Virginie Despentes: King Kong Theory (2006–) [FR, ES, IT, EN, BR-PT]

“With humor, rage, and confessional detail, Virginie Despentes—in her own words “more King Kong than Kate Moss”—delivers a highly charged account of women’s lives today. She explodes common attitudes about sex and gender, and shows how modern beauty myths are ripe for rebelling against. Using her own experiences of rape, prostitution, and working in the porn industry as a jumping-off point, she makes the bold, stinging point that when it comes to sex today, everyone’s getting screwed.”

First published in French as King Kong théorie, Grasset, 2006.

English edition
Translated by Stéphanie Benson
Publisher The Feminist Press, City University of New York, New York, 2010
ISBN 9781558616578, 1558616578
143 pages

Review: Rebecca Seal (The Guardian, 2009).

Publisher (EN)
WorldCat (EN)

King Kong théorie (French, 2006, EPUB, PDF, added on 2020-6-3)
Teoría King Kong (Spanish, trans. Beatriz Preciado, 2007)
King Kong Girl (Italian, trans. Camilla Testi, 2007, added on 2020-6-3)
King Kong Theory (English, trans. Stéphanie Benson, 2010, HTML)
King Kong Girl (BR-Portuguese, trans. Marcia Bechara, 2016, added on 2020-6-3)

The Laboratory Planet, 5: Alien Capitalism: Xenopolitics of the Anthropocene (2016) [EN, FR, ES]

“Since World War, the planet is gradually transformed into a scale 1 laboratory. The old model of “world factory” has given way to the model of the “world laboratory”. Objects of this laboratory, can we also be the subjects? Can we reclaim this huge machine that became autonomous and is now developing according to its own dynamic? Can we redirect the fate and direction of this laboratory?”

Texts by Bureau d’études, Keith A. Spencer, Spela Petric, Ewen Chardronnet, Aliens in Green, Donna Haraway, Helen Hester, Émilie Notéris, Konrad Becker, Pablo de Soto, Eugene Thacker, Alejandra Pérez Núñez, Matteo Pasquinelli, Deborah Danowski & Eduardo Viveiros de Castro.

Edited by Ewen Chardronnet and Bureau d’études
Published on 4 February 2016
24 pages

Publisher

PDF, PDF (French)
PDF, PDF (English)
PDF, previous issues.

The Social Life of Artistic Property (2014)

“In the wake of Occupy Wall Street, 12 artists gathered for 20 meetings over two and a half years, discussing property both physical (studios and homes) and artistic. Rather than present raw transcripts of their conversations, the authors individually or collaboratively penned chapters on relevant issues. We get historical case studies alongside a host of topical issues affecting artists’ abilities to work, such as the French droit de suite, the right to resale royalties of artists and their heirs. Michael Mandiberg offers a significant oral history of 135 Rivington Street, a collectively artist-owned building purchased in 1981 by a group of art school alumni, a virtual impossibility in today’s real estate game.” (ArtNews)

By Pablo Helguera, Michael Mandiberg, William Powhida, Amy Whitaker, and Caroline Woolard
Self-published, 2014
Creative Commons BY-SA License
ISBN 9780984475025
110 pages

Project website

HTML
PDF, PDF (22 MB)