International Necronautical Society

International Necronautical Society (INS)

Launched in 1999 by Tom McCarthy, the International Necronautical Society (INS) is an expansive, networked organisation that slides between the worlds of art, fiction, philosophy and media.

Vargas Organisation, London is the official agent of the INS Department of Propaganda. Most propaganda functions are now carried out by the INS Bulletin. Use the present site to:

• view archived press materials
• view/download official photos for press use
• view/buy official publications

For all other news and background information start here:

Formed through the appropriation and repurposing of a variety of art forms and cultural 'moments', in particular the now-defunct structures and procedures of early twentieth century avant-gardes (the manifesto, autocratic top-down management etc.) and political organisations (the Soviet-style committee, sub-committee and sub-sub-committee, Hearings, Reports etc.), the INS spreads itself as both conceit and actuality (often blurring these into one another) via a series of residencies, publications, lectures and performances and collaborations with other artists and institutions.

'So, while Dorian Gray projects his perfect image into the world, Necronauts keep faith with the "rotting flesh- assemblage hanging in his attic"; as Ernest Shackleton forces his dominance fantasy onto the indifferent polar expanse, Necronauts concern themselves with the "blackened, frostbitten toes he and his crew were forced to chop from their own feet, cook on their stove and eat." And so on. Like Chuck Ramkissoon, they have a motto: "We are all Necronauts, always, already," which is recycled Derrida (as "blood like champagne" is recycled Dostoevsky). That is to say, we are all death-marked creatures, defined by matter—though most of us most of the time pretend not to be.' (Zadie Smith, New York Review of Books)

'It is possible to think of the INS as a cultural narrative, a viral entity that exists because of a growing number of participants and collaborations with fellow artists and writers. Many people fail to see the point of the INS's weird research and read it as an ironic joke or a ridiculous mission of mapping death in the style of an expedition ... Without addressing allegations of necrophilia [the INS] considers death only as a space of representation, a realm to be explored and brought out by means of a set of practices such as drawings, maps, texts and speeches (craft as the INS calls it) ... As a tactical and philosophical hybrid between Futurist farce and agit-prop manipulation of the communications network, the INS functions as a complete artwork. The combination of ananchronistic artistic models like the manifesto ... the recuperation of discourses obsessed by control structures (governmental agencies, secret services, party committees) all represent a parody of a totalising project about knowledge, not death.' (Untitled)

'... it generally stands as a cipher for the outer limit of description, for the point at which the code breaks down—a point that is often alive, as McCarthy points out, with secret desires ... It seems that this is what the INS stands for: a horror of finished truths and a compulsive probing of the possibilities and failures of language ... The INS is a group of rogue agents who have infiltrated the worlds of art, literary criticism and philosophy. (Art Monthly)

'From the appropriation of bureaucratic language to meticulous reporting and documentation, everything about the INS has Kafkaesque overtones ... belongs to the conceptual lineage of groups such as Laibach and the associated Neue Slovenische Kunst.' (The Wire)

'McCarthy is good ... the synapses of his fertile imagination zap him from Melville to Aeschylus to the Kipper Twins ... Rilke's terrifying Duino angels as World Trade Centre artists and/or Trojan Horse terrorists.' (Times Literary Supplement)

'Cod-situationist posturing ... Why don't you all kill yourselves?' (Will Self)