Language is not merely a pure and neutral tool but on the contrary, it is a violent thing that introduces division I want to outline some notes towards the consequences of the idea of language as, at its very basic operation, a violent order. For this I turn to Slavoj Žižek’s reflection on the subject in… Keep Reading
We have all been kids and read books that made a huge impact on us; it could be because of a memory we connect to it, like our parents reading us the same story every night when going to bed, or because we could really relate to the characters; maybe because reading those books was… Keep Reading
I recently wrote a piece for the KBH Læser Avis that perhaps tried to say too much in too little space. In preparations for Wednesday’s KBH Læser event, Accursed Growth!, an evening of readings and discussions that challenge traditional notions of growth, I would like to say even more but in much more space, to… Keep Reading
Despite the wealth of adaptations that have made it to the screen throughout the history of cinema, and indeed the enthused popularity and high esteem surrounding prolific cinematic interpretations of respected texts, from Fincher’s Fight Club (1999) and Boyle’s Trainspotting (1996) to Kubrick’s Lolita (1962) and Coppola’s The Godfather (1972), the tendency to both explicitly,… Keep Reading
What do literature and Christianity have in common? A lot, according to priest Thomas Hør Nørager. An arker investigates and is seduced. Keep Reading
“…Originality is a hallucination of intertextuality…” P.K. Saint-Amour They say all poetry is theft, but I prefer to see it as borrowing. Caroline Bervgall, artist-poet, recasts The Seafarer, an Old English poem in her most recent poetry book Drift (2014) by playing with the materiality of the language. This experimental work of art delves into… Keep Reading
Pornografia is the story of a manic obsession that overtakes the protagonists, Mr Witold and Mr Fryderyk, upon their encounter with a young couple, Henia and Karol. It takes place in occupied Poland, in 1943, but the grave setting and circumstances are of relatively little importance for the story itself: the true drama, the substance of the book,… Keep Reading
In the spirit of living up to Ark Book’s mantra “Home of the best stories you’ve never heard”, this is a short story of a magnificent author, well-known to some but forgotten by many. An author who lived in turbulent times and in a turbulent way, and whose stories are all the more relevant for… Keep Reading
A few months ago, I became incredibly drunk while catching up with a friend of mine, the writer of strange and sadly funny stories of social commentary, Luke Hilton, when I hit upon a way to articulate something that had been playing on my mind for a while. Of course owing to the effects alcohol… Keep Reading
Despite its seemingly innocent composition, the term ‘essay film’ tends to perplex those newly introduced to it. The words ‘essay’ and ‘film’ are often understood as juxtapositions: the audio-visual versus the symbolic and the semantic. This is no wonder, I suppose, when we consider the rigidity with which an over-arching, more conservative art-ideology teaches us… Keep Reading