...
Tank Magazine · A conversation between Tina and TikTok's Jessie
Tina reads “The Smell of Shrimp” by Timothy Morton
In the lead-up to our Summer Books issue, we’re turning the spotlight on the themes and features of past issues. This week, we’re looking into Autumn 2016’s Food issue. Tuck in to a feast of features, interviews and fashion built around the theme of all things edible: what does the way we talk about food say about our sexual desire, religious longing, ecological imperialism, yearning for comfort and, of course, our hunger? Today, listen to Tina reading Timothy Morton's essay on the ecological chemical smuggled inside consumerism, Axial Age ideas concerning desire and need, and God as the smell of shrimp on the barbie.
Tank Magazine · Tina reads The Smell of Shrimp by Timothy Morton
Tina reads "The Stars in Your Stars" by Emily Segal
In the lead-up to our Summer Books issue, we’re turning the spotlight on the themes and features of past issues. This week, we’re looking into Autumn 2017’s Party issue. Tune in and keep it locked for our features, fashion and talks about the party as the site of solidarity, violence, anarchy or straightforward hedonism. Today, listen to Tina reading Emily Segal's essay on her encounter with esteemed astrology Susan Miller, the “speculative grid” of trend forecasting and the party as crisis response.
Tank Magazine · Tina Reads The Stars In Your Stars By Emily Segal
Tina reads "Green and Unpleasant Land" by Joe Kennedy
In the lead-up to our Summer Books issue, we’re turning the spotlight on the themes and features of past issues. This week, we’re looking into Spring 2019’s Ruritania, our response to the rising tide of interest in the rural, wild and organic. In this episode, Joe Kennedy examines how has the right has used the aesthetics and signifiers of the rural to lay a comprehensive claim to the country, part a broader cultural interest in a mythic “deep”, largely non-urban Englishness which began to stir post-2000. How might the left be able to recapture the rural without confining itself to the narrow bounds of nationalism?
Tank Magazine · Tina Reads Green And Unpleasant Land By Joe Kennedy
Tina reads “Three Movements for Opacity” by Sofia Samatar
Our full-time voiceover artist reads a mediation on transparency and the opaque by way of Édouard Glissant, translation, sleep rituals and Maud Martha’s glitter.
Tank Magazine · Tina reads Three Movements for Opacity by Sofia Samatar
In conversation with Tao Lin
In this episode of the TANK podcast, Tao Lin speaks about his latest article for TANK, “Partnership Before Sexism and War”. In conversation with Guy Mackinnon-Little, Tao discusses exploratory research, the pathologies of dominator culture, and prehistoric and extra-terrestrial sources of inspiration.
Tina reads “St Elsewhere” by Masoud Golsorkhi
At the height of the golden age of globalisation, the thing that seemed to unite all mankind was the desire to be elsewhere. If you imagine any social scenario from our recent past, you will find that without the desire for, or benefits of, travel, few people, or things would be left in the picture. The internet was supposed to negate geography; in reality, it turned it into another currency of exchange, maybe the most commonly traded commodity of the new millennium. Tina reads from Masoud Golsorkhi's editor’s letter from the “Travel” issue of TANK, “St Elsewhere”.
Tina reads “Space: the final frontier for extreme wealth” by Masoud Golsorkhi
From the second half of the 20th century onwards, the market for contemporary art has expanded exponentially beyond what anyone could have imagined, but what is it expanding into? Millions of square metres of white gallery walls: from Bauhaus to Warhol, the vacant space speaks in the language of luxurious waste. Tina reads from Masoud Golsorkhi editor’s letter from the “Narrative” issue of TANK, “Space: the final frontier for extreme wealth”.
In conversation with Hatty Nestor
One of the many freedoms lost with a criminal sentence is the possibility of being seen and acknowledged on one’s own terms. To be imprisoned entails losing control of one’s own image, a condition that grows ever more generalised in an age of mass surveillance and algorithmic policing. In this episode of the TANK Podcast, Hatty Nestor discusses her book Ethical Portraits – out with Zer0 Books – a densely researched survey of how portraiture both interrupts and intensifies the often-invisible cruelties of our carceral society.
Dubravka Ugrešić and Lisa Appignanesi
To celebrate the publication of the first UK edition of her time-travelling masterpiece Fox with TANK, Dubravka Ugrešić was joined by author Lisa Appignanesi for a special live conversation. They spoke about truth-telling in fiction, edenic stories and pursuits of home in literature.
Order your copy of Fox here.
In conversation with Susan Ploetz
Susan Ploetz is an artist-researcher working with somatics, simulation and live-action role play (LARP). In Ploetz’s simulations, players enact scenarios in which they imagine themselves as aliens, robots and babies, communicate using only song, and craft magical objects. Her latest project, PSY SOMA TEK, imagines a speculative institute founded to create sustainable psy-somatic technologies of foresight, communication and knowledge sharing when the technocratic-suprastructures of the old order have started to fall apart.
Here, she speaks with Guy Mackinnon-Little about collaborative world-building, the limits of VR and how LARP protocols might present an alternative to a social sphere marked by distrust and disintegration.
In conversation with Emily Segal
Emily Segal is an artist, writer and trend forecaster based in Los Angeles. Co-founder of K-Hole, the now-defunct, normcore-famous trend-forecasting group, she has since gone on to establish Nemesis, a design and strategy consultancy, with Martti Kalliala. After writing about the self-devouring excess of the experience economy and performing oracular experiments with natural language-processing systems at Nemesis, Segal has published her first book, Mercury Retrograde (2020), an auto-fictional facsimile of pre-Trump, post-Occupy New York and the frantic confluence of cultural and financial capital to which it played host. It is published by Deluge Books, a queer, experimental press created by Segal with Hannah Baer and Cyrus Simonoff.
In conversation with Keller Easterling
Solutions are mistakes. So argues architect and writer Keller Easterling in her latest book Medium Design. Between smug resignation to the status quo and blind faith in app-for-that interventions, Easterling sets out a cunning methodology for effecting change in a world swarming with vast, entangled systems that defy easy comprehension. Through case studies spanning self-driving cars, climate migration and urban sprawl, Easterling rehearses a way of seeing that prioritises interplay over objects, latent tendencies over declared intentions and tacit knowledge over top-down masterplans. Here, she discusses ideological monotheism, space as an information system and moving beyond our stubborn addiction to certainty.
In conversation with Che Gossett
How do we envision and enact a world in which justice is realised not through punishment, but the cultivation of freedom and flourishing? In this episode, writer and archivist Che Gossett discusses the politics and poetics of abolition. Gossett is a PhD candidate at Rutgers University and the 2019-20 Helena Rubinstein Fellow in Critical Studies in the Whitney Independent Study Program. They have written extensively on queer, trans and black radicalism, resistance and abolition.
Alongside Lola Olufemi and Sarah Shin, Gossett is an organiser of “Revolution is not a one-time event”, a series of events airing every Monday this August in which activists, academics and artists reflect on abolitionist praxis and thought.
In conversation with Faisal Devji
Faced by the unfathomable character of the Covid-19 crisis, publics have forced governments to attend to the present rather than sacrificing it for the future. But their apparent shortsightedness is the surest guarantee we have for a more hopeful future. In this episode, Kia Golsorkhi-Ainslie speaks with Faisal Devji about his piece “Suspended sentence”, published in the latest issue of TANK, and the implications of the pandemic on the relationship between state and citizen.
In conversation with Holly Fullton
While the full impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the fashion world remains to be seen, an industry accustomed to quick decision-making and creative solutions has already proven itself to be remarkably adaptive, repurposing skills, supply chains and production lines to assist on the front line. One instructive example is the Emergency Designer Network, established by Holly Fulton, Phoebe English, Bethany Williams and Cozette McCreery to produce much-needed scrubs, close to personal protective equipment (PPE) standard, for the NHS. London-based designer Fulton talked to Caroline Issa about how the collective came together, the challenges she’s encountered, and her hopes for the collaboration to be more than a stopgap solution.
In conversation with Wendy Liu
How can technology become a tool of emancipation rather than capitalist extraction? Few are better positioned to dwell on this question than Wendy Liu, a tech commentator, software engineer and former start-up founder who left the tech industry to pursue a master’s degree in inequality at the London School of Economics. Since then, she has become a fervent critic of the tech industry and the growth-at-all-costs capitalism that incubated it. Liu joins Guy Mackinnon-Little to discuss her debut book Abolish Silicon Valley (2020), recently published by Repeater Books, which recounts Liu’s first-hand experience of the industry and sets out an alternative vision for how we can liberate technology from capitalism.
In conversation with Matt Colquhoun
How can the experience of death become an occasion to imagine new ways of living together? In this episode of the TANK Podcast, Guy Mackinnon-Little speaks to Matt Colquhoun about his new book Egress: Mourning, Melancholy and Mark Fisher, which narrates the collective mourning of Fisher's death while using this experience as the basis for a new politics of community and post-capitalist desire.
In conversation with Rana Foroohar
Rana Foroohar is a New York-based journalist specialising in business, finance and Big Tech. She is global business columnist and an associate editor at the Financial Times, as well as CNN’s global economic analyst. Her most recent book, Don’t Be Evil (2019), forensically traces how the world’s tech giants have enriched themselves on the fruits of surveillance capitalism, and proposes alternative frameworks to reduce their unrestricted influence.
TANK Book Talks: Sema Kaygusuz with Maureen Freely and Nicholas Glastonbury
In 1938, the Turkish Republic launched an operation to systematically erase an entire community of Zaza-speaking Kurds in the eastern Anatolian region of Dersim, slaughtering thousands and leaving those who survived displaced and decoupled from their community and culture.
Sema Kaygusuz’s novel Every Fire You Tend is a mythic reckoning with this history of violence and its afterlife in contemporary Turkey. Here, she is joined by two of her translators, Maureen Freely and Nicholas Glastonbury, to discuss translation, trauma and “Turkification”, the state-led effort to homogenise Turkish national identity through dispossession, forced relocation and, among other things, the renaming of people, places and animals.
In conversation with Alexander Zevin
In Liberalism at Large: The World According to The Economist (2019), Alexander Zevin – assistant professor of history at City University of New York and an editor at New Left Review – conducts an exacting audit of The Economist’s history as a mouth-piece of free-market liberalism and examines the magazine’s shaping role in the ascent of financial capitalism. Here, he is joined by Masoud Golsorkhi to discuss the book. They talk about the tight coupling between liberalism and imperialism, “radical centrism” and why Oxbridge graduates with funny haircuts have such a thing for war making.
Tina reads “Zen and the art of forgetting” by Masoud Golsorkhi
Brexit has awoken a very particular very English passive-aggressive nationalism, a sorry beast of tremendous rage, uncertain claim and impossible ambition. Tina reads from Masoud Golsorkhi editor’s letter from the recently launched Cosy issue of TANK, “Zen and the art of forgetting”.
Tina reads “Exit through the sweatshop” by Will Wiles
Tina, TANK’s full-time natural language processing bot, reads from Will Wiles’s piece “Exit through the sweatshop”. In the piece, Wiles surveys the grandiose state-making fantasies of Silicon Valley technologists. While often pitching their ideas as showrooms for the virtues of libertarian governance, it seems that most of the hackers trying to disrupt the nation state might really be driven by baser promises of “chill bros” and “entrepreneurial vibes”.
Pageantry and performance: Sally Potter’s Orlando
Guy Mackinnon-Little is joined by TANK contributor Josie Mitchell to discuss Sally Potter’s gender- and genre-fluid classic Orlando. They speak about the film’s nods to drag culture, its challenge to cookie-cutter queer narratives and Tilda Swinton’s razor-sharp performance as Orlando.
Tina reads “Deep futures” by Uzma Z. Rizvi
Tina, TANK’s full-time natural language processing bot, reads from Uzma Z. Rizvi’s piece, “Deep futures”. In the piece, Rizvi writes on how dreams metabolise the distant past and inform possible futures. She visits the Museum of the Future in Dubai, surveys the ways cities and states create their own dream cartography, and makes the case for how art can unclog our collective imagination.
In conversation with Jen Rubio
Jen Rubio is the co-founder of Away, a direct-to-consumer luggage brand which has radically disrupted the market since it’s launch in 2016. Here, she speaks to TANK’s Caroline Issa about evolving travel trends, keeping good habits while in transit and building a loyal brand-following without rigging the algorithm.
Tina reads “End of the road” by Masoud Golsorkhi
Tina, TANK’s in-house natural language processing bot, reads Masoud Golsorkhi’s editor's letter, “End of the road”, from our new 2019 Travel issue. In his letter, Golsorkhi tracks the fervent romance between the car and capitalism, a toxic couple held together by their mutual love for mobility and catastrophe.
TANK Book Talks: Ann Pettifor and George Barda
Listen back to a conversation between world-leading economist Ann Pettifor and Extinction Rebellion activist George Barda, hosted at TANK as part of our Book Talks series. Co-authoring the Green New Deal in 2008, Ann recently won the Hannah Arendt Prize for Political Thought and regularly works as an advisor to the British Labour Party and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Here, she is joined by George to discuss her new book The Case for the Green New Deal.
Tina reads “Notes from the front” by Ana Maria Nicolaescu
Tina reads from Ana Maria Nicolaescu’s piece “Notes from the front”, an examination of the imaginative underpinnings and in-game economy of Roblox, the world’s largest online gaming platform. In Roblox, Nicolaescu finds an antecedent for a new kind of digital platform capitalism, driven not by high-CPU centralised servers, but vast networks of entry-level devices.
TANK Book Talks: Victor Burgin and Leslie Dick
We listen back to a conversation hosted at the British Library as part of our Book Talks series earlier this year, between artist Victor Burgin and writer Leslie Dick. They discuss the web-based version of Burgin’s work Afterlife (a book and an exhibition are to follow), which consists of a series of full-screen images, most of which are digitally generated, and a brief text in which a scientist searches for his wife in a simulated afterlife. As they traverse the work’s themes, Burgin and Dick discuss immaterial objects, the iceberg theory of writing and the financialisation of the contemporary art world.
TANK Book Talks: Nisha Ramayya and Eley Williams
Listen back to a conversation hosted at TANK as part of our Book Talks series, where poet and lecturer Nisha Ramayya is joined by writer Eley Williams to discuss Nisha’s new collection, States of the Body Produced by Love. Out with Ignota Books, the collection is an evocative and incisive reflection on diasporic identity and how language can be a site of both power and playful conjuration.
In conversation with Heather Dewey-Hagborg
Heather Dewey-Hagborg is an information artist and bio-hacker, whose new artwork How Do You See Me? is currently showing at the Photographer’s Gallery. Here, she talks about epigenetics, machine learning and creating portraits of people she has never met by sequencing their DNA.
Tina reads Order & Chaos by Martha Henriques
The harder we look into physics to tell us the real nature of time, the less we find ourselves convinced of its existence. Grappling with quantum theories of time forces us to abandon our intuitive sense of how things are, and enter into the strange poetry of nonsense that comes from the most beautiful mathematics.
Walking and Talking with Luke Turner
As part of TANK's Walking and Talking Podcast Series, Matthew Janney took to the trails and vast expanses of Epping Forest with Luke Turner, where the author speaks about the forest as a divider between city and countryside, the conservation efforts taking place to safeguard its various lifeforms and its role as an inclusive space for all who venture in.
Tina reads Slips, Lapses and Literature by Eugenia Lapteva
Tina, TANK’s full-time natural language processing bot, reads Eugenia Lapteva’s essay, “Slips, Lapses and Literature”. In the essay, Lapteva takes us through Freud’s theory of slips of the tongue and what they reveal not only about our unconscious intentions, but the inherent ambiguity of language itself. When we fail to say what we mean, we alert ourselves to meaning’s inevitable failures.
Tina reads Omens by Peter Lyle
Tina, TANK’s full-time natural language processing bot, reads from Peter Lyle’s “Omens”. In the piece, Lyle ruminates on the nature and function of prophetic omens as our more rational systems of prediction falter in the face of global instability. When we’re fast-tracked to the gutter, what’s the harm in looking at the stars?
In conversation with Rory Olcayto
Since its inception in 1992, Open House has grown to become London’s largest festival of architecture and design, with this year's instalment set to see 800 of the capital’s best buildings open their doors to the public. In this episode of the TANK podcast, Rory Olcayto, chief executive of Open City and Open House, speaks to Matthew Janney about the history of the event, the overlooked architecture of London’s outer-boroughs and some of the highlights of this year’s program.
This year’s Open House will run from 21–22 September.
In conversation with Natasha Lennard
Natasha Lennard is joined by BBC journalist Razia Iqbal to discuss her latest book Being Numerous: Essays on Non-Fascist life. Published earlier this year by Verso, the book contains a series of pieces ranging from the London riots to the protests at Standing Rock to debating the moral right to euthanasia. Combining an intimate, personable tone with a fierce belief in systemic change, the essays together articulate a vision of what non-fascist living might consist in.
This podcast was recorded live during a Book Talk hosted at TANK HQ.
In conversation with Mike Jay
TANK spoke to writer Mike Jay about his book Mescaline, which offers a cultural and scientific history of the psychedelic drug, the archaeological evidence of mescaline’s central role in ancient indigenous cultures, and its continued presence in human creative activity through history.
In conversation with Nicole Flattery
Writer Nicole Flattery speaks to Natasha Stallard about precarity, purposeful confusion and her debut collection of short stories Show Them a Good Time.
After Venice
TANK’s Christabel Stewart, Josie Mitchell and Guy Mackinnon-Little debrief on the 2019 Venice Biennale, touching on the uneven curation, the works that jumped out anyway, and how to skip the queue and sneak into the Giardini.
In conversation with Adam All & Baby Lame
Adam All and Baby Lame – co-hosts of the drag king competition Man Up! – join TANK’s Josie Mitchell to discuss drag king culture and performance. Together, they discuss contemporary maleness, the weekly heats, and how anybody with any body can participate.
Tina reads “Food of the Future” by Bee Wilson
The strange legacies of the meal replacement, from early feminist fantasy to contemporary Silicon Valley reality.
In conversation with Fatima Bhutto
Fatima Bhutto joins TANK’s Josie Mitchell to discuss her latest book, The Runaways. Published by Viking, the novel imagines three young people alienated from their communities, offering close psychological studies of what might lead someone to become radicalised against an idea of the West.
Tina reads “Here and No Elsewhere” by Shumon Basar
Tina, TANK’s full-time voiceover assistant, reads from Shumon Basar’s piece “Here and no elsewhere” – a meditation on the end of the outdoors and the dual late-capitalist logics of enclosure and exclusion.
In conversation with Owen Hatherley
Writer and journalist Owen Hatherley joins TANK’s Masoud Golsorkhi and Thomas Roueché to discuss his latest book, The Adventures of Owen Hatherley in the Post-Soviet Space. Published by Repeater, the book maps the complex legacy of the USSR almost 30 years after the end of history.
Tina reads “Code Breakers” by Peter Lyle
Tina, TANK’s full time voiceover artist, reads from “Code Breakers” by Peter Lyle. In the piece, first published in TANK’s Lust in Translation issue, Lyle looks into the glitch ridden world of digital translation. Are the days of human translators numbered, or will translation technology's lack of linguistic nuance continue to be a flaw that's impossible to ignore?
Tina reads “Spheres of Destiny” by Martha Henriques
Tina reads from science writer Martha Henriques’s piece “Spheres of Destiny”. In the piece, first published in TANK’s 2016 Bubbles issue, Henriques explains why bubbles are the key to understanding how life on this planet evolved from a primordial soup, billions of years ago.
In conversation with Joe Kennedy
Thomas Roueché speaks to the writer and cultural theorist Joe Kennedy about the generational divide in British politics, reactionary Englishness and the fetishisation of authenticity in our post-liberal age.
Tina reads “Original Copy” by Masoud Golsorkhi
On the occasion of Alessandro Michele’s collaborative Shanghai exhibition with Maurizio Cattelan "The Artist is Present", Masoud Golsorkhi examines Gucci’s revitalisation under the designer’s reign, praising Michele for his ability to build enduring meta-narratives that extend beyond the fashion cycle.
In conversation with Patrick deWitt
Canadian novelist Patrick deWitt reads from and discusses his latest book French Exit, which was published by Bloomsbury in September, covering wealth, cruelty and the value of cliché.
In conversation with Shaun Prescott
Jan-Peter Westad speaks with the writer Shaun Prescott about his debut novel The Townin which a small town in New South Wales, Australia slowly disappears. Prescott discusses what the book might reveal of wider Australian society and some of the influences behind the novel.
In conversation with Mark Ford
Poet and academic Mark Ford speaks with Jan-Peter Westad about his most recent collection Enter, Fleeing, which was published by Faber in May 2018. Ford discusses his autobiographical turn, growing up across the world, being drugged on a train to Madrid, meeting Allen Ginsberg and more.
In conversation with Lubaina Himid
Ismail Einashe speaks to the artist Lubaina Himid about the aftermath of winning the Turner Prize, the importance of addressing Europe’s colonial history and the representation of people of colour in art and beyond.
In conversation with James Bridle
Natasha Stallard speaks to the artist and writer James Bridle about his new book, New Dark Age: Technology and the End of the Futureand how to live in an increasingly unpredictable world.
In conversation with Daniel Trilling
Ismail Einashe talks to the journalist and editor of New Humanist, Daniel Trilling. Trilling writes on migration, borders and nationalism in Europe.
In conversation with Jesmyn Ward
Aida Amoako talks with the American novelist Jesmyn Ward about The Fire This Time, a 2016 collection of essays and poetry that Ward both contributed to and edited, and which was published in the UK in 2018. Ward was awarded a Macarthur Genius Grant and is the first female author to win two National Book awards for fiction.
In conversation with Madeline Miller
Madeline Miller reads from her new novel Circe and answers some questions about the book. Miller’s first novel The Songs of Achilles, won the 2012 Orange Prize, and Circe offers another vivid and fresh take on Greek mythology.
Kapka Kassabova on journeying to Europe’s edges
Adam Bychawski speaks to the author and poet Kapka Kassabova about her book Border: A Journey to the Edge of Europe (2017). Combining memoir and myth, history and travel, the book is an exploration of the borderlands between Turkey, Greece and Bulgaria, where Kassabova spent her childhood.
“Russia in the Late Summer” by Katherine Rundell
In this episode of the TANK magazine podcast, Katherine Rundell reads her piece “Russia in the Late Summer”. Katherine Rundell is a fellow of All Souls College at the University of Oxford and a children's author.
“Party Animal” by Justin E.H. Smith
Justin E.H. Smith is professor of history and philosophy of science at the University of Paris 7 - Denis Diderot. Here, he reads his essay “Party Animal”: an education in individual expression and the importance of solidarity.
In conversation with Charlie Fox
Jan-Peter Westad talks with the writer Charlie Fox about his collection of essays, This Young Monsterwhich celebrates artists who find beauty within the dark and the disturbing.
In conversation with Tim Lawrence
Tim Lawrence is professor of cultural studies at the University of East London, an organiser of the All Our Friends loft party, and the author of several books about New York nightlife during the early 1980s. Here, he discusses what made this short period in New York’s subcultural history so remarkable.
“Uniform Attitude” by Tamsin Blanchard
In this episode of the TANK magazine podcast, Tamsin Blanchard goes inside the world of Joseph’s creative director, Louise Trotter.
In conversation with Hellen van Meene
Photographer Hellen van Meene discusses the thinking behind her Saint Uncumber-themed work and explains why the Dutch tradition is so important to her practice.
“168 Hours in Northern Michigan” by Tod Wodicka
Novelist Tod Wodicka spends 168 hours in the exciting, beautiful and bottomlessly strange northern Michigan.
In conversation with Margo Jefferson
Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Margo Jefferson. Jefferson, now a professor of writing at Columbia University, spent her childhood among Chicago’s black elite. Negroland, her second book, recounts the context, pressures, expectations and privileges of the black bourgeoisie.
“Glass Against Steel” by Sam Thompson
Writer and activist Sam Thompson considers Salò, its grandiose monuments and its occluded history.
In conversation with Phoebe English
Phoebe English, the award-winning fashion designer, talks to Tamsin Blanchard about her Deptford studio, choosing a career in fashion and designing her spring/summer 2017 collection.
“Becky with the Good Hair” by Claire Birchall
In this episode of the TANK magazine podcast, academic Clare Birchall interrogates the power of gossip to disrupt traditional systems of knowledge.
In conversation with Ashish Gupta
Ashish Gupta, the London-based fashion designer, talks to Tamsin Blanchard about his spring/summer 2017, Brexit and cultural appropriation.
“The Big Blue” by Tamsin Blanchard
In this episode of the TANK magazine podcast, Tamsin Blanchard reads from her essay, “The Big Blue”, which looks at the reinvention of the world’s most iconic textile
“Erotic Exposure” by Jesse Barron
Writer Jesse Barron discusses secrecy, sexuality and the possibility of living a double life in the digital realm.
“A Common Ear” by Edward Siddons
In this episode of the TANK magazine podcast, writer Edward Siddons discusses how gossip might open up the ways we understand LGBTQ+ history.
In conversation with Michael Mack
Lili Owen Rowlands speaks to the publisher Michael Mack, the founder of the eponymous publishing house. Over the course of his two-decade long career, Mack has published hundreds of photographic works and helped launch the careers of dozens of talented new photographers and artists through his coveted First Book Award.
“Sugar World” by Natasha Stallard
The Land of Legends theme park opened this summer, just as Turkey's tourism economy collapsed. In this episode of the TANK magazine podcast, Natasha Stallard asks: Who's watching the dolphin show now?
“Children of the Revolution” by Tamsin Blanchard
In this episode of the TANK magazine podcast, Tamsin Blanchard examines how fashion is in the midst of a seismic generational shift.
“Food of the Future” by Bee Wilson
What became of the dream of a meal in a pill? Bee Wilson traces the strange legacies of the meal replacement.
My Dinner with Eva Chenn, Carol Lim and Humberto Leon
Carol Lim and Humberto Leon of Opening Ceremony and Kenzo dine with with Eva Chen, the Instagram extraordinaire.
“Flavour Country” by Martha Henriques
In this episode of the TANK magazine Podcast, Martha Henriques goes in search of umami or the mysterious, fifth fundamental taste.
In conversation with Lynne Tillman
Natasha Stallard speaks to American author and critic Lynne Tillman about her latest novel, Men and Apparitions. Tillman, a veteran of the New York literary scene, is renowned for her technical virtuosity and cutting insight across works of fiction, non-fiction and cultural criticism.
In conversation with Joey Zwillinger
Caroline Issa is joined in conversation by Joey Zwillinger, co-founder of the much buzzed about footwear startup Allbirds.
Tina reads “Something More Than Superficial Perfection” by Lamorna Ash
Lamorna Ash describes her visit to the SHA Wellness Clinic in Spain’s Sierra Helada mountains, recounting her immersion in the clinic’s rituals of self-transformation and the dilated experience of time they seem to induce.