Ken is a writer, broadcaster and performer whose work has appeared in several books, plus numerous publications and across a wide range of venues and platforms.
Ken has worked at the Royal College of Art since 2015. He has been involved in course planning and delivery, devising and promoting lecture programmes, giving tutorial guidance to individual students and running workshops in critical and creative writing. His practice embraces work with designers and fine artists, photographers and sound designers, composers and producers.
As well as books and publications, Ken has recorded critically acclaimed radio features and podcasts plus a series of spoken-word albums. He has presented work at the Venice Biennale, The British Library, the ICA, the BFI, Café Otto, Iklectic Lab and the Berlin Akademie der Künste.
Ken has always taken a highly experimental approach to writing as a design practice. His first publication was Theory: 140 Statements, published by Fluxus imprint Kontexts in Amsterdam in 1980. This led to his involvement with the industrial music group Biting Tongues from 1980 to 1984, resulting in a number of performances, albums and the feature film ‘Feverhouse’ released by Factory Records. During this period, Radio 1 called Ken ‘the death of rock and roll.’ Attaining an editorial post in book publishing, he worked on books with John Cage, Karlheinz Stockhausen and Hubert Selby Jr, who publicly called Ken ‘the only true editor in the English-speaking world.’ After a period of working with artists and composers across Europe, he concentrated on writing and lecturing full- time, publishing several books with Strange Attractor Press.
Ken started producing features for BBC Radio 3 in 2005 while continuing to perform at live events. Since then, he has collaborated with Aleksandra Mir, the UK Space Agency, Wellcome Institute, the Nietzsche Society and Resonance FM. His most recent spoken- word project The Howling was featured in the Loewe SS24 catwalk show during Paris Fashion Week and has recorded three albums for the Tapeworm label.
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Awards
Webby Honoree Award from the Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences in 2022 for the podcast series ‘Fast Forward’, which also picked up an International Content Marketing Award for Best Branded Podcast in 2021.
Current and recent projects
Ken is currently overseeing the compiling and editing of The Ken Hollings Reader, a collection of his essays and lectures to be published by Strange Attractor Press in Autumn 2026.
At the same time Ken is working on The Metaphysics of Plastic, a set of three short fictions to be published by The Book Worm in the Spring of 2026.
Books
Hollings, K. (2014) The Bright Labyrinth: Sex, Death and Design in the Digital Regime, London: Strange Attractor Press, 334pp
Hollings, K. (2018) The Space Oracle: A Guide to Your Stars, London: Strange Attractor Press, 174pp
Hollings, K. (2020) Inferno: A Genealogy of 1960s Trash Culture, London: Strange Attractor Press, 400pp
Hollings, K. (2022) Purgatory: Towards the Decay of Meaning, London: Strange Attractor Press, 344pp
Hollings, K. (2024) Paradise: The Psychoanalysis of Trash, London: Strange Attractor Press, 350pp
Hollings, K. (2024) The Trash Concordance: A Guide to The Divine Comedy, The Trash Project, Dante and Me, London: Strange Attractor Press, 154pp
Hollings K. and Frame M. (2025) The Ruins, London: Juane Press, 46pp
Chapters
Hollings, K. (2014) ‘Breathing the Same Air: Cold War Sci-Fi’. In J. Bell ed. Sci-Fi: Days of Fear and Wonder. London: BFI Compendium, pp. 60-63
Hollings, K. (2016) ‘“The Very Form of Perverse Artificial Societies”: The Unstable Emergence of the Network Family from its Cold War Nuclear Bunker’. In: J. Beck and R. Bishop eds., Cold War Legacies: Systems, Theory, Aesthetics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, pp. 151-166
Hollings, K. (2017) ‘The Cosmos Is a Work in Progress’. In A. Sinofzik, A. Palko and M. Weisbeck, Bauhaus University in Weimar eds., Space for Visual Research Vol. 2. Leipzig: Spector Books, pp. 200-205
Hollings, K. (2017) ‘Towards the Decay of Meaning’. In T Finn, ed., Order Reorder. London: Regular Practice pp. 131-139
Hollings, K. (2018) ‘A Sundial on The Moon’. In M. Dijkman, ed., Radiant Matter. Eindhoven: Onomatopee pp. 16-23
Hollings, K. (2019) ‘A Letter to Friedrich Nietzsche’. In E. Schenkel and F. Hamouda (eds) 101 Briefe an Friedrich Nietzsche zu seinem 175. Geburtstag. Leipzig: Edition Hamouda, pp.162-166
Hollings, K. (2019) ‘Welcome to the Labyrinth: Nietzsche Online’. In D. Becher, ed. Brisantes Denken: Friedrich Nietzsche in Philosophie und Popkultur. Leipzig: Edition Hamouda, pp.197-216
Hollings, K. (2020) Purgatory: A Daybook XVI-XIX. In D. Aldred ed., Right Here Right Now: Observations, Speculations and Hallucinations. Berlin: Book Lab, pp. 76-89
Hollings K. and McGillivray D. (2022) ‘Let Me Die a Monster’. In M. Pilkington and J. Sutcliffe, eds., Strange Attractor Journal Five. London: Strange Attractor Press, pp. 205-257
Radio Programmes
Hollings, K. (2015) Cutting Up the Cutup, BBC Radio 4
Hollings, K. (2017) Watcha Doin’, Marshall McLuhan?, Sunday Feature, BBC Radio 3
Hollings, K. (2018) Right Between the Ears, Between the Ears, BBC Radio 3
Hollings, K. (2018) Ekphrasis, Touch Radio/British Library
Hollings, K. (2019) More Human Than Human, The Essay, BBC Radio 3
Hollings, K. (2019) On Holiday with Nietzsche, five-part series, The Essay, BBC Radio 3
Hollings, K. (2019) Rewiring Raymond Scott, Sunday Feature, BBC Radio 3
Hollings, K. (2021) The Robots are Us, Sunday Feature, BBC Radio 3
Hollings, K. (2022) Paul Verhoeven’s American Futures, Archive on Four, BBC Radio 4
Spoken-Word Recordings
Hollings, K. (2015), Works for Magnetic Tape, audiocassette release, The Tapeworm TTW#81
Hollings, K. (2021) Destroy All Monsters audiocassette release, The Tapeworm, TTW#149
Hollings, K. with Biting Tongues (2016) Still on Hawaiian Time, audiocassette release, The Tapeworm TTW91
Hollings, K. with Biting Tongues (2019) Live It, vinyl album release, Finders Keepers, CACHE022
Hollings, K. with Biting Tongues (2020) Clear Your Screens, Compact Disc release, The Wormhole WHO#19
Hollings K. with The Howling (2022) All Hail Mega Force, audiocassette release, The Tapeworm TTW#152
Hollings K. with The Howling (2023) Incredible Night Creatures of the Midway, Compact Disc release, The Wormhole WHO#22
Hollings K. with The Howling (2025) Be Quiet in This Church, audiocassette release, The Tapeworm, TTW#