Tank Magazine Podcast

“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.

“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.

“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.