The Rhythm of Life Installation. Photo: Gert Jan van Rooij
Former Somerset House Studios resident

Thought Collider

Art, design and research practice exploring metabolic processes, bodies and spaces.

Somerset House Studios
New Wing
Rain Rain Go Away! Photography: Gert Jan van Rooij
Rain Rain Go Away! Photography: Gert Jan van Rooij

Thought Collider comprises the work of Mike Thompson and Susana Cámara Leret. Motivated by emergent nature cultures, their work focuses on the exploration of the meanings and values that can be derived from alternative ways of experiencing built and mediated environments. To this end, they conduct experiments and create processual artworks spanning various media, generating experiential insights from the anecdotal or absurd: lived experiences that confront the norm by countering the thing-like nature of organisms, objects and places. 

Artificial Sweat, Photo Gyalpo Batstra
Artificial Sweat, Photo Gyalpo Batstra

Whilst in residence, the studio is researching the theme ‘Breeding Grounds: Architectures of Control’ within its on-going Institute for the Design of Tropical Disease, a virtual institute and performative think tank aiming to shift existing narratives on tropical disease from the dogmatic to the imaginative.

FATBERG. Pledge Calculator. Photo: Hanneke Wetzer
FATBERG. Pledge Calculator. Photo: Hanneke Wetzer