Mike Bell

The Institute of The Sub-Lime

The project proposes a series of psychic investigations at a range of material and immaterial scales that seek to revise attitudes towards technologies and nature. This techno/ecological examination begins with observations of Clapham Commoner Mr Davies and his relationship with a Large-leafed Lime tree towards the North of the Common. This shifts to the interior of a Large Sub-terranean sphere dancing with the body of liquid that makes up the water table beneath the Common. Across the Common the horizon gazes out over a series of giant pylons reaching into the sky, arching, yearningly, upwards towards the imaging satellites orbiting overhead.

The project holds within it a number of narratives that explore human relationships with satellites, pocket technologies and the ecological systems of the Common. Rather than promote or condemn these technologies, the Institute directs its focus at better understanding their relationship to the human condition.

Through its research, the Institute of The Sub-Lime aims to question the ways in which technology and nature and the control over both can be developed in an age of techno-obsession and ecological ignorance.