Steve Klee: The Institute for Predictive Images

19th July 2024 – 31st August 2024
Opening: 6 to 9 p.m. on Thursday 18th July 2024

Scene 1: Laboratory

 Can you imagine an exoplanet that has conditions close to Earth, but not quite.Imagine a being capable of living there. What do you predict you will see? And now? And now? How about now? 

Scene 2: Lecture Theatre 

We are asked to picture a body, not one composed of inert matter, but one buzzing with activity. We are told that the brain is predictive, Bayesian: a body forecasts itself into being. Where it is in space, even how it looks from the outside – all are predictions.Bodies reach out, extend, and incorporate their tools: keyboards, touchscreens, digital icons. Any boundary is provisional, just one Markov blanket to protect against the cold.

The logic of prosthesis is the origin story for all bodies. The body we design is to use this prosthetic truth to its advantage, to generate a being capable of travelling to other planets. The Institute for Predictive Images is a video that fictionalises a real psychology experiment conducted at the University of Lincoln. The investigation explored body image as a representation constituting the perception we have of our own appearance and supplying a sense of bodily ownership. Participants were asked to imagine living as an alien - embodying an entity from another world.

 The video combines essay film, sci-fi, perceptual illusions, and the campus novel to explore philosophical issues excluded from empirical experimentation. It re-imagines a typical regional university campus as part of a future institute capable of sending an expedition into space to record life on distant planets. The artwork dreams about institutions (beyond 9-to-5 drudgery), images (as “animatic”), bodies (as projected doubles), and scientific knowledge (beyond ethical neutrality).