Jenna Sutelanimiia cétiï, 2018
25 Nov 2020 - 31 Jan 2021
An audiovisual work by Jenna Sutela
nimiia cétiï, 2018 is an audiovisual work by Jenna Sutela using machine learning to generate a new written and spoken language. This language is based on the computer's interpretation of a Martian tongue from the late 1800s, originally channelled by the French medium Hélène Smith and now voiced by Sutela as well as the movement of Bacillus subtilis nattō, an extremophilic bacterium that, according to recent spaceflight experimentation, can survive on Mars. The machine, in this project, is a medium, channelling messages from entities that usually cannot speak. The work is also about intelligent machines as aliens of our creation. For her LAS intervention, Sutela invites visitors to the LAS website to listen in on the conversations in this extraterrestrial language.
Jenna Sutela
Jenna Sutela (b. 1983) is a Berlin-based artist from Finland who works with words, sounds and other living media, such as bacteria and slime mold. Her audiovisual pieces, sculptures and performances seek to identify and react to precarious social and material moments, often in relation to technology. Sutela's work has been presented at art institutions internationally, including Guggenheim Bilbao, Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo and the Serpentine Galleries, London.