Extinction Marathon: Visions of the Future

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On the weekend of 18 and 19 October — during the Frieze Art Fair — Serpentine Galleries presents the Extinction Marathon, the ninth in the Galleries' yearly Marathon series. Artists, writers, scientists, film-makers, choreographers, theorists and musicians explore the complex and timely topic of extinction through talks, conversations, performances and screenings. The Extinction Marathon addresses the philosophical and artistic image of the end and the void, as well as new ways of envisioning and imagining the future. Participants include artist and poet Etel Adnan; artist Maria Thereza Alves; artist Korakrit Arunanondchai; artist Ed Atkins; conservationist Jonathan Baillie; architect Alessandro Bava; cultural theorist and activist Franco ‘Bifo' Berardi; designer Irma Boom; Whole Earth Catalogue editor Stewart Brand; artist James Bridle; EDGE Foundation founder John Brockman; philosopher Federico Campagna; artist Heman Chong; artist Yve Laris Cohen; philosopher Helena Cronin; artist Jesse Darling; artist Benedict Drew; artist and poet Jimmie Durham; mathematician Marcus du Sautoy; palaeontologist Richard Fortey; director Sandy McLeod; agriculturalist Cary Fowler; artists Gilbert & George; queer theorist Jack Halberstam; artist and designer Marguerite Humeau; choreographer Mette Ingvartsen; biologist and ecologist Jennifer Jacquet; geneticist and biologist Steve Jones; speculative designer Lisa Ma; biologist Georgina Mace; physicist Chiara Marletto; artist and activist Gustav Metzger; artist Katja Novitskova; artist Trevor Paglen; artist Cornelia Parker; artist and poet Heather Phillipson; anthropologist Elizabeth Povinelli; evolutionary ornithologist Richard Prum; design writer Alice Rawsthorn; astrophysicist Sir Martin Rees; Operational Research professor Jonathan Rosenhead; artist Jeremy Shaw; film-maker Eyal Sivan; artist Shimabuku; writer Adam Thirlwell; environmental lawyer James Thornton; musician and sound recordist Chris Watson; artist Cerith Wyn Evans and artist Anna Zett, as well as contributions by artist and writer Sophia Al-Maria; sociologist Zygmunt Bauman; artist Paul Chan; artist Tacita Dean; artist Anna Galkina; writer William Gibson; artist Olafur Eliasson; author Daniel Kehlmann; poet Joanne Kyger; concrete poet Franz Mon; philosopher Timothy Morton; film-maker Laura Poitras and artist Yoko Ono. The two-day event, which comprises of a non-stop series of presentations in The Magazine at the Serpentine Sackler Gallery, will be live-streamed by thespace.org, which partners with Serpentine for the Extinction Marathon in 2014. The Space will also host an online platform, extinct.ly, which gathers data about global resource depletion, conflict zones and climate change scenarios as well as artists' projects and activists' calls to action and has commissioned two new digital artworks by Gustav Metzger and Ed Atkins, as well as contributions by David Blandy; Anna Zett; Tobias Revell; Femke Herregraven; Lisa Ma; UBERMORGEN; Maurizio Lazzarato; Benjamin Bratton and Timothy Morton. While The Magazine at the Sackler Gallery will present on-stage participations, talks, screenings and performances, the Serpentine Pavilion 2014, designed by Smiljan Radià„‡, presents an installation by Katja Novitskova. The Extinction Marathon is programmed in collaboration with artist Gustav Metzger, whose work — including his Serpentine Gallery exhibition Decades 1959 — 2009 — addresses extinction and climate change.