Robin Mackay

Robin Mackay is a philosopher and director of UK arts organization Urbanomic, which promotes research activities addressing crucial issues in philosophy and science and their relation to contemporary art practice, and aims to engender interdisciplinary thinking and production.

His research interests focus on the ‘gap’ between scientific knowledge and humans’ spontaneous self-understanding, and the aesthetic and political ramifications of philosophical positions that attempt to resolve this disparity – in particular, new variants of ‘geophilosophy’, which negotiate the relationship between philosophical thought and the contingency history of the earth, in dialogue with geology, chemistry, and physics.

As well as directing Urbanomic’s publishing operation and curatorial activities, Mackay is editor of Urbanomic’s publication Collapse: Journal of Philosophical Research and Development, each volume of which brings together philosophers, thinkers from other disciplines, and contemporary artists. He writes and speaks regularly on art and philosophy and has worked with several artists, including Florian Hecker, John Gerrard and Conrad Shawcross, developing cross-disciplinary projects. He has also translated various works of French philosophy, including Alain Badiou’s Number and Numbers, François Laruelle’s The Concept of Non-Photography and Anti-Badiou, and Quentin Meillassoux’s The Number and the Siren.