A new crop of millennial artists, raised with global warming, mass extinction and environmental degradation is engaging with complex philosophical concepts – positing that theory-heavy concepts rooted in Object-Oriented Ontology might drive new ways of thinking about humans, ecology and how we relate to our environment. We are now living in the Anthropocene – the age when human influence determines geology, weather patterns and species extinction. In such an era, these questions have achieved an urgency that is now being funnelled into artistic practice, pushing forward the debate.

In a moderated conversation between Timothy Morton and artist Julian Charrière, we find out what this means for contemporary art practice. Meanwhile, Ella Plevin interviews Holly Childs about her dredgecore novella Danklands, and curator Nadim Samman interviews Iain Ball about his art around the use of rare elements in electronic products.