fig-2 12/50: Tom McCarthy 'Think Tank'

Coinciding with the publication of his new novel Satin Island, award-winning author Tom McCarthy is hosting a ‘Think Tank’. Here, director of the Weltkulturen Museum, Frankfurt, Dr. Clémentine Deliss, feted media consultant Alfie Spencer and leading critic and novelist Mark Blacklock will discuss the triangle, which is central to McCarthy’s novel, linking anthropology, capitalism and literature within contemporary culture.

Tom McCarthy collaborates with set designer Laura Hopkins to present a real-space version of the world that the book’s protagonist inhabits. This will happen as part of the innovative project fig-2, which curates a new exhibition every week for 50 weeks. The week-long project will provide visitors with a unique opportunity to physically step into, walk around, touch and interact with a work of fiction.

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 4 June.

12/50 Tom McCarthy is at fig-2 from Monday 23 March – Sunday 29 March 2015.