Next week sees the publication of Paul Kingsnorth’s new book Against the Machine and an invitation to the launch of our autumn issue on Uncivilised Art. Here two Dark Mountain creative powerhouses, co-founder Paul Kingsnorth and artist and Issue 28 editor, Caroline Ross, discuss the role of art, beauty, haptic intelligence and cultivating the real in the struggle to remain fully human in the technological age.
This conversation is one of a set of sessions with people whose work and practice counters the onslaught of mechanical ‘progress’ on the body, heart and soul, including original Dark Mountain contributors, Martin Shaw and Mark Boyle. Meanwhile do listen to this exchange, and the story of a dissident friendship that began at our 2016 gathering Base Camp, with a basket of ancestral stones, wild pigments and swan feathers …
BOOKSHELF
Paul Kingsnorth and Caroline Ross were both featured in on our inaugural Substack edition: Caroline in ‘Keepers' of the Spring’ and Paul in the Long Read section ‘Dark Ecology’. You can read more about their new books below, as well as our special archive offer for Dark Mountain: Issue 9.
Against the Machine by Paul Kingsnorth is an account of the technological-cultural matrix enveloping all of us. A culmination of two decades of writing and thinking about technology, culture, spirituality and politics, it seeks to offer an insight into how the techno-industrial culture from the First Industrial Revolution to the rise of artificial intelligence has choked Western civilisation, is destroying the Earth itself, and is reshaping us all in its image. It is a powerful reminder of how a resistance to this advance requires: a healthy suspicion of entrenched power; connection to land, nature and heritage; and a deep attention to matters of the spirit.
Against The Machine: the unmaking of humanity is published by Penguin on 23rd September 2025
Drawn from the Wild by Caroline Ross, a sequel to her best-selling Found and Ground, contains both ancient and modern techniques for ‘rewilding’ your art practice. With hands-on advice and simple, step-by-step instructions, it show to create beautiful, useful art supplies from wild and ancient materials whether those materials are foraged, natural, discarded or repurposed. Illustrated with her own inspirational artwork alongside work from different cultures and different parts of the world, with their own materials, approaches and uses of the same core techniques
Drawn from the Wild by Caroline Ross was recently published by Search Press.
Dark Mountain: Issue 9 is our Autumn Special Archive Offer, revolving around the theme of ‘humbleness’. ‘As we enter dark times, these disparate voices challenge the grand narratives of recrimination and despair, so that the universe appears afresh as a collection of wonders – bewildering objects, transforming passions and moments of transcendent awe. With such humbling comes a simplicity, a singleness of vision and a return to a more honest appraisal of what it means to be human.’
Dark Mountain: Issue 9 was published in the spring of 2016 and is available for a limited time from our online shop.
