In English, it’s called Remainder: there’s always an extra — something too much. (Laughs.) So there’s always this material extra and, in a way, it is an allegory of art. No matter with how much craft we simulate the world, the world itself will be too much.
Tom McCarthy interviewed on Radio Eins during his German tour.
Les Cosmonautes au paradis tient à la fois du polar, du conte métaphysique, du journal d’énigmes et du recueil de désillusions. L’ensemble est noir, grinçant et sans cesse cocasse. C’est la tragi-comédie d’un monde où tournent des individus comme autant de mouches folles voletant autour d’une ampoule clignotante.
Xavier Houssin reviews Men in Space in French daily Le Monde.
Tom McCarthy will be in Berlin for the launch of 8 1/2 Millionen (Remainder) on Saturday 14 March 2009 at Volksbühne (9 pm).
Les Cosmonautes au paradis (the French version of Men in Space) reviewed on France Culture.
The Joint Statement was presented at Tate Britain this January and revolves around the notion of “originary inauthenticity” — the trauma of materiality which prevents us from feeling at one with ourselves or the world. Art and literature frequently try to deal with this problem by sublimating matter and “elevating it into form”. Necronauts reject this temptation — they are “modern lovers of debris” who choose to “celebrate the imperfection of matter”. McCarthy points out that “what makes the trajectory of Yeats’s work so fascinating is the shift from early idealism to late materialism, And that’s where Joyce begins: debris, detritus, fragments, Stephen Dedalus squelching rubbish on the beach. That’s the landscape that has to be navigated, here, now — and celebrated, not transcended.”
Andrew Gallix on the International Necronautical Society in the March issue of Dazed & Confused.
The two actors slip out of character and profess not to know very much about the whole thing. The real Tom McCarthy is beaming with delight, having watched from backstage. “We could franchise this,” he tells me. “Imagine Keanu Reeves and Brad Pitt standing in for us!” Everyone is relieved; it all worked out. The press people, the technical staff, and the rest of the INS staff slope off to the pub. In the emptying lobby, a spray of crumbs and crushed cups coat the floor and the sofas, like a punch line: “the brute materiality of the external world,” waiting around for the cleaners to turn up.
Ben Street reviews the International Necronautical Society’s Tate Declaration on Inauthenticity in Triple Canopy.
Tom McCarthy is mentioned by Nicholas Lezard in his Guardian article on Tintin.
Les Cosmonautes au paradis sont, en fait, un roman d’«ostploitation» choral (forcément choral), genre popularisé en Allemagne ou en Grande-Bretagne par le Russian Disco de Kaminer, et qui mixe allègrement le polar mafieux avec la satire glam-coke dans une nostalgie ironique de l’ancien bloc soviétique affronté au néocapitalisme : de «ost» = «est» et «xploitation», suffixe américain signifiant «qui exploite les particularismes culturels de».
Eric Loret reviews Tom McCarthy’s Les Cosmonautes au paradis (Men in Space) for Libération.
It has been rumoured, post event, that McCarthy and Critchley hired a couple of actors to impersonate them up on the stage in front of the packed auditorium. Contrary to popular opinion I can confirm that it was, in fact, the artist/novelist Tom McCarthy and Professor of Philosophy Simon Critchley before us, thus solidifying the event’s authenticity for those in attendance. This, some of you may recall, is not the first time the INS has caused such controversy.
Lee Rourke reviews the Tate Declaration on Inauthenticity for 3:AM Magazine.
According to the INS, we are all dividuals – the self is divided, split, is inauthentic, we are comic, incomplete; the art we make, which informs our existence, is fake, a forgery, is indeed the there of our thatness. Our journey to death (Necronaut) is a way to navigate existence – there is no transcendence – our matter matters. So: Beckett, Blanchot, and Bataille as drawn by Chuck Jones.
Steve Finbow reviews the Tate Declaration on Inauthenticity for 3:AM Magazine.
RSS