Addressing art’s metabolic condition, Michael Marder rereads Marx’s formulation of a “metabolic rift” to propose the concept of a metabolic halt. The rift is premised on the hypothesis that  early capitalist modes of production would result in a rift, not only in social systems, but also in the planet’s dynamic interchange with cultural and technological apparatuses. According to Marder, this halt derives from the increase of unmetabolised and indecomposable material and immaterial entities that block and inhibit processes, transferences and changes, which, ultimately, tend towards a traumatic psychic, bodily, environmental and planetary clogging. Marder will further discuss contemporary art’s role in metabolising the unmetabolisable, preparing a theory and practice for art as planetary metabolism.