American author Kathy Acker was one of the most influential writers of the 20th century. Working through an experimental and avant-garde tradition, she wrote numerous novels, essays, poems, and novellas from the early 1970s to the late 1990s. As a postmodernist, plagiarist, and post-punk feminist, she continues to inspire generations of writers, philosophers, and artists. Get Rid of Meaning is the first comprehensive publication on Acker’s work from an artistic and literary perspective. It includes previously unpublished material from Acker’s personal archive and other collections. The publication is the compilation of a multipart research project including an exhibition and a symposium at Badischer Kunstverein in Karlsruhe.

With contributions from: Kathy Acker, Eleanor Antin, Dodie Bellamy, Hanjo Berressem, Ruth Buchanan, William S. Burroughs, Anja Casser, Georgina Colby, Leslie Dick, Claire Finch, Johnny Golding, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Anja Kirschner, Chris Kraus, Sylvère Lotringer, Douglas A. Martin, Jason McBride, Karolin Meunier & Kerstin Stakemeier, Avital Ronell, Carolee Schneemann, Daniel Schulz, Matias Viegener & McKenzie Wark.

In Molecular Red, McKenzie Wark creates philosophical tools for the Anthropocene, our new planetary epoch, in which human and natural forces are so entwined that the future of one determines that of the other.

Wark explores the implications of Anthropocene through the story of two empires, the Soviet and then the American. From the Russian revolution, Wark unearths the work of Alexander Bogdanov—Lenin’s rival—as well as the great Proletkult writer and engineer Andrey Platonov.

The Soviet experiment emerges from the past as an allegory for the new organizational challenges of our time. From deep within the Californian military-entertainment complex, Wark retrieves Donna Haraway’s cyborg critique and science fiction writer Kim Stanley Robinson’s Martian utopia as powerful resources for rethinking and remaking the world that climate change has wrought.