Tom McCarthy
23 - 29 Mar 2015
TOM MCCARTHY
fig-2 12/50
23 – 29 March 2015
Tom McCarthy’s new novel Satin Island is transformed into a gallery installation at fig-2, coinciding with its publication. Realised in collaboration with set designer Laura Hopkins, the exhibition presents a real-space version of the world that the book’s protagonist inhabits, providing visitors with a unique opportunity to physically step into, walk around, touch and interact with a work of fiction.
Satin Island is narrated by U., a corporate anthropologist pimping his skills to an elite consultancy in contemporary London. Tasked with unpicking his culture’s weft and warp in order to help clients get better penetration of their markets, U. instead spends his time procrastinating, meandering, drifting through endless buffer-zones of information, and growing obsessed with the images with which the world bombards him on a daily basis: oil spills, African traffic jams, roller-blade processions, zombie parades. Is there (he wonders) a secret logic holding all these scenes together – a codex that, once cracked, will unlock the master-meaning of our times? Maybe, maybe not.
The exhibition will host two major public events: A ‘Think Tank’ and a ‘Company Report: All-day reading of Satin Island’.
fig-2 would like to thank Fat Boy for their generous support in providing the Beanbags; The Westbury Hotel and to Anthony Auerbach for the design of The Company logo.
THINK TANK
Director of the Weltkulturen Museum Frankfurt Dr. Clémentine Deliss, feted media consultant Alfie Spencer and leading critic and novelist Mark Blacklock discussed on Thursday 26th March, the triangle (central to McCarthy’s novel) linking anthropology, capitalism and literature within contemporary culture.
Think Tank Collaborators:
Dr. Clémentine Deliss is a curator and publisher who has been the director of the Weltkulturen Museum in Frankfurt am Main since 2010. In 2005, she published the first edition of ‘Remainder’ by Tom McCarthy as part of her Metronome and Metronome Press, Paris, curatorial projects. Deliss studied contemporary art and social anthropology in Vienna, London and Paris and holds a PhD from the University of London (1988, SOAS). Her curatorial work extends beyond exhibitions and has included publishing and research into future arts institutions.
Alfie Spencer is Head of Semiotics at the brand consultancy Flamingo. He works with many organisations around the world, helping to develop brands and brand strategy in industries from alcohol to media, technology to retail. His particular expertise involves understanding the relationship between branding and cultural production more broadly, and using art, literary and cultural theoretical approaches in commercial contexts.
Dr. Mark Blacklock is a literary researcher and novelist. His scholarly monograph, ‘The Emergence of the Fourth Dimension’, will be published by Oxford University Press in 2016. His debut novel, ‘I'm Jack’, is out with Granta on June 4th.
TOM MCCARTHY CV
Tom McCarthy’s work has been translated into more than 20 languages. He is the author of Remainder, which has been adapted as a major film by Omer Fast to be released later this year; C, a finalist in the 2010 Booker Prize; Men in Space; and the brand-new Satin Island. In 2013 he was awarded the inaugural Windham-Campbell Prize for Fiction by Yale University. He is also Founder and General Secretary of the semi-fictitious underground/bureaucratic network the International Necronautical Society. He regularly writes on literature and art for publications including The New York Times, The London Review of Books and Artforum.
LAURA HOPKINS CV
Laura Hopkins is a celebrated designer who has created numerous experimental and devised productions (many in collaboration with director Pete Brooks) at the ICA, the Barbican and Tate Britain. She has also designed Shakespeare productions for the Globe and the Royal Shakespeare Company; classic drama at the National Theatre; costumes for dance pieces at Sadler’s Wells and the Volksoper, Vienna; and opera sets for English National Opera, Welsh National Opera, Opera North, New Israeli Opera and New Zealand Opera. She is an associate artist with two of Britain’s leading experimental companies, and Environmental Engineer of Tom McCarthy’s International Necronuatical Society.
fig-2 12/50
23 – 29 March 2015
Tom McCarthy’s new novel Satin Island is transformed into a gallery installation at fig-2, coinciding with its publication. Realised in collaboration with set designer Laura Hopkins, the exhibition presents a real-space version of the world that the book’s protagonist inhabits, providing visitors with a unique opportunity to physically step into, walk around, touch and interact with a work of fiction.
Satin Island is narrated by U., a corporate anthropologist pimping his skills to an elite consultancy in contemporary London. Tasked with unpicking his culture’s weft and warp in order to help clients get better penetration of their markets, U. instead spends his time procrastinating, meandering, drifting through endless buffer-zones of information, and growing obsessed with the images with which the world bombards him on a daily basis: oil spills, African traffic jams, roller-blade processions, zombie parades. Is there (he wonders) a secret logic holding all these scenes together – a codex that, once cracked, will unlock the master-meaning of our times? Maybe, maybe not.
The exhibition will host two major public events: A ‘Think Tank’ and a ‘Company Report: All-day reading of Satin Island’.
fig-2 would like to thank Fat Boy for their generous support in providing the Beanbags; The Westbury Hotel and to Anthony Auerbach for the design of The Company logo.
THINK TANK
Director of the Weltkulturen Museum Frankfurt Dr. Clémentine Deliss, feted media consultant Alfie Spencer and leading critic and novelist Mark Blacklock discussed on Thursday 26th March, the triangle (central to McCarthy’s novel) linking anthropology, capitalism and literature within contemporary culture.
Think Tank Collaborators:
Dr. Clémentine Deliss is a curator and publisher who has been the director of the Weltkulturen Museum in Frankfurt am Main since 2010. In 2005, she published the first edition of ‘Remainder’ by Tom McCarthy as part of her Metronome and Metronome Press, Paris, curatorial projects. Deliss studied contemporary art and social anthropology in Vienna, London and Paris and holds a PhD from the University of London (1988, SOAS). Her curatorial work extends beyond exhibitions and has included publishing and research into future arts institutions.
Alfie Spencer is Head of Semiotics at the brand consultancy Flamingo. He works with many organisations around the world, helping to develop brands and brand strategy in industries from alcohol to media, technology to retail. His particular expertise involves understanding the relationship between branding and cultural production more broadly, and using art, literary and cultural theoretical approaches in commercial contexts.
Dr. Mark Blacklock is a literary researcher and novelist. His scholarly monograph, ‘The Emergence of the Fourth Dimension’, will be published by Oxford University Press in 2016. His debut novel, ‘I'm Jack’, is out with Granta on June 4th.
TOM MCCARTHY CV
Tom McCarthy’s work has been translated into more than 20 languages. He is the author of Remainder, which has been adapted as a major film by Omer Fast to be released later this year; C, a finalist in the 2010 Booker Prize; Men in Space; and the brand-new Satin Island. In 2013 he was awarded the inaugural Windham-Campbell Prize for Fiction by Yale University. He is also Founder and General Secretary of the semi-fictitious underground/bureaucratic network the International Necronautical Society. He regularly writes on literature and art for publications including The New York Times, The London Review of Books and Artforum.
LAURA HOPKINS CV
Laura Hopkins is a celebrated designer who has created numerous experimental and devised productions (many in collaboration with director Pete Brooks) at the ICA, the Barbican and Tate Britain. She has also designed Shakespeare productions for the Globe and the Royal Shakespeare Company; classic drama at the National Theatre; costumes for dance pieces at Sadler’s Wells and the Volksoper, Vienna; and opera sets for English National Opera, Welsh National Opera, Opera North, New Israeli Opera and New Zealand Opera. She is an associate artist with two of Britain’s leading experimental companies, and Environmental Engineer of Tom McCarthy’s International Necronuatical Society.