nimiia cétiï

‘nimiia cétiï’ 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 channeled by the French medium Hélène Smith. In the work, the language is 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. In this project, the machine is a medium, channeling messages from entities that usually cannot speak. The work is also about intelligent machines as aliens of our creation.

Title: nimiia cétiï

Medium: Audiovisual Installation

Artist: Jenna Sutela

Year: 2018

Location: On display at Pedion tou Areos

Credits

"nimiia cétiï" was created in collaboration with Memo Akten and Damien Henry as part of n-dimensions, Google Arts & Culture artist-in-residence program at Somerset House Studios. Thanks to Kieran Bates from the Institute of Zoology at Imperial College London, Adam Laschinger for sound recordings, and Manus Nijhoff and Leïth Benkhedda for 3D work. The video includes music with Miako Klein in contrabass recorder and Shin-Joo Morgantini in flute, with sound production by Ville Haimala.

Glossary: machine learning